Introduction to Stratification 1

Class and Culture and Identity: Introduction

Class and Culture and Identity Introduction/18/3/98/P.Covington/
While there are exceptions, it is possible to relate culture and taste to social class. Gans, 1974

No doubt that many of the old barriers of class should be broken down. However, at present the older, narrower but also more genuine class culture is being eroded
in favour of mass opinion. Hoggart, 1958

I started there in 1947 that is when I shared the platform with Arthur Horner…. The Durham’s Miner’s Gala is a fine occasion today, taking place as it does in that
beautiful city; but in those days it was absolutely sensational. There were so many lodges, you see, and they had to start bringing them in at half past eight in the
morning. The whole city absolutely throbbed with the thing from early in the morning, right through until you left. And you left absolutely drunk with it…the music, the
banners, and all in that beautiful city. It overwhelmed you really. In those days it was, far and away, the best working class festival that there was in this country. Far
and away the best. It was just marvellous. Michael Foot, 1992

Presumably most groups gain some of their strength from their exclusiveness, from a sense of people outside, who are not ‘us’. How does this express itself in
working class people? I have emphasised the strength of home and neighbourhood, and have suggested that this strength arises partly from a feeling that the world
outside is strange and often unhelpful, that it has the most of the counters stacked on its side, that to meet it on its own terms is difficult. One may call this, making
use of a word commonly used by the working class the world of ‘them’.

They are the people at the top, the ‘higher ups’, the people who give you dole, tell you to go to war, fine you, made this split the family in the thirties to avoid a
reduction in the Means Test Allowance, ‘get yer in the end’, ‘aren’t really to be trusted’, talk ‘posh’, are all twisters really. Hoggart,

Introduction: Class and Culture

Twenty years ago, the American sociologist Herbert Gans argued that while there were always exceptions it was
possible to relate culture and taste to social class. He pointed out (rather stereotypically) that most people from the
upper socio-economic groups liked classical music and most people from lower socio-economic groups did not.
Drawing the same kind of distinction between the culture of social classes today is more problematic. First the mass
media have now created the ‘high culture’ of cultural elites much more accessible to a wider audience, so it is no
longer an intellectual minority who enjoy opera. Secondly, the relationship between culture and social class appears
to vary widely around the world. Samba for example, is regarded as music of the young working class within Brazil,
while heavy rock is popular amongst the young, wealthy, and privileged strata of Brazilian society. Yet in Europe and
North America, samba music is considered as an exotic form of world music popular with the educated elite’s. Thirdly,
and perhaps more significantly for sociology the debates over the changing nature of the class structure make the very
concept of a ‘class culture’ problematic.

There are several ways of defining the differences between social classes in sociology. However, even here there is
disagreement amongst sociologists. What do we mean by ‘working class’ or ‘middle-class culture’? Yet, in our daily
lives we do still recognise cultural signals - in terms of language, fashion, shopping, and even TV viewing - which tell us
about the class background of the people we meet.

Most people would agree that few societies are equal. The study of social stratification is of central concern to
sociologists because modern societies display such a wide range of inequalities. These inequalities between rich and
poor, between social classes, between men and women, and black and white. Inequalities exist in a wide range of
areas of social life, such as job security, leisure opportunities, health, housing, income, and the power to influence
events in society.

What is Stratification?
The word stratification comes from strata or (layers), as in the way different rock are piled on top of one another to
form rock strata. Social Stratification refers to the divisions of society into a pattern of layers or strata made up of a
hierarchy of social groups. Beteille notes social inequalities have existed even among small tribes.

These stand in relation to advantage and disadvantage to one another in terms of features such as income, wealth
occupation, race or sex, depending upon the stratification system. Those at the top of the stratification hierarchy will
generally have more power than those at the bottom.

Sociologists argue that some form of social stratification occurs in every society in the world, despite the fact that
people have always dreamt of a society where everyone is equal. All societies appear to distinguish between people and
become more or less important that others.
Exercise One
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A nuclear bomb has been tracked by NATO is ten minutes away from obliterating the earth. You are in the local
council’s bomb shelter with 14 others who were nearby when the alarm was sounded. In the shelter there is only enough
food for eight (whatever their age), and so seven people must go outside to die. You have been chosen to make the
decision about who is to leave and who is to stay.

Get into small groups and try to reach a unanimous verdict on who is to be allowed to remain and later form part of a
new society. Choose one of your group to write down your decisions and on what basis you made them....

Here are the occupants of your shelter. The table below contains the information you have about them.... When you have
reached your decision discuss your results with the rest of the group.

Occupation Sex Age

1. Computer Programmer Male 37
2. Baby Female 6months
3. Agricultural Labourer Male 45
4. MP Male 40
5. Teenager still at school Male 14
6. Minister of Religion Male 67
7. IRA suspected Terrorist Female 28
8. Teacher of Sociology Female 30
9. David Beckham Male 22
10. Housewife Female 25
11. Her husband Male 27
12. Laboratory Technician Male 50
13. Schoolgirl Female 8
14. Famous Author Male 56

These inequalities can be divided into 3 main groups....

1. Economic Privilege, some have greater access to others to economic resources such as money.
2. Social Prestige, some personal or social qualities are valued more highly than others.
3. Power, some positions in society are more powerful than others.

Differences in Stratification
Groups may be stratified in of course different ways.

Exercise Two
List as many ways as possible that groups can be stratified including examples from around the world.

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Working Class Culture in the UK

The Changing working-class? The Work of Richard Hoggart, CCCS, Birmingham Univ

In the 1950’s it became fashionable to argue that rising living standards were changing the nature of working class
culture. Zweig, 1961 argued that a new affluent worker (Goldthorpe) was emerging whom was becoming middle
class in lifestyle and political attitudes. Certainly, sections of the working class enjoyed access to a range of cultural
goods and commodities for the first time, including family cars, washing machines, TV’s and holiday’s abroad. Richard
Hoggart, for example, saw the arrival in the UK of American cultural products, rock and roll, juke boxes, American
movies, etc. – as part of the creation of a mass society in which rich and important traditions of working class
culture were being washed away. Hoggart himself came from a working class background. In The Uses of Literacy, he
devotes the first half of the book to detailing the richness and vitality of pre-war culture in the homes, churches, pubs
and other organisations of the working class communities. Young and Willmott for example observed in Family and
Kinship in East London, 1957 that whereas kin more easily out of each others homes, acquaintances and even friends
meet routinely on the streets. Philip Cohen explains the dynamics of the street community very much in terms of Young
and Willmott, Cohen’s comments about the self-policing of the streets is particularly interesting in the light of current
more apprehensive perceptions.

Sexism in Working Class Culture

The culture and the community were heavily gendered. Married women and their infants ‘occupied’ the homes and
streets during the day and men and youth took them over during evening and night. However, only the youngsters used
them specifically as a leisure space. At home their was heavy separation between males and females, whilst this
separation was continued in the pub, where taking the spouse was ‘an occasional treat’.

Traditional Working Class Values: Good will Humanism

Working class people faced a life of permanent insecurity, never being sure that their jobs would last or their rented
housing would be permanent. Accordingly, working class culture emphasised a certain frivolity – living for the moment
rather than planning, and taking fun while the chance was there. Nevertheless, Hoggart insists, traditional working class
culture also stood for certain values which he strongly approved of; a sense of responsibility for others in the
community, tolerance, a ‘good will humanism’, a commitment to political involvement, and sense of decency or
knowing right from wrong. This lead to a closely-knit community, with a strong sense of belonging, and of exclusion
in terms of both place and people. (See quote at top of handout)

Mass Culture; the End of the Working Class?

In the second half of his book, Hoggart describes the ways in which he feared traditional working-class culture was
being eroded by the arrival of mass entertainment designed to appeal to all classes. Radio for example, made it no
longer necessary for working class people to meet together and sing their own songs. Hoggart felt that something was
being lost…

Some 40 years on, Hoggart considers that the erosion of working class culture he detected in the 1950’s has gone a
stage further. He has become less sure of the common-sense capacity of the working class to detect ‘tripe’ – of which
in his view there is a lot. He is unimpressed by Post Modernists attempt to embrace popular culture – the less so
because they do it in such incomprehensible language!

Criticisms of Hoggart’s Rosy View of the Working Class

Critics of Hoggart have pointed to the nostalgic flavour of his account of pre-war working class culture and his
inclination to ignore the tougher and more brutal aspects of living in such communities, according to Jenks to the
pint of sentimentality. Perhaps a more important criticism is that, while Hoggart stressed the inventiveness of pre-war
working class culture, he fails to recognise that exactly the same process might be at work 20 years later in the
reaction of working-class people to commercial or mass culture. In other words, rather than passively absorbing a
‘poorer’, ‘classless’ commercial culture, working class people might still be adapting and using the ‘bits’ of the
commercial culture to create new equally rich forms of working class culture.

Limitations of Using Stratification

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Sociologists have often made use of the ideas derived from other sciences - the so-called ‘organic analogy’ in which
human societies are likened to living organisms is the best known example. Nevertheless, such parallels are always
limited and can be misleading. In the case of stratification metaphor, for example, it is obvious that the arrangements of
different social groups in society are not really like the arrangements of rock in the crust of the earth. Geological
strata do not interact with one another, for example, whereas even in even the most rigid and hierarchical of societies
there is some degree of interaction between groups at the top and those at the bottom. Similarly, different geological
layers cannot change place relative to one another whereas in human societies, one group may ‘rise’ in power and
status over time while another may ‘fall’. Fifty years ago in Britain for example, clerks were undoubtedly more highly
esteemed than they are today. Similarly in the USA, it is possible to observe the ‘rise’ in status of different ethnic groups
such as Italians or the Poles who previously occupied very lowly positions in the class system as recent immigrants to
that society. And in many Western societies, the position of women relative to that of men has been changing somewhat
over the last 20 years.

Not only do social groups rise and fall relative to one another, but so too do individual members of these groups, One of
the main problems with employing such a metaphor of stratification within sociology is precisely that it cannot capture
the idea of individual movement between layers.

Exercise Three
For each of the following societies try to decide if there is any one characteristic

 age
 class
 gender
 ethnicity
 nationality
 religion
 etc.

In shaping people’s life chances....

1. Northern Ireland
2. The Old Soviet Union
3. Israel
4. The Deep South of the USA
5. The Old South Africa
6. Rural Provinces of India

Resources Used
Sociology A Modular Approach: Denis Gleeson
Social Class and Stratification: Peter Saunders, Society Now Series
Sociology in Focus: Taylor et al
An Introduction to Sociology: Ken Browne
Sociology in Perspective: Mark Kirby et al
Introduction to Sociology: Mike O’Donnell.

Exercise Four

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Try to rank each of the following characteristics in terms of their importance in shaping economic inequalities in
contemporary Britain...

 the job people do

 their gender
 their ethnic identity
 the family they were born into
 the region of the country they live in
 their religious affiliation
 How old they are...

Exercise Five

Look at the following statements relate them to the working class or middle class….

1. Public schools such as Eton.

2. Factories near houses.
3. Symmetrical conjugal roles.
4. Nuclear families with no close knit to family members.
5. Going doing to the pub with male members of the family while the wife prepares Sunday Lunch.
6. The local Comprehensive.
7. A close-knit world
8. Segregated conjugal roles

Other Systems
The Caste System

The caste system is found in India and elsewhere in Asia where people are typically divided into five main strata...

 Brahmins (Priests and nobles)

 Kshatriyas or Rajputs (warriors and rulers, and landowners)
 Vaishyas (merchants, traders, farmers)
 Shudras (servants, labourers, manual workers
 the outcaste group, the untouchables, these are thought to be impure, they do jobs such as dealing with sewage,
cutting up dead animals and washing dirty clothes)

The four caste groups are subdivided into occupational groups called Jatis, which determine the kind of work each
individual, can do. The caste people are born into therefore determines all aspects of your life. It affects individuals
life-styles, which they can marry, eat with, or visit as well as the job they can do.

The caste system is a very rigid system of stratification. This means there is little chance of social mobility up or
down. Status is ascribed it is given a birth, unlike achieved status which can be altered by success or failure.

Although this system was officially abolished in 1949 when India became independent, it continues to exist. It is still
very strong because it is based upon the teachings of the Hindu religion. The Hindu doctrine of Karma states that
your caste in this life is determined by your actions in a previous existence. A good life is rewarded by a high caste,
a bad life punished by future untouchability. A good road sweeper can be reincarnated next time into the Brahmin and
hence to eventually achieve Nirvana (enlightenment, becoming one with the universe), so escaping the eternal cycle or
suffering and rebirth.

It is therefore part of the economic, the social system and religious system of the country and is thus difficult to break
down.

Exercise Six

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Similarities to UK Class system to Differences Between the Two Systems

Indian Caste System

Feudalism

The Feudal system of medieval Europe existed of three estates...

1. nobles
2. clergy
3. commoners (freemen)

Each of the above had defined rights and duties. The positions were largely hereditary (with the exception of the
clergy) and so there was little movement between the classes. Feudalism was largely organised mainly around the
ownership of agricultural land (even the clergy derived most of their income from the land). The serfs who worked the
land were not; strictly speaking, an estate but they too were bound into a system of mutual obligations. They gave
‘economic tribute’ (livestock, grain, eggs, military and other services to the noble landowners that allowed them to farm
the land. The landed nobles exercised control over their respective territories in return they owed there tenants certain
duties (protect them from rival nobles. The nobles owed ultimate allegiance to the monarch but sometimes-local lords
enter rival alliances.

Other Forms of System

 Slavery, free and unfree slaves obtained either from conquest or purchase
 Class in capitalist Society: people’s positions in the market determine their social ranking.

Exercise Seven

Describe the type of people who would choose the following drink at a pub. What are their ages, sex, and class.
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Drink Age Sex Class

A champagne Cocktail

A pint of bitter

A Gin and Tonic

Half a Lager and Lime

A double Whisky

A Mackeson

Perrier Water

A glass of white wine

A dry Martini -shaken

not stirred!

Half of Cider

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