Socioeconomic Classification

3 Key excerpts on "Socioeconomic Classification"

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  Sociology

  • Anthony Giddens, Philip W. Sutton(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  social mobility – how far up or down the social scale it is possible to move – and how much mobility there is today. Other forms of stratification may be explored in the readings at the end of the chapter.

  For an extended discussion of schooling and the reproduction of inequalities, see chapter 16 , ‘Education’.

  Systems of stratification

  The concept of social stratification is used in sociology to describe structured inequalities between social groups within societies. Often we think of stratification in terms of assets or property, but it can be based on other attributes, such as gender, age, religious affiliation or military rank. Individuals and groups enjoy differential (unequal) access to rewards based on their position within the scheme. One way of thinking about this is to see stratification as similar to geological layering of rock in the Earth’s surface. Societies can be seen as consisting of ‘strata’ in a hierarchy, with the more favoured at the top and the less privileged nearer the bottom. All socially stratified systems of this kind share three basic characteristics.

  1. The rankings apply to social categories of people who share common characteristics without necessarily interacting or identifying with one another. For example, women may be ranked differently from men or wealthy people differently from the poor. Individuals from a particular category may move between ranks, but the category itself continues to exist.
  2. People’s life experiences and opportunities depend on the relative ranking of their social category. Being male or female, black or white, upper class or working class makes a big difference in terms of life chances – often as large as personal effort or good fortune.
  3. The ranks of social categories tend to change only slowly. In the industrialized societies, for example, women have begun to achieve equality with men in many spheres of life only recently.

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  Consumer Culture Theory

  • Eric J. Arnould, Craig J Thompson(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  In an age of great change that features increased geographic mobility, technological advances in production and consumption, faster fashion cycles, disruption to old industry and occupational types, more diverse lifestyle options, and breakdown of old left–right political allegiances, social roles, categories, and hierarchies can be disrupted, fragmented, and re-organized. For example, the forces of globalization, industrial automation, and corporate downsizing have radically transformed the nature of working-class and middle-class identities. However, these structural influences of social class remain firmly in place and continue to position people into hierarchies of distinctive class groups. Yet, we do acknowledge that the turbulence of change often disguises the underlying role of class in modern societies. In this chapter, we seek to illuminate the continuing relevance of social class.

  How Class Sets People Apart

  Systemic economic inequality sits at the heart of social class. Casual observation in daily life where we see people who are obviously either better off or worse off than ourselves, provides evidence of economic disparity. If you look at any major city you will find pockets of (dis)advantage where statistics reveal layer upon layer of inequality that ranges from family income, education, occupation, unemployment, and interestingly a large range of inequitable health outcomes. In particular, health statistics point to very different patterns of physical activity and dietary consumptions. They also point to different levels and types of stress experiences and ultimately differences in quality of life between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Inequality results in different lived experiences. News stories detailing an increasing gap between incomes of the rich and poor appear regularly in mass media. The disparity in life chances is usually attributed to income and wealth – and clearly this is a part of it.

  However, sociologists have long argued that structural conditions of advantage and disadvantage – that is, those that endure across generations – are normalized through social class. In other words, socialization in one’s social class leads individuals to believe that the conditions that lead to their experiences of relative advantage or disadvantage reflect their own personal preferences, choices, and tastes. For example, Allen (2002) studied the choice processes that lead working-class young adults to choose proprietary schools of commerce whose degrees offer little market value while their students also assumed considerable debt, via student loans, to pay tuition. Allen takes up Bourdieu’s metaphor of ‘feel for the game’ in describing the secure experience of everyday life within one’s class conditions. Allen shows that these students gravitate to these institutions because they feel exceedingly comfortable in these settings. The schools specifically cater to their desires for a homey, friendly environment. On the other hand, conventional college and university settings trigger their anxieties about feeling inferior to more academically advanced students and feeling intimidated by teachers and other authority figures. Allen describes these institutions as offering working-class students a seductive facsimile of higher education. They promise ‘an economical, quick, applied clerical training in a cordial, homey, and familial educational environment’ (Allen 2002: 523). They cater to the students’ class-based predispositions. Parsing these terms, ‘economical’ and ‘quick’ caters to a taste for necessity and the pragmatic goal of gaining educational credentials as quickly as possible in order to move on to the ‘real world’ of paid work. ‘Applied’ knowledge implies the mastery of practical, hands-on skills whose consequences can be immediately seen and appreciated, rather than playing with abstract concepts (an intellectual skill found to be one of the more intimidating aspects of conventional academic settings). And ‘cordial’ promises an accepting, non-judgmental setting which contrasts to these students’ prior feelings of being unable to measure up to the middle-class ‘teachers’ pets’ in their high school classes. Hence, the reproduction of these working-class students’ class disadvantage did not require any coercive acts on the part of more powerful societal actors. Rather, it is built into their socialization, their internalized (and naturalized) limits on their perceived horizons of possibility, and their collectively shared taste and preferences for certain kinds of educational experiences.

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  Social Class and Classism in the Helping Professions

  Research, Theory, and Practice

  • William Ming Liu(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Besides analyzing the data, the final step would be to contextualize the social class-related data. Contextualizing the data means the researcher should provide social class data about the population being studied (e.g., income, education, occupation) and the locale in which the study is taking place (e.g., the annual income of people in that community). Contextualizing the study also means providing social class data about participants in other relevant studies. Is this current study’s population higher, lower, or within a reasonable standard deviation in comparison to other study participants? I offer these considerations not as an exhaustive list but to provide a place for researchers and other helping professionals to understand how social class may be better used and integrated into research.

  Appendix A

  Social class and classism terms in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Counseling and Development, and the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, years 1981–2000.

  academic success academically disadvantaged adequate financial resources adequate financial sources adequate income administrative jobs affluent suburb affluent/more affluent annual income average yearly income bachelor or advanced degree better educated Black middle class blue collar broad socioeconomic range cannot find employment career and achievement career identification class and status variables class-distinctions class education class elitism class factors class income class occupation class populations class privilege class respect class-conscious class-economic status

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