Class Descriptors or Class Relations? Thoughts Towards a Critique of Savage et al.

(2014) - Harriet Bradley

Journal: Sociology
Link::
DOI:: 10.1177/0038038514520855
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Tags:: #paper #SocialClass
Cite Key:: [@Bradley2014]

Abstract

The work of Savage et al. in relation to the Great British Class Survey is acknowledged as an important contribution to a reinvigorated sociological research agenda on class, with a major public impact, but it is argued that the analysis, although bold and responsive to current social transformations, is flawed. Three weaknesses are identified: the approach to class is gradational, not relational; the markers of cultural capital used in the model are highly selective, therefore skewing the empirical findings, and lead to a negative view of working-class culture; and the model of latent classes resulting from the analysis is not coherent, with groupings that might be better distinguished as class fractions. Finally, an alternative deductively based class schema is proposed, which tries to accommodate contemporary change.

Notes

"Three weaknesses are identified: the approach to class is gradational, not relational; the markers of cultural capital used in the model are highly selective, therefore skewing the empirical findings, and lead to a negative view of working-class culture; and the model of latent classes resulting from the analysis is not coherent, with groupings that might be better distinguished as class fractions." (Bradley 2014:2)

"Savage et al. group people into clusters (clouds in social space) on the basis of their possession (or not) of various signifiers of the three forms of capital. It is thus a categorial or gradational, not a relational approach to class: classes are not defined by the nature of their economic links to each other, but placed on a scale in terms of possession of less or more of various assets" (Bradley 2014:4)

"Presumably Savage et al. chose the ones they saw as most significant." (Bradley 2014:5)

"What I see as a vigorous enjoyment of cultural forms in working-class communities is missing from this particular strand of Bourdieusian analysis (Bennett et al., 2009; Skeggs, 2004) so that working-classness appears as a lack, a cultural defici" (Bradley 2014:5)

"It can be argued that the reason for ignoring such cultural forms is that they do not carry social legitimacy, so cannot be considered as symbolic capital. But this neglects the way that these working-class activities, embedded in supportive communities, can be converted into economic capital (income and wealth)" (Bradley 2014:5)

"Class becomes a scale, on which individuals are placed in terms of their possession of more or fewer elements of capital. The relation between the classes then is grada-s acknowledged by Savage et al., who state that they are not 'developing a deductive class schema' (2013: 229), but are using their various indicators to differentiate 'parsimonitheir method of 'latent class analysis'." (Bradley 2014:6)