Social Class in the 21st Century (Pelican Books)

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Today’s households are more complex and diverse, and definitions of professions and what constitutes a ‘high-earning career’ have changed significantly so that there is no longer a direct correlation between traditional professions and income levels. Daniel Holman and Erica Borgstrom. Applying social theory to underst and health-related behaviours. Med Humanities 2016 ; 42 : 2 143 – 145

review: Do you think class divisions are now more apparent geographically than they ever have been? It seems like there’s a massive concentration of the upper classes in your schema in London.These classifications segment by income levels and occupation and are still widely used by the market research industry to define market sectors. Mike Savage ( @MikeSav47032563)is Martin White Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the International Inequalities Institute at LSE. Established middle class (25%) – This is the most gregarious and the second wealthiest of all the class groups. They work in traditional professions and socialise with a wide variety of people, and take part in a wide variety of cultural activities. Halford, Susan; Savage, Mike; Witz, Anne (eds.) (1997). Gender, Careers and Organizations: Current Developments in Banking, Nursing and Local Government. London: Macmillan. Savage: The idea of capital for Bourdieu is that you have capital if that capital can convey advantages vis a vis other people. So if you’ve got a certain kind of capital, you are put in a position in which you are advantaged, and those advantages can be accumulated and passed on. And obviously we know about economic capital, we know that people with more money have got more advantages. You can convert economic capital into a better quality of life. But Bourdieu was very important in saying that it’s not just a matter of money, though money is crucial.

John Harley Warner. The humanising power of medical history: responses to biomedicine in the 20th century United States. Med Humanities 2011 ; 37 : 2 91 – 96 Class distinctions in England have always been the matter for higher feeling than national honour, the matter of feverish but very private debate”, wrote Evelyn Waugh. In the 1950s, talk of class was off-limits in polite society, yet now this discussion has moved resolutely into the public domain. In 2011, more than 300,000 people volunteered to find out the ‘class’ in which they belonged by taking part in the BBC’s ‘Great British Class Survey’, the results of which provide the majority of data for Mike Savage and his team of sociological experts’ fascinating book. In a meticulous breakdown of the financial, geographical and social strata of the participants, Savage and his collaborators argue that class differences are alive and well in modern Britain and that they are are linked not only to people’s financial standing, but the interests and relationships of their broader everyday lives as well. Paul Wakeling ( @pbjwakeling) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of York.Despite controversies over the theory of class, there is general agreement among social scientists on the characteristics of the principal social classes in modern societies. Sociologists generally posit three classes: upper, working (or lower), and middle. Savage: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. There is this belief that education would get rid of class divisions and allow people with the right talents to get the right educational outcomes. But in fact what’s happened is that as education has become more competitive (it’s more difficult to get into the top universities, and more important to do well at school), only a few people can get into Oxford and Cambridge, to give an example – and it’s those people who can mobilise all their advantages who are best placed to do that. So if you can mobilise private tutors, if you can mobilise parents who are very supportive with a huge house so you can study undisturbed without being stressed by the TV, and if you go to the best school and know the right friends who know the tips on to how to get into Oxford and Cambridge, you’re more likely to get in. So a competitive education system allows those people with the most advantages to do well. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy – it’s not as if the elite are trying to keep top educational institutions for their own kind (though that occasionally happens); it’s more just that the most advantaged people will tend to do well. And what we’re also seeing in the UK, and we’ve seen this over a number of decades now, is that as the proportion of people going to university is increasing, so the higher-education system is getting differentiated between elite universities and less elite ones. And so it doesn’t just matter that you went to university and got a degree, it also matters which university you went to. Did you go to a Russell Group or Oxbridge? And if you did go to one of those elite universities, the chances of you getting a job are significantly raised. Marxists however have never sought to reduce class to a static set of occupations. Rather class is rooted in the way the production of wealth is organised through exploitation. Savage dismisses the whole notion of exploitation with an unsatisfactory wave of the hand as “moralistic”. But this means that while the authors focus on how the elite reproduce and legitimise themselves they never ask how they gain their wealth in the first place. The emphasis is on class reproduction not class formation.

Claire Hooker and Estelle Noonan. Medical humanities as expressive of Western culture. Med Humanities 2011 ; 37 : 2 79 – 84 Hanquinet, Laurie; Savage, Mike (eds.) (2016). Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Art and Culture. Abingdon: Routledge.Economic capital: The value of your home, whether you rent, your household income, what savings do you have.

Elite (6%) – This is the wealthiest and most privileged group in the UK. They went to private school and elite universities and enjoy high cultural activities such as listening to classical music and going to the opera. Savage, Mike; Warde, Alan (1993). Urban Sociology, Capitalism and Modernity (1sted.). Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0333491638. Seven new ‘classes’ are established, ranging from the elite and new affluent workers to the traditional working class and, finally, the ‘precariat’ (a term borrowed from Guy Standing’s concept of a ‘precarious proletariat’ which, it is claimed, reflects the perilous situation of the least privileged rather than stigmatising them with a label such as ‘underclass’). Also brought to the forefront is the oft-overlooked truth that most capital – financial, social, or otherwise – is inherited and accumulated over generations. Popular anomalies such as Richard Branson, Alan Sugar or Philip Green should be ignored, ‘regarded as somewhat mythical creatures’. The book’s most striking conclusions come from the author’s assessment of the current state of the disaffected and neglected precariat and the British university system, which essentially amounts to a denouncement of “the competitive, capitalist, neoliberal market system” itself. The power of Savage’s evidence and the force of his argument will leave even the most die-hard advocate of meritocracy unsettled. Cultural capital: The type and range of interests you pursue: from visiting stately homes to attending rave parties.Savage: Indeed, it’s a very important point. Class divisions have always been geographical, of course. We’ve always tended to think about the working class being in the north of England and the elite being southern-based. The people with the most resources and the most money and the nicest houses do indeed tend to be living in London or near London. However, you don’t get to be a member of the new elite by going to any old former poly, or even a Russell Group university. If you want to make lots of money – lots more than almost everyone else in the country – you have to go to Oxford, King’s College London or Imperial College, then get a job in London. Devine, Fiona; Savage, Mike; Scott, John; Crompton, Rosemary (2005). Rethinking class: culture, identities and lifestyles. Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0333968956. Savage, Mike (2010). Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940: The Politics of Method. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199587650. Social capital: The kinds of people, and the range of the kinds of people you know: have you an aristocrat friend, has one of your friends never worked?