tinyjo | Are you working class and proud of it?

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Are you working class and proud of it?

Listening to the Today programme this morning I hear that apparently about 60% of people agree with the statement "I'm working class and proud of it". They had a couple of people on to discuss this, one of whom tried to define what it meant to be working class by suggesting that it was all about your family connections (he claimed Cherie Blair was working class because she lived close to her mum for childcare) in some nebulous fashion.

The whole thing struck me as rather odd. When I think of class, I tend to think of education at least for the lower 2 - nearly everyone who's been to university is at least middle class by the end of it while those people who never did any work then left after their GCSEs are generally working class.

So, what do you think?

[Poll #54709]

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They also said today that polls consistently indicate that 60-70% of the Great British Public is in favour of capital punishment.

Really - I didn't hear the start of that! I did think it was a much more measured discussion (despite including Ann Widdicombe) than any others I've heard on the topic though.

You know, if more than one or two people claim to be upper or working class on this poll, I'll really be very surprised.

OK. My friends don't really know my background: my dad is retired from being a road worker (road building forklift driver, or something like that) and my mum is a retired childminder. I wouldn't say that going to University is relevant, especially in France, as it is free so anyone can have a go. I tend to have socialist ideas and my job is probably not going to change much for the rest of my life. My brothers and sister don't live very far from my parent's place, in fact, no further than 5 miles!! Deep down, I think I consider myself part of the working class but your opinion on the subject is welcome.

I would have placed you as middle class I think because you're well educated and have a clerical/office job. There doesn't really seem to be any consensus about whether you can 'inherit' your class from your parents or not though - it doesn't seem to make sense to me but plenty of people seem to claim that you can/do.

Dear Tinyjo

I think everyone here is confused about the meaning of the word "class". It seems to me you are all getting mixed up between classes and status. Anyway, the subject of this talk is bollocks, as a person shouldn't be defined by their class. Class is a rather English idea, isn't it?

Class and status are *traditionally* mixed up in England, my dear.

And people are traditionally defined by their class -- either by themselves or others or of course both. Why fight against several centuriesworth of definitions? Hah he.

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<Why fight against several centuriesworth of definitions? >
Maybe because it is such an old ideology, therefore not relevant to today's changing world!

Americans always say that - that class is an English thing. Because, of course, anyone can be president. Right?

With regard to what Jo said, background is essential to class definitions - the whole idea of class is a sociological thing to understand social stratifications that already exist, & it would be wrong to say that a person is no longer working class because they're "educated" (as if a working class person can't be), or because they've got a job traditionally associated with another class. Their kids might be said to be middle class, maybe.

So yeah, I agree, you'd be working class.

I wouldn't suggest that a working class person can't be educated but don't they cease to be working class through the process of education? I guess it's a perceptions thing. My grandparents all worked in factories or in service and consider themselves to be working class. My parents work in teaching (previously PA) and advertising and live in a very middle class fashion (holidays in France, lots of going out to resturants etc) and I definately think of both them and myself as middle class but I know that my mum still deep down thinks of herself as working class because she had a working class childhood and that image of herself has stuck even though she's now living a completely different life. Perhaps that's where the instinct to 'inherit' class comes from - your childhood experience. The thing which has always made me uncomfortable with that idea of 'inheriting' class is that it suggests that you can't move between classes which I strongly disagree with. Perhaps it just depends on how fluid your self image is.

don't they cease to be working class through the process of education?

No, but as I said, their kids might - as in your case. You're working from your personal conception of class, but there are specific ways to define it (which vary, a bit like technical definitions of gender).

it suggests that you can't move between classes which I strongly disagree with

The term for this is 'social mobility', which does of course happen - but a lot less than the right (and so-called centre) would have us believe. Studies of class consistently show that social mobility is still very restricted.

Are you sure? I don't have the reference to hand, but I'm sure that studies of IQ and class carried out in the last 50 years or so have found a social mobility of at least 25%, and that IQ was a good predictor of class as an adult. Of course, IQ is by no means independent of childhood class, and I don't want to go into its faults as a measure of anything useful, but 'very restricted' seems a harsh assessment if my memory of the figures is correct. Lower than it should be in an ideal world? But what criteria would determine what class someone should be in an ideal world? And remember that social mobility is not just in one direction. I tend to agree with Sonia.

I don't have the reference to hand, but I'm sure that studies of IQ and class carried out in the last 50 years or so have found a social mobility of at least 25%

That's the highest estimate I've ever heard! Well, I'd like to see the reference for that. A lot depends, of course, on what signifiers researchers are using to denote class in the first place. But I've never seen a figure that high.

remember that social mobility is not just in one direction

Right, and in fact it may be that downward mobility is more common. Now I'm intrigued - I'll have to take a look at the sociology textbooks when I go back to work...

By "very restricted" I meant that it's harder than is usually acknowledged to move between classes. And at the time I was actually studying the subject, movement crossing the three categories - working class to upper class, and vice versa - was statistically so negligible as to be non-existent.

I tend to agree with Sonia

I thought I was agreeing with Sonia, too?

I may have misremembered, or missed (or forgotten) some detail of the method that explains it. I was paying more attention to the IQ-related content, since that was what I had to write an essay on. I'll have to look it up.

>>I tend to agree with Sonia
>I thought I was agreeing with Sonia, too?

I meant that I agree with Sonia that class is an odd concept - it just seems too simplified to me.

I remembered I posted about this a bit more intelligently in another journal:

http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?journal=blackcustard&itemid=458054&thread=2353734

This is off topic, but thanks for the fab CD!

No problem :)

Someone once said, incidentally, that it's only the middle classes who think class doesn't matter...

Dear all

Please check these links, they may have some relevance!

http://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/papers/Intro1.doc

http://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/papers/Intro2.doc

http://www.sociology.org.uk/cdequal.htm

http://www.sociologyonline.co.uk/soc_essays/Class.htm

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