Theories on social class in relation to identity
- Created by: katrina
- Created on: 05-04-13 15:36
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- Theories on social class in relation to identity
- Functionalists
- Class division- 'natural' and 'smooth running'
- Distinct class cultures create distinct class identities- similar positions, hence, similar lifestyles.
- individuals 'know their place' - the 'best people' occupy the highest positions and have the most refined cultural background
- Postmodernists
- Class identities are more fluid and unclear than in the past.
- Now individuals are free to become who they wish, through consumption and creative adaptations of lifestyles.
- Traditional Marxists
- A tool of ideological domination.
- The Frankfurt school argue that the working class are deprived of education and critical thought and are subjected to a diet of popular/low culture which serves to perpetuate their class position.
- Cultural reproduction
- Feminists
- Class identity is over exaggerated.
- As a result gender relations and identity are ignored.
- Class identity is over exaggerated.
- New right
- Saunders (1990) suggests that social class is irrelevant to peoples lives, with identity and equality now based on homeownership.
- New right thinkers believe if people work hard they can be any class they wish.
- Neo-Marxists
- interested in working class subcultures which are oppositional to the dominant culture of the ruling class.
- A class identity is created that enables the development of true class consciousness which struggles against the ruling class hegemony.
- Functionalists
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