Inequalities Related To Social Class

Front 1

Meritocracy (F)

Back 1

The most talented and able reaping the highest rewards

Front 2

Davis and Moore 1945 (F)

Back 2

suggest that pay is related to talent, and that there is general agreement that the most important jobs are secured by the most able individuals who are paid appropriately high wages.

Hint 2

pay is related to talent

Front 3

Consensus (F)
:(

Back 3

Agreement

Front 4

Tumin 1963 (F)
:(

Back 4

raises questions about what is meant by functionally important’ roles within a social system

Hint 4

functionally important’ roles?

Front 5

Saunders 1994 (F)
:)

Back 5

Saunders (1994), a new right theory suggests that an individual’s class position was largely a product of their talent and hard work (meritocracy). He rejected the SAD thesis- the idea that social advantaged and disadvantages (SAD) explains a strong link between an individual social class origin and destination

Hint 5

meritocracy and SAD

Front 6

Green and Goldthorpe 1999 (F)
:(

Back 6

Suggested that Saunders’ work was both misleading and biased.

Front 7

Braverman, 1974 (M)

Back 7

The middle class is a transitory class that will disappear in time as society polarises into rich and poor; rulers and the rules. The middle class will either rise of fall. Most will fall into proletariat as their jobs becomes deskilled

Hint 7

Middle class will fall

Front 8

Wright 1997 (N)

Back 8

The middle class is a permanent feature of society where they can both be the exploiter and the exploited

e.g. they own small business in which they exploit their employees through low wages. However, he middle class get exploited by the government- do not receive benefits but get taxed on things which other do no t e.g. mansion tax

Hint 8

exploiter and the exploited

Front 9

Mansion tax

Back 9

a tax that has to be paid by anyone who owns or sells a house that is worth a very large amount of money

Front 10

Sorenson 2000 (N)

Back 10

The proletariat do not ‘sell’ their labour to the bourgeoisie anymore, they now ‘rent it out’. This means wages can change depending on the skill level of the worker and the current economic climate

e.g. in retail, wages can increase after receiving more training and moving levels. In ‘Dorothy Perkins, a sales advisor can have a standard level of training or an advanced.

Hint 10

sell/rent labour

Front 11

Seabrook 1998 (N)

Back 11

calls the proletariat the ‘new servant class’, serving middle and upper class taste and lifestyle

e.g. the working class now enjoy similar lifestyles such as going to the theatre

Hint 11

new servant clas

Front 12

Market situation (N)

Back 12

comes from the amount of money received (largely income related)

Front 13

Work situation

Back 13

comes from the conditions of service e.g. hours work, benefits, status of employment etc

Front 14

Pakulski and Waters (1996 (P)

Back 14

class is dead and it’s dead because of globalisation and the fact that we are now living in an individualised society

Hint 14

class is dead!

Front 15

Globalisation

Back 15

movement

Front 16

Individualised society (P)

Back 16

people no longer refer to themselves as being part of a particular social class

Front 17

Tri-level class sturcutre

Back 17

Upper, middle and working

Front 18

Cultural reproduction

Back 18

The transmission of existing cultural values and norms from generation to generation

For Marxists, this indicated cultural reproduction- where the advantaged in society could safeguard their position as the disadvantaged could not break free from oppression and exploitation

Front 19

lumpen proletariat (M)

Back 19

underclass

Front 20

Bell 1973

Back 20

we are not in a post-industrial society where knowledge and information technology is important globally

Hint 20

knowledge and information

Front 21

Knowledge class

Back 21

where what you know is more important than who you know.

This has also contributed to the blurring of class boundaries and increased social mobility.

Hint 21

what rather than who

Front 22

Mount 2004

Back 22

argues that the divide between the rich and poor has grown and suggests that the ‘Uppers’ have gained significantly while the ‘Downers’ have been left to suffer

Hint 22

Uppers and Downers

Front 23

Uppers

Back 23

Rich

Front 24

Downers

Back 24

Poor

Front 25

Cannadine 1999

Back 25

argues that the UK social classes were never culturally homogenous and that the tri-level class structure and clear class cultures are historically inaccurate

Hint 25

social classes are not homogenous

Front 26

Homogenous

Back 26

Of the same kind; alike

Front 27

Pakulski and Water 1996

Back 27

the concept of social class is no longer relevant in contemporary societies.

Hint 27

social class not relevant in contemporary societies

Front 28

vast gulf

Back 28

large disconnect

there's a large disconnect between the rich and poor

Front 29

legitimate

Back 29

make law

Front 30

Scott 1991(UC)

Back 30

argues that the UK still has a ruling class but it has changed and is divided into a number of fractions.

An important division is between those with large economics holdings and the directorships of multi-national companies compared to those with small economic companies or a small stake through shareholding e.g. Sir Alan Sugar and Mark Zuckerberg

Hint 30

still a ruling class but has changed

Front 31

Miliband, 1969 (M)

Back 31

the state is a tool of the ruling class, used to control ideas in society

Hint 31

state is a tool

Front 32

Goldthorpe et al 1980 (W)

Back 32

disagrees that the upper class still exists. They believe that the ‘old rich’ who gain their wealth and status from property are so insignificant in number that they should not be considered as a meaningful category in their own right.

They believe the upper class as changed and its power and status has been diluted.

Hint 32

Upper class are small in number

Front 33

old rich

Back 33

People who gain their wealth and status from property

Front 34

Cultural capital (UC)

Back 34

forms of knowledge, skill, education or any advantages a person has which gives them a higher status in society.

Front 35

Divine (2005 (MC)

Back 35

carried out 50 unstructured interviews with doctors and teachers in Manchester.

Divine suggest that they felt uneasy using the label of class, as they feared being perceived as being superior to others

Hint 35

don't want to label themselves as middle class

Front 36

The Future Foundation (2006 (MC)

Back 36

Using questionnaire asked people ‘Which social class do you belong to?’ They found that 43% said middle, 53% said working and 1% said upper.

They predicted by 2020, the UK will mainly be a middle class society.

However, they suggest that the UK is already a middle class due to factors such as:
mass wealth (more people are getting richer),
changing distribution of wealth through property ownership, changing nature of employment (growth of service sector) and social mobility.

Front 37

Service sector

Back 37

activities where people offer their knowledge and time to improve productivity, e.g. government, education, banking

Front 38

Polarised

Back 38

the process whereby a social group is divided into two opposing sub-groups

Front 39

Goldthrope et, 1980 (MC)
:)

Back 39

the existence of employees in the service class (higher and lower grade) and occupations such as routine managerial and white-collar jobs suggest strongly that Marxist was incorrect in his predictor that the middle class will disappear

Hint 39

white-collar jobs

Front 40

Future Foundation, 2006

Back 40

in 2005, the UK average earnings were £22,900. For those in working class, it was £20,500 and those in the middle, it was £25,5000

Hint 40

average earnings

Front 41

Wright 1997 (N, MC)

Back 41

argued that the middle class occupy a conflicting class location; tied to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

They are able to exercise some control over production but ultimately are not involved in key decision-making processes; they are at one the controlled and the controllers.

Hint 41

conflicting class location

Front 42

Roberts et al 1977 (MC)

Back 42

showed how the middle classes have divided into different groups.

Roberts uses the concept of fragmentation to describe the divisions within the middle class into different sections- some hold a clear image of themselves as middle class while other like routine white-collar workers define themselves as working class despise the fact that NSSEC places them in the middle ranks.

Hint 42

middle class are divided

Front 43

Fragmentation

Back 43

split identities

Front 44

Savagae et al 1992 (W, MC)

Back 44

differentiate between different types of middle class identities and lifestyles.

They concluded that middle class is split into public sector professionals (working health, education, welfare) and private sectors entrepreneurs (whose incomes were considerably higher than their public-sector counterparts)

Hint 44

public and private sector

Front 45

Economic position

Back 45

The primary sector- part of the economy that produces raw materials, such as crude oil, timber, grain, or cotton.

The secondary sector,- made up of mills and factories, turns the raw materials into manufactured goods, like fuel, lumber, flour, or fabric.

The tertiary sector- services rather than goods, and includes distribution of manufactured goods, food and hospitality services, banking, sales, and professional services like architects, physicians, and attorneys.

Front 46

Willis (1977 (WC)

Back 46

Life in traditional working-class communities are based around shared culture where jobs were based in manual and unskilled labour.

Families were based largely around traditional gender roles and children were encouraged to follow in their parents’ footstep, indicating a form of cultural reproduction.

This led to strong community based on unity, solidarity and togetherness, where a ‘them and us’ attitude existed, with worker distrusting their employer’s intentions.

Hint 46

solidarity

Front 47

solidarity

Back 47

unity, harmony

Front 48

Savage et al 2005 (WC)

Back 48

carried out 50 unstructured interviews with people who lived in Cheadle in Manchester.

They found a strong culture of manual labour. The area had a ‘practical flavour’ where many of the men were employed in the physical or manual jobs. Half of the men interviewed belonged to a local social club, which formed the basis of their social life and leisure activities, showing a culture of collectivism.

The women organised their social lives around local families or contacts in the areas.

However, most of the interviewees did not work locally and had to travel to work. Most were home owners, owned cars and has access to consumer goods.

This study suggests that the working class may have changed, but it has not disappeared.

Hint 48

Manchester- hasn't disappeared

Front 49

Embourgeoisement theory

Back 49

Weberian based with Goldthorpe (1968)

Embourgeoisement is the process through which the working class becomes more like the middle class by achieving relatively comfortable levels of financial security and material well-being.

Front 50

Goldthorpe (1968) (embour)

Back 50

The research compared findings of class position of a group of manual workers who lived and worked in Luton (1960’s) compared to the class position of a group of routine white-collar workers living in the same area.

Goldthorpe argued that if the class position of the manual workers compared favourable to that of the non-manual workers, it could be presumed that Britain had a growing middle class; with evidence of embourgeosiement taking place

The research found that the manual workers were not clones of the middle class; they had an active attitude to work where work was a means to an end rather than an end in itself and they were leading increasingly privatised lifestyles where the solidarity of the working-class past was being replaced by a culture of individualism. They shared similar work situation to the non-manual works but did not have similar market situation.

Goldthorpe concluded that the process of embourgeosiement was not occurring the UK, although there was evidence of an emerging rich worker who may be part of a changing working class.

Hint 50

Luton research

Front 51

a means to an end

Back 51

when something you are doing (work) is not as important to you as what you hope to achieve by doing it (in this case, probably money). Whoever says this does not really enjoy their job in itself, it is a job they are just doing to earn some money.

Front 52

Work situaton

Back 52

?

Front 53

Market situation

Back 53

?

Front 54

Consumer conscious

Back 54

purchasing products and services produced responsibly.

Responsible production can encompass a range of social and environmental factors, such as ensuring labour practices are fair or that products are produced with the aim of minimizing environmental impacts

Front 55

Devine 1992 (embourg)
:(

Back 55

Repeated the study in a different area of the south east and found less evidence of embourgeosiement than Goldthorpe.

The manual workers in her study were not leading privatised lives but were becoming more consumer conscious. They still displayed collectivist values and believed that society should be more equal

Hint 55

Repeated Goldthorpe's study

Front 56

The Future Foundation 2006 (embourg)
:(

Back 56

study suggests a more muddled picture with the boundaries between working and middle class being blurred

Hint 56

blurring boundaries

Front 57

Proletarianisation theory

Back 57

Marxist based with Braverman (1974)

social process whereby people move from being either an employer, unemployed or self-employed, to being employed as wage labor by an employer. In Marxist theory,

Proletarianisation is often seen as the most important form of downward social mobility.

Front 58

alienated

Back 58

isolated

Front 59

Gaillie 1994 (prolet)
:(

Back 59

'Upskilling' which appears to be a product of the information age

Hint 59

upskilling

Front 60

Future Foundation 2006 (prolet)
:(

Back 60

study predicts that by 2020, the UK will be a predominantly middle-class society both subjectively and objectively.

Hint 60

UK will mainly be middle class

Front 61

Shop-floor culture

Back 61

the part of a factory housing the machines and men directly involved in production

Front 62

Surrigde, 2007

Back 62

Elements of a class consciousness related to workplace attitudes and practices

Hint 62

class consciousness

Front 63

Thiel 2007

Back 63

Spent a year carrying out a participant observation study of builders on a construction site in central London.

He found masculine practices that were very similar to the ‘shop-floor culture’ observed in many earlier sociological studies of working-class life.

At work, the builders were characterised by general game-playing such as ‘having a crack’, ‘piss-taking’ and conflict with those in authority.

It was a culture that spread out from the workplace into leisure activities where talk of working hard, playing hard, drinking hard and fighting hard were dominant in the men’s conversation.

Thiel shows how class and gender cannot be separated when exploring social behavior

Hint 63

class and gender