Measurement issues of the social class in social psychology of education: Is it a category mistake?

Abstract

Abstract The present article discusses the measurement of social class in the social psychology of education research. It was evident that social class experiences are conflated with the socioeconomic status (SES) indicators and the subjective measure of the class context was underrepresented. However, this was discussed in Rubin et al (2014) about the intersectional nature of social class taking into account both objective and subjective indicators. The derivation of the social class experience from the objective and subjective measures were critically discussed. An effort was made to understand whether these translations are category mistake or not. Three trajectories will be utilized to address the category mistake, that is, 1) subjectivity and objectivity debate in the measurement of social class in social psychology of education, 2) debates encircling around the position of social psychology and its underutilized concept such as social class as scientifically objective facets in social sciences and 3) operationalism of social class and category mistake.