studying society : lecture 3

The reproduction of class

Outline

Measuring classSocial mobilityHealth inequalityRole of education

Measuring Class

• Very difficult

• Important for administrative reasons

• Last week we looked at 3 types of capital

• How might you measure each?• What else might be a useful and easy to capture measure of class?

Weber and Class

• Focus on status• ‘market situation’

• Multiple classes• Not all economic

• Contrast with Marx• “Mean Girls”

Measuring Class

National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC)

• Takes employment relations approach• Employer, self employed, employee• Supervisor, supervised • Level of self direction and independence

• Labour market situation equates to source of income, economic security and prospects of economic advancement.

• Recently changed (2001) to try and incorporate full population (ie students, non working etc.)

• Not ordinal (i.e. not a ranking)

National Statistics Socio-economic Classification

1 Higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations

  1.1 Large employers and higher managerial and administrative occupations

  1.2 Higher professional occupations

2 Lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations

3 Intermediate occupations

4 Small employers and own account workers

5 Lower supervisory and technical occupations

6 Semi-routine occupations

7 Routine occupations

8 Never worked and long-term unemployed

Distribution of wealth by class

Large employers and higher managerial

Higher professional

Lower managerial and professional

Intermediate occupations

Small employers and own account workers

Lower supervisory and technical

Semi-routine occupations

Routine occupations

Never worked/long term unemployed

0 10

0,0

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20

0,0

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30

0,0

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40

0,0

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50

0,0

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60

0,0

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70

0,0

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80

0,0

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Household wealth including pension wealth

Median Mean

Social Mobility

“Social mobility refers to the movement of people up or down the social class hierarchy” (Browne)

• Intra-generational – This is the extent to which somebody changes class within their lifetime

• [e.g. Cheryl Cole]

• Inter-generational – This is the extent to which offspring have changed status compared to their parents’ class

• [e.g. Margaret Thatcher ‘grocer’s daughter’]

Health Inequality

Age-standardised mortality rate: men aged 25-64, 2001-3

DFLE for males and females at birth 2005-8

Male Female

1 – Least deprived 69.3 70.3

2 66.6 68.5

3 65.1 65.9

4 62.1 63.4

5 – Most deprived 54.7 57.9

Why?

In groups think of as many reasons as you can to explain health inequalities

• Think about economic, social and cultural capital• + material differences• Differences in employment• Differences in neighbourhood

break

Education

Why have state education at all?

• More skilled workforce• Improve effectiveness of armies• Re-socialise the wasteful poor• Reduce the level of street crime• Reduce threat of revolution• Human right

Functionalist view of educationThe education system has three functions

1. Socialisation– Values, norms

2. Skills provision– Literacy, numeracy, I.T.?

3. Role allocation– Identify and reward talent

school as a factory

Marxist views on education

• Legitimate capitalist values as common values• Private property• Accept the current order

• Creates conformist working class• Uniform• Punctual• Obedient

• “Learning to Labour” – Willis• Ethnographic account of ‘earoles’ and ‘lads’• Rejection of dominant values, prepares ‘lads’ for working class world of

boring alienated labour

Attainment of at least 5 A*-C GCSEs

Higher professional Lower professional Intermediate Lower supervisory Routine Other0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Education Inequality (Class in HE)

1991/92 1992/93 1993/94 1994/95 1995/96 1996/97 1997/98 1998/99 1999/2000 2000/01 2001/02

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Manual

Non-manual

Why?

Think of possible reasons for this gap in attainment

• Economic capital• Social capital• Cultural capital• Other factors

Explanations• Economic capital

• Housing• Health/ diet• Lack of books/computer/ trips• Lack of support to stay on• Work during school• Catchment areas

• Social/ Cultural• Parental attitudes (about education and school)• Parental level of education• Language use (restricted/ elaborated)

• School factors• Labelling • Teachers’ attitudes• Anti-school subculture (Willis)

Who gets the best jobs?

BBC documentary

What are other barriers to social mobility?

Why does social mobility matter?

How does the use of interns help reproduce social class?

Summary

Problems with measuring class

Weber and social class

National Statistics measures

Class and education

Class and health

Reproduction of class