The Rise of Professional Society lays out a stimulating and controversial framework for the study of British society, challenging accepted paradigms based on class analysis. Perkins argues that the ...non-capitalist "professional class" represents a new principle of social organization based on trained expertise and meritocracy, a "forgotten middle class" conveniently overlooked by classical social theorists.
'A true magnum opus. No social historian can afford not to read it.' – Asa Briggs 'Accessible to the general reader, indispensable to the scholar and a solid achievement of synthesis and clarity.' – The Observer
Social class in Europe Rose, David; Harrison, Eric; Pevalin, David ...
2009, 2010, 20140404, 2009-10-22, 2014-04-04, 20090101, Volume:
10
eBook, Book
This timely volume introduces a new social class schema, the European Socio-economic Classification (ESeC), which has been specifically developed and tested for use in EU comparative research. Social ...Class in Europe aims to introduce researchers to the new classification and its research potential. Since socio-economic classifications are so widely used in official and academic research, this collection is essential reading for all users of both government and academic social classifications. While primarily aimed at researchers who will be using the ESeC, the book's contents will also have a wider appeal as it is suitable for students taking substantive courses in European studies or as a supplementary text for undergraduates studying the EU, Sociology and Economics. Because of its inherent methodological interest, the book should prove a valuable tool for undergraduate and graduate courses that discuss how social scientists construct and validate basic measures. It will also be required reading for policy makers and analysts concerned with social inequality and social exclusion across Europe.
Castes of mind Dirks, Nicholas B
2001., 20111009, 2011, 2001, 2002-01-01
eBook
When thinking of India, it is hard not to think of caste. In academic and common parlance alike, caste has become a central symbol for India, marking it as fundamentally different from other places ...while expressing its essence. Nicholas Dirks argues that caste is, in fact, neither an unchanged survival of ancient India nor a single system that reflects a core cultural value. Rather than a basic expression of Indian tradition, caste is a modern phenomenon--the product of a concrete historical encounter between India and British colonial rule. Dirks does not contend that caste was invented by the British. But under British domination caste did become a single term capable of naming and above all subsuming India's diverse forms of social identity and organization.
Are social classes meaningful to Americans? The question has attracted popular and scholarly debate since the founding of the Republic. The Jackmans offer a new perspective on the debate by analyzing ...popular conceptions of social class. Mary and Robert Jackman assert that the meaning and reality of class cannot be evaluated without attention to its place in public awareness, and they draw on national survey to examine the willingness of Americans to identify with one of five social classes, ranging from the poor to the upper class. What meanings do people attache to these classes? Do classes have emotional significance? Why do some think of themselvs as working class, while other consider themselves middle class? Do blacks and whites, women and men process class cues in the same way? How do people's social environments influence their class awareness? What are the social and political implications of class? The evidence in this book indicates that class is an important part of American social life. Classes form a graded series of status groups that are assembled from configurations of socioeconomic criteria. They are not rigidly bounded, but these groups reflet emotionally significant social communities that command affiliation. Although American electoral politics has failed to provide more than limited expression of class issues, this important work makes clear tha at the grassroots leve, there is a pervasive awareness of social class. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.
This important book takes readers behind the closed doors of elite employers to reveal how class affects who gets to the top. Drawing on two hundred interviews across four case studies - television, ...accountancy, architecture, and acting - it explores the complex barriers facing the upwardly mobile.
The Moral Significance of Class, first published in 2005, analyses the moral aspects of people's experience of class inequalities. Class affects not only our material wealth but our access to things, ...relationships, and practices which we have reason to value, including the esteem or respect of others and hence our sense of self-worth. It shapes the kind of people we become and our chances of living a fulfilling life. Yet contemporary culture is increasingly 'in denial' about class, finding it embarrassing to acknowledge, even though it can often be blatantly obvious. By drawing upon concepts from moral philosophy and social theory and applying them to empirical studies of class, this fascinating and accessible study shows how people are valued in a context in which their life-chances and achievements are objectively affected by the lottery of birth class, and by forces which have little to do with their moral qualities or other merits.
The United States was founded on the principle of equal opportunity for all, and this ethos continues to inform the nation’s collective identity. In reality, however, absolute equality is elusive. ...The gap between rich and poor has widened in recent decades, and the United States has the highest level of economic inequality of any developed country. Social class and other differences in status reverberate throughout American life, and prejudice based on another’s perceived status persists among individuals and groups. In Envy Up, Scorn Down, noted social psychologist Susan Fiske examines the psychological underpinnings of interpersonal and intergroup comparisons, exploring why we compare ourselves to those both above and below us and analyzing the social consequences of such comparisons in day-to-day life. What motivates individuals, groups, and cultures to envy the status of some and scorn the status of others? Who experiences envy and scorn most? Envy Up, Scorn Down marshals a wealth of recent psychological studies as well as findings based on years of Fiske’s own research to address such questions. She shows that both envy and scorn have distinctive biological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral characteristics. And though we are all “wired” for comparison, some individuals are more vulnerable to these motives than others. Dominant personalities, for example, express envy toward high-status groups such as the wealthy and well-educated, and insecurity can lead others to scorn those perceived to have lower status, such as women, minorities, or the disabled. Fiske shows that one’s race or ethnicity, gender, and education all correlate with perceived status. Regardless of whether one is accorded higher or lower status, however, all groups rank their members, and all societies rank the various groups within them. We rate each group as either friend or foe, able or unable, and accordingly assign them the traits of warmth or competence. The majority of groups in the United States are ranked either warm or competent but not both, with extreme exceptions: the homeless or the very poor are considered neither warm nor competent. Societies across the globe view older people as warm but incompetent. Conversely, the very rich are generally considered cold but highly competent. Envy Up, Scorn Down explores the nuances of status hierarchies and their consequences and shows that such prejudice in its most virulent form dehumanizes and can lead to devastating outcomes—from the scornful neglect of the homeless to the envious anger historically directed at Tutsis in Rwanda or Jews in Europe. Individuals, groups, and even cultures will always make comparisons between and among themselves. Envy Up, Scorn Down is an accessible and insightful examination of drives we all share and the prejudice that can accompany comparison. The book deftly shows that understanding envy and scorn—and seeking to mitigate their effects—can prove invaluable to our lives, our relationships, and our society.
One of the most significant events in European politics the past two decades is the emergence of radical right-wing parties, mobilizing against immigration and multiethnic societies. Such parties ...have established themselves in a large number of countries, often with voter shares exceeding ten and sometimes even twenty percent. Many of these parties exert a real influence on the policy within respective country.
The emergence of the recent wave of radical right-wing party politics has generated a large and growing literature, spanning a variety of dimensions-such as ideology, voting, and policy impact. This volume will cover all these dimensions, but it will in particular focus on two questions: why is it that the working class tends to be especially attracted by the radical right-wing parties? And what does the radical right-wing parties growing electoral successes mean for Social Democracy and the traditional left in Europe, which are meeting growing competition from the radical right over working class voters? Bringing together the leading scholars within this field, this book makes a unique contribution by focusing on the relationship between class politics and the radical right.
How the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite, and how their consumer habits affect us all
In today's world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined ...by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption-like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and TOMS shoes, and listening to theSerialpodcast. They use their purchasing power to hire nannies and housekeepers, to cultivate their children's growth, and to practice yoga and Pilates. InThe Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society "the aspirational class" and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class reproduces wealth and upward mobility, deepening the ever-wider class divide.
Exploring the rise of the aspirational class, Currid-Halkett considers how much has changed since the 1899 publication of Thorstein Veblen'sTheory of the Leisure Class. In that inflammatory classic, which coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption," Veblen described upper-class frivolities: men who used walking sticks for show, and women who bought silver flatware despite the effectiveness of cheaper aluminum utensils. Now, Currid-Halkett argues, the power of material goods as symbols of social position has diminished due to their accessibility. As a result, the aspirational class has altered its consumer habits away from overt materialism to more subtle expenditures that reveal status and knowledge. And these transformations influence how we all make choices.
With a rich narrative and extensive interviews and research,The Sum of Small Thingsillustrates how cultural capital leads to lifestyle shifts and what this forecasts, not just for the aspirational class but for everyone.
Illuminating the class issues that shaped the racial uplift movement, Toure Reed explores the ideology and policies of the national, New York, and Chicago Urban Leagues during the first half of the ...twentieth century. Reed argues that racial uplift in the Urban League reflected many of the class biases pervading contemporaneous social reform movements, resulting in an emphasis on behavioral, rather than structural, remedies to the disadvantages faced by Afro-Americans.Reed traces the Urban League's ideology to the famed Chicago School of Sociology. The Chicago School offered Leaguers powerful scientific tools with which to foil the thrust of eugenics. However, Reed argues, concepts such as ethnic cycle and social disorganization and reorganization led the League to embrace behavioral models of uplift that reflected a deep circumspection about poor Afro-Americans and fostered a preoccupation with the needs of middle-class blacks. According to Reed, the League's reform endeavors from the migration era through World War II oscillated between projects to "adjust" or even "contain" unacculturated Afro-Americans and projects intended to enhance the status of the Afro-American middle class. Reed's analysis complicates the mainstream account of how particular class concerns and ideological influences shaped the League's vision of group advancement as well as the consequences of its endeavors.
