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Changes in the social mobility of men in Scotland between the late‐19th and the late‐twentieth century are examined using new individual‐level data from nineteenth‐century censuses, linking records of men aged 0–19 in 1871 to their records in 1901, and then comparing their patterns with the social mobility of men aged 30–49 in 1974 and in 2001 as recorded in social surveys at these dates. The extent of social mobility in the nineteenth century was large. In particular, the social origins of people in the highest classes—the salariat—were very varied, indicating a society that was more open than is sometimes supposed. There was a slow growth in social mobility between then and 2001. In both periods, class inheritance—sons in the same social class as their father—was strongest in the economically declining sectors, which were agriculture and fisheries in 1901 and industry in 1974 and 2001. In the 1901 data, however, the transition to a non‐agricultural economy induced strong outward mobility from agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates structural inequalities in educational enjoyment in a contemporary cohort of United Kingdom (UK) primary school children. Foundational studies in the sociology of education consistently indicate that the enjoyment of education is stratified by social class, gender, and ethnicity. Analysing data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, which is a major cohort study that tracks children born at the start of the 21st century, we examine children's enjoyment of both school and individual academic subject areas. The overarching message is that at age 11 most children enjoy their education. The detailed empirical analyses indicate that educational enjoyment is stratified by gender, and there are small differences between ethnic groups. However, there is no convincing evidence of a social class gradient. These results challenge orthodox sociological views on the relationship between structural inequalities and educational enjoyment, and therefore question the existing theoretical understanding of the wider role of enjoyment in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are romantic relationships across class maintained under broader conditions of class inequality? This article draws on in‐depth interviews with 38 people who have partnered across class in Australia. It examines the emotional and interpersonal labour required to preserve such relationships within a highly differentiated class structure that is widely obscured in public and political life. We find, first, that for people in committed cross‐class relationships where this difference was openly acknowledged, class difference was acutely felt and described in highly emotional, imprecise terms. Second, this heightened awareness of class difference stimulated elevated levels of class friction and class dissonance within these relationships. We detail these experiences, as they were narrated to us, before examining certain interviewees' efforts to understand and resolve these complexities. We highlight the collaborative work undertaken by one couple in particular to navigate feelings of class discomfort and class dissonance. Third, by focussing on the emotional terrain of intimate cross‐class negotiations, we stress moments which have the potential to disrupt assumptions about class hierarchies and modes of moral distinction that take place within these relationships. Proceeding to tentatively valorise different forms of value‐making and recognition within cross‐class relationships, we also pay attention to the role of class in enabling this very capacity for adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the first comprehensive set of estimates of variation in intergenerational social mobility across regions of Great Britain using data from the UK Labour Force Survey. Unlike the Social Mobility Index produced by the Social Mobility Commission, we focus directly on variation in measures of intergenerational social class mobility between the regions in which individuals were brought up. We define regions using the NUTS classification and we consider three levels, from 11 large NUTS1 regions, to 168 NUTS3 regions, across England, Wales, and Scotland. We investigate whether it is possible to form an index of social mobility from these measures and we address a neglected question: how much does the region in which someone was raised matter in comparison with the social class in which they were raised? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social and spatial mobility have been subject to substantial recent sociological and policy debate. Complementing other recent work, in this paper we explore these patterns in relation to higher education. Making use of high‐quality data from the higher education statistics agency (HESA), we ran a set of multilevel models to test whether the local authority areas where young people grow up influence social and spatial mobility into a higher professional or managerial job on graduation. We found entry to these patterns reflect pre‐existing geographies of wealth and income, with more affluent rural and suburban areas in South‐East England having higher levels of entry to these occupations. Graduates clustered from major cities tended to be spatially immobile and those from peripheral areas further away from these cities show a higher density of long‐distance moves following graduation. We also explored the intersection between social and spatial mobility for graduates with the economic geography of Britain, showing that access to high‐class occupations is not necessarily associated with long‐distance moves across most British districts. Our evidence further suggests that the 'London effect', where working‐class students have higher school attainment than their peers elsewhere, may not continue through to graduate employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does globalization increase polarization in attitudes toward international trade, immigration, and international organizations? Research from a variety of fields and disciplines assumes this relationship, but empirical studies are few. In this study, I examine whether globalization increases the attitudinal divide between education groups, with education being one of the main characteristics of social stratification distinguishing winners from losers of globalization. I use data from three waves of the National Identity Module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) from 1995 to 2013 covering 29 countries (n = 79,101) to analyze between‐ and within‐country interactions between the level of globalization and education in explaining attitudes toward globalization. The results show that while the attitudinal divide between educational groups is larger in countries with higher levels of globalization (between effect), polarization decreases as the level of globalization increases within countries (within effect), as persons with lower and medium levels of education become more positive toward globalization under increasing levels of globalization. The results are consistent across a wide range of robustness checks, including controlling for occupational class as a further distinction between winners and losers of globalization. The findings suggest that the expectations about a widening attitudinal divide between winners and losers of globalization should be treated with more caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite predominantly lower social class origins, the second generation of established immigrant groups in the UK are now attaining high levels of education. However, they continue to experience poorer labour market outcomes than the majority population. These worse outcomes are often attributed in part to their disadvantaged origins, which do not, by contrast, appear to constrain their educational success. This paper engages with this paradox. We discuss potential mechanisms for second‐generation educational success and how far we might expect these to be replicated in labour market outcomes. We substantiate our discussion with new empirical analysis. Drawing on a unique longitudinal study of England and Wales spanning 40 years and encompassing one per cent of the population, we present evidence on the educational and labour market outcomes of the second generation of four groups of immigrants and the white British majority, controlling for multiple measures of social origins. We demonstrate that second‐generation men and women's educational advantage is only partially reflected in the labour market. We reflect on the implications of our findings for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do low socioeconomic status students navigate cross‐class interactions in extremely unequal contexts? Previous research has described the high costs of college integration for underprivileged students, which in turn, negatively impact academic performance and general wellbeing. These studies tend to concentrate on cultural capital costs, such as catching up with assumed middle‐class or elite capital and dealing with two worlds. Less has been said about social capital costs, the costs of making friends, especially more privileged friends. Through 61 in‐depth interviews with various types of students as part of a broader ethnographic fieldwork, this article analyses the experiences of low‐income scholarship holders in an elite institution in a very unequal society, Colombia. Rather than isolating themselves or resorting to safe homophilic relations, they faced their new elite environment engaging with the hidden relational cost of making friends with more affluent students. In so doing, they had to overcome fears and experiences of discrimination and micro‐aggressions, as well as cultural and economic capital barriers, and employed either camouflaging or disclosure strategies, sometimes becoming culturally and socially omnivorous. Symbolic belonging to the institution and the acquisition of middle‐class cultural capital were among the benefits that made overcoming the costs worthy. Our results shed light on what institutions can do to reduce the costs for underprivileged students and, theoretically, unveil an important mechanism and barrier for social mobility: building cross‐class ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have recognized young people's educational expectations as a key factor in predicting educational outcomes, but few studies have attempted a comprehensive classification of how young people's educational expectations are shaped. In this article, I outline a typology of how young people from different social class origins shape their educational expectations. Drawing on 100 interviews with 15‐year‐olds, I find two underlying dimensions in young people's accounts of their educational expectations: how risk aware they are and how goal oriented they are. These dimensions translate into a heuristic model for understanding the structure of young people's educational expectations. I identify four major approaches to shaping educational expectations ‐ the confident, the determined, the explorative, and the anxious ‐ and show how these approaches connect to the young people's class origin. The typology of approaches offers a conceptual framework for understanding the mechanisms that lead young people to shape their expectations in qualitatively different ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disability theorists have long highlighted the role of institutional, social, and environmental barriers in constructing disability, emphasizing its parallels with other socially constructed axes of stratification. However, despite theoretical developments toward sociological understandings of disability, social stratification and life‐course research have largely neglected childhood disability as a social division. As a result, we still know little surrounding the socio‐economic attainment of disabled children and young people. Drawing on Next Steps data, this research note highlights stark overlooked inequalities between disabled and non‐disabled young people's activity status and social mobility in early adulthood. We specifically focus on the importance of social class for disabled young people's outcomes, emphasizing the need for intersectional analyses of disability inequalities. We also outline longitudinal survey data enhancements necessary for life‐course research on childhood disability and its intersections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine whether social class and class divides in social networks contribute to individuals' attachment to society. We argue that network segregation restricts individuals' social worlds, thereby diminishing societal attachment. Our research site is Chile, a country with relatively low social cohesion and one of the world's highest levels of economic inequality. We use large‐scale representative survey data collected in 2016 for the Chilean urban population aged 18–75 years (n = 2983) and interrelate indicators of well‐established dimensions and sub‐dimensions of societal attachment. Results of our regression analyses show that members of the upper middle class are more attached to society than their fellow citizens from other social strata. In addition, having more social contacts within one's own social class reduces attachment to society. In particular, network homogeneity lessens societal attachment for lower‐ and upper‐class individuals, but not so strongly in the middle class. We conclude that social cohesion in Chilean society would be enhanced not only by more equal opportunities but also by changes to the social settings in which social class segregation is (re)produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alleged homogenization of material consumption patterns in Western societies in the end of the twentieth century has been a central argument of scholars who predicted a general flattening of class inequalities. However, divisions in material consumption practices and their evolution have largely been neglected in studies of the social stratification of lifestyles. Drawing on six waves of the French Households Budget Surveys from 1985 to 2017 and Geometric Data Analysis, this article shows that the two main structuring oppositions in the French space of material consumption remained unchanged over 32 years. Those two divides are strongly but not exclusively associated with social class. The first persistently opposes integration with and exclusion from mass consumption. The second opposes connected and autonomous consumption styles. However, between 1989 and 2011, the practices associated with these divides have changed and households have experienced a major shift in their position toward the most integrated and connected poles. This study paves the way for comparisons to assess the permanence of those two polarities in material consumption—not only across periods, but also in different countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of social mobility have documented that not only who your parents are, but also where you grow up, substantially influences subsequent life chances. We bring these two concepts together to study social mobility in England and Wales, in three post‐war generations, using linked Decennial Census data. Our findings show considerable spatial variation in rates of absolute and relative mobility, as well as how these have changed over time. While upward mobility increased in every region between the mid‐1950s and the early 1980s, this shift varied across different regions and tailed off for more recent cohorts. We also explore how domestic migration is related to social mobility, finding that those who moved out of their region of origin had higher rates of upward mobility compared to those who stayed, although this difference narrowed over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between social class and educational achievement measured by grades among Norwegian law graduates over a span of 200 years. We argue that class inequalities may arise due to mechanisms favouring 'insiders', meaning students whose families have legal backgrounds. Alternatively, a broader category of students with origins in educated or elite families could also enjoy special advantages. Our results indicate that there were insignificant class inequalities in grades before the beginning of the 20th century, when they first appeared, and that class inequalities increased to some extent subsequently. Graduates with origins from families with legal backgrounds or origins in the cultural upper class tend to be awarded the highest grades and those with farming or working‐class origins tend to be awarded the lowest grades. Inequalities according to class origin can be explained only to a limited extent by performance at secondary school. Unlike class origin, however, the impact of grades at secondary school appears to be highly stable over time. We ask whether mechanisms favouring legal 'insiders' may have become less important over time, whereas the impact of cultural capital may have increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we revisit the main claims of Part Four of Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology and especially the changing support coalitions for parties of the left. Piketty's core argument in this part of the book is that the left now represents the highly educated and that, as a result, the redistributive preferences of the working class do not find representation in today's party systems. We address these claims building on existing political science research that has investigated the transformation of politics in advanced capitalist societies. We argue, first, that the educational divide cannot be adequately analyzed by looking at a left and a right bloc, but crucially needs to pay attention to the rise of green/left‐libertarian and radical right parties. Second, we contend that the new middle classes that support parties of the left are largely in favor of economic redistribution. Analyzing data from the European Social Survey in 11 West European countries from 2002 to 2018, we show that the effect of education on voting left or right is indeed largely driven by green/left‐libertarian and radical right parties, while there is little empirical evidence that social democratic parties represent the educational elite. We also find that redistributive preferences remain at the heart of voting behavior and that, especially for educated voters, these preferences determine whether someone votes for a party of the left rather than the right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time use is both a cause of social inequality and a consequence of social inequality. However, how social class stratifies time use patterns is seldom studied. In this paper, I describe the time use patterns in the years 1983 and 2015 by social class, and gender in the British context. Using sequence analysis methods, I show how the diversity of time use patterns in British society is socially stratified. I find that 13 clusters capture the heterogeneity of time use patterns and that these clusters are associated with social class, gender, and day of the week. These clusters capture patterns of paid and unpaid work schedules, as well as leisure patterns. The results show that men have experienced a reduction of the standard Monday to Friday 8‐hr working day, while women have experienced a general increase in this type of schedule. On the other hand, patterns of domestic working days have reduced for women and increased for men. Important differences exist in paid and unpaid work patterns between social classes. Working‐class women have experienced an important increase in shift work on weekends. They are also much more likely to be doing unpaid work on weekdays compared to upper‐class and middle‐class women. Working‐class men are more likely to experience non‐working days and leisure days on both weekdays and weekends and are more likely to be doing shift work. They are also more often doing unpaid work on weekdays compared to men in upper‐class households. Patterns of childcare indicate that all families have increased their childcare time. Men in upper‐class households in particular have experienced an important growth in childcare time between 1983 and 2015. I conclude by discussing how time use can further our understanding of social stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connection between social class and political preferences is among the most well established in the social sciences. This association is typically taken as prima facie evidence of economic self‐interest: Classes hold different attitudes, values, and party preferences because they have different economic interests. However, this assumption has rarely been tested empirically. In this article, we use survey data from 18 West European countries to examine why classes differ on a central aspect of political preferences, namely their views on the desirability of income inequality. We find that only a moderate proportion of differences between employee classes in support for redistribution can be accounted for by contemporary differences in resources and risks; differences in economic interests to some degree account for the anti‐redistributive preferences of the professional middle classes compared with the working class. However, the preferences of the self‐employed have a different explanation; autonomy is a better explanation of the right‐wing preferences of the self‐employed compared with the working class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on qualitative data of an upper‐secondary school in Sweden's primary elite community, Djursholm, I propose how medical diagnosis of students as dyslexics contributes to consecrating them by offering a short cut to successful performance, while at the same time reproducing differences between social classes. The study suggests how students that do not score top can be labeled dyslexic and the social and moral consequences of that. I introduce the concept of "consecrating medicalization" in order to discriminate between the effects of medical diagnosis of members of different social classes. In this way, this paper contributes to further examining some key problems in medical sociology and the sociology of elites, by offering a framework of synthesis and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in social stratification has shown that children from working‐class backgrounds tend to obtain substantially lower levels of educational attainment and lower labor market positions than children from higher social class backgrounds. However, we still know relatively little about the micro‐level processes that account for this empirical regularity. Our study examines the roles of two individual‐level characteristics—cognitive ability and locus of control—in mediating the effect of individuals' parental class background on their educational attainment and social class position in Britain. We find that cognitive ability mediates only about 35% of the total parental class effect on educational attainment and only about 20% of the total parental class effect on respondents' social class position, net of their educational attainment. These findings contradict existing claims that differences in the life chances of children from different social class backgrounds are largely due to differences in cognitive ability. Moreover, we find that although individuals' locus of control plays some role in mediating the parental class effect, its role is substantially smaller than the mediating role of cognitive ability. We measure individuals' social class positions at different points in their careers—at labor market entry and at occupational maturity—and find that the mediating roles of cognitive ability and locus of control are remarkably stable across individuals' working lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses ethnographic data to engage a critical reflection on the tension between individual responsibility for the environment and inequality. While research has shown that the majority of sustainable consumers are middle and upper class, educated and white individuals, the study explores how the ethical injunction to ecological sustainability is being introduced to lower‐income neighbourhoods in France. It draws on the observation of a national programme which aims at supporting inhabitants of public housing estates in the process of greening their lifestyle in order to fight climate change and fuel poverty. The paper analyses how environmental responsibilization is specific in that it calls upon a responsibility towards others, towards the common good. Using the Foucauldian concept of 'subjectivation', it describes and analyses the moral work implied by such behaviour change programmes. It demonstrates that a negative representation of poor households and a moral framing of the responsibility for the environment lead to a moralization of their lifestyle under the heading of 'eco‐friendly behaviours'. A paradoxical result of such endeavours is that the social group with the least impactful lifestyle on the environment is the one which is moralized in the most intrusive and resolute manner. The article shows, however, that the tenants manage to resist the normalizing discourse on sustainable living, for reasons which are not anti‐environmentalist. This piece thus provides interesting results for sustainability studies as well as for the sociology of the regulation of underprivileged neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By employing a Bourdieu‐inspired class scheme that differentiates between classes' volume and composition of capital, and by analysing Norwegian administrative register data for birth cohorts between 1987 and 1992, this paper examines the relationship between social class background and gender‐(a)typical choices of higher education. Fields of study in higher education in much of the Western world remain segregated by gender despite the gender gap in educational attainment having been reversed. However, some changes have taken place due to the influx of women into male‐dominated, high‐status fields. Few recent studies have examined the relationship between social class background and gendered educational choices in light of these changes; furthermore, the focus of previous research has been limited to the vertical dimension of class. The results presented in this article suggest that men and women are more likely to make gender‐atypical choices when this leads to social mobility and that focusing solely on the vertical dimension of class may mask horizontal differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on the theme of social stratification and it's interrelation with cultural practices, including meanings and operationalization of class and status, and relationship between cultural consumption and social distinction.

The article discusses the comments on the conceptualization of class, status and cultural consumption. Topics includes evidence against the individualization thesis and the decline in the explanatory power of social class, limitations on attempts to delineate the transformation of cultural repertoires, discussion of connection between someone's self-awareness in terms of cultural resources and the disposition to perform distinction.

The article discusses the origins of religion in society in context with classes and classification. Topics include using social class as a structure of inequality that is rooted in the social relations of economic life, discussion on Geometric Data Analysis (GDA) showing different dimensions and different criteria for classification, and description of distinct theoretical attitudes toward classes and classification.

The author of the article reflects the work on meaning of social status with contrast to the critique of his work. Topics include recognition of class and status as distinct aspects of stratification by Neo-Bourdieusian theory alternative, misconstruction of Max Weber status distinction class, and measuring of status appears to come from the American sociology of stratification. It also mentions important aspects of social inequality in contemporary societies.

The article discusses the omnivores, distinction, and the measurement of social position in context with their Class, status and lifestyle. Topics include evaluation of empirical premises about lifestyles and the framework of multivariate statistical models; lack of connection between omnivorousness and status consciousness is compelling evidence against a Bourdieusian homology, and development individuals lifestyle orientations, and socio-economic wealth with resources at young age.

This study examines the links between parental education and students' choice of field of study in Norwegian higher education. In our interpretation of the results, we suggest a status group perspective that integrates risk aversion models, micro‐class theory, and cultural reproduction schemes. Complete Norwegian register data for all individuals born from 1955 to 1980 allow for a fine‐grained examination of diverse fields of study not attempted in earlier studies. The findings reveal that intergenerational reproduction of educational fields is widespread, but its extent varies across fields of study. The tendency is most pronounced among children of professional, educated parents with masters and higher‐level degrees. Moreover, the analysis shows that students who do not choose the same field as their parents nonetheless tend to choose educational fields close to those of their parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new stream of sociological and demographic theory emphasizes individualization as the key process in late modernity. As maintained by Hakim (), women also have increasingly become agents of their own biographies, less influenced by the social class and the family. In this study, I intend to contribute to this debate by analysing how, in Italy and Britain, women's movements between employment and housework are linked to their husband's education and class, and how this link has changed across cohorts. Using discrete‐time event‐history modelling on the BHPS and ILFI, my findings show that in both countries, if the woman's educational and labour‐market profile is controlled for, the husband's occupation and education have lost importance. Yet, although based more on 'her' than 'his' profile, divisions along 'classic' lines are still evident and not context‐free, and they assume different forms in the two countries with distinctive institutional and cultural settings. In 'liberal' Britain, women's labour‐market participation responds more to motherhood and class than to education, while in 'familistic' Italy education seems more important, which suggests the existence of returns over and above strictly human capital/economic ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'Flynn effect' describes the substantial and long‐standing increase in average cognitive ability test scores, which has been observed in numerous psychological studies. Flynn makes an appeal for researchers to move beyond psychology's standard disciplinary boundaries and to consider sociological contexts, in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of cognitive inequalities. In this article we respond to this appeal and investigate social class inequalities in general cognitive ability test scores over time. We analyse data from the National Child Development Study (1958) and the British Cohort Study (1970). These two British birth cohorts are suitable nationally representative large‐scale data resources for studying inequalities in general cognitive ability. We observe a large parental social class effect, net of parental education and gender in both cohorts. The overall finding is that large social class divisions in cognitive ability can be observed when children are still at primary school, and similar patterns are observed in each cohort. Notably, pupils with fathers at the lower end of the class structure are at a distinct disadvantage. This is a disturbing finding and it is especially important because cognitive ability is known to influence individuals later in the lifecourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we carry out the most comprehensive analysis of social and spatial mobility in the UK to date and the first to directly link different dimensions of mobility to processes of social class formation. Using new analytical techniques in this field, we integrate quantitative and qualitative data from the 1958 Birth Cohort Study, combining text‐mining and correspondence analysis in order to examine the intersection of geographical and social mobility with class identities. This work reflects a revival of interest in the spatialization of class inequalities, which is connected to policy concerns about the regional dimension of Britain's mobility 'crisis' that have intensified in the wake of the 'Brexit' vote. We find that the South's role as an 'escalator' region for upward mobility has continued and that the relationship between social and spatial mobility both confirms and qualifies the role of London and the South East in generating inequalities. We show that different migration‐mobility transitions are associated with distinctive and contrasting class identity narratives. Those who move from North to South stand out in particular for the way their 'class talk' reveals the social disorientation that attends their success. The contrasting ways in which other groups express their social identities suggests that the interplay of geographical and social mobilities performs a significant role in regional cultural divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In British social mobility discourse, the rhetoric of fair access can obscure wider issues of social justice. While socio‐economic inequalities continue to shape young people's lives, sociological work on class dis‐identification suggests social class is less obviously meaningful as a source of individual and collective identity. This paper considers subjective understandings of the post‐16 education and employment landscape in this context, drawing on qualitative research exploring the aspirations of young men and women as they completed compulsory education in north‐west England, and the hopes their parents had for their future. It shows how unequal access to resources shaped the older generation's expectations for their children, although this was rarely articulated using the explicit language of class. Their children recognized they faced a difficult job market but embraced the idea that success was possible through hard work. Both generations drew moral boundaries and made judgments based on implicit classed discourses about undeserving others, while at the same time disavowing class identities. There was a more explicit recognition of gender inequality among the parents framed with reference to hopes for greater freedom for their daughters. Opportunities and inequalities were thus understood in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our contribution assesses the role of information barriers for patterns of participation in Higher Education (HE) and the related social inequalities. For this purpose, we developed a large‐scale clustered randomised experiment involving over 9,000 high school seniors from 62 Italian schools. We designed a counseling intervention to correct student misperceptions of the profitability of HE, that is, the costs, economic returns and chances of success of investments in different tertiary programs. We employed a longitudinal survey to test whether treated students' educational trajectories evolved differently relative to a control group. We find that, overall, treated students enrolled less often in less remunerative fields of study in favour of postsecondary vocational programmes. Most importantly, this effect varied substantially by parental social class and level of education. The shift towards vocational programmes was mainly due to the offspring of low‐educated parents; in contrast, children of tertiary graduates increased their participation in more rewarding university fields. Similarly, the redistribution from weak fields to vocational programmes mainly involved the children of the petty bourgeoisie and the working class, while upper class students invested in more rewarding university fields. We argue that the status‐maintenance model proposed by Breen and Goldthorpe can explain these socially differentiated treatment effects. Overall, our results challenge the claim that student misperceptions contribute to horizontal inequalities in access to HE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social class has traditionally played a key role in explaining social behaviour and cognition. However, recent analyses have been dominated by the view that the relevance of class for behaviour has dwindled in advanced industrial societies. We contest this view by focusing on the subjective components of class consciousness. Using a national survey of Danish citizens, we show that individuals continue to hold meaningful conceptions of classes, to identify with them and, moreover, to perceive substantial levels of differences between them with these latter beliefs being strongly structured by respondent class identification. These results are all the more intriguing because they stem from a high affluence/low inequality national context that should be a particularly good case for failing to find such rich class perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comprehensive account of the way in which cognitive and educational attainment mediate the link between social origins and elite social class destinations in mid‐life. Using the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), we assess the roles of a range of pathways through which educational advantage may lead to occupational attainment: cognitive development; private and selective secondary schools; school level qualifications; and higher education, including institution and field of study. Whereas past research has shown a residual direct effect of social origins on class destinations, we find that, once a sufficiently detailed picture of educational attainment is taken into account, education fully explains the link between social origins and top social class destinations. In contrast, the gap between men and women in achieving top social class positions is in no part accounted for by education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Much of the literature on the urban middle classes describes processes of both affiliation (often to the localities) and disaffiliation (often from some of the non‐middle‐class residents). In this paper, we consider this situation from a different position, drawing on research exploring whether and how children and adults living in diverse localities develop friendships with those different to themselves in terms of social class and ethnicity. This paper focuses on the interviews with the ethnically diverse, but predominantly white British, middle‐class parent participants, considering their attitudes towards social and cultural difference. We emphasize the importance of highlighting inequalities that arise from social class and its intersection with ethnicity in analyses of complex urban populations. The paper's contribution is, first, to examine processes of clustering amongst the white British middle‐class parents, particularly in relation to social class. Second, we contrast this process, and its moments of reflection and unease, with the more deliberate and purposeful efforts of one middle‐class, Bangladeshi‐origin mother who engages in active labour to facilitate relationships across social and ethnic difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this article, we address whether and how contemporary social classes are marked by distinct lifestyles. We assess the model of the social space, a novel approach to class analysis pioneered by Bourdieu's Distinction. Although pivotal in Bourdieu's work, this model is too often overlooked in later research, making its contemporary relevance difficult to assess. We redress this by using the social space as a framework through which to study the cultural manifestation of class divisions in lifestyle differences in contemporary Norwegian society. Through a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) of unusually rich survey data, we reveal a structure strikingly similar to the model in Distinction, with a primary dimension of the volume of capital, and a secondary dimension of the composition of capital. While avoiding the substantialist fallacy of predefined notions of ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ tastes, we explore how 168 lifestyle items map onto this social space. This reveals distinct classed lifestyles according to both dimensions of the social space. The lifestyles of the upper classes are distinctly demanding in terms of resources. Among those rich in economic capital, this manifests itself in a lifestyle which involves a quest for excitement, and which is bodily oriented and expensive. For their counterparts rich in cultural capital, a more ascetic and intellectually oriented lifestyle manifests itself, demanding of resources in the sense of requiring symbolic mastery, combining a taste for canonized, legitimate culture with more cosmopolitan and ‘popular’ items. In contrast to many studies’ descriptions of the lower classes as ‘disengaged’ and ‘inactive’, we find evidence of distinct tastes on their part. Our analysis thus affirms the validity of Bourdieu's model of social class and the contention that classes tend to take the form of status groups. We challenge dominant positions in cultural stratification research, while questioning the aptness of the metaphor of the ‘omnivore’, as well as recent analyses of ‘emerging cultural capital’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The study investigates inequalities in access to social capital based on social class origin and immigration background and examines the role of transnational ties in explaining these differences. Social capital is measured with a position generator methodology that separates between national and transnational contacts in a sample of young adults in Sweden with three parental backgrounds: at least one parent born in Iran or Yugoslavia, or two Sweden‐born parents. The results show that having socioeconomically advantaged parents is associated with higher levels of social capital. Children of immigrants are found to have a greater access to social capital compared to individuals with native background, and the study shows that this is related to transnational contacts, parents’ education and social class in their country of origin. Children of immigrants tend to have more contacts abroad, while there is little difference in the amount of contacts living in Sweden across the three groups. It is concluded that knowledge about immigration group resources help us predict its member's social capital, but that the analysis also needs to consider how social class trajectories and migration jointly structure national and transnational contacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Class relations have been proven to affect various aspects of social life, even in modern individualized societies. However, following claims on individualization and the so‐called ‘death of class’ thesis, studying the subjective dimension of class – that is, the way individuals perceive of class relations and their own position within them – has gone out of style. We argue that even in equalized societies, subjective class perceptions may still influence attitudes and behaviour as they evolve to fit modern class relations. To explore the existence as well as structure and content of perceived social classes, this article investigates how people describe society and social groups in focus group discussions. We find that groups in different positions in terms of education and economy all tend to apply hierarchical class categories to describe Danish society, which is normally seen as one of the most equal societies and political systems in the world. In addition, we find that economic resources serve as a baseline for the hierarchical ordering, often supplemented with notions of education, lifestyle and/or occupational profile. Even though people are somewhat uncomfortable with the notion of class, their descriptions of Danish society and classes are surprisingly similar within and across groups. We conclude that not only do class relations matter; people are also highly aware of the existing classes and able to position themselves and others according to their notion of classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we add to the existing evidence base on recent trends in inter‐generational social mobility in England and Wales. We analyse data from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (ONS‐LS), which links individual records from the five decennial censuses between 1971 and 2011. The ONS‐LS is an excellent data resource for the study of social mobility because it has a very large sample size, excellent population coverage and low rates of nonresponse and attrition across waves. Additionally, the structure of the study means that we can observe the occupations of LS‐members' parents when they were children and follow their own progress in the labour market at regular intervals into middle age. Counter to widespread prevailing beliefs, our results show evidence of a small but significant increase in social fluidity between 1950s and the 1980s for both men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Democrats hoped that a particular kind of identity politics - women's - would help Hillary Clinton win the White House. In the aftermath of the election, some commentators bemoaned the fact that a majority of white women had voted for Trump, and called it a kind of betrayal, underlining their expectation that women would naturally, on the basis of their gender identity, support a woman with women-friendly politics. Indeed, this kind of thinking about identity politics has been widespread with reference to a number of demographic groups. Meanwhile, identity politics is lamented from the right and left by those who favour a greater emphasis on class-based inequalities, or a greater national identity, some of whom blame identity politics for spawning or justifying a backlash of right-leaning populism in the US. We argue for a turn to a more robust definition of identity as multidimensional and politically mediated for understanding political alignments over the past several decades. The multidimensionality of inequality - intersectionality or complex inequality - is widely accepted in the study of gender and race across the social science disciplines but has yet to be as successfully integrated into studies of electoral politics. Thinking about women's positioning in systems of complex inequality, and how the political parties have or have not articulated the concerns of different groups of women, helps us to understand the 2016 election, as well as past and potentially future political developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rhetoric of both the Brexit and Trump campaigns was grounded in conceptions of the past as the basis for political claims in the present. Both established the past as constituted by nations that were represented as 'white' into which racialized others had insinuated themselves and gained disproportionate advantage. Hence, the resonant claim that was broadcast primarily to white audiences in each place 'to take our country back'. The politics of both campaigns was also echoed in those social scientific analyses that sought to focus on the 'legitimate' claims of the 'left behind' or those who had come to see themselves as 'strangers in their own land'. The skewing of white majority political action as the action of a more narrowly defined white working class served to legitimize analyses that might otherwise have been regarded as racist. In effect, I argue that a pervasive 'methodological whiteness' has distorted social scientific accounts of both Brexit and Trump's election victory and that this needs to be taken account of in our discussion of both phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper it has been shown that across three cohorts of men and women born in Britain in 1946, 1958 and 1970 a gender difference exists in regard to relative rates of class mobility. For men these rates display an essential stability but for women they become more equal. The aim of the present paper is to shed light on the causes of this trend-or, that is, of increasing social fluidity-among women. We begin by considering a refined version of the perverse fluidity hypothesis: that is, one that proposes that part-time work leads to increasing downward worklife mobility among women that also entails downward intergenerational mobility and thus promotes greater fluidity. We do in fact find that the increase in fluidity is very largely, if not entirely, confined to women who have had at least one period of part-time work. However, a more direct test of the hypothesis is not supportive. We are then led to investigate whether it is not that part-time working itself is the crucial factor but rather that women who subsequently work part-time already differ from those who do not at entry into employment. We find that eventual full- and part-timers do not differ in their class origins nor, in any systematic way, in their educational qualifications. But there is a marked and increasing difference in the levels of employment at which they make their labour market entry. Eventual part-timers are more likely than eventual full-timers to enter in working-class positions, regardless of their class origins and qualifications. Insofar as these women are from more advantaged origins, they would appear not to seek to exploit their advantages to the same extent as do full-timers in order to advance their own work careers. And it is, then, in the downward mobility accepted by these women-who increase in number across the cohorts-that we would locate the main source of the weakening association between class origins and destinations that is revealed among women at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between social origin, postgraduate degree attainment, and occupational outcomes across five British age-group cohorts. We use recently-available UK Labour Force Survey data to conduct a series of logistic regressions of postgraduate (masters or doctorate) degree attainment among those with first degrees, with controls for measures of degree classification, degree subject, age, gender, ethnicity and national origin. We find a marked strengthening of the effect of class origin on degree- and occupational attainment across age cohorts. While for older generations there is little or no difference by class origin in the rates at which first-degree graduates attain postgraduate degrees, those with working-class-origins in the youngest age-group are only about 28 per cent as likely to obtain a postgraduate degree when compared with their peers from privileged origins. Moreover, social origin matters more for occupational destination, even among those with postgraduate degrees, for those in younger age groups. These findings demonstrate the newly important, and increasing, role of postgraduate degrees in reproducing socio-economic inequality in the wake of the substantial expansion of undergraduate and postgraduate education. Our findings lend some support to the Maximally Maintained Inequality thesis, suggesting that gains in equality of access to first-degrees are indeed at risk from postgraduate expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hidden barriers, or 'gender pay gap', preventing women from earning equivalent incomes to men is well documented. Yet recent research has uncovered that, in Britain, there is also a comparable class-origin pay gap in higher professional and managerial occupations. So far this analysis has only been conducted at the national level and it is not known whether there are regional differences within the UK. This paper uses pooled data from the 2014 and 2015 Labour Force Survey ( N = 7,534) to stage a more spatially sensitive analysis that examines regional variation in the class pay gap. We find that this 'class ceiling' is not evenly spatially distributed. Instead it is particularly marked in Central London, where those in high-status occupations who are from working-class backgrounds earn, on average, £10,660 less per year than those whose parents were in higher professional and managerial employment. Finally, we inspect the Capital further to reveal that the class pay gap is largest within Central London's banking and finance sector. Challenging policy conceptions of London as the 'engine room' of social mobility, these findings suggest that class disadvantage within high-status occupations is particularly acute in the Capital. The findings also underline the value of investigating regional differences in social mobility, and demonstrate how such analysis can unravel important and previously unrecognized spatial dimensions of class inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following recent research evidencing that young men are redefining the essential components of what it is to be a man, this paper draws on qualitative interviews with 22 elite-level, English Premier League academy level football (soccer) players to investigate their performances and understandings of masculinity in relation to decreasing homohysteria. Even in this gender-segregated, near-total institution, these working-class, non-educationally aspiring adolescents evidence an attenuated performance of 'maleness' and improved attitudinal disposition toward homosexuality. Congruent with insights developed by inclusive masculinity scholars, respondents maintained emotional closeness and physical tactility with male teammates and friends. These more inclusive attitudes and homosocial behaviours were, however, slightly more conservative than in other recent research. We close by explaining this variation with reference to theoretical apparatus' provided by Goffman and Bourdieu to advance theoretical debates about social class and masculinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks: how is class consciousness and cohesiveness amongst the UK business elite maintained in the twenty-first century? Elite studies traditionally sought to account for the construction and circulation of dominant ideology through exclusive education systems, institutional board interlocks and club memberships. The problem is that business elite membership of all these institutions has been steady declining in recent decades. Contemporary corporate elites now appear more mobile and fragmented in an age of globalization. However, class cohesion amongst business leaders appears as strong as ever after decades of neoliberal policy hegemony. So, how are such ideas, norms and values circulated and maintained? This study tried to answer this question drawing on a set of 30 semi-structured interviews with top UK CEOs and a demographic audit of current FTSE 100 CEOs. The findings suggest that three additional means of achieving business elite coherence have become more significant: professional business education, semi-formal but regular meeting sites, and specialist business media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the relationship between class and status and discusses omnivorousness.Topics include detailed information about cultural consumption and evaluation of neo-Bourdieusian framework, the importance of culture which is focusing on state and mass media affects social stratification, and attempts by proponents of the omnivore thesis to put their methodological approach to work on cultural consumption. Reinstating a social distinction between class and status is also mentioned.

Reforms which increase the stock of education in a society have long been held by policy-makers as key to improving rates of intergenerational social mobility. Yet, despite the intuitive plausibility of this idea, the empirical evidence in support of an effect of educational expansion on social fluidity is both indirect and weak. In this paper we use the raising of the minimum school leaving age from 15 to 16 years in England and Wales in 1972 to estimate the effect of educational participation and qualification attainment on rates of intergenerational social class mobility. Because, in expectation, children born immediately before and after the policy was implemented are statistically exchangeable, the difference in the amount of education they received may be treated as exogenously determined. The exogenous nature of the additional education gain means that differences in rates of social mobility between cohorts affected by the reform can be treated as having been caused by the additional education. The data for the analysis come from the ONS Longitudinal Study, which links individual records from successive decennial censuses between 1971 and 2001. Our findings show that, although the reform resulted in an increase in educational attainment in the population as a whole and a weakening of the association between attainment and class origin, there was no reliably discernible increase in the rate of intergenerational social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lay perceptions and experiences of social location have been commonly framed with reference to social class. However, complex responses to, and ambivalence over, class categories have raised interesting analytic questions relating to how sociological concepts are operationalized in empirical research. For example, prior researchers have argued that processes of class dis-identification signify moral unease with the nature of classed inequalities, yet dis-identification may also in part reflect a poor fit between 'social class' as a category and the ways in which people accord meaning to, and evaluate, their related experiences of socio-economic inequality. Differently framed questions about social comparison, aligned more closely with people's own terms of reference, offer an interesting alternative avenue for exploring subjective experiences of inequality. This paper explores some of these questions through an analysis of new empirical data, generated in the context of recession. In the analysis reported here, class identification was common. Nevertheless, whether or not people self identified in class terms, class relevant issues were perceived and described in highly diverse ways, and lay views on class revealed it to be a very aggregated as well as multifaceted construct. It is argued that it enables a particular, not general, perspective on social comparison. The paper therefore goes on to examine how study participants compared themselves with familiar others, identified by themselves. The evidence illuminates social positioning in terms of constraint, agency and (for some) movement, and offers insight into very diverse experiences of inequality, through the comparisons that people made. Their comparisons are situated, and pragmatic, accounts of the material contexts in which people live their lives. Linked evaluations are circumscribed and strongly tied to these proximate material contexts.The paper draws out implications for theorizing lay perspectives on class, and subjective experiences of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]