First published in 1975. How do men come to perceive and evaluate a world in which marked inequalities of class and status exist? This book considers the nature of class images and their underlying work and community structures. Beginning with the argument that the perception of society varies according to type of work and community milieux, it first considers the social imagery of working-class professions and their sources of variation, and then examines some of the methodological problems of the study of class imagery. The nature of proletarian traditionalism and radicalism in then contemporary Britain is discussed in conclusion. This title will be of interest to students of sociology.
Class and status are both foundational themes in the study of sociology. John Scott brings together the central theoretical contributions to the debate on class and status as aspects of stratification. Using a selection of seminal pieces and commentaries on the classics, it raises central issues, for example the distinction between class and status, which are then examined by leading authorities.
Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes is both a celebration and commemoration of working class culture. It contains sometimes inspiring accounts of working class communities and people telling their own stories, and weaves together examples of tangible and intangible heritage, place, history, memory, music and literature. Rather than being framed in a 'social inclusion' framework, which sees working class culture as a deficit, this book addresses the question "What is labour and working class heritage, how does it differ or stand in opposition to dominant ways of understanding heritage and history, and in what ways is it used as a contemporary resource?" It also explores how heritage is used in working class communities and by labour organizations, and considers what meanings and significance this heritage may have, while also identifying how and why communities and their heritage have been excluded. Drawing on new scholarship in heritage studies, social memory, the public history of labour, and new working class studies, this volume highlights the heritage of working people, communities and organizations. Contributions are drawn from a number of Western countries including the USA, UK, Spain, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand, and from a range of disciplines including heritage and museum studies, history, sociology, politics, archaeology and anthropology. Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes represents an innovative and useful resource for heritage and museum practitioners, students and academics concerned with understanding community heritage and the debate on social inclusion/exclusion. It offers new ways of understanding heritage, its values and consequences, and presents a challenge to dominant and traditional frameworks for understanding and identifying heritage and heritage making.
In an important contribution to a perennial debate, Dr Savage argues that over-concentration on national labour movements has ignored the variety of local political strategies developed by working-class movements; these variations show that working-class politics develops on the basis of different types of solidarity rooted in various forms of local social structure. Such mutations are not a recent development, testifying to the decline of class politics, but have been an enduring feature of capitalist societies. In a detailed case study of Preston, Lancashire, Dr Savage shows how the strategies and strengths of the various political parties changed between 1880 and 1940, as workplace solidarities gave way to neighbourhood-based ones, and as changing gender relations in the textile industry facilitated the organisation of women. Its sophisticated use of sociological theory and detailed empirical analysis distinguish The Dynamics of Working-Class Politics as one of the more important essays in historical sociology published in past years.
Inequality in its many forms is becoming an ever greater problem in modern society. The revised edition of this popular book explains why it is so important to understand class and stratification, and how the tools used to analyse these divisions can help us to understand and confront problems of inequality. This third edition of Class and Stratification has been extensively revised, expanded and updated, incorporating discussions of contemporary economic and social change. It includes discussions of political and economic neoliberalism and its impacts as well as developments in social theory, such as the emphasis on 'individualization' and the 'cultural turn'. New to this edition is a chapter focusing on 'cultural' approaches to class analysis, which together with established approaches are used to explore new developments in social mobility, educational opportunity, and social polarization. The book will be essential reading for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students in the social sciences seeking to understand the changing face of social inequality. By highlighting the damage increasing inequality is causing to the social fabric, the book reveals the important part class continues to play in our lives today.
It has appeared to many commentators that the most fundamental change in what it is meant to be working-class in twentieth-century Britain came not as a result of war or of want, but of prosperity. Social investigators documented how the relative affluence of the 1950s and 1960s improved the material conditions of life for working-class Britons whilst eroding their commitment to the shared life of ‘traditional’ communities. Utilising an oral history case study of sociability and identity in the Yorkshire town of Beverley between the end of the Second World War and the election of Margaret Thatcher’s government, Working-Class Community in the Age of Affluence challenges this influential narrative. An introductory essay outlines how sociologists and historians understood the complex social, cultural and economic changes of the post-war decades through the prism of affluence, and traces how these changes came to be seen as deleterious to the ‘traditional’ working-class community. The book then proceeds thematically, exploring change across areas of social life including family, neighbourhood, workplace and associational life. This book represents the first sustained historical analysis of change and continuity in working-class community living during the age of affluence. It suggests not only that older social practices persisted, but also that new patterns of sociability could strengthen as much as undermine community. Ultimately, Working-Class Community in the Age of Affluence asks us to rethink assumptions about the decline of local solidarities in this pivotal period, and to recognise community as a key feature of working-class life across the twentieth century.
In the second edition of his essential book—which incorporates vital new information and new material on immigration, race, gender, and the social crisis following 2008—Michael Zweig warns that by allowing the working class to disappear into categories of "middle class" or "consumers," we also allow those with the dominant power, capitalists, to vanish among the rich. Economic relations then appear as comparisons of income or lifestyle rather than as what they truly are—contests of power, at work and in the larger society.
First published in 1977. This book considers the nature of industrial society, contemporary capitalism and the impact of political ideas on social structure. These ideas are discussed by reference to the impact of social democracy on the structure of capitalist society in a comparative analysis of Britain and Sweden — including an interview survey of industrial workers socio-political attitudes. The study is concluded by a general discussion of the role of social democracy in capitalist society. It is argued that the development of social democracy generates ‘strains’ which, in the long term, question the legitimacy of capitalism among industrial manual workers.
Who made up the working class in Britain, who were the ordinary men and women and what were their aspirations? The first generation of postwar British labour historians tended to be preoccupied with working class activism. This texts attempts to chart not only this struggle, but to describe and analyse the rich and varied tapestry of working-class history as a whole. It demonstrates that "class" both existed and mattered although ordinary men and women had diverse lives and lifestyles. Professor Benson examines work, wages, incomes and the cost of living, family, kinship and community relations and the individual in the context of nation and class.
This book examines the experiences and values which shaped working-class life in Britain in the half-century from 1880. It takes as its focus a region, Lancashire, which was central to the social and political changes of the period. The discussion centres on two towns, Bolton and Wigan, which, while they were geographically close, differed significantly in their industrial fortunes and their electoral development. The formation of class identity is traced through developments in the world of work, from the impact of technological and managerial innovations to the elaboration of collective-bargaining procedures. Beyond work, particular attention is paid to the dynamics of neighbourhood and family life, the latter emerging as an important source of continuity in working-class life. The broader impact of such influences are traced through a close examination of the electoral politics of the period. Dr Griffiths' conclusions fundamentally challenge the notion that the fifty years around the turn of the century witnessed the emergence of a working class more culturally and politically united than at any other time, either before or since. Rather, an alternative narrative of class development is offered, in which broad continuities in working-class life, in particular the survival of religious, ethnic, and occupational points of division, are emphasised. Despite the presence of strong and stable labour institutions, from trade unions to Co-operative and Friendly Societies, the picture emerges of a working class more individualist than collectivist in outlook, more flexible in response to economic change, and less constrained by the broader solidarities of work and neighbourhood than has previously been supposed.
