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Steve Resnick championed overdetermination. He also understood that in spite of the unknowable, one had to take a stand and fight. He and Rick Wolff used questions such as the following to judge what was worth fighting for: What are the social consequences of different political views? During the U.S. war in Vietnam, they asked what were the social consequences of that war on the Vietnamese, on the American soldiers, and on the American and Vietnamese nations. Such questions persuaded Steve to be a courageous part of the antiwar movement even if it made him ineligible for an Ivy League career. Steve was a man of principle who stood for what he saw was just. He identified with those who are exploited and despised lies, pretense, and injustice on a personal, political, and social level. He was a deep friend, a mentor, and a mensch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers acts and representations of “passing” across boundaries of race, sex, gender, and sexuality as productive for queer theory and politics. Looking at classic literary texts of racial passing and narratives of transgender passing, the essay seeks to bring elements of class and materiality in these boundary crossings to the fore. A close reading of these texts on “passing” will highlight the material and class elements in performances and readings of sex, sexuality, gender, and race. And as “passing” has become a primary site and source of queer theory, queer politics and theory must therefore deepen their engagement with class analysis without being fully encircled by it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data collected by two New Zealand surveys in 1999 and 2009, I explore the connection between the objective social class positions of individuals and their own subjective perceptions of these circumstances. Class position is ‘operationalized’ using a newer variant of Goldthorpe’s schema, the European Socioeconomic Classification (ESeC). Through regression analyses, it is demonstrated that ‘objective’ forces contain positive predictive consequences for self-placement. More importantly, the results suggest that as predictors of subjective class, the effects of class have endured while those of education and income – understood here to represent measures of socioeconomic position – have declined. The empirical evidence produced suggests that class continues to generate subjectively salient identities, leading one to deduce that there are no grounds for stating that it is no longer a significant feature in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimate the order of magnitude of the double Fourier coefficients of a function of the class (⋀1, ⋀2) BV(p(n) ↑ ∞, φ) over [0, 2π]2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study used a single-subject design to evaluate the effects of select or reject control on equivalence class formation and transfer of function. Adults were exposed to a matching-to-sample task with observing requirements (MTS-OR) in order to bias the establishment of sample/S+ (select) or sample/S- (reject) relations. In Experiment 1, four sets of baseline conditional relations were taught-two under reject control (A1B2C1, A2B1C2) and two under select control (D1E1F1, D2E2F2). Participants were tested for transitivity, symmetry, equivalence and reflexivity. They also learned a simple discrimination involving one of the stimuli from the equivalence classes and were tested for the transfer of the discriminative function. In general, participants performed with high accuracy on all equivalence-related probes as well as the transfer of function probes under select control. Under reject control, participants had high scores only on the symmetry test; transfer of function was attributed to stimuli programmed as S-. In Experiment 2, the equivalence class under reject control was expanded to four members (A1B2C1D2; A2B1C2D1). Participants had high scores only on symmetry and on transitivity and equivalence tests involving two nodes. Transfer of function was extended to the programmed S- added to each class. Results from both experiments suggest that select and reject controls might differently affect the formation of equivalence classes and the transfer of stimulus functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Design. Prospective cohort study. Objective. To determine whether there are distinct trajectories of back pain and function among older adults and to identify characteristics that distinguish among patients with substantially different prognoses. Summary of Background Data. Although the differential diagnosis and course of low back pain among older adults may differ from middle-aged adults, there is little evidence. Better understanding variability in recovery among older adults may help target patients for more intensive clinical interventions, plan resource use, and design clinical studies of more homogeneous patient groups. Methods. Patients aged 65 years or older with a new episode of care for back pain were recruited at 3 geographically diverse sites. Patients completed pain intensity and Roland-Morris Disability measures at baseline and 3, 6, and 12 months later. We used latent class analysis to identify distinct trajectories of pain and function and then logistic regression to identify predictors of membership in the improving trajectories. Results. There were 3929 participants who completed outcome measures at every follow-up interval. Latent class analysis identifi ed subgroups with low, intermediate, or high pain or disability scores who remained relatively stable over time. However, small subgroups showed dramatic improvement from baseline to 1 year (17% with major improvement in Roland score, pain intensity, or both). Shorter pain duration, higher patient confidence in improvement, and fewer comorbid conditions at baseline were each associated independently with favorable prognosis. Conclusion. Although most patients remained relatively stable over a year, latent class analysis identified small groups with major improvement in pain, function, or both. This technique may, therefore, be useful for studying back pain prognosis. Our results should help assemble more prognostically homogeneous groups for research, and the technique may help identify subgroups of patients with uniquely successful responses to investigational interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class analysis has never gone out of fashion in Ukraine, but it has been conducted in ways that limit its effectiveness and ability to make sense of the world. It is marked by four aspects inherited from Soviet times: a focus on large-scale surveys offering only surface presentations of findings, a gradational rather than relational orientation to class, unwillingness to engage with subjective experiences of class, and a tendency towards functional legitimation of the existing order. Data showing significant transformation of social structure and high levels of inequality tend to be presented with little consideration of its meaning for people's lives. The absence of serious theoretical reflection, deep ethnographic analysis, or studies of class relations and power constitute significant handicaps for Ukrainian sociology. A recently created group of young sociologists gathered around the journal and website Commons/Spilne has been seeking to overcome these limitations. Embracing "public sociology's" aim of producing reflexive knowledge for academic and non-academic audiences alike, this new milieu, with its creators trained in western universities and engaged with Marxist social science and left-wing politics, has explored topics such as changing relations in work, the informal economy, independent unions, labor mobilization, and ethnographic study of workers' life-worlds. Pressing work still needs to be done on the oligarchical business class, middle-class activists, class politics across regions, and the Maidan events of 2014 and the conflicts and violence that have followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a critique of classic applications of class analysis to Polish society. It argues from a Bourdieusian standpoint that class is subordinate to culture in shaping social relations in Poland. More specifically, Poland can be seen as a dual-stratification order, with the economic logic of class clashing continually with the logic of rank, which is defined in terms of cultural capital. These two models of logics appear to be in constant competition, which may also be related to the tension between economic and cultural elites. The latter is most clearly represented by the old intelligentsia, which is the only faction of the elite able to reproduce itself successfully and impose its logic of stratification and ideology on the entire society. The article also argues that class and rank logic can be seen as two dimensions of a social structure that are much more autonomous than in a typical western society. Within these two dimensions, there is a constant competition between different modes of framing and regulating respective hierarchies. In this internal competition of hierarchies, rank and class use each other to reinforce particular arguments. A sound class analysis must recognize these tensions and seek to reconstruct the process of confrontation between particular modes of logic and their internal visions, rather than arbitrarily embracing one form of logic as the privileged one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class became virtually a taboo topic in Poland after the fall of the communist system, and a discourse of "normality" took hold. Social scientists and journalists considered new market institutions natural and inescapable and urged people to adapt. Sociologists were more interested in the identity of the new elites than the social consequences of the new capitalism, and a cult of a not-yet-existing "middle class" quickly grew. Inequality and poverty, previously understood as systemic, were now presented as due to individual pathology. That class talk became so marginalized despite the historical robustness of Polish sociology as a discipline is explained by the dominance of a functionalist stratification paradigm, which kept questions relevant to the new system, about emerging class relations and power, from even being raised. Polish sociology thus appeared stuck in the past and in the future--thinking about stratification without power, and imagining an individualist meritocracy as already in effect--but not ready to ask about the class formation and new economic relations of the present. The paucity of class analysis allowed illiberal populist nationalism to grow, blaming economic problems on internal "anti-Polish" enemies. New kinds of class thinking has revived in the new millennium, promoted by a new generation raised in a capitalist society and trained in western universities, and legitimized in part by class analyses of postcommunism by scholars from abroad. Though hobbled, class analysis is making a modest comeback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tracing the political and academic treatment of the notion of class, in this article I emphasize overlapping continuities and discontinuities from the socialist period. I argue that in Serbia, class preserved its policy relevance at least until the mid-1990s, since there was a peculiar melding of nation and class in public discourse. Key to these developments was the rise of Milošević as a reformed communist already in the late 1980s. Milošević's agenda was heavily reliant on class-based appeals and the mobilization of workers for its legitimacy. Even though formal democratization began in 1990, with an accompanying mobilization of nationalism, the category of workers remained politically relevant, present in the patronizing rhetoric of most political sides. Only after 2000, with renewed democratization and neoliberal reforms, did public discourses begin to downplay class in the conventional sense, while young scholars took up issues of class in new, more critical ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the concept of class and class analysis in sociological research in the last few decades in Slovenia. It reveals the specific reasons for the relatively marginal role of this sort of analysis before and especially after 1990. First, it lists a selection of the key class and stratification studies during the communist era. Second, it describes the class and stratification studies that occurred before and around the regime change (1980-1991). Third, it describes a number of stratification research studies after 1991 (to the present), with many international components. The research efforts of a few influential research groups in Slovenia that have engaged in class and stratification studies, following special approaches, are presented and commented on: the Marxist tradition, a Bourdieuian approach focusing on symbolic discourse, and a structurally based labor process approach. In the conclusion, both a substantive and methodological account of relative achievements in the field are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article summarizes recent trends in Croatia with regard to class analysis and class discourse. It traces the main currents both in academic debate as well as more broadly in the public sphere. Issues of class were sidelined with the outbreak of war and the rise of nationalism in the 1990s. Later, neoliberalism further weakened class and leftist discourse. Research on class has been sporadic and rare. New developments among a younger generation of leftist activists and scholars have begun to challenge the silence on class, but the main trends have not been reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The onset of the Velvet Revolution in 1989 led to a radical transformation of the social structure and new types of economic inequalities in Slovakia, but the media, academia, and civil society initially rejected any talk of these developments in terms of class, seeing the topic as potentially toxic to democracy. There was a tendency to veer away from the study of new social stratification toward research on postmaterialist topics such as environmental protection, civil rights, and alternative subcultures. Those social scientists who did study the changing social structure mostly analyzed statistical data without linking this to a broader theoretical framework. Social classes came to be discussed in gradational rather than relational terms, without discussion of how one group's new privileges comes at the expense of others. In the early 2000s, radical neoliberal thinking became prominent, leading to the pervasive presentation of the poor and working poor as themselves responsible for their own fate. A backlash against that led to the triumph of the SMER party in 2006, which allowed topics such as poverty and social justice to return to everyday political discourse, and in this sense allowed for the return of class into politics. A younger generation of Slovak social scientists now regularly criticize the cult of the market and argue for an alternative political economy, though ongoing neoliberal hegemony in public discourse continues to make it hard for these new voices to be heard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class structure, class inequality, and class analysis are central to understanding contemporary Russian politics and society. And yet Russians themselves--from social scientists, to political leaders, to everyday Russians--have struggled to come to grips with the concept of class, which became a taboo topic following the collapse of communism. In recent years, that has started to change. Russian social scientists have placed great emphasis on defining the Russian "middle class," in a search both for a non-Marxist conception of class and for a social group with the potential to lead Russia toward a more liberal future. Yet the middle class concept remains fuzzy, and the political aspirations for the group have been only partially realized. Meanwhile, much of the rest of Russian society retains a more traditional view of class and class conflict, as reflected in various political struggles and even in popular culture, such as Russian film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the variety of discourses on social inequalities in postcommunist Bulgaria. The focus is on academic discourse, but political and everyday interpretations are presented as well. Politicians generally avoid talking about social differences and prefer instead the dichotomy of "elite" versus "the people," whose interests the politicians vow to protect. In popular consciousness, the main division is between "the rich" (mafia, politicians, ex-nomenklatura) and "the honest poor." In sociology, three main research trajectories have emerged: from class-based to status-based stratification; from one-dimensional to multidimensional stratification; and from a Marxist class model to a social network model. Perhaps the most important characteristic of Bulgarian society is its high level of poverty, according both to income indicators and self-perception. In this context of a pervasive sense of poverty, status differences lose their significance. This in turn prevents the establishment of group or class solidarity, as everyone feels she or he is competing with all others. Starting in 2013, a new trend can be observed: of social protests organized by those who say they feel powerless and manipulated by corrupt elites. As they try to initiate new types of economic negotiations with the government, sociologists have a responsibility both to study this new movement and to push the problems it raises into public debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate about socio-economic inequalities and class has become increasingly important in mainstream academic and political debates. This article shows that during the late 2000s class analysis was rediscovered in Romania both as an analytical category and as a category of practice. The evidence suggests that this was the result of two converging processes: the deepening crisis of Western capitalism after 2008 and the country's increasingly transnational networks of young scholars, journalists, and civil society actors. Although a steady and focused interest in class analysis is a novelty in Romania's academia, media, and political life and has the potential to change the political conversation in the future, so far the social fields where this analysis is practiced have remained relatively marginal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although popular fictions are often separated from scholarly analyses, both discourses frame our understanding of the economics of household labor. This essay examines the ability ofClass Struggle on the HomeFront not only to bridge such arbitrary divisions but also to free the economic imagination in ways that allows us to reclaim the importance of household labor. In particular, this essay focuses on three interrelated contributions of the volume: the inclusion of class in narratives about work-family balance, the amplification of other scholars' work on these concerns in ways that push the conversation in new and imaginative directions, and the problematizing of oppositional thinking that privileges the masculine over the feminine in both literal and metaphorical ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Class Struggle on the Home Frontpursues a dialogue between feminism and nondeterminist Marxism. I will attempt to situate the book's postmodern contribution to this conversation by interrogating the history of these mutually constitutive discourses. Since the conversation between Marxism and feminism began with Marx and Engels, I first examine their early work together. I then compare Engels's later work with that of feminist critic of political economy Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Despite their differences, Engels and Gilman share a commitment to economic determinism. In the essay's second part, I argue that the theoretical advances of New Marxian Class Analysis (NMCA), along with empirical investigations by feminist sociologists and labor historians, demonstrate the insufficiency of Engels's and Gilman's economically determinist perspective on relations between gender, class, and power. Finally, I respond to comments by Barker and Rio, and particularly their shared emphasis upon economic and cultural processes as sites of struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is a brief response to two essays inspired byClass Struggle on the Home Front(Palgrave Macmillan, 2009): Cecilia Rio's “The Magic of the Ouroboros: Reflections onClass Struggle on the Home Front” and Drucilla Barker's “Unstable Feminisms: A New Marxian Class Analysis of Domestic Labor.” Both essays illustrate the versatility and precision of the analytic approach they share, which can be referred to as antiessentialist class theory or New Marxism. Drucilla Barker's article discusses the complex strands that compose the social fabric of the various households presented in essays by Maliha Safri, Esra Erdem, and Graham Cassano. Cecilia Rio applies antiessentialist class theory to both economic and emotional labor within the domestic realm. The strands of meaning that both authors weave include class, race, gender, ethnicity, and psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is a brief reflection after the Rethinking Marxism conference book session onClass Struggle on the Home Front: Work, Conflict and Exploitation in the Household, edited by Graham Cassano (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Domestic labor has long been a major concern for feminist scholars seeking to understand both the causes of women's subordination and the collective well-being of industrialized societies. The importance of this essay collection lies in its use of New Marxian Class Analysis to consider persistent themes in feminist theory: the valorization of women's household labor, migration and labor market hierarchies, and the role of women's participation in the paid labor force. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sociopolitical control (SPC) has been identified as a critical component of empowerment, resilience and civic development among young people. Sociopolitical control has been assessed according to a two dimensional model: (1) leadership competence and (2) policy control. Very little is known, however, about heterogeneity of perceptions of SPC, how this heterogeneity is distributed across subpopulations, and how it may affect relationships between SPC and other variables. This study used a person-centered approach, latent class cluster analysis, to test items on a SPC scale for youth. Participants were high school students (n = 334) in the Northeastern United States. Four distinct groups of participants emerged: those with (1) exceptional SPC, (2) elevated SPC, (3) limited SPC, and (4) diminished policy control. Group differences were observed on a set of relevant variables including perceived school importance, tobacco use, bullying behaviors, and sense of community. Implications are discussed for policy, practice and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interview that follows revisits some of the theses developed by Alain Badiou concerning the revolts of the Arab Spring in his 2011 book Le Réveil de l'Histoire in light of subsequent events. The interview touches on a number of themes, including the relation between recent revolts and the on-going global economic crisis, and the way the reconfiguration of global value circuits impacts upon both tactical and strategic questions for rioters in Europe, North America and beyond. It also examines the way an analysis of the class composition of those involved in contemporary mass movements offers keys to understanding their failures and successes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a critique of Mike Savage's 'From the "problematic of the proletariat" to a class analysis of the "wealth elites"'. It first rejects the notion of the 'problematic of the proletariat' - the importance of a dividing line between the working and middle class - instead situating the argument within contemporary debates on class analysis. The critique introduces the broader context of neoliberalism and financialization, alongside a consideration of class globally. It stresses the importance of exploitation for understanding class and inequality, rather than moving to the notion of 'advantage', as proposed by Savage, which expels an understanding of power. While the focus on elites in class analysis is welcomed, it is argued that there is a continuing interdependence between classes and that race and gender must also be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introductory paper argues that it is vital to reorient class analysis away from its long term preoccupation with class boundaries in the middle levels of the class structure towards a focus on the class formation at the top. This will permit sociological analysis to engage more effectively with concerns about the '1 percent' and accentuating wealth which are increasingly evident. Accordingly I sketch out the persistence of the 'problematic of the proletariat' in sociological analysis before considering theoretical resources which might permit an engagement with the 'wealth elite'. This paper serves to introduce the other papers of this special issue which use the GBCS to explore different facets of the wealth elite in Britain today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Undergraduates in six groups of 10 attempted to form three 3-node 5-member equivalence classes (A→B→C→D→E) under the simultaneous protocol. In five of six groups, all stimuli were abstract shapes; in the PIC group, C stimuli were pictures with the remainder being abstract shapes. Before class formation, participants in the Identity-S and Identity-D groups were given preliminary training to form identity conditional discriminations with the C stimuli using simultaneous and 6 s delayed matching-to-sample procedures, respectively. In the Arbitrary-S and Arbitrary-D groups, before class formation, arbitrary conditional discriminations were formed between C and X stimuli using simultaneous and 6 s delayed matching-to-sample procedures, respectively. With no preliminary training, classes in the PIC and ABS groups were formed by 80% and 0% of participants, respectively. After preliminary training, class formation (yield) increased with delay, regardless of relational type. For each of the two delays, yield was slightly greater after forming arbitrary- instead of identity-relations. Yield was greatest, however, when a class contained a meaningful stimulus (PIC). During failed class formation, probes produced experimenter-defined relations, participant-defined relations, and unsystematic responding; delay, but not the relation type in preliminary training influenced relational and indeterminate responding. These results suggest how meaningful stimuli enhance equivalence class formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of 476 Spanish travelers found mixed interest and use for the many travel-related mobile internet services that are involved in planning and executing a trip. The findings indicate that these Spanish respondents can be classified into four segments based on the timing of using mobile apps for over a dozen activities involved in travel planning and execution: Savvies, Planners, Opportunists, and Low-techs. Each segment exhibits distinct patterns of mobile internet services usage. Savvies tend to be heavy mobile device users both before and during their trip, while Planners make heavy use of mobile devices in advance of but not during their trip. The Opportunists show a pattern opposite the Planners, and fire up their phones and pads when they arrive at a destination. Low-techs generally do not participate in the mobile internet. The respondents generally saw four benefits from mobile device use: ubiquity, immediacy, personalization, and information access, but the four groups ranked those benefits differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]