Class+System+Research+B

Period 8 Class System Research
French France was an [|absolute monarchy] for most of its history, with the [|king] at the pinnacle of the class structure. However, the [|French States-General], established in [|1302], provided a sort of legislative assembly with its members ranked according to hereditary class. The First Estate consisted of the highborn sons of great families who had devoted themselves to religion (compare to the Indian Brahmins, Confucian scholars, and Qajar theology students). The Second Estate consisted of all other members of the nobility, who constituted approximately two percent of the total population. The Third Estate consisted, technically, of everyone else, but was represented only by the richest members of the [|bourgeoisie]. In truth, the [|peasantry] had no voice at all in the system, as contrasted with the ideologically high status of farmers in Confucian China. The rigidity of the French hereditary system has been suggested as a major cause of the [|French Revolution].

British //Main article: [|Social structure of Britain]// The [|Parliament of the United Kingdom] still contains a [|vestige] of the European class structure undone in France by the Revolution. The [|Queen] maintains her status at the top of the social class structure, with the [|House of Lords] up until very recently still representing the hereditary upper class and the [|House of Commons] technically representing everyone else. Because of the electoral rules, however, the House of Commons historically (until the late 19th, early 20th centuries) represented the Landed classes. In the [|Victorian era] of the [|United Kingdom], social class became a national obsession, with [|nouveau riche] industrialists in the House of Commons trying to attain the status of House of Lords landowners through attempts to dress, eat, and talk in an [|upper class manner], marriages arranged to achieve titles, and the purchase of grand [|country houses] built to emulate the old [|aristocracy]'s feudal castles. It was the Victorian middle class who tried to distance themselves from the lower class with terms such as "[|working class]", which seemed to imply that their new [|white collar] positions couldn't really be considered "work" since they were so clean, modern, and safe. It was also in [|19th century] Britain that the term [|Fourth Estate] was used to describe the press. [|Thomas Carlyle] equated the Queen to France's First Estate of clergy, the House of Lords to France's Second Estate of hereditary aristocracy, and the House of Commons to France's Third Estate of rich bourgeoisie. But he then pointed out that the editors of newspapers in Britain's booming [|Industrial Revolution] (similar to the pamphleteers before and during the French Revolution) held powerful sway over public opinion, making them equally important players in the political arena. The political role of the media has become ever more important as technology has blossomed in the 20th and 21st centuries, but few academic models today set aside the media as a specific class. It remains important in any analysis of social class in the UK to allow for regional variations. What may be true of England may be untrue or at least less true of Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales. Attempts to assume a 'British' class system rarely produce useful or reliable results. Scotland's population's inter-class relations are (from an English point of view) confused by the vestiges of the clan system. Wales had most of its nobility killed off in a series of conflicts between different families and different centres of power, and of course with England. The upshot of this, according to historian Gwyn Alf Williams in his book //When Was Wales,// has been a country which thinks of itself as being of a single class, like [|Czechoslovakia]

United States Class in the US, featuring occupational descriptions by Thompson & Hickey as well as US Census Bureau data pertaining to [|personal income] and [|educational attainment] for those age 25 or older.[|[7]][|[12]][|[5]]//Main article: [|Social class in the United States]// The social structure of the United States is a vaguely defined concept which includes several commonly used terms that use [|educational attainment], [|income] and occupational prestige as the main determinants of [|class]. While it is possible to create dozens of social classes within the confines of American society, most Americans employ a six or five class system. The most commonly applied class concepts used in regards to contemporary American society are:[|[7]] __What is class?__ Most societies, especially [|nation states], seem to have some notion of social class. [//[|citation needed]//]. However, class is not a universal phenomenon. Many [|hunter-gatherer] societies do not have social classes, often lack permanent leaders, and actively avoid dividing their members into hierarchical power structures.[|[1]] The factors that determine class vary widely from one society to another. Even within a society, different people or groups may have very different ideas about what makes one "higher" or "lower" in the [|social hierarchy]. The most basic class distinction between the two groups is between the powerful and the powerless. [//[|citation needed]//] Social classes with more [|power] usually [|subordinate] classes with less power, while attempting to cement their own power positions in society. Social classes with a great deal of power are usually viewed as [|elites], at least within their own societies. In the less complex societies, power/class hierarchies may or may not exist. In societies where they do exist, power may be linked to physical strength, and therefore age, [|gender], and physical [|health] are common delineators of class. [//[|citation needed]//] However, spiritual [|charisma] and religious [|vision] can be at least as important. [//[|citation needed]//] Also, because different livelihoods are so closely intertwined in less complex societies, [|morality] often ensures that the old, the young, the weak, and the sick maintain a relatively equal standard of living despite low class. [//[|citation needed]//]
 * [|Upper class]; Those with great influence, wealth and prestige. Members of this group tend to act as the grand-conceptualizers and have tremendous influence of the nation's institutions.
 * [|Upper middle class]; The upper middle class consists of white collar professionals with advanced post-secondary educational degrees and [|comfortable] [|personal incomes]. Upper middle class professionals have large amounts of autonomy in the workplace and therefore enjoy high job satisfaction. In terms of income and considering the 15% figure used by Thompson, Hickey and Gilber, upper middle class professionals earn roughly $62,500 or more and tend to reside in households with six figure incomes.[|[4]][|[7]][|[13]]
 * [|(Lower) middle class]; Semi-professionals, non-retail salespeople and craftsmen who have some college education. Out-sourcing tends to be a prominent problem among those in this class who often suffer from a lack of job security.[|[7]][|[14]] Households in this class may need two income earners to make ends meet and therefore may have household incomes rivaling the personal incomes of upper middle class professionals such as attorneys.[|[14]]
 * [|Working class]; According to some experts such Michael Zweig, this class may constitute the majority of Americans and include those otherwise referred to as lower middle.[|[15]] It includes blue as well as white collar workers who have relatively low [|personal incomes] and lack college degrees with many being among the 45% of Americans who have never attended college.[|[7]]
 * [|Lower class]; This class includes the poor, alienated and marginalized members of society. While most individuals in this class work, they commonly drift in and out of poverty throughout the year.[|[7]]
 * Social class** refers to the [|hierarchical] distinctions (or [|stratification]) between individuals or groups in [|societies] or [|cultures].

What is the Working Class?

The Working Class In common with other terms relevant to [|social class], it is defined and used in many different ways, depending on context and speaker. The term incorporates references to education, to occupation, to culture, and to income. When used non-academically, it typically refers to a section of society dependent on physical [|labor], especially when remunerated with an hourly [|wage].
 * Working class** is a term used in academic [|sociology] and in ordinary conversation.

What is the Middle Class?

The Middle Class Industry, job opportunities, increased wages, and vision opened the way for a new class of citizenry by the 1850s - the middle class. This group consisted of factory owners, bankers, shopkeepers, merchants, lawyers, engineers, and other professionals. The new class was gaining power through economic and social means, not because of inherited titles or lands as the aristocracy. They soon knocked on the door of the upper class, demanding entry into the realm of the previously privileged. These men and women felt that wealth and social position were theirs for the taking through discipline and hard competition. Nineteenth century political and social reformer Samuel Smiles stated, "Individual effort, backed by austerity of life, would propel any man, no matter what his origins, to success in this world."

What is the Upper Class?

The Upper Class The phrase "upper class" has had a complex range of meanings and usages. In many traditional societies, membership of the upper class was hard or even impossible to acquire by any means other than being born into it. Despite this chance of upward mobility, the upper class is, according to many sociologists, unattainable to those not born into upper-class families.
 * Upper class** is a concept in [|sociology] that refers to the group of people at the top of a [|social hierarchy]. Members of an upper class often have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.

Upper-class food vs. lower-class food
A NY Times article headline reads [|“Warnings Don’t Deter Lovers of Sushi”]. (This is in response to yesterday’s number-one-most-emailed NY Times article about how [|tuna sushi contains unsafe levels of mercury].) When low-class food, such as McDonalds, is alleged to be unhealthy, the upper class condemn it, and celebrate movies (such as //Super Size Me//) that demonize it. But when upper-class food is found to be unhealthy, the same people ignore the warnings. The anti-McDonald’s crusade is mostly about rich people feeling smug about their superior upper-class tastes in food.

[[|edit]] Determinants of class
In so-called [|non-stratified societies] or [|acephalous societies], there is no concept of social class, power, or hierarchy beyond temporary or limited [|social statuses]. In such societies, every individual has a roughly equal social standing in most situations. [//[|citation needed]//] In societies where classes exist, one's class is determined largely by: Those who can attain a position of power in a society will often adopt distinctive lifestyles to emphasize their [|prestige] and to further rank themselves within the powerful class. Often the adoption of these stylistic traits is as important as one's wealth in determining class status, at least at the higher levels: Finally, fluid notions such as [|race] can have widely varying degrees of influence on class standing. Having characteristics of a particular ethnic group may improve one's class status in many societies. However, what is considered "racially superior" in one society can often be exactly the opposite in another. In situations where such factors are an issue, a minority ethnicity has often been hidden, or discreetly ignored if the person in question has otherwise attained the requirements to be of a higher class. Ethnicity is still often the single most overarching issue of class status in some societies (see the articles on [|apartheid], the [|Caste system in Africa], and the Japanese [|Burakumin] ethnic minority for examples). However, a distinction should be made between [|causation and correlation] when it comes to race and class. Some societies have a high correlation between particular classes and race, but this is not necessarily an indication that race is a factor in the determination of class.
 * [|occupation]
 * [|education] and [|qualifications]
 * [|income], personal, household and per capita
 * [|wealth] or [|net worth], including the [|ownership] of land, property, [|means of production], et cetera
 * [|costume] and [|grooming]
 * [|manners] and cultural [|refinement]. For example, [|Bourdieu] suggests a notion of high and low classes with a distinction between [|bourgeois] tastes and sensitivities and the [|working class] tastes and sensitivities.
 * political standing vis-à-vis the church, government, and/or social clubs, as well as the use of honorary [|titles]
 * [|reputation] of honor or disgrace
 * [|language], the distinction between elaborate code, which is seen as a criterion for "upper-class", and the restricted code, which is associated with "lower classes"

[[|edit]] William Lloyd Warner
An early example of a stratum class model was developed by the sociologist [|William Lloyd Warner] in his [|1949] book, //Social Class in America.// For many decades, the Warnerian theory was dominant in U.S. sociological theory. Based on [|social anthropology], Warner divided Americans into three classes (upper, middle, and lower), then further subdivided each of these into an "upper" and "lower" segment, with the following postulates: To Warner, American social class was based more on attitudes than on the actual amount of money an individual made. For example, the richest people in America would belong to the "lower-upper class" since many of them created their own fortunes; one can only be born into the highest class. Nonetheless, members of the wealthy upper-upper class tend to be more powerful, as a simple survey of U.S. presidents may demonstrate (i.e., the [|Roosevelts]; [|Kennedys]; [|Bushes]). Another observation: members of the upper-lower class might make more money than members of the lower-middle class (i.e., a well-salaried factory worker vs. a secretarial worker), but the class difference is based on the type of work they perform. In his research, findings, Warner observed that American social class was largely based on these shared attitudes. For example, he noted that the lower-middle class tended to be the most conservative group of all, since very little separated them from the working class. The upper-middle class, while a relatively small section of the population, usually "set the standard" for proper American behavior, as reflected in the [|mass media]. Professionals with salaries and educational attainment higher than those found near the middle of the income strata (e.g. bottom rung professors, managerial office workers, architects) may also be considered as being true middle class. 
 * **Upper-upper class**. "Old money." People who have been born into and raised with wealth; mostly consists of old "noble" or prestigious families (e.g., [|Earl of Shrewsbury], [|Vanderbilt], [|Rockefeller]).
 * **Lower-upper class**. "New money." Individuals who have become rich within their own lifetimes (e.g., entrepreneurs, movie stars, as well as some prominent professionals).
 * **Upper-middle class**. Professionals with a college education (e.g., doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, professors, and corporate executives).
 * **Lower-middle class**. Lower-paid white collar workers, but not manual laborers (e.g., police officers, school-teachers, non-management office workers, small business owners).
 * **Upper-lower class**. Blue-collar workers and manual labourers. Also known as the "working class."
 * **Lower-lower class**. The homeless and permanently unemployed, as well as the "working poor."

[[|edit]] Coleman and Rainwater
In 1978 sociologists Coleman and Rainwater conceived the "Metropolitan Class Structure" consisting of three social classes, each with a number sub-classes. 
 * **Upper Americans**
 * **Upper-upper class**; (ca. 1%) Old money stemming from inherited wealth. Persons in this class typically have an "Ivy league college degree." Their household income in 1978 was over $60,000 ($183,000 in 2005 dollars)
 * **Lower-upper class**; (ca. 1%) This is the "Success elite" consisting of "Top professionals [and] senior corporate executives." People in this class have degrees from "Good colleges." Their household income was also commonly in excess of $60,000 ($183,000 in 2005 dollars).
 * **Upper-middle class**; (ca. 19%) Also called the "Professional and Managerial" class, it consists of "Middle professionals and managers" with a college and often graduate degrees. Household incomes for this group lay between $20,000 ($60,000 in 2005 dollars) and $60,000 ($183,000 in 2005 dollars)
 * **Middle Americans**
 * **Middle-class**; (ca. 31%) This class consists of "Lower-level managers; small-business owners; lower-status professionals (pharmacists, teachers); sales and clerical" workers. Middle class persons had a high school and some college education. Their household incomes commonly ranged between $10,000 and $20,000 ($30,000 - $60,000 in 2005 dollars)
 * **Working class**; (ca. 35%) This class consists of "Higher blue collar (craftsman, truck drivers); lowest-paid sales and clerical" workers. Younger individuals in 1978 who were members of this class had a high school education. Their household income lay in between $7,500 and $15,000 ($23,000 - $45,000 in 2005 dollars)
 * **Lower Americans** (ca. 13%)
 * **Semipoor**; This class had a partial high school education and consisted of "Unskilled labor and service" workers with household incomes ranging from $4,500 to $6,000 ($14,000 - $18,000 in 2005 dollars)
 * **The bottom**; Those who are "Often unemployed" or rely on welfare payments. These individuals typically lack a high school education and had household incomes of less than $4,500 ($14,000 in 2005 dollars)

[[|edit]] Thompson & Hickey
The Thompson & Hickey model found in their 2005 book, //Society in Focus//. In their 2005 sociology textbook, //Society in Focus//, sociologists William Thompson and Joseph Hickey present a five class model in which the middle class is divided into two sections and the term working class is applied to clerical and pink collar workers. Their class system goes as follows:[|[7]] 2005 personal and household income distribution data by the US Census Bureau.
 * **Upper class**, (ca. 1%-5%) individuals with considerable power over the nation's economic and political institutions. This group owns a disproportionate share of the nation's resources. The top 1% had [|incomes] exceeding $250,000 with the top 5% having [|household incomes] exceeding $140,000. This group features strong group solidarity and is largely consitituted by the heirs to multi-generational fortunes. Prominent government officials, CEOs and successful entrepreneurs are among the upper class even if not of elite background.[|[7]]
 * **Upper middle class**, (ca. 15%) white collar professionals with [|advanced post-secondary education] such as physicians, professors, lawyers, corporate executives, and other management. While households commonly have [|six figure incomes] in this group, the majority of income earners do not. Only 6% of persons had six figure incomes while 15% were upper middle class. While high [|educational attainment] commonly serves as the staple mark of this group, entrepreneurs and business owners may also be upper middle class even if lacking advanced educational attainment.[|[7]]
 * **Lower middle class**, (ca. 33%) individuals who worked their way through college and commonly have a Bachelor's degree or some [|college education]. School teachers, sales-employees and lower to mid level supervisors rank among those in this particular group. [|Household income] is generally in the range of $30,000 to $75,000. Workers in this group are mostly white collar but have less autonomy in their work than do upper middle class professionals. Members of this class often attempt to emulate those in the two higher classes and have recently become overly indebted by their desire to have a comfortable lifestyle.[|[7]]
 * **Working class**, (ca. 30%) individuals who occupy both blue and white collar occupations. Pink collar workers in predominantely female clerical positions are common in this class. Job security tends to be low for this group and unemployment as well as losing health insurance remain potent economic threats. [|Household incomes] typically range from $16,000 to $30,000.[|[7]]
 * **Lower class**, repeated cycles of unemployment, working multiple low-level part-time jobs are common among this group. Many families fall below the [|poverty line] from time to time when employment opportunities are scarce.[|[7]]

[[|edit]] Gilbert & Kahl
In //The American Class Structure, 6th edition// (Wadsworth 2002) as well the preceding 5th edition, Dennis Gilbert lays out an even more precise breakdown of American social classes. Dennis Gilbert stresses that "there is really no way to establish that a particular model is 'true' and another 'false.'" He furthermore states that his "model emphasizes //sources of income//" and that household income, being very dependent on the number of income earners, varies greatly within each social class. The class descriptions in quotes below are lifted from the 5th edition, pages 284 and 285.[|[16]] 
 * **Capitalist class**; (ca. 1%) //"Subdivided into nationals and locals, whose income is derived largely from return on assets."// Yet is should be noted that the top 1.5% of households made $250,000 or more with only 146,000, 0.01% of households having incomes of $1,600,000 or more.[|[16]]
 * **Upper middle class**; (ca. 14%) //"...college trained professionals and managers (a few of whom ascend to such heights of bureaucratic dominance or accumulated wealth that they become part of the capitalist class)."// Educational attainment is the main feature of this class. They enjoy great job autonomy and economic security. Household incomes vary greatly depending of the number of income earners."[|[16]] Considering US Census Bureau According to the 2005 Economic Survey, the top 15% of income earners made $62,500 or more with the top 15% of households having [|six figure incomes].[|[12]][|[17]]
 * **Middle class**; (ca. 30%) //"...members have significant skills and perform varied tasks at work, under loose supervision. They earn enough to afford a comfortable, mainstream lifestyle. Most wear white collars, but some wear blue."//[|[16]] In 2005 incomes for this group would have ranged from $50,000 to $90,000 for households and $27,500 to $52,500 for individuals.[|[12]][|[17]]
 * **Working class**; (ca. 30%) //"People who are less skilled than members of the middle class and work at highly routinized, closely supervised manual and clerical jobs. Their work provides them with a relatively stable income sufficient to maintain a living standard just below the mainstream."//[|[16]] Incomes in 2005 would have ranged from $10,000 to $27,500 for individuals and $20,000 to $50,000 for households.[|[12]][|[17]]
 * **Working poor**; (ca. 13%) //"...people employed in low-skill jobs, often at marginal firms. The members of this class are typically laborers, service workers, or low-paid operators. Their incomes leave them well below mainstream living standards. Moreover, they cannot depend on steady employment."//[|[16]] In 2004 the bottom 12.2% of households made less than $12,500.[|[17]]
 * **Underclass** (ca. 12%) //"...members have limited participation in the labor force and do not have wealth to fall back on. Many depend on government transfers."// The [|average household income] is $12,000 a year, and the class makes up 12% of the population.

[[|edit]] Chinese model
In the Structure and Evolution of Chinese Social Stratification, sociologist Li Yi lays out a detailed model of Chinese social stratification after 1949. In China today, there is a peasant class, a working class (urban state worker and urban collective worker, urban non-state worker, and peasant worker), a capitalist class (about 15 million), and a class of cadre (about 40 million) and quasi-cadre (about 27 million). 



[[|edit]] Iranian model
Farhad Nomani and Sohrab Behdad in their book //Class and Labor in Iran; Did the Revolution Matter?// (Syracuse University Press, 2006) define and quantify social classes in Iran and examine the changes in the configuration of social classes in the post-revolutionary Iran. Nomani and Behdad base their analysis (à la Erik Olin Wright 1 ) on three dimensions of (1) property ownership, (2) possession of scarce skills/credentials, and (3) organizational assets/authority. They recognize four distinct class categories and the ambiguous category of political functionaries of the state: 1-Capitalists: Owners of physical and financial means of economic activities, who employ workers. Capitalists are divided into modern and traditional occupational categories. 2-Petty bourgeoisie: Self-employed persons who do not hire any paid worker but may rely on unpaid family labor. They, too, consist of modern and traditional categories. 3-The middle class: Employees of the state or the private sector, in administrative-managerial and professional-technical positions. They exercise some authority and enjoy relative autonomy. In this category are those who are employed in economic activities and social services of the state. Those employed in the administrative or managerial position in the political apparatus of the state are not included here. 4-The working class: Workers who do not own the means of economic activity and do not benefit from the authority and autonomy of those in the middle class. They are employees of the state or the private sector, excluding those in the lower ranks of the political apparatus of the state. Those employed in the political apparatus of the state, engaged in political administration, national defense and domestic surveillance, constitute the ambiguous class category of political functionaries. This category includes higher rank of state administrators, managers, and military and para-military officers, the rank file of the political apparatus, and the lower rank members of the coercive forces (including the military draftees). The post 1979 revolutionary turmoil had notable impacts on the class reconfiguration of Iran (see table below). The disruption of the accumulation process in the first revolutionary decade (Khomeini period) retarded the capitalist relations of production (structural involution ). This condition gave rise to deproletarianization of labor and peasantization of agriculture, and a general expansion in petty-commodity activities and a rise of the petty bourgeoisie, along side a huge expansion of state activities. In the post-Khomeini period, the effort toward reconstitution of capitalist relations of production via an economic liberalization policy (deinvolutionary process) reversed some of the previous trends. In the second post-revolutionary period an increase in proletarianization of labor and de-peasantization of agriculture is observed. The first (involutionary ²) period promoted traditional capitalists and the petty bourgeoisie, whereas in the second (deinvolutionary) period the number of modern capitalists, modern petty bourgeoisie, and the middle class (especially those employed by the private sector) increased significantly. In a comparison of the class structure in 1996 with that in 1976 one can observe that in spite of some peculiar differences, there are striking similarities between the two periods. If the changes between 1986 and 1996 may be regarded as a trend, there is a pattern toward reconstruction of the 1976 class configuration of Iran in the years ahead. 1- Wright, Erik Olin (1997) //Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis//. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2- Nomani and Behdad (2006). //Class and Labor in Iran; Did the Revolution Matter?// Syracuse University Press, Chapter 3. 

[[|edit]] Problems with the models
Some would argue that any conception of class based on power models is too narrow, since so much of [|quality of life] cannot be expressed in terms of dollars or acres owned [//[|citation needed]//]. A retired teacher living on a small, but adequate, stipend or a "struggling" artist living a life of [|bohemianism] and [|voluntary poverty] may actually enjoy a great deal more freedom, health, and social respect than an overworked executive making a [|six figure income] at a discredited corporation. In addition, many people can be difficult to fit into the above models [//[|citation needed]//]. There is the question, for instance, of whether the wife of an upper class man is automatically upper class herself, even if her education, manners, and her own net worth would place her in a lower class status. Additionally, children, who usually enjoy the comfort and prestige related to their parent's social class, may actually live very poorly with abusive high class parents or at a very high level of consumption and income if their low class parents spoil them. Some [|youth rights] activists would argue that all minors are lower class due to their lack of choice in where they live, how they spend their time, and who makes the laws affecting them [//[|citation needed]//]. Similar arguments could be made concerning women in many parts of the World. Aside from these issues, within class distinctions, particularly the "upper middle class", there is a hierarchy within the class designation that discriminates against those whose "upper middle class" status arose from their own efforts within their own lifetimes, versus those who claim upper middle class status because of family position (such as family members of high-profile doctors or lawyers or judges who expect their family connections to bring them greater opportunity or reward than those whose success results from their own hard work and achievement).

A.Dating and Marriage
Children tend to seek out those who act, speak, and have the same cultural values as themselves. The upper class also arranges social events such that upper class children meet only upper class children.

B.Socialization
Class also shapes values and norms and these norms and values in turn determine how people act in social settings like school and occupation. Middle-class children grow up valuing independence more than working-class people while working-class people prefer conformity.

C.Health
In general the higher the social class, the greater the life expectancy. The poor are subject to more infant deaths and disease than the upper classes. Rates of mental illness also go up as social class goes down and the poor are less likely to receive treatment. The higher level of stress is one explanation for higher rates of mental illness.

D.Formal Education
Class correlates with education in a number of ways. Since education is community based, class determines the quality of teachers and curriculum. Teachers have middle class backgrounds and, therefore, work better with students "like themselves." The importance of education receives greater emphasis in upper classes, therefore, children of the upper classes are more likely to attend college.

Upper Class

Middle Class

Lower Class