Definitions
- Market economy: An economic system in which decisions about the exchange of goods and services are made by private individuals and businesses, rather than a central authority. Economic decisions in market economies are typically made in accordance with the logic of supply and demand.
- Great transformation: a term coined by Polanyi to describe the social and political changes associated with the rise of modern market societies.
- Production: The provision of goods or services.
- Industrial Revolution: A series of changes in production and manufacturing, occurring from the mid-18th century onwards. Key features of the industrial revolution include a greater use of machines, the organization of labour in factories, and the use of new materials, such as iron and steel.
- Consumption: The utilization of goods or services.
- Class: categorizations of individuals based on economic status. Members of a class will generally be similar in wealth, occupational type, and lifestyle.
- Socio-Economic Stratification: An aspect of social organization, describing the degree to which individuals are organized into distinct categories or classes based on economic factors (such as wealth or occupation).
- Socio-economic Stratification:An aspect of social organization, describing the degree to which individuals are organized into distinct categories or classes based on economic factors (such as wealth or occupation).
- Economic Power:In Mann, power derived from the satisfaction of human needs through the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of resources.
- Division of Labour:The separation of tasks in a productive system. Generally divided into two forms: the division of labour in manufacture, referring to specialization within organizations or manufactories, and the division of labour in society, referring to an increase in occupational distinctions.
- Equality of Opportunity:Used to describe a situation in which individuals can compete on the same terms, or on a ‘level playing field’.
- Functional Necessity: A social phenomena considered to be necessary for society to exist or function properly.
- Meritocratic: A system is which power or privilege is afforded to individuals on the basis of merit.
- Class ceiling: A term used to describe the collection of barriers which impede upward class mobility.
- Wealth: income from investments, ownership of productive assets, salaries, bonuses, shares and property.
- Transnational capitalist class: A global social class which is thought to control supranational corporations, organizations, and other such institutions.
- Bourgeoisie: In Marxism, the class which owns and controls the means of production within the capitalist system.
- Proletariat: In Marxism, the class which does not own and control the means of production within the capitalist system. To subsist, members of the proletariat must sell their labour power to the bourgeoisie for a wage.
- Surplus value: In Marxism, the difference between the amount of money that a product is sold for and the amount of money the product costs to make. Surplus value is thought to be ‘created’ by the worker and ‘appropriated’, or taken, by the capitalist.
- Reserve army of labour: In Marxism, the unemployed population, whose presence is thought to depress working conditions and wages.
- Petty Bourgeoisie: In Marxism, a sub-class of the bourgeoisie made up of small scale merchants, businessman, and largely autonomous peasantry.
- Alienation:In Marxism, the process by which workers are separated or estranged from the products of their labour. Marx holds that in the capitalist system of production workers lose control over their labour and its products; as a result, their labour becomes something foreign to them.
- Market situation: In Weber, the various possibilities that exist for a good to be exchanged for money.
- Status: In Weber, social ranks determined by positive or negative estimations of honour.
- Party: In Weber, a group oriented to the acquisition of power. Parties are always directed towards the accomplishment of a particular goal.
- Occupation: a person’s principle job or profession, the activity by which they earn their means of subsistence.
- Habitus: In Bourdieu, a set of dispositions, tendencies, and preferences, through which we understand and participate in the world.
- Field: In Bourdieu, a system of social positions organized around particular stakes. Individuals occupy these positions and ‘compete’ over the stakes of the field, following the particular rules and norms of the field to advance their position. For example, individuals in the ‘art’ field compete for status, prestige, and recognition.
- Illusio: In Bourdieu, an individual’s commitment to participating in a particular field and their belief that the stakes of the field are worth competing over.
- Cultural capital: In Bourdieu, non-economic resources that allow one to advance their position on a field. Such resources include dispositions, tastes, behaviours, credentials, skills, and so on.
- Distinctions: In Bourdieu, the means by which groups differentiate themselves from others, typically to establish their own superiority.
- Social capital: In Bourdieu, resources which arise from social networks and relationships.
- Strength of weak ties: A term, coined by Granovetter, to refer to the importance of social networks between acquaintances.
- Bonding social capital: Networks of individuals who are similar in some important way. Bonding social capital typically unities people within some specific group.
- Bridging social capital: Networks of individuals who are dissimilar in some important way. Bridging social capital typically relates people within a group to those outside of this group.
- Symbolic violence: In Bourdieu, the acceptance, among dominated groups, of their lower social position as natural, legitimate, or deserved.
- Revolting Subjects: In Tyler, subjectivities positioned by those with cultural power as disgusting or ‘revolting’, a type of symbolic violence. Label can also be used by those to which it is applied to resist or ‘revolt’ against this violence.
- Femininity: A set of attributes or behaviours that have been characteristically associated with women.
- Disgusted Subject: In Lawler, a gendered and classed form of self-definition through condescension and even ‘disgust’ towards those who cannot maintain middle-class feminised ways of acting.
- Minority World: The wealthy countries of the ‘West’, which include a minority of the world’s population but are responsible for the majority of consumption and have substantial influence over global politics. Used as an alternative to terminology of ‘First World’ or ‘Developed World’.
- Majority World: The countries of the world outside the ‘West’, primarily in the Southern hemisphere, where most of the word’s population resides. Developed as an alternative to terminology of ‘Third World’.
- Network capital: In Urry, resources that allow individuals to obtain greater mobility.
- Precariat: A social class comprised of people in precarious forms of employment.
- Sharing economy: An economic model in which private individuals rent out assets to others, typically on a peer-to-peer basis.
- Gig economy: An economic model in which short-term, temporary, or freelance work is commonplace.
- Class Consciousness:In Marxism, one’s awareness of one’s class, its interests, and its relationship to the means of production.
- Border Thinking: A mode of thought which draws on the perspectives, knowledges, and forms of expression marginalized by colonial domination that focused on experiences, lives and structures intersections of different borders.
Books on the General Topic
Atkinson, W. 2015. Class. Polity Press.
Savage, M. 2015. Social Class in the 21st Century. Milton Keynes: Penguin.
Wright, E.O. 2015. Understanding Class. New York: Verso.
Threadgold, S. and Gerrard, J. 2021 (Eds). Class In Australia. Monash University Press.
Leigh, A. 2013. Battlers and Billionaires, Collingwood, Vic.: Redback.
Stuber, J., 2021. Exploring Inequality. SAGE.
Korgen, K., White, J. and White, S., 2015. Sociologists in action on inequalities. Los Angeles: Sage
Contemporary Research Monographs on this Topic
Threadgold, S. 2018. Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles. Routledge: London.
Butler, Rosemary 2018, Class, culture and belonging in rural childhoods, Springer, Singapore.
Burke, C. 2015. Culture, Capitals and Graduate Futures: Degrees of Class, London: Routledge.
Skeggs, B. 2004. Class, Self, Culture, London: Routledge.
Brewer, M., 2019. What do we know and what should we do about inequality?. London: Sage.
Contemporary Articles
- Presents the findings of an interview project with Indigenous Australians on the topics of poverty, social capital and social exclusion.
- Chapter applies the concept of the ‘precariat’ and attempts to understand the demographics and prevalence of the ‘Māori precariat’.
Savage, M, Devine, F, Cunningham, N, Taylor, M, Li, Y, Hjellbrekke, J & Miles, A 2013, ‘A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey experiment’, Sociology, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 219-250.
- Useful to demonstrate approaches to measuring class in the contemporary West.
- Easy to follow example of class reproduction. Should be relatable for many students.
Sklair, L 1996, ‘Conceptualising and researching the transnational capitalist class in Australia’, The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 1-19.
- Sklair on the transnational capitalist class.
- A clear account of how Bourdieu develops on early class thinkers.
Ball, SJ, Davis, J, David, M, and Reay, D 2002, ‘“Classification” and “Judgement”: Social class and the “cognitive structures” of choice of Higher Education, British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 51-72.
- Application of Bourdieu’s ideas to Higher Education, builds on the material discussed in the chapter.
- Demonstrates many concepts discussed in the chapter.
- Qualitative study which deploys the concepts of bonding and bridging capital.
Allen, K & Mendick, H 2013, ‘“Keeping it real?” Social class, young people and “authenticity” in reality TV’, Sociology, vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 460-476.
- Study of reality TV and class perceptions, links to the discussion in the chapter.
- Similar piece to the above looking at classed aspects of celebrity culture.
- Discussion of the relationship between gender and multinational capitalism.
- Title says it all really.
- Important new understanding of how property ownership means class needs to be rethought in Australia.
Discussion Questions
- Some sociologists have argued that inequality has positive functions for society. Do you agree?
- What are some social costs of economic inequality?
- Weber makes a distinction between three kinds of social groups: classes, status groups, and parties. How would you define your own social position with respect to these three categories?
- What is cultural capital? How can somebody use cultural capital to achieve success?
- Can you give some examples of class stereotypes? How do certain classes use these ideas to maintain their class power?
Chapter References
- Bauman, Z (2004) Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts. Polity Press.
- Bourdieu, P (2010) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. R Nice. Routledge.
- Bourdieu, P and Wacquant, L (1992) An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. University of Chicago Press.
- Castells, M (2000) ‘Towards a Sociology of the Network Society’, Contemporary Sociology, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 693–699.
- Cox, OC (1959) Caste, Class and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics. Monthly Review Press.
- Davis, K and Moore, W (1945) ‘Some Principles of Stratification’, American Sociological Review, vol. 10, no. 2. pp. 242–249.
- Federici, S (2004) Caliban and the Witch. Autonomedia.
- Friedman S and Lauriston, D (2020) The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged. Policy Press.
- Goldthorpe, JH (2000) ‘Social Class and the Differentiation of Employment Contracts’, in On Sociology: Numbers, Narratives, and the Integration of Research and Theory. Oxford University Press, pp. 206–229.
- Granovetter, M (1973) ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, no. 6, 1360–1380.
- Lawler, S (2005) ‘Disgusted Subjects: The Making of Middle-Class Identities’, The Sociological Review, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 429–446.
- Marx, K (1987) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. 1, trans. B Fowkes. Penguin Books.
- Picketty, T (2013) Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press.
- Polanyi, K (1944) The Great Transformation. Farrar & Rinehart.
- Putnam, RD (2000) Bowling Alone. Simon and Schuster.
- Reay, D, Crozier, G and Clayton, J (2009) ‘“Strangers in paradise”? Working-class students in elite universities’, Sociology, vol. 43, no. 6, pp. 1103–1121.
- Skeggs, B and Wood, H (2012) Reacting to Reality Television: Performance, Audience, and Value. Routledge.
- Sklair, L (2000) ‘The Transnational Capitalist Class and the Discourse of Globalization’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 67–85.
- Standing, G (2011) The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Bloomsbury Academic.
- Sweetman, P (2003) ‘Twenty-first Century Dis-Ease? Habitual Reflexivity or the Reflexive Habitus’, The Sociological Review, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 528–549.
- Tyler, I (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain. Zed Books.
- Urry, J (2007) Mobilities. Polity Press.
- Virdee, S (2019) ‘Racialized Capitalism: An Account of Its Contested Origins and Consolidation’, The Sociological Review, vol. 67, no. 1, pp. 3–27.
- Walby, S (1986) Patriarchy at Work: Patriarchal and Capitalist Relations in Employment. Polity Press.
- Weber, M (1978) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. University of California Press.
- Wright, EO (1985) Classes. New Left Books.
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