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Pelican Books #10
[A Pelican Introduction: Social Class in the 21st Century] [By: Savage, Mike] [December, 2015]
A fresh take on social class from the experts behind the BBC's 'Great British Class Survey'. Why does social class matter more than ever in Britain today? How has the meaning of class changed? What does this mean for social mobility and inequality? In this book Mike Savage and the team of sociologists responsible for the Great British Class Survey look beyond the labels to explore how and why our society is changing and what this means for the people who find themselves in the margins as well as in the centre. Their new conceptualization of class is based on the distribution of three kinds of capital - economic (inequalities in income and wealth), social (the different kinds of people we know) and cultural (the ways in which our leisure and cultural preferences are exclusive) - and provides incontrovertible evidence that class is as powerful and relevant today as it's ever been.
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First published October 13, 2015
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September 4, 2020
Bourdieu’s Distinction is perhaps one of the most influential books on social class from the 20th century. It is hard to overstate how it has shifted how people think about class and class advantage. Bourdieu himself was an interesting character, the son of a postal worker in rural France, he ended up at the pinnacle of academic life – although he always felt an outsider. Being an outsider can allow a new perspective on how the world works. My go-to example is a friend of Bourdieu’s, Erving Goffman, who I have more or less assumed over the years was from outer space. He ‘made strange’ so many things that seem ‘all-too-human’ to us, that it just seems easier to believe he wasn’t actually human.
This book is a reworking of Distinction – at least in the sense that it is based on an extensive survey of people in the UK that sought to understand what you can say about social classes according to Bourdieu’s three axes of capital: financial, social and cultural capital.
Financial capital is what it sounds like. But Bourdieu saw that while money could buy many things, as is clear from a thousand novels, ‘new money’ has ‘no taste’. Cultural capital isn’t easy to come by – learning to play the piano or to paint in oils or to speak Latin all require years of effort, and the ability to apply oneself over years to such pursuits isn’t spread evenly across society. So, cultural distinction separates social classes in much the same way that financial capital does.
Social capital is formed in the kinds of connections and networks you might have with other people. The authors stress that the most valuable of these are often ‘weak’ connections, since the people you know intimately are likely to know the same stuff you do – but weak connections are more likely to know things significantly different from that, and that information is probably going to be of more use to you. They find the further up the ladder you go, the more likely such weak bonds will exist with people significantly different from yourself.
This book is based on a quiz that the BBC ran in Britain in 2011. I’ve read another book where Mike Savage was one of the authors, ‘Culture, Class, Distinction’. I only realized today that I had, although I kept being reminded of that book right through this one. That book was also an attempt to update Distinction in the UK context. I wish someone would do the same for Australia. In fact, I would also be keen to read a version of this from the US too. It is not that US sociologists don’t use Bourdieu in their work – Annette Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods relies pretty heavily on his work – but it would be interesting to see if the same seven classes would play out in the US, or, indeed, whether race might be a more obvious complicating factor.
As in the earlier book, one of the main findings here was that the further up the social scale you go the more people seem to be what are called here ‘cultural omnivores’. This is said to be quite a different finding from Bourdieu’s in 1960s France. The upper class were much more likely to have ‘highbrow tastes’, such as going to the Opera or to serious theatre. The connection of theatre to higher social class was replicated in this research too, which, when this finding was released, produced an increasing in the number of people going to see plays in the UK.
A key finding here is that the thing everyone wants to avoid is being thought a snob. Which is all well and good, but it is only sort of true. People are more than happy to say that they couldn’t care less what music you listen to, that they are delighted to admit to some ‘guilty pleasures’ of their own, like maybe having a couple of Kylie Minogue albums, but even this is different across the classes. The further up the ladder you go, the more likely it is that the lowbrow tastes people admit to will be ‘ironic’ or that they will need to justify. No one in the upper classes justifies liking Shakespeare, but liking the Bay City Rollers needs to be explained. All the same, while everyone said they definitely didn’t want to be viewed as snobs, this didn’t stop them from looking down on those who, for example, watched reality television. This is the classist equivalent to ‘I’m not racist, but…’
While this is often presented as different from what Bourdieu found, Bourdieu does say somewhere (maybe in The Inheritors) that the upper classes often know more about all genres of the arts than the other classes do – whether this is those typically associated with their own class or those more closely aligned with lower social classes such as cinema or jazz.
As society becomes increasingly unequal, so it becomes more segmented and stratified. The likelihood of someone from the precariat knowing someone from the Elite (the top and bottom of the seven classes discussed here) is increasingly remote. This stratification is particularly bad news for the precariat, since social segregation allows othering which in turn allows one group to consider the another as less than fully human. In a ‘meritocracy’ this is the greatest potential evil. There is a long discussion here on Young’s book The Rise of the Meritocracy and how he had meant it as a warning, rather than as it is now understood, a blessing.
In the end everyone decided that they were in the middle, regardless of income or other advantages – although, again this was only ‘sort of’ the case. When they asked women from the precariat questions from the survey, these women understood all too well that they and their tastes were being disparaged and denigrated. The authors said this helped to explain why so few people from the precariat took part in the Survey, while so many from the upper classes jumped at the chance. Being able to say, ‘oh no, this is just silly, I’m much more middle class than this is making me out to be’ is much easier when the survey has said you are elite, rather than when it says you’re a shit-kicker. The women from the precariat asked questions from the survey began self-mocking – saying things like they keep the TV on from the moment they get up in the morning and only turn it off while shagging their partners senseless well into the evening.
I think it would be hard not to experience a kind of shock of recognition while reading this book. Not because the seven classes defined here are necessarily universally applicable. The authors make it clear that most of those who took the survey questioned how they were allocated. But while we want to see our societies as being post class, the widening gaps between rich and poor make class all the more obvious. As the authors make clear, it is mostly those at the bottom of the social structure who believe social class is an old fashioned idea and not something that adequately defines them. This is also something Jean Anyon found in her research in the 1980s, where the only kids in the schools she visited that learnt about the different interests of social classes where those towards the top of the social hierarchy. Like I said, I would love to read an Australian version of this. The geography of privilege here where the authors discuss the differences between north and south London and the various suburbs and gentrification processes they are undergoing would be a fantastic thing to read about Melbourne and Sydney.
This book is a reworking of Distinction – at least in the sense that it is based on an extensive survey of people in the UK that sought to understand what you can say about social classes according to Bourdieu’s three axes of capital: financial, social and cultural capital.
Financial capital is what it sounds like. But Bourdieu saw that while money could buy many things, as is clear from a thousand novels, ‘new money’ has ‘no taste’. Cultural capital isn’t easy to come by – learning to play the piano or to paint in oils or to speak Latin all require years of effort, and the ability to apply oneself over years to such pursuits isn’t spread evenly across society. So, cultural distinction separates social classes in much the same way that financial capital does.
Social capital is formed in the kinds of connections and networks you might have with other people. The authors stress that the most valuable of these are often ‘weak’ connections, since the people you know intimately are likely to know the same stuff you do – but weak connections are more likely to know things significantly different from that, and that information is probably going to be of more use to you. They find the further up the ladder you go, the more likely such weak bonds will exist with people significantly different from yourself.
This book is based on a quiz that the BBC ran in Britain in 2011. I’ve read another book where Mike Savage was one of the authors, ‘Culture, Class, Distinction’. I only realized today that I had, although I kept being reminded of that book right through this one. That book was also an attempt to update Distinction in the UK context. I wish someone would do the same for Australia. In fact, I would also be keen to read a version of this from the US too. It is not that US sociologists don’t use Bourdieu in their work – Annette Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods relies pretty heavily on his work – but it would be interesting to see if the same seven classes would play out in the US, or, indeed, whether race might be a more obvious complicating factor.
As in the earlier book, one of the main findings here was that the further up the social scale you go the more people seem to be what are called here ‘cultural omnivores’. This is said to be quite a different finding from Bourdieu’s in 1960s France. The upper class were much more likely to have ‘highbrow tastes’, such as going to the Opera or to serious theatre. The connection of theatre to higher social class was replicated in this research too, which, when this finding was released, produced an increasing in the number of people going to see plays in the UK.
A key finding here is that the thing everyone wants to avoid is being thought a snob. Which is all well and good, but it is only sort of true. People are more than happy to say that they couldn’t care less what music you listen to, that they are delighted to admit to some ‘guilty pleasures’ of their own, like maybe having a couple of Kylie Minogue albums, but even this is different across the classes. The further up the ladder you go, the more likely it is that the lowbrow tastes people admit to will be ‘ironic’ or that they will need to justify. No one in the upper classes justifies liking Shakespeare, but liking the Bay City Rollers needs to be explained. All the same, while everyone said they definitely didn’t want to be viewed as snobs, this didn’t stop them from looking down on those who, for example, watched reality television. This is the classist equivalent to ‘I’m not racist, but…’
While this is often presented as different from what Bourdieu found, Bourdieu does say somewhere (maybe in The Inheritors) that the upper classes often know more about all genres of the arts than the other classes do – whether this is those typically associated with their own class or those more closely aligned with lower social classes such as cinema or jazz.
As society becomes increasingly unequal, so it becomes more segmented and stratified. The likelihood of someone from the precariat knowing someone from the Elite (the top and bottom of the seven classes discussed here) is increasingly remote. This stratification is particularly bad news for the precariat, since social segregation allows othering which in turn allows one group to consider the another as less than fully human. In a ‘meritocracy’ this is the greatest potential evil. There is a long discussion here on Young’s book The Rise of the Meritocracy and how he had meant it as a warning, rather than as it is now understood, a blessing.
In the end everyone decided that they were in the middle, regardless of income or other advantages – although, again this was only ‘sort of’ the case. When they asked women from the precariat questions from the survey, these women understood all too well that they and their tastes were being disparaged and denigrated. The authors said this helped to explain why so few people from the precariat took part in the Survey, while so many from the upper classes jumped at the chance. Being able to say, ‘oh no, this is just silly, I’m much more middle class than this is making me out to be’ is much easier when the survey has said you are elite, rather than when it says you’re a shit-kicker. The women from the precariat asked questions from the survey began self-mocking – saying things like they keep the TV on from the moment they get up in the morning and only turn it off while shagging their partners senseless well into the evening.
I think it would be hard not to experience a kind of shock of recognition while reading this book. Not because the seven classes defined here are necessarily universally applicable. The authors make it clear that most of those who took the survey questioned how they were allocated. But while we want to see our societies as being post class, the widening gaps between rich and poor make class all the more obvious. As the authors make clear, it is mostly those at the bottom of the social structure who believe social class is an old fashioned idea and not something that adequately defines them. This is also something Jean Anyon found in her research in the 1980s, where the only kids in the schools she visited that learnt about the different interests of social classes where those towards the top of the social hierarchy. Like I said, I would love to read an Australian version of this. The geography of privilege here where the authors discuss the differences between north and south London and the various suburbs and gentrification processes they are undergoing would be a fantastic thing to read about Melbourne and Sydney.
November 30, 2016
I have an ongoing fascination with the British class system, probably thanks to my own background. My parents are from opposite ends of the traditional class system, which has quite possibly made me sensitive to and interested in markers of class. In the 21st century, class is a fairly taboo subject, as this book makes clear, yet still exercises considerable underlying influence on the economy, society, and culture. Savage’s book starts on a fairly slow and introductory note, but develops into a fascinating portrait of the UK’s geographical, economic, and cultural differences. I wasn’t quite sure about the format, though. Whilst I am very keen on small paperbacks that are easy to carry around, there are a lot of graphs and tables in here. These would be easier to interpret in a larger edition. Nonetheless, the points within the book are well-supported by evidence.
I particularly appreciated the discussion of changing notions of cultural capital. Like other aspects of the class system today, differences in engagement with culture are now more subtle than liking opera rather than bingo. In fact, the author goes so far as to say that it was ‘embarrassing’ for the interviewers to ask low income groups, “Do you go to the opera?” and “Do you go to bingo?” These are such obvious 20th century class markers that the mere questions seem gauche and the respondents know that they are labelling themselves with their answers. Younger generations, meanwhile, are quite likely to reply no to both, whilst still retaining cultural hierarchies of a different sort. As Savage puts it:
I hadn’t come across an effective articulation of that tendency before, but I see it everywhere in my generation: the need for a complex, quasi-intellectual justification for your taste in bands, films, books, and TV. I am as guilty of that as anyone, being physically unable to say I just ‘liked’ a book without appending some analysis of why. There is a definite snobbery about it, too. I remember as an undergraduate being subjected to overconfident eighteen year old boys’ earnest lectures about why Radiohead were the world’s best band. They appeared baffled that at the time I listened mostly to trance music, because I liked it for no particular intellectual reason. As the book mentions, this approach to pop culture is associated with confidence in your own value and judgement, which is tied to educational background and attainment.
Perhaps the key to Savage’s depiction of 21st century class is that meritocracy reinforces both inequality and the current divide between the elite at the top and the precariat at the bottom. Since traditional notions of class emphasised stability of class identity and absence of meritocracy, this is a critical point. A neoliberal, individualistic ethos is antithetical to the social determinism still linked to the term ‘class’. Thus the surveys that underpin this book found huge defensiveness around economic and social capital, at all levels. The politics of individualism teach us to take personal responsibility for our levels of wealth and income. The best off insist that they worked hard to get what they have; the worst off protest that they are better off than some. Of course, as Savage shows, if your parents were part of the elite class, it is vastly more likely that you will be too, for many reasons. Meritocracy is not the same as equal opportunity for all. However, it conveys a sense of satisfaction upon the best off (because they competed successfully to get to the top) and a sense of failure upon the worst off (because they are told that they could have succeeded had they worked harder). These very messages reinforce inequality and class differences. The gaps in likelihood of joining the elite are pretty astounding. According to the survey data, 64% of those with manager/professional parents who went to an Independent school then Oxford became members of the elite. By contrast, 39% of those with parents in semi-routine/routine occupations who went to an independent school then Oxford made it to the elite! In fact, I cannot help resenting the gap between Oxford and Cambridge in terms of respondents’ income, savings, and house values. (I blame the preponderance of Prime Ministers who did PPE at Oxford. I considered applying for that, but it seemed less interesting and relevant to the problems of the world than the Cambridge course I settled on. Irony abounds!)
The above attests to the fact that any British reader will take this book personally. It raises so many interesting points about how we identify and sort ourselves into social groups. Although Savage talks mainly about the elite and precariat, the dynamics of the five other classes between them would also be fascinating to explore, perhaps in another book. The chapter about how we talk about class was incredibly revealing:
In fact, less than a third of respondents to the surveys that underpin the book thought that they belonged to a social class! Hilariously, there are massive class differences here. Nearly half of the elite think they belong to a class (the middle class, in 42% of cases), in contrast to a quarter of the precariat (51% of whom thought they were ‘middle working class’). In a sense, this demonstrates the lasting power of class - being labelled a particular class is still seen as important and potentially as a constraint. There is still a tacit social hierarchy, however now individuals are expected to take responsibility for their place in it. British people have a strong understanding of class, but it remains difficult to put into words, other than in ironic or pastiche contexts. Another memory that the book brought to mind: the time that I came across the blog of Caroline Calloway, an American who writes romanticised accounts of her student life at Cambridge on Instagram. It made me absolutely cringe, because she idealises a vision of aristocratic exceptionalism and unquestioned attachment to tradition. This feels uncomfortably like snobbery, yet is really no more than making explicit (albeit in a rosy, unironic light) a form of conservatism which remains largely implicit and unchallenged in Britain.
This review already is quite long enough, so I won’t delve into the geographical chapters. Suffice it to say: London rules Britain, the rest of us just live here. There is much more to be written about class in 21st century Britain and what it means, however Savage’s book is a great introduction and will hopefully provoke a good deal more discussion and research on the subject.
I particularly appreciated the discussion of changing notions of cultural capital. Like other aspects of the class system today, differences in engagement with culture are now more subtle than liking opera rather than bingo. In fact, the author goes so far as to say that it was ‘embarrassing’ for the interviewers to ask low income groups, “Do you go to the opera?” and “Do you go to bingo?” These are such obvious 20th century class markers that the mere questions seem gauche and the respondents know that they are labelling themselves with their answers. Younger generations, meanwhile, are quite likely to reply no to both, whilst still retaining cultural hierarchies of a different sort. As Savage puts it:
Emerging cultural capital is therefore not about liking popular culture per se, but rather demonstrating one’s skill at manoeuvring between the choices on the menu, and displaying one’s careful selection of particular popular musical artists; through one’s ability to pick, choose, and combine ‘the best’ of popular culture. Moreover, this type of popular discernment was not just about what you like but why you like it. [...] In any case what is most central here is a particular style of aesthetic appreciation, a certain detached, knowing orientation to popular culture that demonstrates both an eclectic knowledge and a privileged understanding.
I hadn’t come across an effective articulation of that tendency before, but I see it everywhere in my generation: the need for a complex, quasi-intellectual justification for your taste in bands, films, books, and TV. I am as guilty of that as anyone, being physically unable to say I just ‘liked’ a book without appending some analysis of why. There is a definite snobbery about it, too. I remember as an undergraduate being subjected to overconfident eighteen year old boys’ earnest lectures about why Radiohead were the world’s best band. They appeared baffled that at the time I listened mostly to trance music, because I liked it for no particular intellectual reason. As the book mentions, this approach to pop culture is associated with confidence in your own value and judgement, which is tied to educational background and attainment.
Perhaps the key to Savage’s depiction of 21st century class is that meritocracy reinforces both inequality and the current divide between the elite at the top and the precariat at the bottom. Since traditional notions of class emphasised stability of class identity and absence of meritocracy, this is a critical point. A neoliberal, individualistic ethos is antithetical to the social determinism still linked to the term ‘class’. Thus the surveys that underpin this book found huge defensiveness around economic and social capital, at all levels. The politics of individualism teach us to take personal responsibility for our levels of wealth and income. The best off insist that they worked hard to get what they have; the worst off protest that they are better off than some. Of course, as Savage shows, if your parents were part of the elite class, it is vastly more likely that you will be too, for many reasons. Meritocracy is not the same as equal opportunity for all. However, it conveys a sense of satisfaction upon the best off (because they competed successfully to get to the top) and a sense of failure upon the worst off (because they are told that they could have succeeded had they worked harder). These very messages reinforce inequality and class differences. The gaps in likelihood of joining the elite are pretty astounding. According to the survey data, 64% of those with manager/professional parents who went to an Independent school then Oxford became members of the elite. By contrast, 39% of those with parents in semi-routine/routine occupations who went to an independent school then Oxford made it to the elite! In fact, I cannot help resenting the gap between Oxford and Cambridge in terms of respondents’ income, savings, and house values. (I blame the preponderance of Prime Ministers who did PPE at Oxford. I considered applying for that, but it seemed less interesting and relevant to the problems of the world than the Cambridge course I settled on. Irony abounds!)
The above attests to the fact that any British reader will take this book personally. It raises so many interesting points about how we identify and sort ourselves into social groups. Although Savage talks mainly about the elite and precariat, the dynamics of the five other classes between them would also be fascinating to explore, perhaps in another book. The chapter about how we talk about class was incredibly revealing:
Most people are now ambivalent and hesitant about which class they belong to, and when quizzed about it often prefer to reflect on the way that they straddle different classes. Class is important not so much as an overt badge (when people feel proud to belong to a class), but more in the way that prompts moral and emotional reactions, especially negative ones. It matters more which class you do not belong to, rather than which one you think you do belong to. [...] It follows that class identities operate in a complex and contradictory way. They hold out images and values, often unattainable, remote, or locked in the past.
In fact, less than a third of respondents to the surveys that underpin the book thought that they belonged to a social class! Hilariously, there are massive class differences here. Nearly half of the elite think they belong to a class (the middle class, in 42% of cases), in contrast to a quarter of the precariat (51% of whom thought they were ‘middle working class’). In a sense, this demonstrates the lasting power of class - being labelled a particular class is still seen as important and potentially as a constraint. There is still a tacit social hierarchy, however now individuals are expected to take responsibility for their place in it. British people have a strong understanding of class, but it remains difficult to put into words, other than in ironic or pastiche contexts. Another memory that the book brought to mind: the time that I came across the blog of Caroline Calloway, an American who writes romanticised accounts of her student life at Cambridge on Instagram. It made me absolutely cringe, because she idealises a vision of aristocratic exceptionalism and unquestioned attachment to tradition. This feels uncomfortably like snobbery, yet is really no more than making explicit (albeit in a rosy, unironic light) a form of conservatism which remains largely implicit and unchallenged in Britain.
This review already is quite long enough, so I won’t delve into the geographical chapters. Suffice it to say: London rules Britain, the rest of us just live here. There is much more to be written about class in 21st century Britain and what it means, however Savage’s book is a great introduction and will hopefully provoke a good deal more discussion and research on the subject.
April 21, 2020
Equal parts accessible and illuminating. The chapter on new emerging cultural capital was particularly interesting
September 12, 2016
Social class can be contentious, for some a construct almost immediately accepted or rejected, without thinking about it, either way. When speaking with Americans, one gets the idea that such labels don't apply, particularly as "middle-class" appears to describe everyone these days, other than the rich and the poor, I suppose. The latter are these days labelled the precariat in some circles, pointing to the precarious nature of their existence in a casualised, "flexible" world, with security of employment either not guaranteed or specifically denied.
I come from a working-class background which, growing up, I identified as upper working class, which I justified by my level of schooling, including personal interests not shared by my local peers, and that my father didn't work in a factory (he was a sales clerk) and so was not blue-collar. His father had worked in a glassmaking factory. We were not middle-class because that hinged on location (where I lived, specific streets), income, the kind of school you went to, and education and occupation of parents. We didn't know any teachers, lawyers, or anyone who had been to university. I got into university myself by accident and took a couple of goes at it (3 actually) before I made something of it. Of course others from the working class had different experiences, and abilities.
I first opened this book whilst waiting for friends to go to a music event and showed it at some point during the night, commenting that is was a very good read so far. One of those listening, a friend of a few decades, commented immediately and loudly that everyone was equal and so on in Australia and so class was irrelevant. However, he operates as a contemporary composer whilst working in a timber yard, and dresses that way when one of his pieces was played, where attendees clearly had other norms of presentation, and his own working-class origins are evident.
This book approaches social class at a number of levels: its past and current meanings, contemporary relevance, and importance regarding social mobility and what is now agreed to be a time of growing inequality. It is filled with data from the Great British Class Survey, with many tables, charts and maps. The language is clear and accessible and it addresses historical, theoretical and practical issues. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of social capital and the demonstration of changes in what that might entail.
It's actually the clarity of expression throughout, including the explanation of relevant theories and interpretation of the data that makes this a great read. The data is British, and so it's an advantage to know something of the UK, but the text covers a broad spectrum of ideas and interpretations from elsewhere e.g. Richard Sennett, Bourdieu. I've given it the top mark because of this.
If you didn't know anything about the topic or if you were unsure or skeptical about the idea in the first place, this is a great place to be informed and to think about what social class has meant, and what it might mean today.
I come from a working-class background which, growing up, I identified as upper working class, which I justified by my level of schooling, including personal interests not shared by my local peers, and that my father didn't work in a factory (he was a sales clerk) and so was not blue-collar. His father had worked in a glassmaking factory. We were not middle-class because that hinged on location (where I lived, specific streets), income, the kind of school you went to, and education and occupation of parents. We didn't know any teachers, lawyers, or anyone who had been to university. I got into university myself by accident and took a couple of goes at it (3 actually) before I made something of it. Of course others from the working class had different experiences, and abilities.
I first opened this book whilst waiting for friends to go to a music event and showed it at some point during the night, commenting that is was a very good read so far. One of those listening, a friend of a few decades, commented immediately and loudly that everyone was equal and so on in Australia and so class was irrelevant. However, he operates as a contemporary composer whilst working in a timber yard, and dresses that way when one of his pieces was played, where attendees clearly had other norms of presentation, and his own working-class origins are evident.
This book approaches social class at a number of levels: its past and current meanings, contemporary relevance, and importance regarding social mobility and what is now agreed to be a time of growing inequality. It is filled with data from the Great British Class Survey, with many tables, charts and maps. The language is clear and accessible and it addresses historical, theoretical and practical issues. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of social capital and the demonstration of changes in what that might entail.
It's actually the clarity of expression throughout, including the explanation of relevant theories and interpretation of the data that makes this a great read. The data is British, and so it's an advantage to know something of the UK, but the text covers a broad spectrum of ideas and interpretations from elsewhere e.g. Richard Sennett, Bourdieu. I've given it the top mark because of this.
If you didn't know anything about the topic or if you were unsure or skeptical about the idea in the first place, this is a great place to be informed and to think about what social class has meant, and what it might mean today.
November 13, 2017
Read this for a seminar. My seminar prof is actually Mike Savage himself so I have a feeling it'll be a fun discussion
February 4, 2021
I’ve been interested in reading about social class in general—because it does feel like earlier works, e.g. Bourdieu in the 1960s), don’t perfectly fit into contemporary ideas of class anymore—and about class in the UK especially. (When I moved to London someone gave me a rundown of grocery stores in order of poshness: Waitrose, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Aldi/Lidl. And that’s been entirety of my understanding of class in Britain, until this book.)
Generally, it’s very accessible and has a good mix of quantitative/qualitative discussion. Respectful of and relies heavily on Bourdieu's Distinction and Piketty’s Capital. Some key takeaways:
— Bourdieu’s idea of cultural capital was that access to ‘legitimate culture’ (art, opera, classic literature) is a form of capital that people can use to advantage themselves and enforce distinctions between themselves and others. Bourdieu, of course, was writing at a time when cinema and photography were not quite art. This book suggests that legitimate culture is a useful marker for elite status and greater cultural capital for older generations—but for newer generations, it’s not just about the classics but about engaging with an eclectic mix of emerging culture (so: being able to make references to Proust, listen to the Good Techno and not the Generic Mainstream Techno, etc). This doesn’t mean that cultural capital in the twenty-first century is more inclusive; the goalposts have moved, but the way cultural access and awareness is used to enforce good and bad taste (and consequently higher or lower class) still holds.
— The distinction between ‘middle class’ and ‘working class’ isn’t as distinct or useful today. Instead, Savage and his coauthors suggest that the very wealthy, elite class and the economically marginalised precariat are extremely distinct classes, and the middle class is a muddled, indistinct category. Especially interesting (and something I’ll have to think about more!) is their argument that, when it comes to UK politics, a political strategy based on reviving working-class identity and solidarity is no longer tenable.
— They prefer the term ‘precariat’ instead of ‘underclass’, arguing that ‘precariat’ is less stigmatising and accurately depicts how economic precarity and cultural marginalisation is due to broader labour market and social dynamics, and not something inherent to whether people in the precariat ‘deserve’ to be poor. (Surely no one deserves to experience housing or food insecurity…)
— Savage argues that focusing too much on the 1% ignores the ordinary inequalities that accumulate to the top, say, 6%. I found this argument quite compelling because yes, obviously Jeff Bezos is egregiously wealthy, but inequality exists in less showy ways (through the advantages homeowners vs renters have, through the accumulation of social and cultural capital Oxbridge graduates—or let’s say Ivy League graduates in the US case—have) that are still deleterious to society.
— The ways people identify with (or resist identification with!) class distinction varies based on…class, obviously, as well as race and gender. There’s an interesting bit about how women in the precariat (unstable employment, generally looked down on) more readily identify as being part of the precariat than men, who are more eager to identify as anything-but-the-bottom.
— Not a new revelation, but having the data helps: the economic and cultural dominance of London compared to the rest of the UK is unreal. Similarly, the economic opportunities and trajectories of Oxbridge + key London institutions is wildly different than…basically everywhere else in the UK.
Generally, it’s very accessible and has a good mix of quantitative/qualitative discussion. Respectful of and relies heavily on Bourdieu's Distinction and Piketty’s Capital. Some key takeaways:
— Bourdieu’s idea of cultural capital was that access to ‘legitimate culture’ (art, opera, classic literature) is a form of capital that people can use to advantage themselves and enforce distinctions between themselves and others. Bourdieu, of course, was writing at a time when cinema and photography were not quite art. This book suggests that legitimate culture is a useful marker for elite status and greater cultural capital for older generations—but for newer generations, it’s not just about the classics but about engaging with an eclectic mix of emerging culture (so: being able to make references to Proust, listen to the Good Techno and not the Generic Mainstream Techno, etc). This doesn’t mean that cultural capital in the twenty-first century is more inclusive; the goalposts have moved, but the way cultural access and awareness is used to enforce good and bad taste (and consequently higher or lower class) still holds.
— The distinction between ‘middle class’ and ‘working class’ isn’t as distinct or useful today. Instead, Savage and his coauthors suggest that the very wealthy, elite class and the economically marginalised precariat are extremely distinct classes, and the middle class is a muddled, indistinct category. Especially interesting (and something I’ll have to think about more!) is their argument that, when it comes to UK politics, a political strategy based on reviving working-class identity and solidarity is no longer tenable.
— They prefer the term ‘precariat’ instead of ‘underclass’, arguing that ‘precariat’ is less stigmatising and accurately depicts how economic precarity and cultural marginalisation is due to broader labour market and social dynamics, and not something inherent to whether people in the precariat ‘deserve’ to be poor. (Surely no one deserves to experience housing or food insecurity…)
— Savage argues that focusing too much on the 1% ignores the ordinary inequalities that accumulate to the top, say, 6%. I found this argument quite compelling because yes, obviously Jeff Bezos is egregiously wealthy, but inequality exists in less showy ways (through the advantages homeowners vs renters have, through the accumulation of social and cultural capital Oxbridge graduates—or let’s say Ivy League graduates in the US case—have) that are still deleterious to society.
— The ways people identify with (or resist identification with!) class distinction varies based on…class, obviously, as well as race and gender. There’s an interesting bit about how women in the precariat (unstable employment, generally looked down on) more readily identify as being part of the precariat than men, who are more eager to identify as anything-but-the-bottom.
— Not a new revelation, but having the data helps: the economic and cultural dominance of London compared to the rest of the UK is unreal. Similarly, the economic opportunities and trajectories of Oxbridge + key London institutions is wildly different than…basically everywhere else in the UK.
April 8, 2020
Sociology is a science. That explains the systematic flow of Savage’s argument marked by an absence of rhetorical flourish or excessive use of pathos that is so featured in books about class, contemporary or not.
Savage simplifies the increasingly amorphous and multifaceted concept-structure of class into something anyone without much knowledge of sociology can grasp: the segregation of the population based on the amount of economic, cultural, and social capital they possess. And in Savage’s argument, contemporary British society is made up of 7 classes which see overlaps with each other, especially in the middle class — this means that the ‘middle class’ is no longer as homogenous as it used to be. People are not only just defined by their occupation and lifestyle choices now; following Thatcher’s neo-liberal policies and the advent of ‘individualisation’, the traditionally rigid boundaries of class have given way to more fluid interpretations of class identity (which intersects with other identities like age and gender), yet, British reluctance to acknowledge the existence of class or simply to talk about it remains fairly constant.
Class snobbery, indeed, has gone underground. Nowadays, we hold on tight to the democratic belief that everyone is equal, and the meritocratic belief that anyone, with the potential, is able to succeed. However, underlying this facade is still a belief in the moral superiority of being average (hard-working but not grossly privileged). As a result, the lowest class, also the most invisible in sociological class surveys, is most often unfairly depicted as immoral and deficient. Such is the plight of the precariat of today.
Additionally, Britain’s Neo-liberalist capitalist order has been significant in intensifying competition and the accumulation of economic capital — increasingly, and unfortunately, meritocracy will fail for the lowest reaches of society.
Class divide is now an interplay of myriad factors — age, geography (a result of gentrification), the role of elite universities, ethnicity, gender.
Therefore, Savage calls upon the British government and British politicians to consider more inclusive policies that could make up a new economic structure that could shrink the gaping inequality, a call that is not exclusive to the Conservative or the Labour Party. As we’ve been shown, traditional conceptions of class identity are no longer as potent as before. However, no specific policy recommendations were given; this book does not provide a blueprint as much as it does a sobering reconnaissance of the world that is and that may come to be.
Savage simplifies the increasingly amorphous and multifaceted concept-structure of class into something anyone without much knowledge of sociology can grasp: the segregation of the population based on the amount of economic, cultural, and social capital they possess. And in Savage’s argument, contemporary British society is made up of 7 classes which see overlaps with each other, especially in the middle class — this means that the ‘middle class’ is no longer as homogenous as it used to be. People are not only just defined by their occupation and lifestyle choices now; following Thatcher’s neo-liberal policies and the advent of ‘individualisation’, the traditionally rigid boundaries of class have given way to more fluid interpretations of class identity (which intersects with other identities like age and gender), yet, British reluctance to acknowledge the existence of class or simply to talk about it remains fairly constant.
Class snobbery, indeed, has gone underground. Nowadays, we hold on tight to the democratic belief that everyone is equal, and the meritocratic belief that anyone, with the potential, is able to succeed. However, underlying this facade is still a belief in the moral superiority of being average (hard-working but not grossly privileged). As a result, the lowest class, also the most invisible in sociological class surveys, is most often unfairly depicted as immoral and deficient. Such is the plight of the precariat of today.
Additionally, Britain’s Neo-liberalist capitalist order has been significant in intensifying competition and the accumulation of economic capital — increasingly, and unfortunately, meritocracy will fail for the lowest reaches of society.
Class divide is now an interplay of myriad factors — age, geography (a result of gentrification), the role of elite universities, ethnicity, gender.
Therefore, Savage calls upon the British government and British politicians to consider more inclusive policies that could make up a new economic structure that could shrink the gaping inequality, a call that is not exclusive to the Conservative or the Labour Party. As we’ve been shown, traditional conceptions of class identity are no longer as potent as before. However, no specific policy recommendations were given; this book does not provide a blueprint as much as it does a sobering reconnaissance of the world that is and that may come to be.
February 7, 2017
Popular sociology is not an easy genre to get right. Indeed, it's not even a genre that is easy to attempt. I think that Mike Savage and his co-authors (all eight of them) have done a remarkably good job.
Prof. Savage is the Martin White Professor of Sociology at the LSE, and was the co-director of the BBC's Great British Class Survey, on which much of the book is based. That latter fact highlights a crucial point: despite the general title, this is a study of social class in twenty-first century Britain, not the entire world. Even given that, it is largely confined (as the authors' admit) to England, with the occasional jaunt to Edinburgh.
After two introductory chapters, the book is split into three sections. The first of these looks at different forms of class capital, namely economic (what you own), cultural (what you know), and social (who you know). The second section looks at social mobility in the UK, with fascinating chapters of the geography of class (particularly the North vs the South and London vs the rest), and the role of universities in shaping class hierarchies. The final section includes snapshots of the elite and the precariat, respectively at the top and the bottom of the class hierarchy, and a chapter on the 'new snobbery'.
Each chapter combines a pleasing combination of statistics and qualitative information, the latter mostly drawn from a large body of interviews, as well as from some news stories.
When I said that this was a successful work of popular sociology, that should probably be taken with a certain caveat. I found some of the more mathematically complicated graphs hard going. Furthermore, when reading the book, it helps to have at least some familiarity with the theories of Bourdieu. There are a reasonable but not overwhelming number of citations to scholarly literature, some of which I intend to follow up. In other words, this is a much more academic book than, say, Kate Fox's often-funny but rather lightweight work of popular anthropology, Watching the English . Savage's book is aimed at a wider audience than a typical academic work, but it is still aimed at readers with a certain type of cultural capital. Call them LRB-readers, if you will. That is perhaps inevitable, but — given the book's content — is also rather telling.
I would have liked more information about divisions within Savage's defined class groups. This was particularly true when it came to the discussion of class and party affiliation, which is confined to the Conservative and Labour parties. If I'm reading his chart correctly, then it seems that the Liberal Democrats garner support disproportionately from those with high social and cultural capital but middling economic capital. That fascinating, if not entirely surprising, observation is not discussed in the text at all. Support for UKIP and other parties of the populist right is not indicated even in the charts, which is a major omission. Still, to have included everything it perhaps should have been would have required a much longer book. On the whole, Savage and his team are to be applauded.
Prof. Savage is the Martin White Professor of Sociology at the LSE, and was the co-director of the BBC's Great British Class Survey, on which much of the book is based. That latter fact highlights a crucial point: despite the general title, this is a study of social class in twenty-first century Britain, not the entire world. Even given that, it is largely confined (as the authors' admit) to England, with the occasional jaunt to Edinburgh.
After two introductory chapters, the book is split into three sections. The first of these looks at different forms of class capital, namely economic (what you own), cultural (what you know), and social (who you know). The second section looks at social mobility in the UK, with fascinating chapters of the geography of class (particularly the North vs the South and London vs the rest), and the role of universities in shaping class hierarchies. The final section includes snapshots of the elite and the precariat, respectively at the top and the bottom of the class hierarchy, and a chapter on the 'new snobbery'.
Each chapter combines a pleasing combination of statistics and qualitative information, the latter mostly drawn from a large body of interviews, as well as from some news stories.
When I said that this was a successful work of popular sociology, that should probably be taken with a certain caveat. I found some of the more mathematically complicated graphs hard going. Furthermore, when reading the book, it helps to have at least some familiarity with the theories of Bourdieu. There are a reasonable but not overwhelming number of citations to scholarly literature, some of which I intend to follow up. In other words, this is a much more academic book than, say, Kate Fox's often-funny but rather lightweight work of popular anthropology, Watching the English . Savage's book is aimed at a wider audience than a typical academic work, but it is still aimed at readers with a certain type of cultural capital. Call them LRB-readers, if you will. That is perhaps inevitable, but — given the book's content — is also rather telling.
I would have liked more information about divisions within Savage's defined class groups. This was particularly true when it came to the discussion of class and party affiliation, which is confined to the Conservative and Labour parties. If I'm reading his chart correctly, then it seems that the Liberal Democrats garner support disproportionately from those with high social and cultural capital but middling economic capital. That fascinating, if not entirely surprising, observation is not discussed in the text at all. Support for UKIP and other parties of the populist right is not indicated even in the charts, which is a major omission. Still, to have included everything it perhaps should have been would have required a much longer book. On the whole, Savage and his team are to be applauded.
March 26, 2021
suitable introductory text
May 30, 2021
Really want to follow up on other books in this series now. I liked how accessible the book is, and draws you toward some important literature. I'm convinced by most of their arguments, however some less than others.
April 21, 2024
A very solid, thoroughly grounded sociological introduction to social class. It's based on a BBC-funded survey conducted in 2019 with a large stratified sample.
Alongside its suggested seven-class taxonomy of UK inequality in 2019, it introduces two significant new ideas.
One is that the new politics of class features an initial disavowal of social class, only for harsh boundary-drawing to be revealed later. This seems to me a clear and logical parallel with contemporary racisms and sexisms: there is an "I don't see colour" for social class, which pairs with fierce negative identification against people who are supposedly "tastless", "rude" and "on benefits". It builds on previous literature that those who bear the brunt of class inequality lead lives characterised by precarity, only being able to access variable and short-term work, alongside unstable income and housing. It names this group the precariat (the term coined by Guy Standing), who are stigmatised as delinquent and irresponsible. It helpfully points out that this group, especially women within it, had the most immediately sophisticated understanding of the moral loading behind the questions they were being asked (about where they lived, their income and what they consumed).
The only small downside is inadequate self-reflection on the part of the researchers. They concluded that those at the bottom of the class hierarchy are most hesitant to describe themselves as working class, or to reveal what they enjoy doing or how they live. They don't express clearly enough that this data can only show only how those people are acting when talking to someone who is part of the elite, a career academic in the situationally powerful position of research interviewer. I watched my mum for years at home easily talking about how much she loved bullseye and candy crush, to then dither and avoid the question and get seriously uncomfortable if a friend's parent asked what her hobbies were. I'm equally sure that "elite" respondents would have behaved very differently to how they're represented in this book, if they were being spoken to by a member of the "precariat". The types of people who politely claim class-blindness and then gently reveal a little prejudice to the researchers in this book are the same types of people who I've known to mock, speak down to, or blank people like me entirely.
Secondly, the book characterises new cultural capital in two ways: it must be both eclectic and "knowing". Belonging to the cultural capital elite requires a conspicuously ecumenical cultural consumption - Taylor Swift alongside Tolstoy - alongside performances of a "knowing" mode of appreciation. This model explains why a working class mum who listens to Rachmaninoff because it's 'relaxing' is not able to convert this into cultural capital, but a university student who mentions they're watching Ex on the Beach for it's "narratives of memory and loss" with irony in their gaze, is easily welcomed into the fold of the cultural elite. This is contrasted with the older, stricter distinction between "high" and "low"-brow entertainment.
Practically, the stark stats help with interpreting the people around me. A shocking 30% (almost a third) of the Elite group (who represent the most privileged 5%) responded in the survey that they were some kind of working class. A large empirical dataset covering people's material reality alongside their self-concept really helpfully reveals the general staggering lack of awareness around social class, especially of those at the top. That's a useful understanding to move through the world with.
Alongside its suggested seven-class taxonomy of UK inequality in 2019, it introduces two significant new ideas.
One is that the new politics of class features an initial disavowal of social class, only for harsh boundary-drawing to be revealed later. This seems to me a clear and logical parallel with contemporary racisms and sexisms: there is an "I don't see colour" for social class, which pairs with fierce negative identification against people who are supposedly "tastless", "rude" and "on benefits". It builds on previous literature that those who bear the brunt of class inequality lead lives characterised by precarity, only being able to access variable and short-term work, alongside unstable income and housing. It names this group the precariat (the term coined by Guy Standing), who are stigmatised as delinquent and irresponsible. It helpfully points out that this group, especially women within it, had the most immediately sophisticated understanding of the moral loading behind the questions they were being asked (about where they lived, their income and what they consumed).
The only small downside is inadequate self-reflection on the part of the researchers. They concluded that those at the bottom of the class hierarchy are most hesitant to describe themselves as working class, or to reveal what they enjoy doing or how they live. They don't express clearly enough that this data can only show only how those people are acting when talking to someone who is part of the elite, a career academic in the situationally powerful position of research interviewer. I watched my mum for years at home easily talking about how much she loved bullseye and candy crush, to then dither and avoid the question and get seriously uncomfortable if a friend's parent asked what her hobbies were. I'm equally sure that "elite" respondents would have behaved very differently to how they're represented in this book, if they were being spoken to by a member of the "precariat". The types of people who politely claim class-blindness and then gently reveal a little prejudice to the researchers in this book are the same types of people who I've known to mock, speak down to, or blank people like me entirely.
Secondly, the book characterises new cultural capital in two ways: it must be both eclectic and "knowing". Belonging to the cultural capital elite requires a conspicuously ecumenical cultural consumption - Taylor Swift alongside Tolstoy - alongside performances of a "knowing" mode of appreciation. This model explains why a working class mum who listens to Rachmaninoff because it's 'relaxing' is not able to convert this into cultural capital, but a university student who mentions they're watching Ex on the Beach for it's "narratives of memory and loss" with irony in their gaze, is easily welcomed into the fold of the cultural elite. This is contrasted with the older, stricter distinction between "high" and "low"-brow entertainment.
Practically, the stark stats help with interpreting the people around me. A shocking 30% (almost a third) of the Elite group (who represent the most privileged 5%) responded in the survey that they were some kind of working class. A large empirical dataset covering people's material reality alongside their self-concept really helpfully reveals the general staggering lack of awareness around social class, especially of those at the top. That's a useful understanding to move through the world with.
May 28, 2024
- In sum, that the British class system is still alive and well. Except the romanticism of "landed gentry" being on the top of the pyramid has been no longer the case for decades, replaced by more of a meritocratic system with often the head of the company on top of the pyramid. And that London has gradually become the center of the British
- Culture itself has a sharp division, between "high" culture (Opera, Orchestra etc) and "low" culture (TV Soap Opera etc). People with possessions of "high" culture have innate urge to "educate" people with "low culture". People of the "high" culture chose high culture precisely because it is unpopular and non-vulgar
- However, it should be said that people enjoy those cultures for different reasons. The working class use culture as an escape mechanism. Whereas the consumer of high culture use it as a method of marker of obtainment of their cultural capital. "Their cultural engagement is likely to be more informal, more neighborhood-and kinship-based, and is hence less likely to be something based around particular leisure activities such as going to a museum"
- Cultural capital is not directly correlated with materialistic possession. As the author pointed out that there are plenty of poor people in the UK with high culture. There are also plenty of wealthy working class people with low culture. However, author noted that for the elite class, they most likely both have high culture and high amount of materialistic possessions
- Author noted that with new wave of new culture, today people with high amount of cultural capital not only consume "high" culture, but also take pride on their ease of navigation of "low" culture. It's about their ability to pick and chose between those cultures that signals their contemporary taste in culture - that they know which of "low" culture is "right", "less-vulgar" etc
- The idea of high culture is that one should have to "work" to get the conclusion of such culture. And low culture is an automatic escape route with not much thought needed
- For people with high cultural capital, they often view people with low cultural capital not only low in cultural capital, but also more low-ly as a person
- People are sensitive to talk about their class because they fear it would interfere with their "individualities". They want to be seen as unique. That they have freedom of choices that eventually landed where they are. Therefore even though when they do talk about class, they want to re-frame the question first. In addition, people have the desire of labeling them "middle" of something (middle working class, middle class, or middle-upper class) to avoid sounding overly snobby and pretentious
- Culture itself has a sharp division, between "high" culture (Opera, Orchestra etc) and "low" culture (TV Soap Opera etc). People with possessions of "high" culture have innate urge to "educate" people with "low culture". People of the "high" culture chose high culture precisely because it is unpopular and non-vulgar
- However, it should be said that people enjoy those cultures for different reasons. The working class use culture as an escape mechanism. Whereas the consumer of high culture use it as a method of marker of obtainment of their cultural capital. "Their cultural engagement is likely to be more informal, more neighborhood-and kinship-based, and is hence less likely to be something based around particular leisure activities such as going to a museum"
- Cultural capital is not directly correlated with materialistic possession. As the author pointed out that there are plenty of poor people in the UK with high culture. There are also plenty of wealthy working class people with low culture. However, author noted that for the elite class, they most likely both have high culture and high amount of materialistic possessions
- Author noted that with new wave of new culture, today people with high amount of cultural capital not only consume "high" culture, but also take pride on their ease of navigation of "low" culture. It's about their ability to pick and chose between those cultures that signals their contemporary taste in culture - that they know which of "low" culture is "right", "less-vulgar" etc
- The idea of high culture is that one should have to "work" to get the conclusion of such culture. And low culture is an automatic escape route with not much thought needed
- For people with high cultural capital, they often view people with low cultural capital not only low in cultural capital, but also more low-ly as a person
- People are sensitive to talk about their class because they fear it would interfere with their "individualities". They want to be seen as unique. That they have freedom of choices that eventually landed where they are. Therefore even though when they do talk about class, they want to re-frame the question first. In addition, people have the desire of labeling them "middle" of something (middle working class, middle class, or middle-upper class) to avoid sounding overly snobby and pretentious
January 21, 2021
This book purports to use survey data to perform an update of "class analysis" in the UK. This is a reasonable introduction to the topic for the layman, but the book does have a few flaws in my view. But first, the good parts.
The most valuable take away from this book, for me, was the authors' attempt to "dissolve" the monolithic middle class into discintct groups. To do this, they adopted the cultural capital model of Pierre Bourdieu. I think this part of the book made strong arguments, based on the data, that motivate the major factors that divide the majority of us.
It was interesting to see that factors such as age, geographic location, home ownership status, personal network, and level of education are far bigger dividers of "class" than any popular media notions of "working class" or "middle class" culture.
I was personally less convinced by analysis of the role of what the authors term "emerging cultural capital", which seemed to me to simply be modern mainstream culture. That said the argument about "ease and familiarity" in discussion of cultural topics did ring true.
Now my two major irritations with the book:
First, although there is generally a good reliance on survey data to make the majority of the case, I found the frequent tangents into anecdotal evidence rather flimsy. These take the form of quotes from various survey participants but I couldn't shake the feeling that this kind of thing is open to any amount of selective pressure and that the more "interesting" stores get amplified. I much prefer to look at the data, where broader themes can be identified.
Second, I think the authors spend more time than necessary on making the case that the wealthy are over represented in London, in independent schools and at Oxbridge. Although it was good to see data confirming this, I didn't feel like it needed quite as much exposition. The data aligns with expectations here. It felt a bit tedious after a while.
However, the book did inspire me to read more of Bourdieu's own work and for that I am grateful.
The most valuable take away from this book, for me, was the authors' attempt to "dissolve" the monolithic middle class into discintct groups. To do this, they adopted the cultural capital model of Pierre Bourdieu. I think this part of the book made strong arguments, based on the data, that motivate the major factors that divide the majority of us.
It was interesting to see that factors such as age, geographic location, home ownership status, personal network, and level of education are far bigger dividers of "class" than any popular media notions of "working class" or "middle class" culture.
I was personally less convinced by analysis of the role of what the authors term "emerging cultural capital", which seemed to me to simply be modern mainstream culture. That said the argument about "ease and familiarity" in discussion of cultural topics did ring true.
Now my two major irritations with the book:
First, although there is generally a good reliance on survey data to make the majority of the case, I found the frequent tangents into anecdotal evidence rather flimsy. These take the form of quotes from various survey participants but I couldn't shake the feeling that this kind of thing is open to any amount of selective pressure and that the more "interesting" stores get amplified. I much prefer to look at the data, where broader themes can be identified.
Second, I think the authors spend more time than necessary on making the case that the wealthy are over represented in London, in independent schools and at Oxbridge. Although it was good to see data confirming this, I didn't feel like it needed quite as much exposition. The data aligns with expectations here. It felt a bit tedious after a while.
However, the book did inspire me to read more of Bourdieu's own work and for that I am grateful.
April 21, 2024
Does social mobility still exist?
What is emerging cultural capital?
What does it mean that social capital can be weaponized?
Why does it seem like the top 1% of the economic elite graduate from two universities?
Excellent, thought provoking and comprehensive examination of what class means in postmodern cultures. Highly in debt to Bourdieu's theories and sociological tools, this book is based on a popular survey (GBCS) conducted in 2011 that was aimed at British citizens and inquired about their thoughts on the existence and characteristics of class in the UK.
The research results highlight the inadequacy of the old concepts of class (especially the division to working, middle and elite classes) and strive for a new model of more dynamic and stratified classes, which one could also call bubbles. The exploration of these made me think of society in a new way and also become more aware of my own privileges due to a class system. Though this particular research on class focuses on the UK, its mechanisms and broader phenomena can probably be applied even to markedly social democratic countries like Finland.
The book is clearly written and there are plenty of graph modelings to illustrate the research findings. The occasional dips into French sociology and modern social theory bring depth to what would otherwise basically be a long research paper. A fair warning to readers, even though this is a broad audience non-fiction book, it lacks the usual and nowadays seemingly indisposable entertaining verbiage of non-fiction books. It makes the science understandable, but it is aimed to teach, not to entertain. Some might find this off-putting, but as someone with a background in social sciences I found it refreshingly plain and clear without attempts to pander to the reader.
What is emerging cultural capital?
What does it mean that social capital can be weaponized?
Why does it seem like the top 1% of the economic elite graduate from two universities?
Excellent, thought provoking and comprehensive examination of what class means in postmodern cultures. Highly in debt to Bourdieu's theories and sociological tools, this book is based on a popular survey (GBCS) conducted in 2011 that was aimed at British citizens and inquired about their thoughts on the existence and characteristics of class in the UK.
The research results highlight the inadequacy of the old concepts of class (especially the division to working, middle and elite classes) and strive for a new model of more dynamic and stratified classes, which one could also call bubbles. The exploration of these made me think of society in a new way and also become more aware of my own privileges due to a class system. Though this particular research on class focuses on the UK, its mechanisms and broader phenomena can probably be applied even to markedly social democratic countries like Finland.
The book is clearly written and there are plenty of graph modelings to illustrate the research findings. The occasional dips into French sociology and modern social theory bring depth to what would otherwise basically be a long research paper. A fair warning to readers, even though this is a broad audience non-fiction book, it lacks the usual and nowadays seemingly indisposable entertaining verbiage of non-fiction books. It makes the science understandable, but it is aimed to teach, not to entertain. Some might find this off-putting, but as someone with a background in social sciences I found it refreshingly plain and clear without attempts to pander to the reader.
December 8, 2020
Based on the GBCS (Great British Class Survey), a survey made in collaboration between the BBC and several sociology departments, this is a really interesting volume that aims to extract lessons from this mass survey of the British people in order to understand how the class system works in the 21st century. Although the example used here is the UK, a lot of the factors examined are easy to extrapolate to any other industrialised Western Country as are most of Europe and North America.
What the authors of the book find is not particularly surprising, it's something that anyone paying attention to the state of the world could have guessed, but it is always nice to see it codified in writing with data to back it up. The main finding here is the immense and ever widening gap between those at the very top and at the bottom of the class structure, what the book calls the "elite" and the "precariat".
The image used is that of a mountain, the elite are the top and those starting at the bottom, the precariat, have an increasingly hard climb to the top as the elites keep getting higher at a speed that is almost impossible to catch up. Add to this the fact that many at the bottom are actually convinced that they are in the middle, and the whole thing just becomes a mirage, work work work but you'll never get there unless you are astonishingly lucky. It is then no surprise that by the end of the book Mike Savage is stopping short of asking for guillotines on the street but is asking for deep systemic change... we're trying Mike
What the authors of the book find is not particularly surprising, it's something that anyone paying attention to the state of the world could have guessed, but it is always nice to see it codified in writing with data to back it up. The main finding here is the immense and ever widening gap between those at the very top and at the bottom of the class structure, what the book calls the "elite" and the "precariat".
The image used is that of a mountain, the elite are the top and those starting at the bottom, the precariat, have an increasingly hard climb to the top as the elites keep getting higher at a speed that is almost impossible to catch up. Add to this the fact that many at the bottom are actually convinced that they are in the middle, and the whole thing just becomes a mirage, work work work but you'll never get there unless you are astonishingly lucky. It is then no surprise that by the end of the book Mike Savage is stopping short of asking for guillotines on the street but is asking for deep systemic change... we're trying Mike
December 15, 2017
An interesting read, but I think it sometimes overstates how groundbreaking the results are - some parts were very much stating the obvious, and I don't think all the conclusions were properly justified with the data. Many times a correlation was found, and it was assumed to be a direct causal relationship, with the author then stating that as fact for the rest of the book. I also found the brief discussion of education quite disappointing, mainly because of its lack of depth. Elite universities were essentially treated the same as private schools, ignoring the fact that university entrance criteria are based on exam results, and avoiding an analysis of why social class effects performance in education so much.
However, the ideas of cultural capital and the new version of class snobbery were very interesting, and I also liked the perspectives from the in depth interviews, which were often very revealing. An accessible and interesting introduction to the topic.
However, the ideas of cultural capital and the new version of class snobbery were very interesting, and I also liked the perspectives from the in depth interviews, which were often very revealing. An accessible and interesting introduction to the topic.
January 8, 2023
Being a student at Cambridge University means being introduced to quaint traditions like formal halls, May Balls, apres-ski trips and the wearing of gowns, all of which hews very closely to this book’s discussion on upward mobility and elitism.
I can only imagine how a student from a “precariat” background would pick up the performative rituals, norms and etiquette while at Cambridge and use these to clamber into the higher echelons of British society. Dr Savage’s analysis and review of the Great Britain Class Survey is more confirmatory than not, with respect to what I have experienced personally at the university.
Social Class of the 21st Century is a fascinating sociological study that is made even more relevant when one is right in the thick of it.
I can only imagine how a student from a “precariat” background would pick up the performative rituals, norms and etiquette while at Cambridge and use these to clamber into the higher echelons of British society. Dr Savage’s analysis and review of the Great Britain Class Survey is more confirmatory than not, with respect to what I have experienced personally at the university.
Social Class of the 21st Century is a fascinating sociological study that is made even more relevant when one is right in the thick of it.
April 6, 2021
Nothing new under the sun. While the findings are relatively robust, this type of research is too simplistic for my taste. Maybe it suffices for the uninitiated layperson, but there are tons of books out there that look at the phenomenon of class in more detail. It always remains at the surface level, never trying to really understand the deeper underlying mechanisms of how class reproduces itself. And that is why makes it fundamentally different from Bourdieu, whose shoes it is self-declaredly stepping into. It probably wasn’t necessary to write a whole book on the results of effectively one relatively short and simplistic survey.
January 7, 2019
A little predictive in terms of stating that there is a clear class divide in the UK, but their in-depth analysis was interesting and new to me. The sheer scale of influence of a tiny sub-section of universities was particularly surprisingly, but also how little "highbrow" culture is part of so many people's lives.
June 16, 2023
It's not worth writing a book about a revised notion of class if it is forced because the usage of the word still seems contemporarily pertinent. Its true nature was already figured out in 1848 and its spectre still haunts us, dont tell me the spectre is now demanding everyone has been to the National Gallery.
October 26, 2020
A thought provoking book which offers extensive insight into class divides in the 21st century.
Lots of infographics are used to support claims which makes it a highly educational read.
Would recommend to anyone wanting more clarity on why snobbery and class differences exist.
Lots of infographics are used to support claims which makes it a highly educational read.
Would recommend to anyone wanting more clarity on why snobbery and class differences exist.
September 6, 2019
A more in-depth and current look at how we define class in modern Britain, whilst still being a relatively accessable, enjoyable read.
June 18, 2020
Interesting but biased.
August 23, 2021
A fascinating look at this classification system though the study acknowledges in the beginning it's system is flawed because of demographics, so it is a bit skewed but still very interesting.
September 7, 2021
Essential reading for anyone interested in how the nature of class has shifted in the modern world, and particularly interesting for anyone looking to understand how British society operates.
October 22, 2024
a really fascinating analysis, incredibly digestible for non-fiction and super readable!
September 8, 2020
Social classes are fascinating to me. This book talks us though reaserch done though The Great British class calculator, by bbc. It basically creates six new classes and shows how different kinds of capital - economic, cultural and social - assign people to them. The book doesn't answer this question actually, rather it proves how difficult currently it is. To me the most interesting part was about inherited capital. What we get for free from our parents is not only money/house, but culture and social connections which in a long run proves to be more important.
I was disappointed by a very short chapter about precariat. Whole book is written from elite point of view, because this group was actually more willing to check their status though the calculator. Nevertheless, I feel like more separate reaserch and thinking could have been spent on this topic.
And some conclusions don't really fit the whole book. Politics and how people vote depending on the class shouldn't be brought up at the very end of the book - it deserves whole separate chapter or separate book, not few poor pages. At the end, I can say that it was a good and interesting read, with some flaws and gaps that can be filled up by another read.
I was disappointed by a very short chapter about precariat. Whole book is written from elite point of view, because this group was actually more willing to check their status though the calculator. Nevertheless, I feel like more separate reaserch and thinking could have been spent on this topic.
And some conclusions don't really fit the whole book. Politics and how people vote depending on the class shouldn't be brought up at the very end of the book - it deserves whole separate chapter or separate book, not few poor pages. At the end, I can say that it was a good and interesting read, with some flaws and gaps that can be filled up by another read.
February 14, 2017
A very inspiring book which offers me an interesting angle (especially the argument about cultural capital) to observe the social class in China nowadays.
Plus every time I read books covered the topic like this, I feel bad about myself, they make me think I am a snobbish hypocrite. I guess everyone who grow up in a working class family but receives high education later on in one's life has to suffer from these feeling, doesn't it?
Plus every time I read books covered the topic like this, I feel bad about myself, they make me think I am a snobbish hypocrite. I guess everyone who grow up in a working class family but receives high education later on in one's life has to suffer from these feeling, doesn't it?
September 24, 2021
An interesting book which seeks to alter the default paradigm around social class. The terms 'working class', 'lower middle class' and so on are used regularly without analysis.
This book subjects these terms to scrutiny and explains their historical development within Britain, a nation famous for its deep class divisions.
Class however has widely been viewed as a relic of the past. Voters choices in 1964 were predictable on the basis of their social class. This no longer holds.
This leads to this books attempt to show the new class divides in Britain. There are 7 categories listed in the book, though they are not memorable, perhaps suggesting they are poor signifers.
This does not mean class is irrelevant, rather its influence is obscured because people are aware that they will be judged if they criticise others on the basis of social class.
The book documents using empirical data and interviews how class remains influential in determining life outcomes.
Interestingly meritocracy is referenced by middle class and elite respondents as a justification for their position in society- not their relative privilege or luck.
The book however uses questionable qualitative evidence as proof of the authors contentions regarding cultural tastes and the interviews quoted do not always support the contention made.
It is also highly debatable if the seven types of social class identified will endure or create new identities. Otherwise we will be stuck with the outdated social class typology.
An easy and interesting read on the subject.
This book subjects these terms to scrutiny and explains their historical development within Britain, a nation famous for its deep class divisions.
Class however has widely been viewed as a relic of the past. Voters choices in 1964 were predictable on the basis of their social class. This no longer holds.
This leads to this books attempt to show the new class divides in Britain. There are 7 categories listed in the book, though they are not memorable, perhaps suggesting they are poor signifers.
This does not mean class is irrelevant, rather its influence is obscured because people are aware that they will be judged if they criticise others on the basis of social class.
The book documents using empirical data and interviews how class remains influential in determining life outcomes.
Interestingly meritocracy is referenced by middle class and elite respondents as a justification for their position in society- not their relative privilege or luck.
The book however uses questionable qualitative evidence as proof of the authors contentions regarding cultural tastes and the interviews quoted do not always support the contention made.
It is also highly debatable if the seven types of social class identified will endure or create new identities. Otherwise we will be stuck with the outdated social class typology.
An easy and interesting read on the subject.
March 29, 2016
from an outsider perspective, this analysis of british social class appears to be rather rudimentary and indeed introductory, although sections on cultural capital introduces an interesting concept. Unfortunately, besides its minimal in-depth analysis on inequality and social structure in Britain, other information about prestigious universities and their contributions to the formation of elite class is rather superficial. No deeper explanation on the alleged advantages that elites benefit from along their academic paths was supplied. Rather disappointed.
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