On social class, anno 2014

Savage, Mike ORCID: 0000-0003-4563-9564, Devine, Fiona, Cunningham, Niall, Friedman, Sam ORCID: 0000-0003-0629-1761, Laurison, Daniel, Miles, Andrew, Snee, Helene and Taylor, Mark (2015) On social class, anno 2014. Sociology, 49 (6). pp. 1011-1030. ISSN 0038-0385

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Abstract

This article responds to the critical reception of the arguments made about social class in Savage et al. (2013). It emphasises the need to disentangle different strands of debate so as not to conflate four separate issues: (a) the value of the seven class model proposed; (b) the potential of the large web survey – the Great British Class Survey (GBCS) for future research; (c) the value of Bourdieusian perspectives for re-energising class analysis; and (d) the academic and public reception to the GBCS itself. We argue that, in order to do justice to the full potential of the GBCS, we need a concept of class which does not reduce it to a technical measure of a single variable and which recognises how multiple axes of inequality can crystallise as social classes. Whilst recognising the limitations of what we are able to claim on the basis of the GBCS, we argue that the seven classes defined in Savage et al. (2013) have sociological resonance in pointing to the need to move away from a focus on class boundaries at the middle reaches of the class structure towards an analysis of the power of elite formation.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://soc.sagepub.com/
Additional Information:	© 2014 BSA Publications Ltd.
Divisions:	Sociology
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Date Deposited:	23 Oct 2014 12:45
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 00:49
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/59934

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