The Social Class Spectrum

 Will Barratt, Ph.D.

Social class categories reinforces the idea that there are discrete groups, or classes, and that we belong to one group or another group. For some people success is described as moving from one social class group to another social class group. However, the criteria for membership in each class group and the class group boundaries are at best ambiguous. I have, as a convenience, used the names of social class groups, especially Upper-Middle Class since I write about social class and post-secondary education. I have also re-named a group as the Ruling Class because we make and enforce the rules. 

There are no social class categories, and social class categories are a convenient fiction. The map is not the territory and the word is not the thing, to paraphrase Alfred Korzybski. The use of convenient categories does not make them real. On the other hand, using a spectrum is just a more accurate representation of the complex idea of social class. So many people in the USA self identify as middle class as to make that classification meaningless. To further complicate this, in which I am complicit, categories treat social class as a unitary construct rather that the complex reality of components and alternative styles and components. 

The Spectrum

I am assuming that the reader is familiar with the electromagnetic spectrum, with all of the wavelengths from short to long. Here, I will deal with a simpler version, a segment of convenience, the visible light spectrum. From red to purple. Rainbow flags are a simplified version of the visible light spectrum, creating categories of red, orange, yellow, green. blue, and purple. These color categories are a convenient fiction. These are the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes "see".  I will avoid what the rods and cones in your eyes really "see", but human eyes are capable of discerning 1,000,000 different colors. 1 million different social class groups may make conceptual sense, but that model of a million groups is unrealistic for daily use in describing social class. 

To make matters, of course, more complex we get color saturation and hue as ways to further describe colors. Light blue and pale blue and baby blue and navy blue and midnight blue and cobalt blue are all blue. When choosing font colors on your computer screen there is a two dimensional choice, one axis from red to purple, and the second axis about hue and saturation. OK, we can deal with the fiction of a two dimensional color chart. 

But wait, it is all more complex. Marx write extensively about economic capital and Bordeaux posited using economic, social, and cultural capital as a way to explore social class. Well, these are categories of features of social class. 

My concept here is that we can assign colors, however you want to choose colors, to categories or features of social class. For example, as a professor I was in the:

• top 75% for income in the US while I was working
• top 2% for educational attainment
• top 10% for occupational prestige
• top 25% for relational social capital
• top 5% for cognitive social capital
• top 5% for structural social capital
• top 1% for linguistic capital
• top 1% for travel capital (I add this because I get a high score)
• top 10% for social media influencer capital (375,000 page views on this blog should count somehow)
• top 10% for sartorial (clothing) capital
• aspirational capital
• familial capital
• navigational capital 
• technological capital 
• resistance or ethnic solidarity
• etiquette and table manners

and the list goes on . . . 

The list of social class capital is as complex and as detailed as you want to make it. My social class spectrum color chart (with red for the low end and purple for the high end) involves a lot different blues and purples, with the occasional green. 

Homework

Make a list of those things you consider relevant to social class, and remember that there are many ways to do things within any type of capital. For example my fashion style and sense is alternative to mainstream fashion magazine ideas of what a 73 year old should wear. As I often say 'I have style, but not taste'. 

Assign a color to each of each item on your list. If you want you can use the whole electromagnetic spectrum. Who am I to tell you what to do. 

Social Class is Everywhere

 Will Barratt, Ph.D.

Adventurer and Raconteur

I live a nomadic life these days, which means a lot of travel to different continents and countries. While some are tourist visits, like being in Graz Austria for a few days (and visiting Zotter Chocolates), some some visits are extended stay, some are for workshops, and some are to stay with friends for weeks. I get to talk with a lot of people, me being the curious person that I am, about a lot of topics. I visit a lot of places. I've also lived for a year or more in 5 countries, including the USA.

While my conclusion here is not as systematic as structured qualitative research might yield, my sample size of cultures is huge. On the other hand, as is a problem with all observational and participant observational research I am the data collector. I have a brain phenomenology focused on a finite number of things, as do you. Food is primary on my list, and always just below the surface in my perceptions of the world is social class. The places I go and the people I meet reflect my life, my phenomenology, my world view, my notions of what are interesting places to go. 

I also pay a lot of attention to gender and ethnicity, but social class is somehow always an unconscious analysis of the moments of my life. I've lived in two different "Communist" nations, in quotes because according to their ideology they were moving toward Communism. I have lived in two Constitutional Kingdoms and a variety of democratic countries. The idea that all people are equal is prevalent in all of these political ideologies, well, except for Royal Persons who are more equal than others. In practice, in daily life, this idea of equality is not remotely true. In Democracies, people are equal under the law. OK. In Communist nations all people are equal. From each according to their abilities to each according to their need. OK. I call bullshit on the reality of personal equality. 

Different Algorithms, Same Outcome.

In practice we all assign people into a social class based hierarchy. The algorithms that determine an individual's social class status, their place in the hierarchy, are different in different cultures and subcultures. This social class hierarchy algorithm is part of attributed social class, how others see you. As we internalize our culture/cultures, this algorithm becomes part of our current felt social class.  These algorithms, or ways to operationalize and externalize social class, are everywhere.

Think for a moment about your social class hierarchy algorithm. What makes someone upper class to you? What makes someone lower class to you? Got it? In some cultures the social class hierarchy algorithm is deterministic, as in a caste system that assigns you at birth to a place in the hierarchy. In other cultures movement on the social class hierarchy is possible. In some cultures social class hierarchy algorithms are fluid, and in some these algorithms are fixed, frozen, bound to timeless tradition. What is yours? What is the dominant social class hierarchy algorithm in the dominant culture in your life?

In the USA, my most familiar culture, SES (which is not social class) is typically measured by educational attainment and occupational prestige. Social class has a more nuanced and complex algorithm. In the dominant US culture this algorithm involves money, variety and accent in prestige English, dress, behavior, manners, scent, recreational drug brand preference and so much more. 

Your Social Class Hierarchy Algorithm

Your personal social class algorithm is a function of your social class of origin and your life experiences. How you apply that algorithm is unique to you. Social influencers and internet celebrities, most probably, use view count as a critical part of their personal algorithm. "My personal worth is based on number of views." Kind of odd, but certainly akin to "My personal worth is based on my economic worth". Having a single point on the social class hierarchy algorithm as your preferred marker or criteria is one way of doing it, or you can have many markers or criteria. You do you.

While I am pleased to have over 350,000 page views on this blog it does not affect my current felt social class, or affect my relationships with others. And this is me doing me. Note that I have a lot of other hierarchy markers/points based on occupation, education, and travel experiences so I guess I don't need to add page views to my self worth inventory. This is me doing me.

Further, what social class means to you in your life and in your interactions with others is unique to you. That is you doing you. 

A Simple Point

My very simple point is that social class is everywhere. The social class hierarchy algorithms change but the hierarchies are always there. The degree to which to you participate in these algorithms and hierarchies is up to you. The degree to which others participate in these algorithms is not up to you. 

tl:dr - social class is everywhere

Eugenics, selective breeding, legacy students, and college admissions.

Will Barratt, Ph.D. 

Adventurer and Emeritus Professor.

Note: I began to write this before the publicity about legacy admissions hit the press, and waited to see how that publicity played out. After a flutter of general indignation, and a few adjustments on a few campus, the press cover died a quiet death. I imagine that media editors and writers own Alma Maters had some psychological impact on those distinguished alumni.

Colleges have been a selective breeding ground for eons. College graduates tend to marry college graduates. High prestige college graduates tend to marry high prestige college graduates. Highly involved students tend to marry other highly involved students. The children of college graduates go to college, taking up a lot of space, typically 70% of a college class come from the 30% of the US population with at least a four year degree.

Legacy stude to are those who went to that college, as in Yale graduates' kids having preferred admission to Yale, as perhaps in the Bush family.

There is an extensive screening, filtering, and winnowing process for admission to prestige universities that begins with pre-school choices. Even before college applications, students are screened in order to provide a desired gene pool ("our kind of student") on campus. Yes, you can view anti-affirmative action points of view, which I call racism, as an attempt to keep a pure gene pool.

The psuedo screening mechanisms of the college admissions algorithms represent a formal process, letting the select few across that semi-permiable membrane onto campus.

College rankings (prestige) tend to further refine the selective breeding gene pool. Higher social class families have their children apply to higher prestige colleges. Bespoke educations for those who can afford it. Given the huge endowments of high prestige campuses, why do they charge any tuition? Well, to keep the poor  people out of the selective breeding gene pool.

Why are campus rankings important. The question that is in the college choice algorithm in our heads can be distilled to "Will I, or my child, meet the right marriage partner?"  Marketplace and Medieval thinking about children and marriage.

Graduation rates provide another screening mechanism, keeping college dropouts out of the gene pool further. A college dropout spouse is not a desirable commodity. (Yes, commodity, object, economic piece of the merchant and self assigned Nobel class).

Then there are graduate and professional degree programs. While there are many mixed educational attainment marriages, there is a lot of intermarriage among the 15% with post-baccalauriate degrees.

How it works.

Homophily and propinquity work well as descriptors of this systemic process that results in successful selective breeding.

Propinquity rules. Proximity is a key aspect of courtship and mate selection. Campus organizations provide proximity. Fraternities and sororities are designed for proximity to your chosen gender all within well defined social norms and roles. Student governance, honor society, organizational leadership positions and the like place people in proximity for the dating, mating, and marriage rutuals of the upper middle and upper classes. Campus experiences provide times and places for interpersonal interaction that may lead to ,arriage. 

Is this intentional and conscious?

Yes

The selective breeding process on campus

Cultural capital rules. Learning or reinforcing normative upper middle class behaviors, attitudes, and mental processes is part of the college experience. Remedial social and dining etiquette programs are available, targeted at non normative (first generation students) students who have been deemed worthy.

tl;Dr prestige colleges are designed as selective breeding grounds, and legacy students are a key part of that system.

Social Class and World Campuses. Do you want to write a blog post?

Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Global Adventurer

This is an appeal for people from around the world to write blog posts. 

When reviewing the statistics for this blog for the past week I noticed there was a wide geographic range of readership.  While I have experience in higher education in a few countries besides the US, I don't feel well informed enough to comment on what happens sociologically and psychologically on campus.  For example, I currently live in Kuala Lumpur that has a British post-colonial educational system. I can see the British system being replicated here, whether or not it fits the local needs. Not surprisingly class systems are reinforced here through public and private education. Note that here class and ethnicity/national origin are complexly intertwined. And it needs someone more familiar with these systems than I am to write cogently about it.

If you have some insights, comments, personal experiences then please consider writing them for this blog.  I will try to do readability editing that you can check and that is all. I respect all Englishes.

Nationality of blog readers, week ending July 3, 2022

United States  118

United Kingdom  49

Estonia  31

Italy  20

Canada  5

Malaysia  5

Philippines  4

Russia  4

Kazakhstan  3

Indonesia  2

India  2

Kenya  2

Pakistan  2

Azerbaijan  1

Belgium  1

Colombia  1

Germany  1

France  1

Hungary  1

Other  6

Rules of Money and Social Class

Will Barratt, Ph.D.    
Global Adventurer

Simple answers are always inadequate. 

Simple answers often point to complex truths.

 

Food and Social Class This generalization neglects variation, individual preference, availability, and a myriad other issues.  This generalization is the foundation of restaurant marketing in the USA. People in the lower classes like quantity. (Golden Corral) People in the middle classes like quality. (Chili's, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse) People in the upper classes like presentation. (white table cloth and complex place setting)

Money and Social Class

• People in the lower classes see money as survival.
• People in the middle classes see money as life style.
• People in the upper-middle and upper classes see money as an investment opportunity.
• People in the uber-rich class see money as irrelevant.

People in the lower classes see money as survival. 

Attitude toward money

• Views on money are short term. 
• Money is seen as immediately utilitarian.
• Money is about basics; food, housing, transportation. 

Debt/Savings

• Without surplus economic capital, money is something to be used, and used up, so savings and investments are a non-issue. 
• Surplus money, if there is any, is often spent and not saved. 
• Families have some debt, and the banks are hesitant to loan poor people money because of family financial insecurity.
• Many economically disadvantaged live beyond their means by necessity, and not by choice. 
• Those in the lower 40% of US incomes have between $800 and $10,900 in savings in 2019.

Economic Identity

• Survivor.
• Money, because it is scarce, becomes central to their lives and world views.
  
• Very aware of the economics of social class in the economics of daily life
• Aware of their cultural and social disparity with the those in other social classes.  
• Often blame others in higher social classes for their poverty.
  

View of Money and Social Class

• Social class is seen primarily through a lens of economic capital rather than cultural and social capital.
• Lack of money leads to the perception that being in the upper class is about having more than enough money (economic capital).

The Work-Income Game

• Make it to the next paycheck. 
• Identity is focused in staying in the game.
• Winning is not an option. 
• The work and income game is about not losing.

Reality

• Poor people are often one missed paycheck from financial disaster. 
• Hourly, minimum, and low wage low skill jobs are the reality for employment
• Paid daily, weekly, or every two weeks. 
• Unlikely to have any education post high-school.
  
• Probably in the bottom 37.8% with a household  income below USD $50,000 (US Census Table A2)
  

Attributed social class

• Economically disadvantaged people are often blamed for their economic condition. 
• "The great unwashed." "The unwashed masses" are the attitudes of those above them in social class.
  
• According to Ruby Payne those in the lower classes are likely to be criminals and have illegal guns.

People in the middle class see money as life style. 

Attitude toward money

• The view of money is middle term; spend some, save some.
• A mix of moderately well paid hourly and salaried low prestige jobs are employment options.
• Money is to be used for consuming goods, services, and experiences. 
• Things and experiences that money can buy, obviously labeled fashion and branded vacations, are a hallmark of people in this group. 
• Material objects and branded experiences are one way to demonstrate socio-cultural success and status.

Debt/Savings

• Disposable income, money left after necessities are paid, is used for consumption and some for savings.
• Surplus money is sometimes saved and invested. 
• Some people in this group live beyond their means by choice, going into debt for consumer goods, vacations, automobiles, and housing. 
• Have a lot of debt because bankers believe these people can and will pay off their debt.

Economic Identity

• "I am what I own. What I own is who I am."
  
• Aware of social class in their competition with others in their class. 
• Obviously labeled objects and experiences (prestige branding and positional goods) are marketed to people in this group.
  
• Typically unaware of larger social class issues because of their economic winning.

View of Money and Social Class

• Economic capital is important and central to a view of social class.
• Cultural, social, and other forms of capital are of varying importance.
• Identify as about being better than the poor, and emulating people in the social classes above them in their consumer habits.
  

The Work-Income Game

• Doing OK, success is marked by stuff, experiences, and money,

Reality

• Likely middle 28.7% with a household income of USD $50,000 to $100,000  (US Census Table A2)
• May have a college degree, associate's degree, or some post high school education. 
• Likely to have a higher than average debt to income ratio than the poor (because the poor are a high risk for loans) and than the upper-middle class (because of income differences).

Attributed social class

• Conspicuous consumption is often used as a term to describe this group.
• These people have their basic needs met and typically have surplus income which is often used for consumer goods and experiences.   
• Many prestige brands have down-scale products, affordable luxuries, targeting people in this group.
  

People in the upper-middle and upper classes see money as useful tool.

Attitude toward money

• Having surplus wealth (economic, social, and cultural) is a way of life. 
• The view of capital is complex, including economic, cultural, social, and other forms, and long term. 
• Money is a mix of income and wealth.
  
• Prestige consumer goods, often with smaller graphics are a way of life. 
• Advertising economic wealth through obviously labeled fashion is present, but not ubiquitous. 
• "Never spend principle (invested wealth)" is a hard and fast rule.
• Everything can be purchased, even a college degree (as distinct from a college education).

Debt/Savings

• Economic capital is seen as an investment opportunity to gain more economic, social, and cultural wealth. 
• Different forms of capital are converted - economic into cultural, social into economic e.g.
• Long term investments are a way of life, especially in cultural and social capital. 
  

Economic Identity

• Born on 3rd base and think they hit a triple (attributed to many people, most recently notable Ann Richards speaking about George Bush)
• The home group of Karen.
• Often think their unearned privilege is earned and often require respect from others. 
  

View of Money and Social Class

• For those in the upper-middle class there is a failure to see the systematic lack of opportunities and economic oppression of poor people. 
• Social class is as much about cultural (attained through investments in education) and social (it's not who you know, it's who knows you) capital.
  

The Work-Income Game

• These people have already won the work and income game and concentrate on more economic, social, and cultural wealth.
  

Reality

•  Likely top 33.6% in household income of over USD $100.000 (US Census Table A2).
• Typically college graduates, many with professional degrees. 66.5% of college students come from the 35 % of the population who have at least a 4-year college degree. 
• Many high prestige colleges have many legacy students (parents went there).
  
• Make and enforce the rules, thus called the ruling class (by me). 
• Varieties and sub-groups within this class group exists because surplus income allows alternative life styles.
• Mid and high-level luxury prestige goods are heavily marketed to these people because of their disposable income.
• College is an extension of their social class culture, thus normalizing their mono-paradigmatic social class world view.

Attributed social class

• Although from a vastly different time, Thorston Veblein wrote about the "Theory of the leisure class" in 1899. 
• These people are often lauded for their success, but never forget, these people had parents who were also economically, socially, and culturally successful.

For the uber-rich the 1%, money is irrelevant. 

Attitude toward money

• Money is about wealth, not income.
• Money managers take care of their wealth.
• Money can buy anything from college admissions to college educations to politicians.
  

Debt/Savings

• A lot of money 'in the bank'.
• Investments are the source of income.

Reality

•  The 1% rhetoric is about income, these are the people with the wealth to not need income.
• While there were almost 22,000,000 millionaires in the USA in 2020, Forbes estimates there to be 724 billionaires in the USA in 2022.
• There aren't that many of these people, but they get a lot of space in the news universe.
• Big political donors, giving them big personal influence. 
• Have their own PR staff to keep them both in and out of the news.
• Typically born into generational wealth.
• Have no friends outside their own group - insecure in new social relationships, unsure of they are liked for their money or for themselves. 
• Rose to this level by work (the 1% in income, CEOs, tech entrepreneurs) or have inherited family wealth.
  

Economic Identity

• Members of a very exclusive club.
• Ivy League, Seven Sisters, or psuedo-Ivy League/Seven Sisters.
• More money means more prestige. After all, USD $200,000,000 is more than only USD $100,000,000
  

View of Money and Social Class

• Emphasis on personal and family Cultural and Social Capital because money is so crass. 
• Net worth is the measure of prestige.

The Work-Income Game

• There was a game?
• Service on boards and at high executive levels is work.

Reality

• The few who hold all of the wealth, some by inheritance, some by corporate work. 
• A relatively small group of people.
• The public rich and the invisible rich.

Attributed social class

• Work? Income? These people do not rely on jobs for money. 
• For those people who use money as a score keeper, popularity measure, influence measure, these people are gods. 
• These people are studied, quoted, and deified in keynote speeches, of that is part of their managed public persona, like Jobs and Wozniak, but not Waltons or Seagrams, and the other invisible rich. 
• "If you're so rich how come you're not smart?" 
  

What does this have to do with college? 

 

As Yoda would say "Everything". Given that 65% of enrolling college students come from 35% of the population (based on the national number of first generation students attending four-year colleges) guess which social class group gets targeted by college recruiters? Guess which social rules dominate campus. 

Understanding savings and investing here is critical. Many families in the middle class do not save for their children's education, or don't save enough. The burden of student loans falls squarely on this group. The idea of college as investment is central to people in the upper-middle and upper classes.

When social class is seen primarily as money, as economic capital, then education is only seen as preparation for a well paid job. When social class is seen as economic, cultural, and social capital, then education is seen as a long term investment to gain multiple forms of wealth. Prestige colleges let you meet people who can build your social capital that can be later transformed into economic capital.

First Generation or Social Class

Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Adventurer

In diversity work in the US, especially on campus, the minority members of a community typically get more attention than the majority. That is a good thing. The majority members of the community are often dismissed as the oppressor, as the privileged.  Simply being dismissive is a bad thing.  Being dismissive dehumanizes whoever is being dismissed. That is a bad thing.

If you upend any campus and shake, what falls out? People. All kinds of people. Campus policies, procedures, campus climate, campus culture, physical reality, social reality, perceived reality, and everything else was developed by people.  All kinds of people.  Organizations are a formal fiction made by people.

First Generation students on campus, however defined, are an important part of any campus community.  People who are First Generation have issues that are unique to that group: food insecurity, economic insecurity, social insecurity, lack of membership, belonging, and mattering. (Note please that there is a literature on each one of these issues, and a growing business in helping campus leaders realize their own role is making life difficult (oppressing) first generation students.)

And . . . First Generation students exist in a larger social class context on campus, in the US, and in the world at large.  That larger social class context is inhabited by people, people who make policies, procedures, organizational maps, and all the rest that is a campus and a culture.  Where is the attention to this larger context, this majority group of people and their creations?  Should we just dismiss all of these people at oppressors?  Or should we pay attention to these people, many kinds of people, and seek to affect them in order to create a more just campus?

Surly a knowledge of social class, in all of its manifestations on campus and among people, is critical to leveling the playing field. 

Why not both?

How much emphasis should be placed on members of minority groups and how much on members of majority groups?  Good question.  How much does adding attention to members of the majority groups on campus detract from attention to members of minority groups on campus?  

Crowdsourcing this question tells me that very few people want to focus on majority members of campus. Where are the programs on telling truth to power that challenge the majority social class?  There are the slogans like "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality seems like oppression."  Unpack this a little.  Is this dismissive?  Is this blaming?  Is this telling truth to power?  Does this accurately reflect the experiences of social class majority members on campus?

Challenging campus members of the social class majority about their personal role in creating and maintaining an unjust and inequitable campus system is a difficult conversation. Is the focus on First Generation students, as I said this is critical on campus, a way to speak truth to power?  To address social class inequality on campus?  Or is direct confrontation better?

tl:dr - focus on a symptom or focus on a cause?

The margins or the middle?

 Will Barratt, Ph.D.
Adventurer, Professor, Raconteur 

This past week I happened to have a conversation with a very old friend about IQ, steering him to some more research based complexities about intelligence. In the conversation Lewis Terman came up. Terman, along with colleagues, did some pioneering research on intelligence and life. Terman and colleagues wanted to study the 'quite bright' and developed the Terman Concept Mastery Test to identify the 'quite bright' for their studies, like IQs over 145 bright. Studying smarties is one way to study intelligence. Similarly studying those on the low end of the intelligence spectrum is another way to study intelligence, but what about those in the middle?

Also this past week I had a few conversations about Autism Spectrum Disorder. Most of the study and data comes from studying those, mostly men, on one end of the spectrum. What about those on the other end of the spectrum (and women)?

Somehow this morning I realized that those working with First Generation Student programs are focusing on students in the margins of the college student population, not on the larger class issues. What about Misty and Marky (upper) Middle Class?

The spotlight focusing on the margins doesn't really illuminate the center. If you are in a dark room with a flashlight you tend to look where the light shines. Not a bad thing, but everything else is in the dark. In movies the flashlight is used to dramatic effect to highlight what is seen and to hide what is hiding in the dark. I'm interested in the whole room, not the spotlight. Mine is just a different perspective.

On the one hand, those who are different in a conspicuous way get criticized and sanctioned by the majority. On the other hand, those who are conspicuously different can help us learn a lot about difference, and by comparison, non-difference. 

Binary thinking is dangerous. Different/Same, 'quite bright'/not 'quite bright', first generation/second generation are all false binaries. Spectrum in Autism Spectrum Disorder, levels of intelligence across 'domains', social class of origin, current felt social class. These are all complex distributions with complex dimensions.

One of the dangers of shining light on the margins is that whatever is not in the spotlight is not illuminated.

One of the great things about shining a light on a group is that we can focus our attention, especially on a group that is systematically oppressed. 

Where to shine the light is a tough, and false, choice. Louis Pasteur was wrong when, on his deathbed, he said "The germ is nothing, the terrain is everything." College is a complex and constantly interacting system and collection of subsystems. This is a basic assumption of the Campus Ecology movement. Jim Banning wrote prolifically about this, back in the paper newsletter days. Today he would probably blog.

There is great work on intelligence, and on high intelligence. There is great work on neurodivergent people and on neurotypical people. There is great work on First Generation students, and great work on Second and Third generation students. This is all a yes-and issue.

Just make sure to put it all in context. 

tl;dr attend to the social class of all students on campus, and to members of class group on campus.