VALUE DIFFERENCES AND VALUE CONSENSUS BY SOCIOECONOMIC LEVELS.

The article focuses on value differences and value consensus by socioeconomic levels in the U.S. The study of values among classes has been concerned chiefly with discovering variations and describing them in a context of differentiation. In a study by one of the authors conducted in a midwestern city, value differences and differences in evaluating occupations were examined. Specifically, socioeconomic status and ethnicity were analyzed for their impact on health knowledge, values, and practices, with emphasis on discovering variations in values, one set consisting of 14 desiderata, the second set consisting of 14 occupations. Each was designed to contain at least one item directly related to health and medicine, with most of the items, however, referring to other institutional spheres. The paper is concerned specifically with analyzing the rankings of desiderata and of occupations in terms of value differences, value consensus, and variations in consensus by socio-economic status. It was hypothesized that differential degrees of consensus would be manifested depending on the nature of the objects. The occupational rankings represent an important status ordering, they are fairly well standardized and represent the kind of public information necessary for operating effectively in American society.