Social class
- Created by: holly6901
- Created on: 31-12-19 09:33
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- Social class
- Upper class
- Traditionally wealthy
- Often in the form of land
- Social closure: The leisure time and daily lives are seperate from the rest of the population
- This group is waning in number
- The new super rich is based on achievement rather than ascribed status
- Traditionally wealthy
- Middle class
- Seen as the majority of the population by many
- Associated with professionals or those who run businesses
- likely to have gone to university and own their own homes
- These characteristics are more achievable
- Very diverse group with a range of lifestyles
- Big difference between public sector workers and private sector workers
- Unlikely they share a common identity
- Working class
- Used to form the majority of the population though it is shrinking
- It was traditionally made up of manual workers
- Often romanticised as hard-working, straight-talking, salt-of-the-earth identity
- Many middle-class cling to this identity
- Women took care of their appearance to be respected
- Underclass
- Controversial term coined by New Right thinker Murray
- Unlikely many will consciously identify as this
- Originally used by conflict sociologists to highlight inequality
- Governments are concerned about the underclass
- Portrayed negatively through Jeremy Kyle and Benefits Street
- Studies
- Mooney (2004): A key feature of the upper class is social closure
- Fox (2004): upper middles, middle middles and lower middles
- Hutton (1995): The decline in trade union membership and the manufacturing sector and the dispersal of working-class communities has erased working class identities
- Skeggs (1997): Studied working class women who were humiliated by the way they were dismissed because of their working class identity
- Murray (1984): Over-generous benefits encourages some people to develop a culture in which they do not take responsibility for their actions and expect to be looked after by the state
- Upper class
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