Multiple Social Class Lenses and Concepts

Will Barratt

As I move forward in my thinking about social class on campus I have occasion to revisit some past thoughts and writings.  This makes me realize that some people will be starting to read about class now, and that I need to reprise some basic notions.  Toward that end, here is a primer on multiple ways to think about social class and a few key concepts to use when working with social class on campus.

Abstract and personal paradigms for class

There are two primary ways that social class appears in the literature: First that social class is abstract.  Second that social class is personal.  The idea that social class is personal doesn’t yet have much literature, but that area is growing.  These are two very different approaches to social class, and both are very useful.  As a professor I appreciate the abstract, the generalization, the simplification of combining the many into the one.  On the other hand, none of my students and none of my colleagues are an abstract, they are people.  I appreciate the personal view of social class also.  Obviously a combination of personal and abstract views of class will give us a richer and more complete view.

Two abstract views of social class

There are two primary schools of thought dealing with the abstract idea of social class: First is sociological.  Second is economic.  Again, both of these have contributions to make and insights into social class.  Looking at aggregations of people, at societies, leads to certain types of abstractions.  Looking at aggregations of people, at economies, leads to other types of abstractions.  I am sure there are more lenses also.

Even within the economic models of social class there are all manner of ways to examine it.  Macroeconomic and microeconomic models of social class come to mind.  Even within sociology multiple models of social class come to mind, systemic, structural, and interpersonal models.  There are more economic and sociological lenses also.

Six personal views of social class

There is no definitive list of personal views of class.  I propose six views of social class as personal:  Class as capital, class as identity, class as culture, class as enacted role, class as educational attainment, and finally class as occupation.  While I am sure there are more, this is a good and mostly inclusive list.  One advantage of this list is that most of us can remember six things.

Social class as capital.  Bourdieu’s (1986) enumerates three forms of capital as he expanded on the traditional Marxist view of economic capital by adding cultural capital and social capital.  His article is short and well worth reading so I will not repeat his words here.  A moment’s reflection comes up with some of the limits of his list of three forms of capital.  This is akin to recognizing the limitations of six ways to think about social class as personal.  Other forms of capital are context specific, like academic capital, or leadership capital, or even spiritual capital.  All forms of capital are important. 

One issue that I have with Bourdieu’s ideas of cultural and social capital is that there is prestige cultural capital and prestige social capital, as well as non-prestige cultural capital, and non-prestige social capital.  Prestige cultural capital reflects the knowledge, skills, and trappings of the prestige class, and non-prestige cultural capital reflects the knowledge, skills, and trappings of the underclass.  Similarly, social capital is class bound.  Knowing people who can help you with your financial portfolio is different than knowing people who can help you fix your car.  Both your financial portfolio, if you have one, and your car, if you have one, are important.  It is just that a financial portfolio has higher prestige.

Social class as identity.  We each have a social class of origin, a current felt social class, and an attributed social class.  Where we came from, what we think of ourselves, and what others think about us.  As with gender identity and ethnic identity our social class of origin identity formed early at home and in the social settings we were in as children.  Our current felt social class reflects the experience we have had with social class and in our ability to compare ourselves to others.  While most college students will identify as middle class, this is probably not the appropriate social class identity for those who, if they graduate, will be among the 30% most well educated people in the US.  If they have a graduate degree they are then among the 10% most well educated in the US, and are nowhere near the middle of the educational attainment distribution.  One of the challenges for members of the majority social class on campus is creating a realistic current felt social class based on awareness and knowledge of the other social classes in the US.

Social class as culture.  Cultures, and subcultures, share norms, expectations, values, and many more things.  Social class can be seen as a collection of sub-cultures arranged in a hierarchy of prestige.  Recent research has indicated clear cultural differences between social class groups.  A trip to the three tiers of grocery stores or restaurants in a midsized city will illustrate this point better than 1000 words.  Kraus, Piff, and Keltner recently (2011) published a piece titled Social class as culture: The convergence of resources and rank in the social realm which includes a great array of material from a social-psychological perspective on social class as culture.

Social class as enacted role.  This comes from Irving Goffman (1959) and the idea that any social role has dialog, blocking, costumes, and stage dressing.  Social classes each have distinct features, and fashion, or costumes, is an easy way to see the differences in enacted role.  International Suit Up Day, October 13, is appropriate costuming holiday for a small range of social classes. Similarly big box discount stores have costumes, or uniforms, appropriate for their clientele, as well as stage dressings, or rather home furnishings.  Similarly there are more prestigious varieties of English and less prestigious varieties of English that guide our dialogs and monologs.

Social class as educational attainment.  Members of the majority social class in the US do not have a college degree.  While half of US citizens over 25 have some experience in college, and about 10% have an Associate’s Degree, the college educated minority who have a degree have the prestige.  Add on graduate and professional degrees and you have a hierarchy of social class.  In reality the minority who is college educated normalizes that world view.  What is not normal must be abnormal, deviant, bad, or negative in some way.

Social class as occupation.  Some of the first work I found on measuring social class was from August Hollingshead (1975) and involved educational attainment and occupational prestige.  I updated his work with some more modern research on occupational prestige, but the central point remains: Occupations are prestige ranked.  Ganzeboom and Treiman (1996) have a list that provides an international perspective on occupational prestige rankings.

Four Key Concepts

Measuring social class. 

Some models of class, like income, educational attainment, and occupational prestige are easy to measure, and others like identity and culture are not.  Because income, education, and occupation are easy to measure, they get measured.  In some ways this biases definitions of social class toward those measurable views of social class, ignoring identity, culture, role, and even ignoring other forms of capital.  

The idea of prestige, while it can be measured and is often measured inadvertently in college rankings, is often omitted when taking the measure of social class.  Prestige is in some ways a synonym for social class.  Prestige goods like handbags with designer labels known to be expensive and therefore prestigious are a good example.  Occupations are ranked by social scientists into a hierarchy of prestige.  Asking “How prestigious is this?” is the same as asking “What social class is this?”

Below are three ways to quantify social class with easily counted and measured concepts related to social class.  You can use this to calculate your social class of origin by ranking your parents, or you can use this to calculate your attributed social class by using your own data.  There are five social class groups numbered 1 through 5, so feel free to assign whatever names you want.  You may not, in good conscience, refer to the top group using any term like middle or upper-middle. 

This material below is not that different that the material from the New York Times that is available at:  http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html

Use the three tables below to calculate the social status for your family of origin or your own attributed social class.  The data below are based on a US population.

Annual Family Income Groups.  Estimated combined parental income.  People in single parent households are at an obvious disadvantage. US Census 2009, Table F-1

Lowest 20% 1	2	Middle 20% 3	4	Highest 20% 5
Under $26,934	$26,934 to $47,913	$47,914 to 73,338	$73,339 to $112,540	Over $112,540

Educational Attainment Groups.  Calculate for the most well educated parent.  US Census 2010, Educational Attainment in the United States: 2010 – Detailed Tables, population over 25

1	2	3		4	5
13% No High School Diploma	31% High School Diploma	17% Some college, no degree	9% AA, AS	19% BA, BS	8% MA, MS	3% PhD, MD, or JD

Occupational Prestige Groups.  Calculate for the highest prestige parental occupation. If you do not find your parent(s) occupation then please select something similar.

Physician, attorney, professor, chemical and aerospace engineer, judge, CEO, senior manager, public official, psychologist, pharmacist, accountant.	5  - Top
Mechanical, nuclear, and electrical engineer,  educational administrator, veterinarian, military officer, elementary, high school and special education teacher,	4.5
Nurse, skilled technician, medical technician, counselor, manager, police and fire personnel, financial manager, physical, occupational, speech therapist.	4
Supervisor, librarian, aircraft mechanic, artist and artisan, electrician, administrator, military enlisted personnel, buyer.	3.5
Machinist, musician, bookkeeper, secretary, insurance sales, cabinet maker, personnel specialist, welder.	3 - Middle
Automobile mechanic, typist, locksmith, farmer, carpenter, receptionist, construction laborer, hairdresser.	2.5
Painter, skilled construction trade, sales clerk, truck driver, cook, sales counter or general office clerk.	2
Garbage collector, short-order cook, cab driver, shoe sales, assembly line workers, masons, baggage porter.	1.5
Day laborer, janitor, house cleaner, farm worker, food counter sales, food preparation worker, busboy.	1 - Bottom

(Income + Education + Occupation) divided by 3 ______

Social class contrast

The fish that lives entirely in water may have no knowledge of that water.  A fish that spends any time at all in the air understands the existence of water based on the contrast with the air.  Similarly students who have lived in a social class bubble all of their lives will not have experienced social class contrast.  Consequently, they may think themselves middle class when in fact they would rank in the 5 category on the scales above.

Students whose parents have little or no experience in higher education are at risk because of the discomfort they feel on campus based on social class contrast.  Research tells us that these students graduate at half the rate of students with college educated parents.

Students whose parents have experience in higher education come to campus with all manner of advantage and privilege.  The risk for them is that they are the majority social class and experience little in the way of social class contrast.  Further complicating this is first generation students seeking to class pass or blend in or assimilate in order to appear to be like majority social class students.  This further normalizes the majority social class on campus.  The risk for these students is that the lack of contrast will warp their world view so that it does not include the majority of US citizens with no experience in college and no college education. 

Multiple ways to be in the same social class

There are multiple ways to be in the same social class.  Astin’s (1993) college student typologies, or any of the other college student typologies, are ways to describe different students in the same group.  Using my favorite example of Misty and Markey from the majority class on campus there is fashionable Misty, athletic Misty, academic Misty, and so on.  In your social class subculture athletic Misty may be more prestigious, and in mine academic Misty may be more prestigious.  I value culture capital, so I value academic Misty.

Class is inherently a hierarchy, gender, ethnicity, and GLBT are not

A classic way to pursue multicultural education is to have students realize that there is not a hierarchy among genders, between heterosexual students and GLBT students, between men and women, etc.  Unfortunately the nature of social class is a hierarchy, so traditional methods of multicultural education will not work.  While students learn that all cultures are equivalent, and social class is a culture, the culture of scarcity and the culture of plenty are different in important and hierarchical ways.

What can you do?

You can spread awareness of social class on your campus, in your life, and at your work.  The multicultural industry is mostly fixated on gender, on ethnicity, on sexual orientation, and sometimes on religion.  When students come to campus they have been exposed to many hours of multicultural programming.  When students leave campus they have, we hope, been exposed to many hours of multicultural programming.  Understanding and working positively with our differences is a good thing, it is the heart of democracy and the meaning of “E Pluribus Unum”.

As awareness of gender issues, of ethnic issues, of sexuality issues is key, so is awareness of social class.  While we may keenly feel the injuries of gender, ethnic, and sexuality discrimination, the injuries of class are deep and lasting and happen like the unfelt cuts from a sharp blade.

References

Astin, A. W. (1993). An empirical typology of college students. Journal of College Student Development, 34, 36-46

Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. R. (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241-258). New York: Greenwood Press.

Goffman, E (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life New York: Doubleday

Anchor

Ganzebook, H. B. G., & Treiman, D. J. (1996). Internationally comparable measures of occupational status for the 1988 International Standard Classifications of Occupations. Social Science Research, 25, 201-239.

Hollingshead, A. B. (1975). Four factor index of social status. New Haven, CT: Unpublished manuscript. Department of Sociology, Yale University.

Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Kelter, D. (2011). Social class as culture: The convergence of resources and rank in the social realm. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(4), DOI: 10.1177/0963721411414654

Why is social class important?

Will Barratt

Department of Educational Leadership
Indiana State University

"Why is social class important?" is a great question.  In a podcast interview with Stu Brown (http://studentaffairs.com/podcasts/)  he started with that question and I was not ready for it.  It took me a while to come up with a good answer.

Why this question gets asked, and why this question doesn’t get asked are two interlocking pieces of the puzzle.

I will not ask why social class is important if I am unaware of the day-to-day issues of social class in my life and in the lives of people around me.  Awareness is the key here. 

Ask yourself these three questions:
1)      Why is gender important?
2)      Why is ethnicity important?
3)   Why is GLBT important?

Now ask yourself why social class is important.  The answers to these four questions should be similar.  Gender, ethnicity, GLBT, and social class are important in our lives and in the lives of people around us.

Now ask yourself why so many people are asking, talking, and writing about gender, ethnicity, and GLBT, and so few people are asking, talking, and writing about social class.

Research shows us that social class, as defined by parental income and education, is the best predictor of whether or not high school students go to college, where they go to college, and if they graduate from college.  This social class predictor works for men, for women, and for every tracked ethnic minority status.  The US Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/) has great collections of data on college attendance by ethnicity and gender (http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2010/tables.html) that can be compared with income and ethnicity tables (http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/index.html).

Social class is a better predictor of college attendance and success than is gender.  Women attend college and graduate from college at higher rates than do men.  Even accounting for small numbers of women in STEM professions, gender is a weak, but positive predictor of college attendance and success in the US.

Ethnicity and social class are linked in some interesting ways in the US.  Not all poor and uncolleged people are ethnic minorities and not all ethnic minorities are poor and uncolleged.  The truth is that each identifiable ethnic minority group in the US can be arranged in a hierarchy of college attendance and graduation rates that are closely tied to parental income and educational attainment.  Look at the US Census Bureau data links above. This is sociological and economic data on groups of people.  Every day I teach and talk with individual exceptions to this rule, but I do not talk with the people not on my campus, who would confirm this rule.  Based on abstract sociological and economic models, ethnicity is a real, but weak predictor of college attendance and success.  We can statistically subtract the effect of parental income and education from ethnicity, and the effect of ethnicity remains important, though not huge.

The reasons above for the importance of social class focus on us on the challenges faced by first generation students on campus.  What about the challenges faced by the second generation student on campus?

75% of students on campus come from 30% of the US population.  30% of the US adults have a college degree, or higher.  I cannot find data on how many mothers and fathers in dual parent households both have a degree, so I will be make the mistake of overestimating the percent of US households with either parent having a college degree.  75% of our students on our campus come from homes in which there was probably an expectation to attend college and graduate.   Again, the “probably” comes in because there is very little national data on family expectations of college attendance and parental education. 

Social class is critical for the first generation student and their experiences on campus.  I would venture to suggest, without data, that social class contrast is one of the main reasons that first generation students do not persist on campus to graduation. 

Social class is also critical for the majority student, the 75% coming from homes with at least one college graduate.  The reason for the importance of social class is not college success, but humanity.  If students don’t become aware of social class and confront it in the same way they confront gender, ethnicity, and GLBT issues their ignorance of social class will lead them to be less effective in the workplace and as citizens.  The level of publicized ignorance about income, insurance, and education during this political season is one effect of failing to learn about social class. 

Democracy is about both the majority and the minority.  In the case of the US the majority of citizens do not have a college education and have had a declining income recently (look at the US Census Bureau income data).  The minority, the college or graduate educated individual who makes and enforces the rules remain ignorant of class in the US.  If you are not interested in democracy, then ignore social class.

keywords: social class personal diversity college

New Post - The students guide to becoming upper-middle class

Social Class Book Publishing

Will Barratt

I am new to the book writing world and business, so every part of the process of writing, editing, and selling my new book has been fascinating to me.  While I believe that my topic is important and that the book should required reading in every diversity class, I also recognize that others don’t agree.  I suspect that people avoid the book the same way they avoid talking about social class.

I get the occasional positive email from colleagues and others who have read it and like it, but overall the response has been underwhelming.  Perhaps the book is like The Princess Bride.  The movie did not do well at the box office, but over 25 years has become a classic.  Perhaps not.

I have become very interested in the Amazon page for my book because it shows me my rank.  In July I ranked in the top 1,000,000, in late August I ranked in the top 200,000, and seem to have settled at around 400,000 to 500,000.  The August boom was for the fall semester of book orders. 

For me, the interesting part of the Amazon data is the section “Customers who bought this item also bought”  I can recognize many books required by my colleagues like Identity Development of Diverse Populations, and Multiculturalism on Campus.  It is the odd ones, the books I don’t recognize, that puzzle me.  Moral Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture puzzles me.  My response is to add another book to my reading list.

I started writing with a specific audience in mind.  John von Knorring , my publisher at Stylus who understands books, text, information, and media on a very deep level, suggested that I write the book for a larger audience.  He was right.  I had been reading on a wide level so why not write to a larger audience.  I had been consuming blogs like Social Class & Quakers by N. Jeanne Burns (http://quakerclass.blogspot.com/), and Education and Class by Jane Van Galen (http://educationandclass.com/), so why not write to a larger audience.  I had been reading books like Tearing Down the Gates (Peter Sacks), Higher Education and Social Class (Louise Archer, Merryn Hutchings and Alistair Ross), and The Psychology of Social Class (Michael Argyle), so why not write to a larger audience.

The question of course is how large the audience is.  Is there no audience for topics on social class or is it that people don’t want to confront social class in the US?  Those writing on social class comprise a small group, especially exploring social class as a personal characteristic rather than an economic or sociological trend.  Those reading about social class also seem to comprise a small group.  Apathy, satisfaction, and intentional disinterest all have the same behavioral consequence.  Is it that people read about ethnicity and gender because they don’t want to read about social class?

My publisher tells me that if you are a faculty member that you can get an exam copy if you are thinking about adding the book to your reading list for a class.

http://www.styluspub.com/orders/examrequest.aspx?ProductID=278156

If you want to buy a copy after reading some of my blogs, then you can get a 20% discount using the code WBBLOG at the checkout:

http://stylus.styluspub.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?productid=278156

Stars, winners, special people, losers, and hierarchy: How social class is different from gender, ethnicity, GLBTQ, and other forms of difference.

Will Barratt

When Kurt Vonnegut received the Eugene V. Debs award in 1981 he spoke about how people divided the world into stars and bit players. 

Sheldon Kopp, writing in If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him notes that when you make someone special you diminish yourself, and conversely when you make yourself special you diminish others.

The single index finger pointing upward meaning “We’re number one” may be the most obscene gesture in the world because it means that everyone else is a loser, second place, an also ran.  It overtly states a hierarchy with the gesticulator in a superior position.

The L for Loser gesture with the thumb and forefinger placed on the forehead is used by adolescents of all ages to indicate that you are a loser, and therefore I am a winner.

Social class is about hierarchy, about being a star, winning, and being special.  Gender, ethnicity, GLBTQ, and other forms of diversity are about difference, about belonging to some category. 

The seemingly ubiquitous nature of stars and bit players, special and not so special people, and winners and losers are part of what creates social hierarchy or social class.  I would hazard a guess that the nature of hierarchy is part of the nature of the human experience.  Yes, hierarchy is evil, wretched, and creates an overclass and an underclass.  Yes, hierarchy is all around us and is co-created and re-created every day by every one of us.

I am suggesting that social class is different from gender, ethnicity, GLBTQ, and other forms of human difference because the inherent hierarchical nature of social class is fundamentally different from the inherent non-hierarchical nature of gender, ethnicity, GLBTQ, and other forms of human difference. Most diversity is about categories like male and female, European-American and African-American, and so on.  Of course a close look at these categories reveals the truth that the boundaries between categories are not always clear, and that the categories are not always mutually exclusive.  In spite of these problems with categories, they remain categories.  Categories do not constitute a hierarchy.  My measurement colleagues will notice that this is the distinction between categorical or nominal variables, like gender, and ordinal variables, like how much money you have.

Winning, Losing, and Hierarchies

How do we determine star status, number one status, special status, and winner status?  Therein is an interesting question.  Among a league of ten college football teams playing against each other on a Fall Saturday, five of the teams will win and five will lose, not counting potential ties.  The team with the most season wins is number one.  Professional sports teams have regular and post season play, eventually one team emerges as the winner and all others sink into the media abyss of losers.  This winner and loser status is based on direct data.  Determining the superior team when teams don’t play is not based on direct data.  “Well the players in the xxx conference are tougher, meaner, taller, faster,  . . . so they are superior”.  Once there is no direct data, then arguments based on unexamined assumptions break out.

There are data-based hierarchies, for example standings of college teams within a league, and non-data-based hierarchies, for example standings of college teams between leagues.  But, you say, between-league comparisons are based on data too.  No, I say.  Comparisons between leagues may use quantitative metrics, for example yards per play, completed passes, and whatnot for US Football, all of that data was created within a specific league context and cannot be used for comparison between leagues.  I suggest that sports pundits use the data in a way designed to confound and confuse the comparisons, to act as a distraction, to act as the illusion of quantitative certainty, when in fact between-league predictions in sports is a matter of unsubstantiated belief.  Within-league team comparisons are a matter of head to head competition – literally.  Between-league team comparisons are matters bereft of fact and are consequently matters of belief.

Winning, Losing, and Social Class

What has this all got to do with social class?  “Everything” to quote Yoda. 

Data views of social class, that class is personal income, use the direct evidence of income hierarchies to equate with social class hierarchies.  Personal Income hierarchy= Social Class hierarchy.  That is; PI_h=SC_h.  That sounds scientific doesn’t it?  Income is a nice metric, a nice way to measure something.  I make $20 and you make $18.  I win, you lose.  I am a star, you are a bit part player.  I am number one, you are a loser.  It would be nice if social class was that simple.  The metrics of income and wealth alone are not enough to capture the reality of personal social class.

Bourdieu, in Forms of Capital, notes that the idea of economic capital, income and wealth, can be supplemented with the ideas of social capital and cultural capital.  Forms of capital all have the advantage of being, more or less, quantified.  That is, I have more than you, or you have more than me.  This capital-based idea is a more nuanced view of social class than money alone, but is not a full and complete view of social class.  Capital can create a nice hierarchy, but that hierarchy misses many elements of personal social class reality.  On first glance the quantity of economic capital, social capital, and cultural capital keep everyone in the same league, so all of the comparisons are within-league.  In reality not everyone plays in the same league.  You can have high prestige cultural capital, for example knowing a pinot noir from a pinotage, and / or you can have low prestige cultural capital, for example knowing the standings for NASCAR. You can have high prestige social capital, being able to form allegiances with people who have power and money and / or you can have low prestige social capital, being able to form allegiances with people who have tools to work on your house or car.

Another direct evidence view of social class is educational attainment.  Educational Attainment hierarchy=Social Class hierarcy, or EA_h=SC_h.  I have a Ph.D. and you have a M.S.. I win, you lose, etc.  This gets complicated when you add the non-data-based prestige values of various undergraduate or graduate schools, and factor in the prestige hierarchy of disciplines.  Is a Math degree from Door Prairie State University equivalent to an English degree from an Ivy League /   Seven Sisters college?  Prestige is largely data free when it comes to educational institutions and disciplines.  The research on college rankings tells us that rankings are either about perceived prestige of the faculty or about student and institutional income.  Neither source of rankings has to do with how well the faculty members teach the students.

Values Hierarchies and Social Class

Income, capital of many sorts, and educational attainment are the primary data based comparisons that can be made about personal social class.  The assumption is that more is better.  The idea that more is better is a value judgment.  Money, capital, and educational attainment are a won/lost record in personal social class, and winning in these metrics of social class is generally thought to be better than losing in these metrics or social class.  Other ways to talk about social class have no data that can be arranged in a hierarchy of more and less.  

While income, educational attainment, and capital are quantifiable ways to explore personal social class, social class as identity in no way lends itself to quantitative or qualitative differences that allow ranking in a hierarchy.  Suggesting that one identity is better than another is a bold statement of values based on no data whatsoever.  The lack of data does not curtail irrational assertions that people who have a higher class identity are better than people who have a lower class identity.  Irrational beliefs about gender, about ethnicity, and about GLBTQ are all too common and are too often clouded with questionable and misapplied quantitative data.  These data-free beliefs are probably held as a consequence of identity and ego expressions. 

Viewing personal social class as culture, as shared values and norms, in no way leads to a data-based hierarchy.  No culture is better or worse than yours in any countable that does not rely on unsubstantiated values.  Suggesting a hierarchy of cultures, of values and norms shared by groups of people, is bereft of common sense.  It is not uncommon to hear value-based data-free statements asserting that higher class culture is better than lower class culture.

Social class as prestige is interesting because prestige is collective belief and not quantifiable.  While collective belief is quantifiable, we can survey 1000 people on their beliefs about the prestige ratings and rankings of various name brands, the actual prestige itself is not quantifiable.  Things are prestige only because people believe they are prestige.  While it is often believed that Expensive object = Quality object = Prestige object, E_O=Q_O=P_O, this tautology is not confirmed by research even though the formula does look scientific.  Please note that formulas with subscripts are more prestigious than formulas without subscripts.  Cost and quality are related and quality and prestige are related, and cost and prestige are related, but the relationships are weak.  Prestige is usually a matter of marketing.  Do $100 sunglasses protect my eyes better than $10 dollar sunglasses?  Or is my metric of protecting my eyes the wrong metric?  Do $100 sunglasses have more “cool” than $10 sunglasses? 

Working with Social Class as a Hierarchy

Gender, ethnicity, GLBTQ, and other forms of diversity are about difference, about belonging to some category.  Social class is about hierarchy.  While some of the hierarchy behind social class is quantitative, like money, most of the social class hierarchy is irrational and data free.

Working with gender, ethnicity, GLBTQ, and other forms of difference is often about reducing and removing the ideas of hierarchy that people have generated about these differences.  Working with social class requires a wholly different approach, because hierarchy is part of the nature of social class.  Exploring the nature of our irrational creations of hierarchy is the beginning of a way to reduce the injustice of social class.

Social Class Hierarchy and Inequity - How social class is different than gender and ethnicity

Will Barratt

I have been reading DeMethra LaSha Bradley’s Chapter in How to talk about hot topics on campus: From polarization to conversation in which she explores the idea of victims and victimization in the context of social class. While that is not the main topic of the chapter it is an idea that has troubled me for some time. Oppression and oppressors is a central theme in much of the literature and teaching that occurs in and around the ideas of gender and ethnicity. However as Bradley points out the victim/victimizer dichotomy does not recognize the nuances of social class reality.

Zweig, in What’s class got to do with it notes that often in multicultural training on ethnicity and nationality students are taught that all cultures are equivalent. In that context this idea of equality reflects my colleague Cseresnesy Lazlo’s comment “Not better, not worse. Only different”. This reduction of hierarchy between ethnicities and nationalities is a good thing. All cultures are equal, there is no hierarchy among ethnicities and cultures.

Freire in Pedagogy of the oppressed explores the idea of oppression quite extensively. In the Brazilian context in which he was writing the oppression came on multiple fronts; from economic to social to political to language, to many others. His idea that the oppressed becoming the oppressor when power shifts is useful on the macro / social and micro / individual scale. Oppressed / victims and oppressor / victimizer are an effective dichotomy at first glance. However, when a nuanced look at gender, ethnicity, and social class takes over, this dichotomy becomes troubling. This is particularly true when dealing with social class.

One proposed remedy for gender and ethnic oppression is the equalization of peoples. People of all genders should be equal, people of all ethnicities should be equal, people of all religions, along with people who are non-religious, should be equal. This is a laudable and achievable goal. When we are all judged by the content of our character and by our behaviors it will be a more just world. Achieving gender equity, ethnic equity, and other forms of equity is a long process and we are moving forward. Many of the egregious inequities found in the US between genders have been slowly and effectively removed. Many more remain, and the price of equity is constant vigilance. Worldwide, things are moving forward toward equity, albeit slowly. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlines the path to equity by preventing discrimination and encouraging equal opportunity. President Truman changed the behaviors of everyone in the US armed services by integrating the military, formally establishing ethnic equity. Behaviors changed and attitudes followed, albeit slowly. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 forbade certain behaviors related to gender and encouraged others. This was a good thing, and there is still work to be done on gender equity.

Solutions to gender, ethnic, religious, and many other forms of inequity are possible because there is no inherent difference between the members of these groups. Men and women, are for all intents and purposes, are physiologically and psychologically the same, with the exception of their reproductive physiology. There is no measureable physiological or psychological difference between members of any religious or non-religious group. And so on. Equality between genders and between other groups is possible because of the inherent physiological and psychological equity among members of those groups. A solution strategy is to promote equity and disassemble hierarchy. There are behavioral differences between groups, and these are learned. One group may pray on their knees and another may pray standing up. Behaviors are what distinguish between members of groups, cultures, and religions.

Members of different social classes, however defined, are the same physically and psychologically. So should we move toward social class equity? This inherent equity of all peoples is one of the underlying principles the Communist Manifesto. It is also one of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is also one of the founding principles of the United States of America.

The people in the diversity movement are correct when they assert that everyone is equal, that there is no hierarchy among the genders, among people of various or no religions, among people of various ethnicities, etc. Applying this same concept of equality to social class is a different thing altogether.

The problem is hierarchy. Gender is a social construct based on biological dimorphism. There is no inherent hierarchy in gender. Ethnicity is a social construct based on geography of origin. There is no inherent hierarchy in ethnicity. GLBTQ, seen as either a biological or social construct or some combination, is not a hierarchy. Social class is based on a common collection of beliefs about a hierarchy.

Behind social class is hierarchy. No amount of asserting that there is equity among the classes can change this. The social class hierarchy is complicated. Seeing the hierarchy as resources, then equalizing resources can remove the hierarchy. However paying a physician the same as an administrative assistant is just not going to happen. Seeing the hierarchy as education, then equalizing education, and access to education, can remove the hierarchy. However, even among colleges there are hierarchies of perceived prestige, so a college degree from one college is not perceived as the equivalent of a college degree from some other school. Seeing social class as cultural, the asserting the equality of cultures should ameliorate this hierarchy. However, the billions of dollars spent on marketing products to population segments (read different social classes) may pose an impediment to changing the perceived prestige of social class cultures.

The social class hierarchy is something that we all co-create and that is manifest in multiple ways. The injustices of social class can be ameliorated, but as long as social class exists, there will be hierarchy and there will be social class based injustice. This is because the idea of social class is at its core about hierarchy.

Social networks, social capital, and social class

Will Barratt

How are social networks related to social class? In the simplest question form, do social networks promote social class movement or do they promote the reproduction of social class. Bourdieu, in Forms of Capital (1986) outlines social capital . "Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition – or in other words, to membership in a group." Social networks are a formalized and structuralized way to create and maintain social capital. A second distinction must be added here, that of prestige social capital. Social capital among one group, for example among membership and leadership in a union, does not have the same utility and prestige as social capital among investment bankers. Both forms of capital serve a purpose, and both groups, the union and the bankers, have access to resources that can be used for mutual advantage. However, the aggregate perceived prestige of the social capital of the bankers is higher than the aggregate perceived prestige of the union members and leaders. Further, the types and amount of resources that each social group has is different in important ways.

To reframe the question: Do people use social networking to create more prestige social capital, enhancing their social capital and consequently their social class. Do people use social netowrking to reinforce their existing social capital, reproducing social class? I believe that the answser to both of these questions is yes. Social networking is a Yes, and . . . activity. I am sure that a close and nuanced look at different types of social networking sights will reveal some important differences. After all, Facebook is different than LinkedIn in many ways.

For me Facebook, and now Google+, are ways to keep in touch with my friends and students. I am friends with most of my former students, and have slowly been adding people from my past with whom I had lost touch, and it is a regular part of establishing new relationships. After a trip to campuses in Thailand I added six new friends on facebook.

For me LinkedIn is odd. My social capital needs are met through FB or email. It is interesting to be in LinkedIn but for me does not increase my social capital. However, I continue to get random requests to be added by people who I don't already know. Perhaps this is the point of LinkedIn, and it is lost on me. I am hardly the international man of mystery, and can hardly enhance someone's social capital, so what advantage is there to others in linking up with me. I can only assume that linking with me enhances their social capital.

Seen from this perspective, email has the advantage as a social network tool. I regularly get notes from people I don't yet know. People are often curious, or occasionally contentious, about what I have written, or what they think I have written, and send me an email. I write back, building a relationship, enhancing both of our social connections and potential capital. I will too will occasionally write to someone who I don't yet know asking a question on their writing and if a relationship emerges, this has enhanced both of our social capital.

I cannot help but have a vision of people intentionally using social networks to build their social capital for personal advantage. I know that this reflects my perception of the function of that social networking software, and reflects my lack of desire to be 'collected' for social capital reasons.

Bourdieu, P. (1986) The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (New York, Greenwood), 241-258.

Photos

After listening to really smart people and old friends I recalled the power of image. When you search for images of social class you don't get much that is enlightening.



This is a colleague at a committee meeting at a national conference. The jeans and jacket makes a social class statement. It is a really nice jacket, well tailored and nice fabric.





Blue jeans with a formal shirt, tie and vest. In another era this might have been yuppie-ish, but this is a clear social class message.





Also at a national committee meeting. The jacket was across the chair back. The fabric is some manner of jean material, and the wear is visible on the lapels. Note the Harvard lapel pin that provides interesting social class contrast with the jacket. The personal identity advertisement here is clear.  Is this "Harvard Casual"?





In contrast to the jeans and jacket. This three button suit with the top two buttons done, and the tight Seville Row tailoring makes a social class statement.  This is a "trust me" suit.





Misty is the fictional majority class female student. In this photo she has a smart phone in her hand,  an upscale and attractive backback on her back, flip flops on her feet, is wearing a stylish top and is going to class.  This woman represents many of the stereotypes of the mainstream majority woman student on my campus.









Misty and Marky Majority Student.  This was posted to a Facebook site about a football game.  I read all of this as upscale casual with nice haircuts.



This is another representation of the majority campus social class woman on my campus. I was first taken by her backpack, and the branded water bottle, just barely viable.  I asked her to pose so we could see her and the backpack. This is one of my wonderful graduate students. 




Another student representing the majority mainstream fashion sense for women on my campus.  African American Misty on my campus has her own style that is a little different than European American Misty.  This is also one of my wonderful graduate students.

I have updated this on 11/11/11 to add the photos here.


These images are also at:  
https://picasaweb.google.com/114191390355712924920/SocialClassImages


If you have photos that you would like to send along and have posted, that would be great.