The Subjective Meaning of Social Class Identification in the United States

Abstract

This paper assesses the significance and meaning to Americans of five common social class terms: poor, working class, middle class, upper middle class, and upper class. After respondents in a national survey had been asked with which of these five classes they identified, they were asked how they would assign various occupations to the classes and what criteria they used to define membership in their own class. Most respondents were able to assign a variety of occupations to social classes with little or no hesitation, and there was high agreement about the class location of occupations. The prevailing class assignments of those occupations reflect hierarchical socioeconomic characteristics (such as income, job authority, education, and skill) rather than a qualitative blue-collar/white-collar distinction. Finally, the criteria that respondents selected as important in defining the social class with which they identify suggest that class is at least as much a social as an economic phenomenon in the United States. Mary R. Jackman is Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate in the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. This research was supported by grants from the National Institute for Mental Health (MH-26433) and the National Science Foundation (SOC 75-00405). The author is indebted to Mary Scheuer Senter for her invaluable help in the preparation of the questionnaire and in all subsequent stages of the research from data management to commenting on early drafts of the paper. Suzanne Purcell and Leslie Eveland also provided indispensable assistance with data management and analysis. Finally, thanks go to several people for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper: Richard Centers, William A. Gamson, Gerald Gurin, Joan Huber, Robert W. Jackman, and Howard Schuman. Public Opinion Quarterly ? 1979 by The Trustees of Columbia University Published by Elsevier North-Holland, Inc. 0033-362X/79/0043-443/$1.75 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.177 on Sat, 19 Nov 2016 04:38:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms