SOCIAL CLASS

The system of dividing people up. 

Are you middle class  or WORKING CLASS? (=lower class?) 

What is bad about being in the lower classes? Rich people are winners & Poor people are losers

In Britain people with different incomes live in different areas of London or other towns. It is usually possible to tell a person’s class by the area they live in.

People in London might say:

A: Where do you live?

B:I live in Hampstead

A:OH!  (I see, you are very rich).

B: Where do you live?

A: I live in DeptfordB: oh. (I see, you are not very rich)

Income (or money) is not the only difference between people, they are in different classes as well. This means that the people are from different ‘backgrounds’, which means that they grew up differently. This means that they went to different schools, had different fashions, different toys, different friends, and that their parents wanted them to be different people (a doctor or a shop worker). This means they are from different CULTURES. The richer people are from a middle class culture, and the poorer people are from a working class culture.

• Middle class people value education and university very highly.

• Working class people do not.

• If you look at figures the majority of students (80-90%?) are middle class.

• Is this about intelligence? NO. It is about life chances. Middle class people are able to study better because their parents say good, well done for studying, working class parents say why bother to study? I never went to university so why should you?

THE 3 CLASSES

In Britain there are 3 classes;

• The Middle Classes are the majority of the population of Britain today. They include industrialists, professionals, businesspeople and shop owners.  

• Working class people are mostly agricultural, mine and factory workers.

IN JAPAN

In Japan everybody is middle class right? No. There is a growing working class in Japan. In Japan, in the early 1990s, you could meet hundreds of Japanese people who would tell you they were part of the middle class. Nobody was poor; nobody was rich. Everybody said they were middle class. Belonging to the middle class came into vogue with the economic boom of the 1970s and 80s. People all across Japan understood each other using what they called ‘ishindenshin’, to understand each other without talking. The recession of the 1990s came, and the myth of the middle class began to fade. The more the recession continued, the more the myth faded.      

Japanese people today no longer all say they belong to the middle class. The Japanese underclass is growing as the recession continues.  A survey by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun , (2006) said that.....

• In 2006 54% of Japanese people surveyed said they were middle-class

• In 1987 75% of Japanese people surveyed said they were middle class (during the "bubble" economy).

• In 1987 20% of Japanese people surveyed believed they were in the lower class (working class) 

• In 2006 37% of Japanese people surveyed believed they were working class.

 MORE...

• 33% of workers in Japan now have part-time jobs (Aaron, 2009)

• While some freeters do not want permanent jobs, many of them do. Because of the recession, many businesses have let go many irregular workers. Many people in their 20s and 30s cannot find permanent work.

• It has been said that large companies prefer to hire part-time workers as they are cheaper-this means that large companies are helping to create the new working class.

MORE...

• In 2007 45,500,000 million people worked in Japan. 

• 3.66 million people earned less than ¥1,000,000 yen in the year.

• 10,320,000 people earned less than ¥2,000,000 million yen for the year, a very small sum in Japan. . 

In Japan the class debate is not yet such a big issue. In Britain it is a big debate:

LOOK AT THE DATE OF THIS SURVEY- class is still a big debate in Britain:

‘UK-A class act’ (BBC NEWS, FEBRUARY 16^TH 2009

The survey asked 1,178 people of different ages questions on social class.    

To the question: Which class do you think you belong to?............

• 55% said working class,

• 41% said middle class

• and 1% said upper class.

The director the research said that using REAL population statistics, (which divide people into social classes according to their professions, qualifications and status):"51% would do the sort of jobs that put them in the working class strata. This corresponds to the results of the poll, in which 55% said they belonged to the working class."However, statistics say that 22% of people in Britain, as a result of their professions and status, belong to the upper class. But in the poll, this came out as only 1%."People do not want to be thought of as upper class because the upper classes (the aristocracy) are seen as too rich and too lucky, living from other people. This means that according to official statistics 27% are middle class.

What is also clear from the survey is that people have substantially different views of their own class to those which market researchers use.In Britain, people in general are quite uncomfortable when the issue of social class is talked about. Instead people often say "class no longer exists" or ‘things are changing’. This view is expressed by a lot of politicians in particular. John Major, a former Prime Minister told us that "we are all classless now". And Tony Blair, soon after becoming Prime Minister, declared that one of the aims of his government was to "make everybody middle class". At this year's Labour Party conference, Tony Blair announced that "the class war is over". Why do they say this? This is because there are 2 main political parties in Britain, the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. The Labour Party has always traditionally been the party of working class people, and the Conservative Party has always traditionally been the party of Middle class people. Things are not so simple now and many working class people vote for the Conservative Party, and many middle class people vote for the Labour Party. Politicians need votes, and tell us that class no longer exists. If you look for class differences in Britain, you will find them.

As an extra thought, Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister told us that "there is no such thing as society; just individuals and their families". Why would she say this? Maybe you can think about the answer.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the class system is alive and well. Indeed, MOST people believe that nothing has changed in Britain in terms of class. A survey in 1996 (Hill) found that 81% of people believe there is a class struggle in Britain (66% in 1980) fifteen years ago. And in 1998 (Travis) a survey showed that 68% of people think that Britain is a class divided country, while only 21% consider it classless.  

SO WHAT?WHO CARES? LIFE CHANCES

The idea of "life chances" is a very important one in the context of class.  The concept of life chances was originally developed by Max. Weber, a sociologist, and  he  said life chances mean:"a supply of goods,  living conditions and personal life experiences". This was during the Industrial revolution when most people did not have enough food to eat and 4 year old children worked in factories. For Haralambos, life chances are………

• the chance to stay alive during the first year after birth

• the chance to view fine arts

• the chance to remain healthy and grow tall, and if sick to get well again quickly,

• the chance to avoid becoming a young criminal

• and most importantly, the chance to complete an intermediary or higher educational grade".

The ‘lower classes’ have fewer life chances, and this is why class is important.Modern definitions of class are based on occupation.

WHAT ABOUT SOCIAL CLASS?

• Social class is difficult, but has three important areas which are:

• Economic - wealth, income and occupation.

•  Political -status and power in society (= in your country, think about women).

• Cultural - lifestyle, values, beliefs, norms, level of education and other cultural factors.

The economic area is most widely used, but it does not always mean that poor people are working class, or rich people are middle or upper class. David Beckham is very rich, and very working class. KARL MARXMany people also feel uncomfortable with the idea of class because it was developed by Karl Marx (1848). Karl Marx and communism go together.At the centre of Marx's work is his analysis of business, or CAPITALISM.

• How did rich people become rich?

• Is business fair?

• Who gets the most out of business?

• These are Marxist questions

Marx saw behind capitalism's (business’s) mask and saw a struggle between two main classes: 

• the BOURGEOISIE, the people who own the companies, mines, farms etc, who live from profit,

• and the workers, or PROLETARIAT, who must work for wages in order to survive.

• So for Marx, the private ownership of economic resources is the key factor in class. Who owns it? Who controls it?

• For Marx, capitalism was not a good thing. This means that those who own the capital, the company bosses and the governments saw Marx as their enemy. This also explains the hostility towards Marx the Marxists of today.

• The Marxists would of course argue that they are interested in equality.

• Marxism is also a philosophy which is based on the idea of change.

• This social change is called the dialectic. Dialectics is the idea that all things change, and all societies change. There are two forces for this change positive and negative, thesis and antithesis which create synthesis, a new state or a new society. The poor and the rich are opposites, and are positive and negative, and will create a new society of equality.

• Think about the quality of life of the poor people in the writings of Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist etc.), and also think about the quality of life of someone who works as a shop assistant for twenty years. They earn enough money to pay the rent, to buy food, to buy some clothes and maybe go out somewhere not expensive at the weekend. They do not have a car, they do not go to restaurants, and they do not go to the theatre or museums. There are many millions of people like this in Britain and Europe now. These are the working classes. The economics, culture and politics are different from the middle and upper classes.

CLASS & CULTURE

Look at the picture:

Who is middle class? Who is working class?What clues can you use to guess?

CULTURAL SIGNALS: CLASS AND LANGUAGE

One of the big differences between the classes is the way we speak. As soon as someone speaks we can determine if they are rich or poor, working class or middle class. It takes about 0.01 seconds. Another thing about the classes is that they usually stick together. Working class people mix with working class people and middle class people mix with middle class people. Middle class often people feel uncomfortable with working class people (perhaps they feel privileged), and working class people often feel insecure with middle class people, (perhaps they feel unequal).People from different classes have different accents. A working class person has a working class accent, and a middle class person has a middle class accent and an upper class person has an upper class accent. A member of the working class would typically drop his or her h’s as so that house becomes 'ouse. They will also drop th sounds, and replace them with an f sound, so that three becomes free. Such accents can disadvantage the speaker in a middle class world of work as the speakers may not be seen as employable people. Similarly, the language of many working class families may not include that language of thought and debate which is more common in the communication of the middle classes, and hence the working classes are disadvantaged in education. In your classes some people are better at speaking English than you, this is cultural and similar.  There are also some basic vocabulary differences.

In the working classes typical features are:

1. T glottalling: the use of a glottal stop for syllable-final /t/ before consonants in e.g. football, not now.

2. 'h dropping': so that house becomes ‘ouse, and head becomes ‘ead.

The upper classes have their own accent, which is Received Pronunciation, or RP. This is a prestige accent and is the accent off the rich, and the often called ‘BBC English’ (although not now) or ‘the Queen’s English’.One of the problems of RP is that its association with the ruling elite has meant that aloofness and snobbishness are characteristics often associated with RP speakers.

Features of RP include..........  

1. CURE lowering: the use of /Ο:/ vs. the diphthong /Υ≅/ in words like sure, cure, pure, tour, Europe, etc.

2. /r/ the use of linking and intrusive /r/ in phrases like far/r/ away, India/r/ and China, withdraw/r/al.

3. the use of the affricates /t/ and /d/ for /tj/ and /dj/ in stressed syllables, making Tuesday sound like choose-day and dune like June.

4. T voicing: the use of a voiced tap for intervocalic /t/ in e.g. British, a lot of.  

EDUCATION

Working class background has always been thought of as poor, or as difficult and working class people have fewer life chances. This does not mean that all working class people are poor, but most poor people are working class. 

• In education there is no question that family, class and education are all connected,

•  and that educational success (going to university etc) can be affected by the social background of the pupil.

• In one study 75% of boys from middle class backgrounds were accepted into high level secondary schools, whilst just 25% of working class boys were.

    

FAMILY    

• 1/3 of the population have 2/3 of the university places.

• There are many more statistic to prove the point of difference 

WHAT IS CLASS AGAIN?

Is it accent? Neighbourhood? Occupation? Income? Wealth? There is no generally agreed definition of social class, but most people agree that socialdifferentiation exists.Some working class people see the middle classes as superior, some working class see life as them and us and some working class people see class as fluid and that they are able to move up into the middle class. If they do move up a class, then they may or not change their lifestyle. Lifestyle is the way we dress, speak and act. There is a typical working class style. AND NEWSPAPERS............The choice of newspaper is very important in Britain as it tells us a lot about the people buying them. Tabloid newspapers such as the Sun are typically working class (the sports newspapers in Japan), and broadsheets such as the Times, the Guardian are typically middle class. People who buy the Sun NEVER buy the Times.These differences show our class identity. We define ourselves, or are defined by others by the clues which we give, these are cultural signals. Our fashion sense, our accent, out choice of entertainment. Other people judge us accordingly. Usually the classes do not mix in Britain. Or put another way people of similar cultures stay together. Working class people do not usually make friends with middle class people and vice-versa.Is one class better than another, NO.? I do not think so. On the one hand it is about the way we are socialized. It is about life chances and what we are taught or not taught by our parents and our teachers. Some people have more life chances than others, and what we should do about this ‘problem’ is a political question. Although there are many people in Britain who want to help underprivileged working class people in Britain, including the government. There is the Department of Social Security which has social workers who visit the homes of people in ‘trouble’ and there is ‘benefit’ money to live on until you have a job. There are also volunteers who want to change the lives of those working class people who have a few life chances.