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Questions of political conflict have always been central to class analysis; changing political fault lines were a key argument in the debates about the 'death of class'. The ensuing 'cultural turn' in class analysis has shown how class continues to shape lives and experience, though often in new ways. In this article, we bring this mode of analysis to the political domain by unpacking how a multidimensional concept of class – based on the ideas of Bourdieu – can help make sense of contemporary political divisions. We demonstrate that there is a homological relation between the social space and the political space: pronounced political divisions between 'old' politics related to economic issues and 'new' politics related to 'post-material values' follow the volume and composition of capital. Importantly, the left/right divide seems more clearly related to the divide between cultural and economic capital than to the class hierarchy itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we analyse class cultures by mapping out differences in ‘original taste’; that is, respondents’ classed preferences for food and drink. By employing Multiple Correspondence Analysis, we produce a relational model of tastes. Using three indicators of social class – occupational class, income and education – we find clear class divisions. The upper and middle classes exhibit diverse and what are typically regarded as ‘healthy’ tastes; this contrasts with the more restricted and what are typically regarded as ‘less healthy’ tastes found among the working classes. Our findings challenge ongoing debates within cultural stratification research where it has become almost usual to demonstrate that the contemporary upper and middle classes exhibit playful tastes for the ‘cosmopolitan’ and the ‘exotic’. We find that upper- and middle-class households also enjoy very traditional foodstuffs. We argue that this illustrates a need for a relational understanding of taste: even the consumption of the traditional peasant food of pre-capitalist Norway can be refashioned as a badge of distinction in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a new explorative method for deriving social class categories from patterns of occupational mobility. In line with Max Weber, our research is based on the notion that, if class boundaries do not inhibit social mobility then the class categories are of little value. Thus, unlike dominant, theoretically defined class schemes, this article derives social class categories from observed patterns in a mobility network covering intra-generational mobility. The network is based on a mobility table of 109 occupational categories tied together by 1,590,834 job shifts on the Danish labour market 2001–2007. The number of categories are reduced from 109 to 34 by applying a new clustering algorithm specifically designed for the study of mobility tables (MONECA). These intra-generational social class categories are related to the central discussions of gender, income, education and political action by providing empirical evidence of strong patterns of intra-generational class divisions along these lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to identify the internal divisions within the ‘upper class’ of Norway, defined as comprising different types of property owners, top executives and business managers. Bourdieu’s concepts of social space and forms of capital are applied to construct a social space of the Norwegian economic upper class by subjecting 12 indicators of capital to Multiple Correspondence Analysis. Central issues in the sociology of elites and upper classes are addressed, including the role of educational credentials in upper class reproduction, and the salience of divisions by social origin. The article reveals a maintained division between owners and employees (managers, executives, business professionals) in an age of ‘financialisation’. Furthermore, the divisions established are related to the segmentation of the upper class by occupation and industry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The sociology of class and the sociology of work have, historically, occupied two sides of the same coin, sharing foundational studies such as the Affluent Worker series and Braverman's vivisection of the labour process. Recently, however, the partnership has been questioned. Though the seeds of the split were sown by Erik Wright and John Goldthorpe, the overdue de-hegemonizing of Marx and Weber in research on class with the growing influence of Pierre Bourdieu and the broader 'cultural turn' in sociology has weakened the bond and forged a new alliance between class and the sociology of culture. This is, by all means, a positive development, but the connection between processes in the sphere of work and class has become less clear. This article therefore seeks to explore the new theoretical nexus between class and work, demonstrating that a Bourdieusian approach fruitfully reverses the connection put in place by Goldthorpe and Wright. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A renewed class analysis has shown the importance of culture, emotions and identity in conceptualizing and understanding how class is lived. However, proponents of the new sociology of class rarely explore these issues in an occupational setting. This article argues that the insights developed in the new cultural approaches to class can be used fruitfully to analyse contemporary experiences of work. Using a comparative study of women working in working-class and middle- class occupations, the article illustrates the implicit and emotional dimensions of the classed experience of work through a study of the women's aspirations and their class identities. Rather than equating class with economic resources and constraints, the article shows how class 'thinking and feelings' (Reay, 2005) also shape the experiences of work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last quarter of the 20th century gave rise to debate in this journal and elsewhere regarding the treatment of women in class analysis. It is argued here that the question of minority ethnic achievement has given new impetus to arguments in favour of taking account of mother's occupation in class schemas. The article constructs three different class schemas and tests their utility in this context. It then uses one schema to assess the importance of social class in explaining achievement differentials among minority ethnic pupils in Britain. Class background is found to be a key factor for all groups. The analysis finds significant differences between ethnic groups even when pupils from the same social class background are compared. When disparities within ethnic groups are examined, however, it is found that the effect of moving one place down the social class structure is similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines whether customary metrics of social and economic class are equally applicable for men and women. Wage growth measurement is the metric employed, and Sweden's economy in 1999-2003 is used as the focus of the study. It was found that wage growth patterns were equivalent for men and women in the same socio-economic classes and in different sectors of the labor market.

The article seeks to explore the significance of class membership among young people in the so-called internet age. Internet access and use in Britain has remained by and large concentrated in wealthier households, underlining^ at an aggregate level, a clear link between individuals' socio-economic background and their use of the internet. A somewhat contradictory statement emerges, however; from recent claims made by techno-enthusiasts, and apparently young people themselves, about the existence of a digital generation.This generational label suggests that young people today are, irrespective of their background, growjng up with a sense of digital expertise, where class boundaries have become obscured. The article discusses this apparent contradiction, based on a study of young internet users.The findings suggest that, while class boundaries can be affected by internet use, the impact of this use remains nonetheless short lived and unlfely to significantly impinge on young people's social mobility in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how urban working-class youth display their identities through taste and style within the educational field. The authors examine data from longitudinal tracking interview to see how such practices contribute to shaping young people's choices and attitudes towards higher education. The authors suggest that while young people try to generate worth and value through investments in style, these practices also play into oppressive social relations and keep the young people within marginalized social positions.

The purpose of this article is to examine the socially constructed nature of the story telling process by drawing on an example from one locality in Northern Ireland.The research draws on focus group interviews with teenagers from polarized working-class communities in North Belfast.The overall locality is divided into Catholic and Protestant areas and a recurring feature of the data is the tendency for each group to define themselves in opposition to the other Throughout the focus group interviews, the teenagers produced four types of stories and the article assesses the relevance of each type to producing, reproducing or challenging sectarian divisions.The first three groups of stories, First-hand stories, Second-hand stories and Collective stories reflect individual and group attitudes to distinctions between 'us' and 'them' while the fourth, Alternative stories, questions the homogeneity of the in-group and the immutability of these divisions. These stories verbalize the internal recollections of both individuals and groups and rely on real and imagined memories.The thrust of the article illustrates the ways in which sectarian identities are constructed, shaped and diluted through these narrative encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses health care change with respect to the transformation of the social order within Poland and transnationally. It considers the implications for health care equality and the understanding of citizenship, of a process of health care reform which constitutes part of a transition involving the formation of new power asymmetries based on poverty and wealth. Drawing on qualitative research carried out in Nowa Huta, the article shows how health care change has contributed to poverty and how the introduction of liberal democracy has been accompanied by the perception of a loss of health rights.The article questions the language of citizenship which underpins the aspiration for health equality in the EU, and indicates the implications of the occlusion of the politico-economic effects of capitalism in citizenship discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines some of the implications for the sociological analysis of social class of the migration of geodemographic classifications of various sorts into software systems designed to 'sort out' people and places. It begins by offering an overview of the history and development of geodemographic classifications. It then argues that such classifications are increasingly becoming embedded in 'software sorting' procedures of various sorts, which in turn leads to the prospect of 'automated spatiality' becoming a common feature of the contemporary constitution of social class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that the class legacy has had profoundly negative consequences for accounts of material gender inequality, and that even where gender theorists have attempted to move beyond class, they have been hampered by the fragments of class theory. It will be argued that whilst gender has posed a fundamental challenge to class analysis, the reconstructions which have been attempted have not escaped the central assumptions of class theory. The weakness of such reconstructions--hindered by flaws inherited from both the Marxian and neo-Weberian traditions of class analysis--has led some post-modern writers to question the very idea of a determinate, structural account of gender. At the time of writing, deconstruction--rather than reconstruction--is in the ascendent. However, whilst a structural account of gender can and should be defended, past attempts show that this cannot be achieved by clinging to the assumptions of class analysis, or by developing additive class-plus-gender explanations. Only those approaches which reject the economistic assumptions of class, by placing emphasis on the social space as a differentiated and determinate social whole, can overcome the limitations of current accounts of gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Goldthorpe's attempt to develop a theory which explains the stability of class relations and the generative processes by which class inequalities are sustained in general and the application of rational action theory to the explanation of persistent class differentials in educational attainment in particular. It is argued that Goldthorpe has restricted the remit of his theory to the mobilization of economic resources and that the importance of cultural and social resources in the reproduction of advantage has been dropped from view. This development derives from his minimalist definition of class in terms of employment relations rather than collectivities of people who share identities and practices. Furthermore, Goldthorpe's reliance on rational action theory has led to an overly materialistic view of how individuals and families mobilize their resources across generations. He ignores the role of norms and values in shaping action and the level of indeterminacy or precariousness by which advancement may or may not be achieved. The implications of these criticisms for the future of class analysis are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary class analysis takes the national state as its unit of analysis. This convention could be challenged on at least two grounds. On the one hand, the national state might be seen as too gross an aggregation that leads to the neglect of important internal variation; on the other, the national state might be considered an irrelevant distinction for the study of processes that are best viewed on a larger canvas. In this paper we concern ourselves with this latter possibility and we assess the extent to which globalization threatens to displace the national state's role in shaping class structure and patterns of social fluidity. In our formulation, the competing claims of national state and global system effects on class structures and mobility regimes involve matters of degree, and thus are open to empirical investigation. The existing evidence supports the continued resilience of the national state but not so emphatically as to preclude the need to take account of world-system influences. This leads us to propose an analytical strategy for integrating world-system effects into class analysis. We conclude by suggesting that a more robust challenge to the role of the national state in class analysis might yet come from the growth of the 'new regionalism' in Europe and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost without exception, defenders and critics of the (Weberian) project of class analysis have denied the validity and utility of what they take to be Marxist conceptions of class. It is argued here that: first, the aims and structure of Marxist class analysis are quite different from those of Weberian class analysis; second, sociological contributions to the current debate have failed to address the most significant insights of Marxist class analysis, namely the labour theory of value; and third, Wright's supposedly exemplary Marxist research programme, being also deficient in this respect, shares common ground with its Weberian critics. Thus the case for Marxist class analysis has gone by default, a situation which this paper attempts to redress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to Pahl's criticism, Goldthorpe and Marshall's class analysis programme is a theoretical one. A re-formulation of their position shows how it sets key elements in structured relationships with each other. However this also shows several limitations in their model, which fails fully to account for changes in class positions, or social mobility. Their model says very little about education, cultural values, or events (like the Second World War) that are not entirely class-determined, but impact on life chances. An exploration of previous uses of the Goldthorpe and Marshall approach in defining classes and in measuring class mobility, reveals several inconsistencies of practice, which may suggest, as Pahl argues, too much emphasis on empiricism. Caution is advised before investment in the Goldthorpe and Marshall class analysis programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note uses survey data from six British local labour markets collected as part of the ESRC Social Change and Economic Life Initiative to examine the effects of parents' occupational classes on the probability of their children attaining service class occupations. Both mother's occupational class and father's occupational class are found to have independent effects on this probability, regardless of the sex of the child. The implications of these findings in relation to the debate on the class assignment of families are considered, and it is concluded that one's interpretation of the findings is contingent on one's perception of the nature and scope of class analysis. If one takes a broad view of class analysis then the empirical importance of mother's occupation in relation to the occupational mobility of children of both sexes suggests that married women's occupations should be integrated into the process of determining the class of family units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent critiques of the usefulness of the concept of class (Pahl 1989; Clark and Lipset 1991) have developed into more specific criticisms of the lack of theory underlying 'class analysis' as practised by Goldthorpe and his associates (Pahl 1993; Rose 1993). In this paper we argue that an adequate theory of class needs to show why classes, defined in the particular way they are, have some claim to be a basis of social power of sufficient importance to justify the emphasis placed on them by class analysis. To answer this question requires that two things be demonstrated: first, that there is an association between class and a range of outcomes; and, second, that the mechanisms giving rise to such associations be specified. Class analysis has little difficulty in answering the first requirement but very great difficulties in satisfactorily addressing the second. In discussing these problems we seek to suggest fruitful future directions for the project of class analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The asymmetry hypothesis is central to current controversy about the unit of class composition. It is argued by those who support a conventional approach to class analysis that marital partners themselves recognise that it is the occupational position of the husband that confers status on the household in modern industrial societies. This paper confirms that the conventional approach better explains observed patterns of socio-political class formation among partnered females in Britain than does an alternative individualist strategy. The recent suggestion that this household composition effect can be attributed mainly to intergenerational class processes is shown, irrespective of the degree of labour-market participation among women, to be unwarranted. These findings are based on three recent large-scale social surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates over the Weberian programme for class analysis have involved a number of unresolved theoretical problems. It is argued that these problems can be resolved only if the theoretical foundations of the programme are clarified. In particular, the Weberian distinction between 'class situation' and 'social class', along with the distinction between 'class' and 'status', must be used to resolve the questions of the demographic formation of social classes, the individual and the family household as units of analysis, and the relationship between gender and class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the authors' comments on the article of J. Goldthorpe and G. Marshall entitled The Promising Future of Class Analysis: A Response to Recent Critiques. Once the lines of pseudo-debate are discounted, Goldthorpe and Marshall's position raises some important and unfinished questions for debate. These include both the vexed question of the relationship of occupation and class, and the epistemological status of class discourse itself. Above all we re-affirm our central question as to whether the persistence of academic class discourse tells more about the metaphorical flexibility of a concept that is at once an intellectualized label and a source of social identity with dichotomic, gradational, and/or functional overtones, as it does about power and inequality in contemporary societies. The persistence of academic discourses about social class may also be a function of more comprehensive paradigms such as the somewhat tired comparison between conflict and consensus. It may be of some interest therefore that David Lockwood--a social theorist of class who has been closely associated with what we might call the Oxford School of the class research program--published his long-awaited Solidarity and Schism in the same year that Goldthorpe and Marshall's defense of the pervasiveness and persistence of social class appeared in this journal.

This article presents a response to an article by John H. Goldthorpe and G. Marshall which encourages to anticipate a promising future for class analysis. In their concern to silence critics of class analysis, Goldthorpe and Marshall have refused to nail their colors to any theoretical mast and have, instead, presented their results, demonstrating that there is not much change as some might think in the three spheres they discuss. So committed are they to avoiding theoretical reflection that they conclude by offering these results to those who are concerned with theoretical matters so that those others may interpret them for them. They claim that lumps based on the jobs people do tell more than lumps based on other criteria. They refuse to provide an explicit theoretical account of why that is so, but busily produce more results from their program, presented with even greater statistical sophistication. They indicate that various sorts of disabilities and behavioral propensities are associated with the variable they call class and these may, in some but not all of the lumps they define, reproduce themselves to a modest degree over generations. The nature of current employment relations seem to be a rather tiny screen on which to project central concerns of sociological analysis.

Class differences in the provision of informal care have received little research attention. Since class gradients in ill-health and Life expectancy are strong, differences in need for informal care are to be expected between classes. We use data from the 1985 General Household Survey to examine the prevalence and location of informal care-giving among women and men by class and by stage in the life course. Although informal carets as a whole are drawn equally from all classes) if the two locations of care - whether within the same household or for someone in a different household - are examined separately, class differences emerge. Co-resident care, which places greater constraints on the carer's life, is more frequently provided by working class men and women than the middle class. Thus the working class bear the greatest burden of providing care, while at the same time possessing fewer material resources to aid them in the task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class analysis has recently been criticised from a variety of standpoints. In this paper we argue that much of this criticism is misplaced and that, as a research programme, the promise of class analysis is far from exhausted. The first part of the paper clarifies the nature and purpose of class analysis, as we would understand it, and in particular distinguishes it from the class analysis of Marxist sociology. The second part then makes the case for the continuing relevance of class analysis, in our conception of it, by reviewing findings from three central areas of current research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion related to the position of women in the context of class analysis. In their paper titled Women at Class Crossroads: Repudiating Conventional Theories of Family Class, H. Leiulfsrud and A. Woodward claim to offer an empirically grounded contribution to the debate on the treatment of the conjugal family within the context of class analysis. Indeed, their title suggests that they intend their contribution as a decisive one, capable of demolishing, once and for all, the conventional arguments, according to which the family represents a basic unit of class analysis and its class location is best indexed by that of the family member with the major or dominant involvement in the labor market. The purpose of the present note is, however, to indicate the large gap that exists between these authors' ambitions and their achievements. The issues should be clearly understood and stated. The research findings adduced should be relevant and where relevant, they should be correctly reported and interpreted.

The article presents a reply to a comment made by Robert Erickson and John H. Goldthorpe in relation to the position of women in the context of class analysis. Today's conjugal family presents some significant problems for empirical studies. Class analysts treating the family can choose between a neo-conventional approach using the spouse with the highest socioeconomic position as the determinant for family classification; an analysis based on individuals or an analysis based upon both spouses' positions in the world of work. The most important objection to the conventional approach is that it only considers the contribution of one partner. In Erickson and Goldthorpe's work, families are generally classified according to the male position, while economically active women are usually excluded in the analysis of the class position of conjugal families. The conventional approach constitutes both an empirical and a theoretical handicap for dealing with the issue of the family in class analysis.

This article presents the author's remarks on review of his paper "Women and Class Analysis: In Defence of the Conventional View." The chief concern of this paper was with the way in which the position of married women has been treated by exponents of class analysis. More specifically, the author aimed to show that their approach was a more considered one than critics had recognized and that charges of intellectual sexism were unwarranted. According to him, class analysis aims first to establish how far classes have formed as relatively stable collectivities. From the standpoint of class analysis, how far variation in any particular aspect of social behavior or relationships, within the population at large, can actually be accounted for in terms of class membership is entirely a matter for investigation as the author says, it has never been supposed by class analysts that the variable of class membership itself can provide the basis for any complete mapping of socio-cultural patterns. He shows that exponents of class analysis could accept differences attributable to the employment of married women of the kind referred to by critics without being thereby required to depart from the conventional view that the class position of the family is a unitary one which derives from that of its head.

In 'Women and Class Analysis' (Sociology, November 1983), John Goldthorpe defends the conventional practice of making general claims about class from research focused mainly or exclusively on male 'heads' of households. The concern of this paper is to show that the submerging of women's class position with that of their husbands is not justified, and that it closes off some of the most intriguing issues in class analysis. Goldthorpe points to substantial similarity in the types of employment undertaken by husbands and their wives; are-analysis of his argument and evidence shows that the same data can actually be used to demonstrate a remarkable dissimilarity in the types of employment in which spouses are engaged - even greater dissimilarity than theorists of 'cross- class' marriages have claimed. It is argued that the conventional approach advocated by Goldthorpe both obscures the extent to which the class experience of wives differs from that of husbands, and ignores the extent to which the inequalities that divide women and men are themselves the outcome of the operation of the class system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analytical methodologies assume 'resolution into simple elements' as a necessary preliminary stage of scholarly investigation. They explicitly, or more often implicitly accept, therefore, that the conclusions reached reflect not only the phenomena analysed, but also the applied system of analytical subdivision. The paper explores and compares the main systems of analysis in current sociology: institutional, class and communal. It suggests a taxonomy of analytical systems and a cross-classification which is introduced to throw light on their conceptual properties at the societal as well as the individual level. It proceeds by discussing the issues of: (A) The societal roots of selection of analytical schemes in sociology; (B) The advantages and blind spots of the specific analytical systems; and (C) Attempts at the integration and reduction of analytical systems in contemporary sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]