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Research on cultural stratification often draws on Bourdieu's misrecognition model to interpret socioeconomic gradients in cultural tastes and participation. In this model, an assumed cultural hierarchy leads individuals to adopt cultural tastes and behaviours whose status is congruent with that of their socioeconomic position (SEP). Yet, this assumed cultural hierarchy remains opaque. In this paper, we derive and test three empirical implications of the cultural hierarchy: (1) cultural activities have different status (recognition); (2) individuals in high and low SEPs have similar perceptions of the status of cultural activities (necessary condition for misrecognition); and (3) individuals prefer and engage in cultural activities whose status matches that of their SEP (status congruence). We collected survey data in Denmark and find that cultural activities differ in terms of perceived status (e.g., opera has higher perceived status than flea market), status perceptions are similar in high‐ and low‐SEP groups and individuals prefer activities whose status matches that of their SEP. These results are consistent with the idea that a cultural hierarchy exists that sustains SEP gradients in cultural tastes and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the 20th century, objective class position was a strong predictor of both class identity, political preferences and party choice, but since the 1980s, the relationship between objective and subjective dimensions of class has supposedly vanished–according to some as the result of a fundamental blurring of class relations. However, others suggest that this result may be partly due to the use of outdated class schemes. Although still basically focused on inequality of life chances, class relations today are complex and include more than labor market position, such as different forms of cultural resources (e.g., education). As a result, class identity may also have become more complex, and possibly dependent upon the salience of different resources and types of group relations—both in itself and in its relationship with political preferences. Very few contributions, though, test such claims. Using two independent Danish surveys, this paper investigates to what extent class identification is multidimensional and how any such dimensionality is related to, on the one hand, different dimensions of objective class relations and, on the other hand, different dimensions of political conflict. The analyses show that despite changes at the overall, societal level, class identity remains a primarily unidimensional concept both in its structural origins and its relationship with politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the influence of family background on college graduates' earnings has not considered the importance of the match between parents' and children's field of study. Using a novel design based on within-family comparisons, I examine long-term earnings returns to reproducing parents' field of study in Denmark. I find that individuals whose field of study matches that of a parent have earnings that are 2 percent higher than those of their siblings with college degrees in different fields, on average. Earnings returns to field inheritance are highest in the fields of law (9 percent), medicine (6 percent), and engineering (4 percent) and are driven mainly by income from self-employment. I find no direct evidence of nepotism as the earnings advantage does not arise from inheritance of parents' firms or employment in parents' occupational network. My findings indicate that, although a college degree generally equalizes family background differences in economic outcomes, there are additional payoffs to field inheritance, particularly in traditional fields characterized by a high degree of social closure and self-employment., (© 2024 The Authors. The British Journal of Sociology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of London School of Economics and Political Science.)

We explore the influence of between-school ability placement at lower secondary education on earnings across the life course in England and Denmark. We go beyond the mid-career snapshot provided by previous studies by exploiting the availability of four decades worth of earnings data for individuals born in the mid-1950s. Members of this cohort who were judged to be among the most academically able attended grammar schools in England (19%) and advanced secondary schools (Realskole) in Denmark (51%) prior to the start of comprehensivization. This key difference makes England and Denmark interesting cases for comparison, not least since pro-selection policies have re-emerged in England based on the claim that grammar schools lead to better educational and labor market outcomes. Our analysis of the influence of selective school placement on earnings finds little support for this contention. We find that those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds were strikingly under-represented in schools ear-marked for higher ability pupils in both countries, even after taking into account social class differences in measured ability. Our analysis for England finds only modest earnings returns to attending a grammar school, totalling just £39,000 across the life course, while in Denmark the lifetime earnings returns to attending Realskole are somewhat larger (£194,000). Because those from advantaged backgrounds were substantially over-represented at grammar schools and Realskoles, these returns accrue disproportionately to pupils from more advantaged backgrounds. Lower secondary school placement in Denmark accounts for 40% of the intergenerational reproduction of socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage, more than half of which is due to selection into school types based on socioeconomic background rather than measured ability. Our findings question the wisdom of expanding grammar schools when they appear to do little to improve individuals' earnings or increase social mobility., (© 2021 London School of Economics and Political Science.)

Citizenship has become the language through which several interconnected societal concerns are debated in Europe today. One of these concerns relates to youths' willingness and abilities to live up to dominant citizen ideals. The questioning of young adults' citizenship is particularly intense for youths with an ethnic minority background who are feared to hold values at odds with majority society. In this article, I ask how Danish youths define what it means to be a good (and a bad) citizen, and I investigate how their answers are shaped by their status within dominant hierarchies of belonging. Analyzing 71 in‐depth interviews with young adults in Denmark, I find that they share a conception of citizenship informed by virtues central to the Danish welfare state. At the same time, minority and majority youths place different emphasis on specific traits and duties. These shifts in emphasis reflect that the two groups do not experience the same access to making claims to citizenship. In particular, the ideal of the politically active and critical citizen is largely reserved for majority youths who – because of their status – feel more entitled and called upon to make independent judgments. Theoretically, the article brings the literatures on ordinary citizenship and everyday nationhood into conversation to reflect on the simultaneous reproduction of common norms and on how hierarchies of belonging nevertheless shape different groups' abilities to redefine citizenship. More generally, I contribute to broader sociological debates about agency and structure by discussing how majority youths' power to make independent claims to citizenship masks their privileged position in the national order of things. The study thus sheds light on how structure is made visible to those who are confronted with constraints (minority youths) and invisible to those who have a secure status (majority youths). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased comparative research on perceptions of public welfare deservingness studies the extent to which different subgroups of citizens are deemed worthy or unworthy of receiving help from the welfare state. The concept of deservingness criteria plays a crucial role in this research, as it theorizes a universal heuristic that citizens apply to rank people in terms of their welfare deservingness. Due to the mainly quantitative nature of the research and despite the indisputable progress it has made, the subjective existence and actual application of these deservingness criteria remain a bit of a black box. What criteria of deservingness do citizens actually apply, and how do they apply them? This article opens the black box of welfare deservingness and sheds light on the nature and practice of deservingness criteria. Empirically, the paper explores how the deservingness of immigrants is discussed and established within 20 focus groups conducted in Slovenia, Denmark, UK, and Norway in 2016 with a total of 160 participants. All 20 focus groups discussed the welfare deservingness of immigrants based on similar vignette stimuli. Our analysis shows that (1) deservingness criteria are used both to construct images of target groups and as normative yardsticks; (2) deservingness criteria do not work independently of each other, but rather co-function in specific hybridized discourses; and (3) the moral logic of deservingness is supplemented by alternative moral logics, at least in the case of migrants., (© 2019 London School of Economics and Political Science.)

This paper explores how images are used in online far-right political communication to create distinct groups of "otherness." Focusing on the Danish People's Party, we look at how symbolic boundaries are constructed through images to emphasize an exclusive conception of the nation and its citizens, who need protection from the threatening "others." In order to understand the global rise of the far right, scholars of social movements and digital media have called for new research on how visual images serve the mainstreaming of extremist and nationalist beliefs online. We look at images communicated by the Danish People's Party on their Facebook page, exploring how digital images visually communicate the party's slogan of "Safety and trust" (in Danish: "Tryghed og tillid"). With a focus on boundary construction, we present a multimodal visual analysis of 1120 images posted by the party from 2012 to 2020. The data shows how the party constructs an imaginary of Danishness through an exclusionary impermeable boundary construction of a trusted in-group's values and traditions in opposition to culturally distinct "others.", (© 2022 The Authors. The British Journal of Sociology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of London School of Economics and Political Science.)