Science topic

Social Class - Science topic

A stratum of people with similar position and prestige; includes social stratification. Social class is measured by criteria such as education, occupation, and income.
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Dear Colleagues,
Pierre Bourdieu published his text Distinction in 1979. What is your view of this way of assessing culture and culture's self-replication via class?
Please share your thoughts here. All comments are welcome.
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I have only just dipped into Bourdieu and was not impressed. He struck me as dogmatic, and given to hasty, superficial judgements.
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Diagonal reference models are especially suited for the estimation of effects of movements across levels of categorical variables like education or social class. In social stratification, it enables us to estimate the weight of origen and destination. Their use is straightforward with DRM in Stata and the function Dref of gnm in R. However, I am working with a dataset with 30 countries and I would like to model those weights as random effects. I haven't find a multilevel extension of DRM or a workaround. Any idea?
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How to use Stata to evaluate DRM models?please.
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The value of universities depends student to student BUT academia as a whole will probably selfdestruct if it does not drastically decentralize soon as my article below warns: Ohnemus , Alexander . "A Girardian Case for PhDs by Publication." ResearchGate.net . www.researchgate.net/publication/373639875_A_Girardian_Case_for_PhDs_by_Publication. Accessed 5 Sep. 2023.
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Inflation in most countries has been controlled and kept under control, below 5% per year. However, the appearance of episodes of hyperinflation are periodic (Peru, Turkmenistan, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Argentina, etc.), and their eradication demands concrete and strict measures. Because of the effects of hyperinflation fall on the weakest social classes, hhat measures would you apply to fight against hyperinflation, so that they affect the most vulnerable population as little as possible?
I request your collaboration to contribute ideas in three fields: exchange liberalization, reduction of the public deficit by means of the greater efficiency of the public sector and economy liberalization. Thank you very much in advance.
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In line with my forecasts, in March 2022 inflation in my country continued to rise rapidly and reached 10.9%. Moreover, there are many indications that the official data published by the Central Statistical Office do not present the actual state of inflation growth. The prices of many basic types of food products as well as raw materials and semi-finished products used by producers to produce various types of products have increased in the last few months by several dozen percent, and some even by almost 100 percent. The Central Statistical Office does not publish full information on the analytical methodology used and the composition of the basket of products and services taken into account when calculating the overall, average level of increase in prices of products and services most often purchased by citizens. If we include core inflation accumulated since 2020 in our comparative analyzes, it turns out that the real increase in inflation in my country is on average 3-4 times higher than the average level of this inflation in Europe. Core inflation analyzed in the formula of excluding food, fuel and other products whose prices may fluctuate seasonally from the shopping cart. In many countries, inflation growth began to accelerate from 2021 onwards. The sources of this increase in inflation include domestic (public financial aid applied to economic operators during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic) and international factors (an increase in fossil fuel prices and an even greater increase in the prices of refined petroleum products). What is the situation like in your country today?
Best wishes,
Dariusz
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I am interested in relationships between photovoice or auto-photography as research methods and social-spatial difference, either as captured in the photographs, or as embodied or lived by the participants. I would particularly appreciate suggestions of literature from the past 10 years.
Recommendations of reading on participant-photography and social-spatial difference would also be relevant in this case.
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I am also interested in the photovoice method. Is that the same as auto-photography?
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I'd like to link the International Standard Classification (ISCO) 1988 codes or the 2008 codes to a measure of occupational complexity. Does anyone know a good datasource?
I know O*Net has such a measure but these are linked to SOC codes for the US. The data I'm using is from Europe, so I'm hoping there is an occupational complexity index based on european data.
The ESCO (european classification occupation skills) doesn't rate occupational complexity.
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I'm using the term referring to the complexity of social interaction and cognitive functioning, in a broad sense. Similar to the way Kohn and colleagues would use it (see reference below). I think this overlaps with the way complexity is thought of in the Skill biased/Routine biased technological change literature.
Countries - European countries in general. I would suppose that occupations are fairly similar within European countries in their complexity.
Kohn, Melvin L., and Carmi Schooler. 1982. ‘Job Conditions and Personality: A Longitudinal Assessment of Their Reciprocal Effects’. American Journal of Sociology 1257–86.
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I have had to accommodate, be patient, and silent when having to address issues pertaining to gender, sexuality, social class, im/migration, dis/abilities etc. because my faculty has shown that it is safer to preserve the emotional and financial needs of the status quo. Recently Nikole Hannah-Jones was denied tenure because of her excellent opus on the American Black Slavery experiment and democracy. She recently stated that she wasn't sure if marginalized persons should be in mainstream academia due to the unsafe nature that persons like her and myself face.
Question: Can the current academic structure still support critical inquiry? Should we consider an alternative to scientific research outside the academy?
Gina Ratkovic, Athabasca University
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No, the academic arena is not safe for marginalized academics or marginalized voices. There are many subtle and not-so-subtle ways marginalized voices are oppressed, suppressed, and contained. As the example of Nikole Hannah-Jones demonstrates, either you contain yourself within the boundaries of acceptable cannon, or you don't get promoted or tenure.
When I was finishing up my PhD, one of my advisors told me that if I ever wanted a career I need to "toe the line" . I'm a member of a privileged demographic and social class. I can imagine what those without my privilege have experienced.
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Hi
is anybody aware of a questionnaire about the social cognitive tendencies that go along with higher and lower social classes as proposed by the social cognitive theory of social class from Kraus et al. (2012; doi:10.1037/a0028756)?
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SESpsychreview.2012.pdf (krauslab.com)
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I want to study the impact of Social Class on Online Shopping Intention or Behavior but it seems inappropriate to ask the social class directly, is there any possibility to determine social class through income or property etc?
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The middle class has no commonly agreed definition. Much empirical research tries to operationalize the concept of the middle class employing occupational schemes such as the European Socio-Economic Classification (ESeC) known as the Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero (EGP) Scheme (Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992; Goldthorpe 1987).
Much of the recent comparative research on the middle classes relies on income-based definitions. Typically, being middle class is defined as having an income within a scale constructed around the median and which has typically been symmetric. The definition of the lower cut-off point has a natural link with the poverty threshold, which is set at 50% (OCSE) of the national median equivalised disposable income. Lester Thurow, the first author that adopted this approach (1984), defined the middle class as including households with an income between 75 and 125 per cent of median household income.
Many authors, using a different range of median income, divide the broad category of the middle class into two groups: the lower middle class and the upper middle class (Atkinson and Brandolini 2011; Bigot et al. 2012). Whelan et al. (2016) take those between 60% and 75% of the median to be “precarious” or on the ‘‘margins’’ of poverty. The middle class can then be said to be those not in poverty or in the margins of poverty, between 75% (lower thresholds) and 166% of the median (upper thresholds). Within this they distinguish a ‘‘lower middle class’’ between 75–125% of the median and an ‘‘upper middle class’’ between 125% and 166% of the median. Those whose incomes are at least 167% of the median are considered as the affluent class.
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Fore instance, the hero is from a working class and another character, in the same novel, is a middle class. I want to study how each character can project his/her class membership.
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I do agree with the amazing answer and opinions of dr. Amjed 🌹🌺
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The original french version (with the Author Pierre Bourdieu) is:
Champ du pouvoir, champ intellectuel et habitus de classe, in: Scolies. Cahiers de recherches de l'École normale supérieure (Paris), Nr. 1, S. 7-26
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It is published in Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production Essays on Art and Literature. (Polity Press, 1993; Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 161-175 " Field of Power, Literary Field and Habitus". I have the Columbia edition. Regards.
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The concept of social inequality, in general, signifies people’s situation or experience of discrimination in between two or more contesting classes or groups. When all contesting classes or groups in a society are subjected to the similar modality/pattern of discrimination(s), then questions may be raised- how the social sciences like Sociology or Anthropology, are going to address such social reality/situation. Competing interests of different social classes/groups may widely differ in material form(s) based on the context of those classes/groups. Same time, it is also important to examine whether there is/are any similarity(s) in the nature of discrimination(s) in a particular the society. Typically, from Marxian view, the ‘working class’ or the ‘labor class’ is the prime target of discussion while talking about social inequalities. On the other hand, from feminist perspective, ‘gender’ and exclusively ‘female gender’ is the nucleus of all concerns. Inequalities are also discoursed based of race, ethnicity, religion and so on. Considering all patterns/aspects of discussions related to social inequalities around the globe, it is very clear that the area is highly diversified. This high diversity of inequality discussions all over the world lets sociologists and anthropologists open another window to project different angle of inequality understanding where we can locate the interconnectedness among different forms of inequalities and portray the similarity(s) in the nature of discriminations among different social class/groups. Thus we make the idea of ‘Equality in Discrimination’.
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Thank you for your valuable explanation
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In trying to set out the perameters of "social class" in the introduction of a text I am editing upon "social class' and "literature" for Routledge, I fell into a Lewis Carroll rabbit hole of wondrous conflicted definitions and claims about the fabulous Snarkish creature--class!
"
A granfalloon, in the fictional religion of Bokononism (created by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1963 novel Cat's Cradle), is defined as a "false karass." That is, it is a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association is meaningless.
(“Granfalloon,” Wikipedia)
Vonnegut’s definition of a “granfalloon,” seems to fit the problematic semiotic state of the term “class,” as well. Northwestern University Sociologist Gary Fine suggested to me that what Wikipedia offered about “class” was as comprehensive as any other overview of this highly contentious, voluminous, multifaceted concept. Published definitions of social class, reveal a plethora of conflicting and overlapping traits and attributes that may suggest to some that class” is, in fact, a granfalloon. Yet the same may be said of all sociology’s categories to some degree. Granfalloon or not, we feel and experience very real class struggles that create pain in macro-level, full-scale armed conflicts. Micro-level class struggles go on daily, more or less peacefully, if annoyingly."
Would anybody like to shed more light, darkness, and chaos theory on this highly confusing topic? I am all ears and really need some expert opinion.
Thanks and looking forward to comments.
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Hi! I need a socioeconomic status or social class scale. is there a reliable scale where the participants are categorized in upper middle lower class? this research is based in the Philippines. Thank you
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Erling Solheim thank you for recommending ISSP Survey.
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How would he describe:
a) The economy in relation to social class; who would be the Bourgeois and who the Proletariat?
b) The economy in relation to Ideology?
c) Ibo religion as a function of Ideology?
What evidence would Marx site from TFA to show that colonial Christianity functions as Ideology?
Conversely, how might a Marxist argue the colonial Christianity in Ibo culture represents the historical dialectic of revolution?
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@ Ian Stuart
Thank you
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Dear Colleagues,
I am putting together a collection of essays on Literature and Class for the publisher Routledge.
Some of you may look at this question with different eyes than mine.
So please tell me about any experiences you have writing about literature through the lens of social class.
Have you done such analysis?
What theory did you find most helpful?
How do you define social class when it comes to writing about it in the arts?
Thanks for any and all ideas and comments.
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In an academic sense, social class is a reality directly linked to academic attainment, heritage, financial status and social positions. Hence an individual's knowledge of the literary and relevant theories and concepts naturally will be applied in making an analysis. However, these variables I mentioned, in many ways contribute to an individual's social construction of reality, inclination and attributions. Beyond and within academic stipulations of analysis of texts, individuals view texts based on the aforementioned persuasions and worldviews.
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Hello, Colleagues,
I have seen many RG questions about getting a publisher for a text that you have written or that you propose to write.
My experience may not be typical and I have but one edited text to my credit but I am eager to help others. My edited interdisciplinary collection of essay is titled _Orbiting Ray Bradbury's Mars_ (2012) for McFarland Publishers. They are the major popular culture publishing firm in the US.
I am inviting people in at the start of an invited proposal to a multinational educational publisher. I was invited to propose a companion text on LITERATURE AND CLASS because of a review I did of another text. This convinced the publisher that I could create a research text for them.
STEP ONE: do reviews of other people's texts. If you do a review, say you are available to do more.
I invite you to watch this journey from start to conclusion of a project to publish a reference text with a major publisher. This should be a good discussion that takes us beyond the "what if I had a publisher" stage with no specifics involved.
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One of my research variables is the social class of parents. And I could not find a questionnaire related to it. Does anyone have a questionnaire related to this variable?
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Hi, Nahid,
You might want to look at this article for some guidance:
Wheeler DC, Czarnota J, Jones RM
(2017) Estimating an area-level socioeconomic
status index and its association with colonoscopy
screening adherence. PLoS ONE 12(6): e0179272.
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I am looking for articles or any other resources on issues related to social class mobility and how issues of exclusion due to group membership- race, gender, caste, religion etc might impact this mobility. 
Thank you!! 
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This is a very insightful study by a cambridge prof. who was one of eight children of a coal miner in the UK.
Diane Reay. Miseducation: Inequality, Education and the Working Classes (21st Century Standpoints) 2017
GUARDIAN (newspaper) interview:
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Generally speaking, in certain social communities, it is not possible to move from on social class to another.
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People who make big achievements on social, fiancial, political or educational levels may move to an upper class. However, those who encounter failures on various levels may come down to a lower class. But the movement to either classes is very slow and limited.
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Is the Indian-born cultural theorist Gayatri Spivak's "subaltern" theory a valid approach to the US Rust Belt dominant narrative?
This question grows from the study of symbolic conversion theory and the work of Gayatri Spivak on inequality and voice. especially her landmark essay "Can the Subaltern speak?"
Ernest Bormann called words and phrases applied to people, events, and places not present "fantasy themes." These themes tend to cluster into positive groups around one's own region or group and negative clusters around "the other."
When a group of people or a region is named with what Bormann would describe as negative "fantasy themes" by outside media, are they colonized by economic and media to the extent that they have been effectively silenced? The very fact that the US Rust Belt region and its inhabitants have no voice in the US media then be cited as evidence that they are incapable of articulating a narrative for themselves and may be described with external narratives with no necessity of dialogue.
So is this rhetorical situation the beginning of a true caste system?
The dirty jobs are not only held in disdain by traditional elites but also progressive ecology-minded media. Thus, the dominant narrative follows that omission is acceptable and that there is no need to hear from this region, the rhetorical construct called The Rust Belt.
Spivak usually is cited for Western colonial issues but can this sort of silence be analyzed rhetorically by her methods?
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Thank you, Colleague Altmann.
I had an idea that also embodies this separation over "nature" and "the environment" as signs of privilege. There is a luxury aspect to the environmental movement that Thorstein Veblen probably would have recognized as some kind of conspicuous consumption in terms of virtuous selectivity--organic foods, living among forest and sea animals, etc.
None of these are possible in the more industrial zones. And that causes a rupture of the self. The person is supposed to leave the industrial zones because employment is so limited, but also to shed a sense of self from there, molded by that setting. I wrote in a question about using Veblen for literary analysis. As important illustration is the huge secret that Gatsby is concealing: his father lives in The Valley of Ashes, a dumpy town where solid waste is burned nearby. So we could look through many novels via the lens of management of solid waste, just as some scholars have been re-reading novels as to type and rates of fuel consumption.
Rhetorical analysis of novels regarding solid waste management can give a look at how the physical "discussion" is framed in terms of the rhetoric of place and things. I don't know if I'll have time to do a major study of this issue, but this method will reveal much about the growing separation of the classes. Although all classes generate solid waste, almost all waste that isn't placed on water stays in the industrial or rural poverty areas.
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Our decision making is based on various factors they many be classified
1) Personal : Education , Income, Life style
2) Family Factors : Social class
3) External Factors : Advertisement, Place
These factor have both a positive impact and an negative impact and the strength of the impact too differ from Individual to individual,
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I think understanding motivation is a big factor in decision making.
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In the 21 century, a certain society still maintains strict social class system which is decided by birth. Social class exist in all societies. The society's social class system is unique because one’s social class is determined by their parents' social class, and they do not have much chance to move to an upper class. Additionally, the social class is quite official, and the people in the lower class in the society are socially discriminated and very poor.
Such a strict social class system reflects the society’s unique history, culture, and religion. Probably, the majority members of the society may support such a strict social class system or at least the social class system is supported by a dominating class in that society.
Given cultural relativism, it may not be appropriate to judge other culture from one’s cultural perspective. Some people, however, believe that world universal values such as human rights exist regardless of culture. Given this perspective, world citizens must work together to eradicate such a strict social class system that may violate human rights. What do you think of this issue?
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Both world common values and certain cultural values are essential for a functional society as long as there is no violation of human right.
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Maybe all historical facts exist for us as already refracted through the consciousness and social interests of our social class, our nation and epoch?
Also see:
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This depends entirely on what we define as within the sphere of historical research. If we treat history as a broad study of the past, as many high schools in North America do, that definition includes all empirical knowledge since all empirical knowledge is based on the observation of past events. Therefore it is better to refer to history as a specific stream of methodologies in studying past events and the attempts to understand the relationship between the past and present. 
Following this definition, we find a loose spectrum between objective and subjective. As close to objective as we can find are direct pieces of knowledge with either irrefutable material evidence (archaeological or carbon dating for example), or an overwhelming body of evidence with no substantive refutations. The date of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of June 28th, 1914 falls into this category since there is no evidence to suggest a different date, at least by our western Calendar.
Close to the objective side but a bit further along is recorded data, which includes census data and inventory logs. Pending no contradictory evidence, we can usually assume that this data is historically accurate. This data is not fully objective, but reasonably so, since without subsidiary data supporting it, there is always the possibility of tampering or distortion.
Closer to subjectivity are diaries and memoirs. While we can usually assume that what the person records is accurate to their recollections, there is always the probability that their memories are distorted. This is particularly true of memoirs written long after an event when external dialogues and messages affect meaning.
The most subjective are narratives with little-no evidence contained within the narrative: why something occurred. This is particularly difficult to work with in ancient religious texts, states with significant propaganda, and events with few-no other accounts. 
While other forms of historical truths can vary in subjectivity, that should give a basic overview. There are facts closer to objective than others and there are dialogues that may or may not have any truth in reality. This is one of the big challenges historians face, especially when historians often have agendas of their own (known or not), and when we have to contend with other prevailing dialogues. 
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I have survey data for which there are non-representative distributions of political ideology. I want to make some comparisons between ideological groups, and need more representative numbers. What is the best way to go about doing this? Can I, for instance, use stratified random sampling on the cases I already have for the over represented group?
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If you create a weight that corrects the whole dataset for it to be more representative, you should be able to use other variables in the analyses as well. Be careful with weighting in SPSS though, as it is less flexible in which types of weights you can use (frequency weight, probability weight,...) than other softwares such as Stata.
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The question deals with the interrelation of social structures and the shape of markets. Contemporary economic sociology and organizational analysis seem to acknowledge the influence of networks and connections in the social structures of markets and economic sectors. My impression is that it is not enough and that we need forms to consider how the structure of social groups (or social classes) also interrelate to the social structures of markets and industries. I got interested in the topic while studying the emergence of recycling markets in Brazil and by noticing industries composing them are embedded in the countries social structures, with lowest groups (waste collectors) working informally and cheaply to somehow maintain nascent industries owned by elites and middle class entrepreneurs. My assessment drawed in Boudieu's perspective to social classes.  
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I personally think the question is *much* more interesting the other way around. 
Moreover, my advice would be to look at the question of embeddedness much more critically. Granovetter and others that have followed him have adopted quite a narrow idea of embeddedness. I much prefer Polanyi's approach, which predates Granovetter by about 40 years. The history of embeddedness as a concept is actually really fascinating and if you look at Jens Beckert's paper on the Great Transformation of Embeddedness, you will see that there is much more theoretically rich stuff that you could draw upon to tackle this question. Perhaps you could look at the dialectical relationships between configurations of markets and various forms of resources / cultural capital (to bring Bourdieu into play). Polanyi might also provide the tools to critically examine the notion of what he calls the "market society"'and viewing everything through a market lens. How does reciprocity play a role, for example? How does the state, through (re)distribution of resources? These aspects are not strictly speaking "market" forms of exchange but are definitely "economic" in nature, to take a substantivist perspective. I wish you every success and let us know how you get on?
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The percentage of low income, middle, and upper classes in Shenzhen China in relation to population.
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I was looking for some studies that investigate how the way people choose their academic field of study according to their childhood SES and social class. I have the feeling that some big changes are occurring: high class people are not choosing law or medicine as degree, but are starting to prefer subject like Computer Science, Maths and Software Engineering. 
Thank you for your help! 
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Hello Sara
I thought that your question was very interesting, but when I looked into it, I couldn't find much to help.
This is from 2002, so does not mention the changes that you mentioned:
Werfhorst, H. G., Sullivan, A., & Cheung, S. Y. (2003). Social class, ability and choice of subject in secondary and tertiary education in Britain. British Educational Research Journal, 29(1), 41-62.
This is not so much about subjects studied, and still from the very early part of this millennium:
Reay, D., Davies, J., David, M., & Ball, S. J. (2001). Choices of degree or degrees of choice? Class,‘race’and the higher education choice process. Sociology, 35(04), 855-874.
This is a book by the same authors
Degrees of choice: Class, race, gender and higher education
Reay, D., David, M. E., & Ball, S. J. (2005). Degrees of choice: Class, race, gender and higher education. Trentham Books.
This is about the subjects studied at A level:
Rodeiro, C. L. V. (2007). A level subject choice in England: Patterns of uptake and factors affecting subject preferences. Financial Times. Available at http://www. cambridgeassessment. org. uk/ca/digitalAssets/114182 Survey Report-Final. pdf.
I don't think this answers your question, but wondered whether it was of interest:
Dill, D. D., & Soo, M. (2005). Academic quality, league tables, and public policy: A cross-national analysis of university ranking systems. Higher education, 49(4), 495-533.
However, it will be interesting to see what others write,
Very best wishes,
Mary
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A link between P.T.S.D. and social class/socioeconomic status
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Socioeconomic status impacts how men and women present and stigma/awareness of class/gender bias --http://www.paulajcaplan.net/bias_in_psychiatric_diagnosis_39741.htm determines if they even seek help.
A working class woman may be perceived as irritable/hostile instead of fearful--not safe to show fear. Working class men much less likely to ask for help/see it as weakness.  This article is depression focused, but excellent "You don't go tell white people nothing." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2901282/
Best.
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hello, please I need to begin a work on the perspective of Karl Marx on social class and health inequalities. however I need ideas and useful articles cos I am confused of how to link this theory to health practice and inequalities.
thanks.
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Hi Chidinma
Try a web search using the term 'critical theory health inequalities' and you should get some useful hits. For example, here is one article that came up on the first page:
best wishes with it
Peter
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As very interested in critical theory, especially in education, but this question is rather general, I first supposed there would be a lot of research and theory on how a critical theory perspective on X opens up doors to new knowledge. That is of course the aim of most scientific methods, but what about critical theory? Does the perspective from the vantage point of a discriminated group open up something new, and how? How fruitful is the underdog perspective, and how? I don´t find very much general reflections on this in the literature - I am not searchinmg for how it works in special fields, as gender, social class, handicap etc, but in general. Gramsci on hegemony is the kind of things I am looking for. Recommendations? Or do you have own ideas? Thanks in advance.
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Gayatri Spivak in "Can A Subaltern Speak?" addresses some of these questions. My own take on it is that there is no necessary heuristic validity to an underdog perspective unless this perspective is genuinely different from the dominant discourse rather than simply being an inversion of it.  In other words, positioning oneself outside a cultural paradigm of knowledge while still being able to speak the language of this paradigm is potentially fruitful. Positioning oneself inside this paradigm as its silenced or marginalized Other simply reproduces (or inverts) the discursive relations of power without unsettling them or opening them up to new knowledge. 
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I would like a summary of major studies of stratification, class and mobility conducted in Poland and/or Central and Eastern Europe since 1989. What has been written on this subject?
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On Poland, you might want to look at the work of Polish soiologist Prof. Henryk Domański, also of social psychologist Prof. Janusz Czapiński. Do you speak Polish?
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I have seen some questionnaires about social class but it always factors in household income, marital status, and other things that are not fit to ask young adults (college students). Does anyone know of a good questionnaire for determining social class among young adults? Also, if it helps, I'm conducting the study in a 3rd-world country, the Philippines.
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Hello Benjamin,
I am dealing with the same problem right now. One idea that I had was to ask them about the social class of their parents (e.g. parents household income). However I came up with a different solution by deciding to measure their subjective social class because for my research question the self perception of their social class is more interesting. In addition I expect a higher variance in measures of subjective social class within students. Maybe thats a possible solution for you too. If you want to have a look at measures for subjective social class maybe have a look at a paper by Adler et al. (2000), link see below. They developed a simple yet very effective measure of subjective social class. They gave the participants a drawing of a  ladder with 10 rungs and the particpants should think about the ladder as representing their society and place themself on the rung that best represents their standing on this ladder.
This measure seems to work very well and has been used in many studies.
I suggested this solution in another discussion, where you might find other helpful comments:
Furthermore you might consider to visit this website, that I found very helpful. They discuss their measure of subjective social class and its relationship to objective measures:
I hope this helps!
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I am doing a study on the correlation between social class and criminal activity and risk factors.
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HOW can i get the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (Version 4.0) Manual ?
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I am specifically looking for historical studies around the early 19th and 20th centuries in the US.
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Hi Wendy
If you do a literature search on any facility (google scholar for example) you will find that there are little or no studies on IPV from this period. I don't believe there are any academic articles relating to IPV before the 60s.
We can be fairly certain it was rife, IPV correlates with levels of disadvantage, lower levels of collective efficacy, neighbourhood disorder, crime and violence, geographic and social isolation all correlate with IPV perpetration (Beyer, Wallis, & Hamberger, 2013).Any where, where there has been social upheaval really ...
Beyer, K., Wallis, A. B., & Hamberger, L. K. (2013). Neighborhood Environment and Intimate Partner Violence A Systematic Review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 1524838013515758.
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The middle class as a large group within any society is an important category of interest, not only because they are the main driver of economic activity and, thus, vital to the economic development of any country, but because they are an interest group which also influences political and social life. Traditionally and in comparison to other groups, members of the middle class constitute a very broad stratum of the population with various professional, political, economic and social profiles.
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I would say that one of the key things to factor in is the time period being studied and the country being studied. "Middle Class" can have different meanings in say, the U.K. and the United States, and the role of the middle classes has changed through time. Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb The Hidden Injuries of Class. provide a good starting point, however.
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Erik Olin Wright has been working on his class analysis for quite some time. I guess, I am somewhat damaged with my European background, but actually his approach reminds me a lot of Bourdieu and his habitus. Maybe you can help me to understand the theoretic background of Olin Wright.
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The class approach proposed by Wright the classes allows an empirical approach through the notion of the three types of control that determine the class position:
- Control over the means of production
- Control over the work process
- Control over the work of others
In particular, it is possible to reconstruct a class structure based on these three dimensions through household surveys.
Our approach can be found in the Argentine case:
Féliz, M.; López, E. y Fernández, L. (2012). “Estructura de clase, distribución del ingreso y políticas públicas. Una aproximación al caso argentino en la etapa post-neoliberal”, Más allá del individuo. Buenos Aires: El Colectivo.  
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Public spaces, such as parks, are created to discourage discrimination of social hierarchy, and to be shared by all races, genders and backgrounds.
What is the best way to mitigate arising issues in adjacent private spaces?
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I think to answer your question you need to expand on this.....What is the best way to mitigate arising issues in adjacent private spaces?
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In surveys, sometimes we need to have respondent's social class. Is it possible to ask  them which social-class they think, they belong on? high low middle OR very high, high, middle, low, and very low. How valuable and reliable is this approach?
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Yes, that's why it's good to develop some standard justifiable or operational categories... 
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During the Karolinger and Medieval periods, there was a system of Nobility, Clerics, Peasants and Builders, in short a system of “the Lords” and “the Others”.
The “Lords” consisting of clerics as well as laymen (kings, regents, knights) possessed the land and its revenues—while living in castles, convents and cloisters, whereas they dictated – after having set the laws to be obeyed on a military-based structure—who of “the others” would get work, have a home, would be paid in food rations, and who had to go to war and who was doomed to die.
The education was under the patronage of the Lords with the infamous motto: ”You (the clerics) shall keep them (the others) dumb, whereas we (the governors) will keep them poor”.
This feudal structure was not only practiced at Europe but also at China, the Indus Valley and Africa.
Clerics in almost every religion in order to preserve their supremacy, declared that their society would be a male one. They alone could perform the necessary rites to please (the) God(s). In order to make this attitude binding for the next generations, clerics allegedly divinely-inspired or just taking care of their own salary and that of their offspring, wrote elaborate scrolls and books to see to it that individuals of the female gender would have nothing to say in holy matters, thereby wiping 50% of humanity off the global board.
Basing themselves on religious laws, the kings, regents and knights adopted the female separation “laws” in the medieval social class pyramid. The latter was also followed in normal households where the male was the superior commander.
Currently, after the social revolutions and after 70 years of Communism and Socialism, counter matters are proclaimed by a conglomerate of Government, Supreme Court and Magnates (Tycoons and Moguls) in every field, in the form of new laws wherein selected office-clerks gets salaries that exceed 40-50 times that of “the others” who do the same job, not mentioning the female workers who also get by definition less than their male counterpart.
A new class of Lords is born without that we realized what has happened under our own noses. The new Lord Class is seeing to it that the so-called middle class will slowly disappear in order to obtain the desired gap between the “Lords” and the “Others” as in ancient times of the feudal era.
And so, I ask you: “Is the Feudal Era returning”? And in case your answer is positive, how can we—by thinking out of the well-rusted box—stop this new/old phenomenon? Our scientific research in every domain including the care for our cultural heritage is heavily depending on your/my answer. Let’s start.
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Dear Jan
I think that your description of the European Feudal System is heavily distorted, flawed and simplistic.
For example the books of the bible were all in place for the first century AD, but you put it as an invention of some cleric in the medieval era.
Beside the monasteries may be for men or for women, and there were approximately 50% of each. The monasteries of women were always presided by a woman (the abbess).
The monks were not usually the owner of the land but the religious community, but they were who most labored it. There were monasteries that have external workers but in most monasteries the work in the field was done by the monks themselves . If you read about the origen of Montecasino, Clairveaux, Citeaux, Cluny, etc, you will see that the monks arrived to this places when they were a desert almost inaccessible and they developed the agriculture of the field from the beginning. There were monks that only worked in the field each day, and there were others that worked in the field some time each day and worked in cultural works for part of their time. All of them use time for praying too. This kind of life is the usual life in any monastery which have some agriculture field today.
The Church build the first colleges, universities, did copy all the preserved manuscripts of antiquity, invented the hospitals, teached the agriculture to the barbarians which were nomad at first. She was the pillar of the european civilization as we know it.
There were many women in the first place of influence in the feudal period of the european society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Middle_Ages), like Isabel of Hungrary, Blanca of Castille, Catherine of Siena, Eleonor of Aquitania, Brigida of Suecia, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, etc. As the quoted paper said: "As with peasant men, the life of peasant women was difficult. Women at this level of society had considerable gender equality,[3] but this often simply meant shared poverty".
The society was more homogeneous in standard of live than today. I do not see how you may be anticipating a new feudal period.
The classic François-Louis Ganshof version of feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs. A lord was in broad terms a noble who held land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the use of the fief and the protection of the lord, the vassal would provide some sort of service to the lord. There were many varieties of feudal land tenure, consisting of military and non-military service. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief form the basis of the feudal relationship (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal).
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Measures and boundaries of middle-class status are controversial. Usually, in assigning a person to the category of middle-class one might employ "objective" measures such as income, wealth, education, occupation, and so on. At the same time, middle-class status has also been studied from a subjective perspective (i.e., subjective definitions or self-identification). Leaving these issues aside, I am looking for commonly used measures of middle-class status using income (and median or mean income). All suggestions and sources are welcome.
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Instead of income, very important measure is lifestyle, which, according to the latest perspectives in this sociological field, is considered as one of the most important and essential indicators of social structuring in post-modern societies.
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Variables such as income, level of education, unemployment, and receiving social support are widely used for formulating objective socioeconomic status. We can go further and estimate the wealth of the study subjects by asking about the amount of money they have in the bank, the estimated worth of their house, car, stocks, etc. Regardless of the trouble of gathering this information, is it recommended to do so? Suggestion of a book or article is highly appreciated.
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University of Athens
SES is not calculated, rather it is measured or even more accurately approximated. Income is a part of individual's wealth, and as you imply, it is a more precise measure of a person's financial resources. However, I believe that in one's endeavour to measure SES, all socio-economic determinants, some of which you mentioned, should be considered. As far as the approximation itself, probably an econometric method, eg structural equation models, is the best way for this latent variable to be approximated.
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In 2013, Mike Savage and others proposed a new model of class that was no longer based exclusively upon socio-economic status (SES). They suggested seven classes, including a ‘precariat’, ‘emergent service workers’, ‘technical middle class’ and ‘elite’ class. The previous SES version showed a class gradient correlating with health outcomes, and this assocation was generally explained in terms of deprivation and access to health care and health knowledge. Can the new model be used to explain health inequalities, and if so, what is the mechanism?
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Hi Benny
Well I’m getting from your answer a qualified ‘no’. Interesting, the report on the Lancet-Oslo University Commission that you reference states quite bluntly that ‘the fact that people’s life chances differ so widely is not simply a problem of poverty, but one of socioeconomic inequality’ (2014: 631).
What worries me (oh, that’s not quite right: what frustrates me slightly) about the Savage et al. model is that it seems to obscure some of this socioeconomic inequality, by focusing in on things like cultural capital: defining a person’s class in part by whether they prefer Country and Western music or the opera. I can sort of accept that social capital (provided by the people with whom one associates) has some purchase, though it seems a rather circular argument to define a person’s class in terms of the people to whom she or he is similar.
But what does really worry me about this model of class, in terms of its utility to predict life chances and health, illness and mortality, is that it seems quite possible to shift easily from one class to another over a lifetime. Indeed I reckon I’ve been a member of at least four of the seven classes over my adult life! Which one now predicts my health expectations: the one I end up within, or the one I was in when in my 20s or 30s?
Nick
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I am interested in white-collar vs blue-collar class distinctions and the stereotypes and discrimination that go along with these. Is there any evidence of stereotype accuracy about these social classes? Do people discriminate based on social classes in a way that accords with accurate stereotypes (e.g. statistical discrimination) or is the evidence more in line with unwarranted "taste based" discrimination? How does interaction between social classes affect cooperation? Suggestions of any good research articles based on data would be appreciated.
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A good and interesting current event that has received attention and provided useful insights into human behavior deals with experiments concerned with income tax evasion. James Alm has published such a study as have a few others. Georgia State University has a number of research projects that have seen the light of day and may be fun for students and faculty alike to deal with.
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What are the criteria to identify members of the "middle class" in a society?
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Definition of middle class is very location and country specific, just like the definition of poor, which is based mostly on purchasing power parity with developed countries. For example in India, per capita per day income of less than 1.25 US Dollars are considered to be living below poverty line.
But generally speaking middle class is one which can make its both ends meet without any serious financial stress. But with rising disposable incomes the middle class is increasing in size and now has a very large range of its own. In developing countries, those who are salaried and have some disposable income for white goods and other permanent assets are considered as middle class.