The social scientific analysis of social class is attracting renewed interest given the accentuation of economic and social inequalities throughout the world. The most widely validated measure of ...social class, the Nuffield class schema, developed in the 1970s, was codified in the UK's National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) and places people in one of seven main classes according to their occupation and employment status. This principally distinguishes between people working in routine or semi-routine occupations employed on a 'labour contract' on the one hand, and those working in professional or managerial occupations employed on a 'service contract' on the other. However, this occupationally based class schema does not effectively capture the role of social and cultural processes in generating class divisions. We analyse the largest survey of social class ever conducted in the UK, the BBC's 2011 Great British Class Survey, with 161,400 web respondents, as well as a nationally representative sample survey, which includes unusually detailed questions asked on social, cultural and economic capital. Using latent class analysis on these variables, we derive seven classes. We demonstrate the existence of an 'elite', whose wealth separates them from an established middle class, as well as a class of technical experts and a class of 'new affluent' workers. We also show that at the lower levels of the class structure, alongside an ageing traditional working class, there is a 'precariat' characterised by very low levels of capital, and a group of emergent service workers. We think that this new seven class model recognises both social polarisation in British society and class fragmentation in its middle layers, and will attract enormous interest from a wide social scientific community in offering an up-to-date multi-dimensional model of social class.
Who you know: The classed structure of social capital Alecu, Andreea; Helland, Håvard; Hjellbrekke, Johs ...
The British journal of sociology,
June 2022, 2022-Jun-01, 2022-06-00, 20220601, Letnik:
73, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This article focuses on the social structuring of social capital, understood as resources embedded in social networks. The analysis integrates key theoretical–methodological insights from two ...distinct approaches concerned with social capital and inequality: the position‐generator approach associated with Nan Lin and the spatial approach associated with Pierre Bourdieu. Empirically, we exploit the possibilities of survey data containing detailed information about the social ties of a representative sample of the Norwegian adult population (N = 4007). By means of Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), we construct a space of social ties, a spatial representation of systematic similarities and differences between individuals' social ties to a set of 33 occupational positions. In this space, social capital is structured according to two primary dimensions: (i) the level of social ties, in terms of individuals' number of contacts; and (ii), the quality of social ties, in terms of a division between being connected to others in high‐status positions and others in low‐status positions. By means of Ascending Hierarchical Cluster analysis, five clusters are identified within the space of social ties: a homogenous working‐class cluster, a well‐connected working‐class cluster, a cluster of high‐status ties, a homogenous high‐status cluster and a low‐volume cluster. Moreover, the analysis clearly indicates that the structure of social capital is connected to respondents' class positions, their volumes of cultural and economic capital and their class origin. The analysis thus draws attention to the role of social capital in processes of social closure, regarding both resource monopolization and class formation.
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.
This article presents results from the national survey conducted in 2018 for the project
Research Integrity in Norway
(RINO). A total of 31,206 questionnaires were sent out to Norwegian researchers ...by e-mail, and 7291 responses were obtained. In this paper, we analyse the survey data to determine attitudes towards and the prevalence of fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP) and contrast this with attitudes towards and the prevalence of the more questionable research practices (QRPs) surveyed. Our results show a relatively low percentage of self-reported FFPs (0.2–0.3%), while the number of researchers who report having committed one of the QRPs during the last three years reached a troublesome 40%. The article also presents a ranking of the perceived severity of FFP and QRPs among Norwegian researchers. Overall, there is a widespread normative consensus, where FFP is considered more troublesome than QRPs.
Maktutgreiingar har vore noko av eit sær-skandinavisk fenomen, med eigneutgreiingar i både Noreg (1972-82 og 1997-2003), Sverige (1985-1990) ogDanmark (1997-2003).1I alle desse prosjekta har koplinga ...mellom makt ogdemokrati stått sentralt. Korleis er vilkåra for demokratiet? På kva måtar vertdemokratiet og demokratisk deltaking utfordra av t.d. asymmetriske maktrelasjonar, institusjonelle endringar, ny teknologi og globalisering? Kva er tilstanden for demokratiet i dag? Hovudfokuset i alle desse utgreiingane kanderfor seiast å ha vore på vilkåra for utøvinga av politisk makt.
In this article, we present an alternative approach to study dimensional stability and change in cultural divisions across time. Drawing on recent developments in Geometric Data Analysis (GDA), we ...combine the use of two distinct statistical techniques: Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Class Specific MCA (CSA). Specifically, the approach allows for the systematic investigation of three key aspects: (i) whether and how the dimensionality and the structure of primary axes of geometrical spaces have been stable or subject to change; (ii) how the oppositions depicted by the axes of such spaces have become weaker or stronger; and (iii), how the connection between cultural divisions and class divisions has developed over time. Our exemplary case is Norway and the data stem from five different rounds of The Culture and Media Survey, conducted by Statistics Norway between 2000 and 2016.
This essay examines how the contemporary city is being redefined as a fundamental crucible in which new and emerging modes of cultural capital are being forged. Drawing inspiration from the links ...Bourdieu draws between physical and social space, we use comprehensive quantitative surveys from Belgium and the UK to explore the accelerating interplay between large urban centres and the generation of ‘cosmopolitan cultural capital’. We show a close association between urban sites and the location of residents with new kinds of emerging cultural capital. This appreciation allows us to understand the increasing prominence of large metropolitan centres, which stand in growing tension with their suburban and rural hinterlands. This process is simultaneously cultural, economic, social and political and marks a remaking of the nature of cultural hierarchy and cultural capital itself, away from the older model of the Kantian aesthetic, as elaborated by Bourdieu in Distinction, which venerates a ‘highbrow’ aesthetic removed from everyday life, towards ‘emerging’ forms of cultural capital that valorize activity, engagement and intense forms of contemporary cultural activity.
Abstract It is well evidenced that South Africa is characterised by extreme socioeconomic inequality, which is strongly racialised. We offer an original sociological perspective, which departs from ...established perspectives considering the dynamics of vulnerability and poverty to focus on the structuring of classed and racialised privilege. We map how stocks of economic, cultural, and social capital intersect to generate systematic and structural inequalities in the country and consider how far these are associated with fundamental racial divides. To achieve this, we utilise rich, nationally representative data from the National Income Dynamics Study and employ Multiple Correspondence Analysis to construct a model of South African ‘social space’. Our findings underscore how entrenched racial divisions remain within South Africa, with White people being overwhelmingly located in the most privileged positions. However, our cluster analysis also indicates that forms of middle‐class privilege percolate beyond a core of the 8% of the population that is white. We emphasise how age divisions are associated with social capital accumulation. Our cluster analysis reveals that trust levels increase with economic and cultural capital levels within younger age groups and could therefore come to intensify social and racial divisions.
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