Social Class Boundaries Research Articles

Boundaries and Disgust in The Duchess of Malfi

Abstract Developing recent research on emotion in early modern literature, this essay argues that disgust is the primary emotional mode of Webster’s classic tragedy The Duchess of Malfi. According to modern affective science, disgust is the emotion designed to protect the physical body from material contaminants and protect the social body from symbolic contaminants; as such, it is intimately concerned with the preservation of boundaries. I argue that Malfi stages the thematic collapse of key existential boundaries of the human experiences—boundaries of social class, boundaries of kinship, boundaries between species, and boundaries between life and death—and the result is a compensatory atmosphere of disgust that pervades the play.

Cultural Distinction and the University of Toronto: Constructing Symbolic Boundaries of Social Class in Canada, 1894–1950

In the first half of the twentieth century, the University of Toronto was a preeminent cultural institution in Canada. Based on a critical interpretation of archival documents, this article narrates the history of four non-formal educational programs through which the University of Toronto created opportunities for Canadians to develop privileged forms of cultural taste and practice: the administration of local examinations in music across Canada, the development of a museum oriented to public visitation, the organization of public lectures in collaboration with local associations across Ontario, and the delivery of non-credit evening courses in Toronto. These four programs engaged hundreds of thousands of Canadians in forms of activity that supported the development of what Bourdieu conceptualized as constellations of cultural distinction: arrays of tastes and practices that mark symbolic boundaries of social class. Two of the programs resulted in national cultural institutions (Royal Conservatory of Music and Royal Ontario Museum) prominent in fields that have been empirically associated with social class boundaries in Canada. The other two programs declined in significance after 1950 and have not previously been included in analyses of cultural distinction. This article explores the historical role of Canadian universities in constructing symbolic boundaries of social class.

Is everyone really middle class? Social class position and identification in Alberta.

In defining social class, researchers often rely on measures of objective class position, even though subjective perceptions of social class identity can better account for the creation of social class boundaries. We explore the relationship between measures of objective class position and subjective class identity using data from an online survey of 1155 residents in Alberta, Canada, a conservative province dependent on a fluctuating energy sector. We find that although most Albertans identified as middle class, the strength of class identity and views regarding linked social class fates varied across categories with poverty class and uppermiddleclass respondents standing out. In reporting class identity, respondents considered measures related to objective class position, especially their income and economic security levels, but gaps still remained. We then use the results of this exploratory study to advocate for more comprehensive measures of social class.

Virtue and Progressive Ideology: Destabilizing Social Class in Richardson’s Pamela and Fielding’s Joseph Andrews

This essay investigates Richardson and Fielding’s projection of social mobility and the intrinsic conditionality of virtue and honor that is essential for social transformation. Maintaining a virtuous status among morally corrupt people destabilizes the established stereotypical view of social hierarchy and incites some aristocratic people’s passion for their servants, violating the consolidation of social class boundaries. Pursuant to the principles of the progressive ideology, some members of the upper class authoritatively thwart endeavors for upward mobility, except for social progression coupled with moral standing and good reputation that is propitiously received with communal acceptance and approbation. Therefore, the novels entail that values of good ethics, chastity, and piety become fundamental requirements for maintaining and enhancing social standing regardless of any prospective deterioration in the material situation. Both novels resist the ideology that honor as virtue is an inherited value that is vested in a certain class by ancestry and heredity. Contrary to this supposition, both contexts associate moral corruption with social degradation and document it historically to reform sinful practices and immodesty. Finally, the authors aspire for ideal societies where the holders of virtue and honor should be rewarded for resisting moral corruption, the allure of materialism, and the greed of capitalism.

Co-occurring occupations among siblings in Norway

According to class theory, social class boundaries are akin to social mobility patterns. This study explores these patterns by looking at co-occurring occupations among siblings. The author uses data from Norway's population-wide registers to analyze occupational co-occurrences among siblings across 98 occupations. The association is analyzed in relative terms: how often occupations are held by both siblings compared to what would be expected if there was no statistical association between siblings’ occupations. The Mobility Network Clustering Algorithm (MONECA) identifies groups of occupations that are strongly connected. The analysis shows that siblings tend to have the same occupation. Furthermore, non-manual and manual occupations are identified as two separate groups of strongly connected occupations. The analysis also shows a more differentiated structure in occupations, with increased tendencies for siblings to be in more narrow subgroups of the occupational structure. In the non-manual group, occupations in management, finance, business, and sales form a separate cluster from administrative workers, the professions, and cultural-artistic occupations. Beyond this, the occupational structure is differentiated into smaller subgroups.

How children negotiate and make sense of social class boundaries

ABSTRACT This article aims to understand how children in a superdiverse Western European city actively negotiate their social position. Based on in-depth interviews with children aged 11–13, we highlight how a diverse group of children give meaning to social inequality and assess how they position themselves towards different socio-economic groups. We argue that children not only show an acute awareness of social differences but also engage in symbolic boundary-making to secure a positive self-identity. We analyse how children describe the ‘middle-class’ according to their own position, to present themselves as neither rich nor poor but as ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’. However, as the children’s narratives reveal very different life chances, they use different identity management strategies to construct their own ‘ordinariness’.

Class matters: interviewing across social class boundaries

ABSTRACTIn this paper, we explore the methodological implications of conducting qualitative interviews when researchers and participants come from different social classes. Singling out class on its own terms, rather than considering it as an auxiliary structural factor, we examine the unique challenges that arise during cross-class interviews. Such challenges, we contend, require researcher reflexivity about how researcher–participant interactions unfold and the ways in which knowledge is generated during the interview process. In our discussion, we draw on Bourdieu’s cultural view of social class to argue that cross-class dynamics between the researcher and the participant – along with the normalization of middle-class values often inherent in interview questions – create potential obstacles to establishing rapport and facilitating fertile conversation. We use examples from our own field research in a U.S. fast-food chain to illustrate these barriers. We also provide practical recommendations to researchers regarding how they can minimize class-based biases, reduce class saliency, and gain awareness of their own class positions during cross-class interviews.

Shadows on the landscape: an inquiry into the value of some Australian places

In 1922, Australian places connected with a solar eclipse were of world-historical significance as they were associated with empirical confirmation of Einstein's general theory of relativity. They also formed a major part of Australian national consciousness, although they have since reverted to lost geographies. An exploration of Australian reception of eclipse science leads to questions of official heritage construction and stereotypical national identity. An argument is presented for the importance of intangible heritage at national, communal, and individual levels. At the complex intersection between memory and identity, place value is investigated within wider social-political formations with emphasis on participation across perceived boundaries of social class, gender, and ethnicity, including the valuable role of Aboriginal peoples.

Gainful Activity and Intimate Partner Aggression in Emerging Adulthood.

Although intimate partner aggression crosses social class boundaries, education and income are important predictors. Yet given that emerging adulthood is a transitional period, completed education and employment, as single measures, are not ideal indicators of socioeconomic status for young people. We examined associations between self-reports of gainful activity, defined as enrollment in school or full-time employment, and intimate partner aggression among young adults in dating, cohabiting, or married relationships (N=648). Both men and women's participation in gainful activity was negatively associated with aggression. We found that when neither partner was gainfully active, individuals reported higher frequency of physical aggression. In cases of gainful activity asymmetry, the gender of the gainfully active partner did not predict intimate partner aggression. Additionally, we found no evidence that the association between gainful activity and frequency of intimate partner aggression differed by union type.

Breaking the In-Group Out-Group: Shifting Boundaries in Transnational Partner Choice Processes of Individuals of Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian, Turkish, Punjabi Sikh, Pakistani and Albanian Descent in Belgium

The ongoing popularity in some second and third generation migrants in Western Europe of marrying a partner from the countries of origin of their (grand)parents is considered to be problematic for micro and macro level societal integration of some migrant populations. Partner choice and marriage practices in migrant communities are problematized in public, media and political discourses by discriminating them from marriage practices in the ‘native’ population on the basis of three related dichotomies: (1) agency versus structure, (2) us versus them and (3) romantic versus instrumental marriage intentions dichotomies. By means of in-depth qualitative research methodologies on the partner choice processes of women and men of Turkish, Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Punjabi Sikh, Pakistani and Albanian descent in Belgium and an intersectional theoretical approach, this article aims to deconstruct popular and simplifying dichotomous representations of partner choice processes in these migrant populations. Our study reveals how religious, gender and social class boundaries are stretched to meet personal/individual desires and preferences. Individuals do experience social restrictions when it concerns social group boundaries and the potential partners that they can look for. At the same time individuals are never fully determined by their social environment, they creatively develop strategies to by-pass certain restrictions and to some extent are able to meet their personal needs while being sensitive to the desires of their social environment.

The Economic Rise of Martin Römer. Social Mobility in the Western Ore Mountains in the 15th Century

The present article accounts the life history of Martin Römer, who, in the late 15^th century, was considered the richest person in Saxony. It illustrates the opportunities for social and economic upward mobility provided by the mining boom in the western Ore Mountains as well as the - compared to the great old Imperial Cities such as Nuremberg or Augsburg - generally more permeable social class boundaries. Helped by his international network of trade offices, good relations with the Wettin rulers and a multitude of mining business ventures, Römer managed within a short time span to assume a leading role in Zwickau, becoming regional mines inspector (Zehntner) and district administrator (Amtmann) and marrying into the local upper class. Despite acquiring a manor, being issued letters patent and being accoladed at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, he remained citizen. Hence his life history can, at a general level, exemplify an upwardly mobile’s status in the Late Middle Ages in the “grey area” between nobility and commoners, while the definitive ascension into Saxon gentry was reserved to Martin Römer’s brother Nikolaus’s descendants.

Readers respond to Godwin: Romantic republicanism in letters

Robert Darnton proposed a new relationship between the reader and the printed word in eighteenth‐century France, prompted by Rousseau's attempts to direct the readers of his works. After reading La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), Darnton argued, readers in all walks of life wrote to its author to confess their feelings just as they took him to be confessing to them. This collapsing of the traditional barriers between writer and reader, and between reader and text, was not unique to Rousseau. Godwin's An Enquiry concerning Political Justice (1793) also provoked a flood of letters. Godwin invited readers to embark on a journey of intellectual discovery and self‐exploration. Readers responded by writing to tell him how his book had led them to revaluate their lives, and to engage him in debate on moral and philosophical questions. This essay explores the reading community brought into being by Political Justice. Drawing on Godwin's unpublished correspondence, it shows that reform‐minded men and women read Political Justice not just as a speculative treatise but as a guide to living. Such an investigation contributes to the history of Romantic republican mentalities, which transcend the boundaries of social class, gender, and nation.

Class Matters — In and Out of School

LOW achievement and high dropout rates among poor and minority students continue to U.S. society. And we say plague purposefully, because these children are all our children, and our nation will profit by or pay for whatever they become. While much attention over the past quarter century has focused on reforming the schools these students attend, little or no progress has been made in actually closing the achievement gaps or reducing the number of dropouts. Why? Aren't Americans a can-do people? We eradicated the childhood scourge of polio, built the best road system since the Romans, put men on the moon, outlasted the Soviet Union, and created universities that are the envy of the world. But the problem of underachievement by poor and minority students has confounded us. High-level commissions issue warnings, governors hold summits, think tanks produce reports, scholars write books, and Congress passes laws. But the U.S. has failed to deliver on its promise to provide a high-quality education to every child. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King, Jr., forced our nation to face the inequities of race, poverty, and war. But today, these three inequities still exist in this country. RETHINKING THE PROBLEM Surely schools need to be improved, especially the schools that serve poor and minority children. But school improvement alone will not suffice. We believe in the power of good teaching, but educators alone cannot do a job so large. We can inspire individual students to break through the boundaries of social class, but we cannot lift a whole social class of students to a higher level of achievement. Low achievement and dropping out are problems rooted in social and economic inequality--a force more powerful than curricula, teaching practices, standardized tests, or other school-related policies. Richard Rothstein summed it up best: For nearly half a century, the association of social and economic disadvantage with the student achievement gap has been well known to economists, sociologists, and educators. Most, however, have avoided the obvious implication of this understanding--raising the achievement of lower-class children requires amelioration of the social and economic conditions of their lives, not just school reform. (1) Once acknowledged, this truth has profound implications for educators and policy makers alike. If all efforts to close achievement gaps concentrate exclusively on schools and school reform, they will fail, leaving schools and teachers to shoulder the blame. In turn, good administrators and teachers, who are doing their best under difficult circumstances, will be driven out of the profession, a prospect that can only make matters worse. As Gary Orfield sums it up: Doing educational reform while ignoring the fundamental cleavages in society is profoundly counterproductive. (2) A useful way of visualizing the remedy for the chronic problem of low achievement of poor and minority students is to return to Abraham Maslow's 1954 hierarchy of needs for self-actualization. We have patterned a hierarchy of needs for a self-actualized society after Maslow's (see Figure 1). AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN STABLE NEIGHBORHOODS Nearly one-third of the nation's poorest children have attended three different schools by third grade. Such high mobility depresses achievement. One study found that reducing the mobility of low-income students to that of other students would eliminate 7% of the test-score gap by income and 14% of the black/white test score gap. (3) Other studies have shown that low-income families and children benefit when integrated into middle-class neighborhoods. This integration requires housing subsidies for poor families. (4) After Brown v. Board of Education, flight became common across the country. Middle-income white families moved to the suburbs, leaving only poor families in the inner cities. …

Reexamining Social Class Differences in the Availability and the Educational Utility of Parental Social Capital

Emergent ethnographic research disentangles “social capital” from other components of social class (e.g., material and human capital) to show how class-stratified parental social networks exacerbate educational inequality among schoolchildren. The authors build upon this research by using survey data to reexamine whether certain forms of parental social capital create educational advantages for socioeconomically privileged students vis-à-vis their less economically fortunate peers. By drawing a distinction between the availability of social capital and its convertibility, the authors find that whereas larger stocks of parental social capital accompany higher rungs on the social class ladder, its educational utility is less clearly associated with class status. A possible exception to this pattern pertains to the educational utility of middle-class parents’ ideas about the collective efficacy of influencing school policies and practices. At issue is whether a more inclusive understanding of the material and sociological reasons for educational inequality can spur educationally useful social exchange among parents across social class boundaries.

Americans' Attitudes Toward Mental Health Treatment Seeking: 1990-2003

Americans' Attitudes Toward Mental Health Treatment Seeking: 1990-2003

SONGS TO SHAPE A GERMAN NATION: HILLER’S COMIC OPERAS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

In this article I assert that our modern understanding of the singspiel as a genre has been shaped not by eighteenth-century principles but rather by nineteenth-century notions of ‘romantic’ German opera. In contrast to a later through-composed ideal, Johann Adam Hiller’s comic operas, often viewed as the prototype of the German comic genre, were designed precisely in order that the songs might easily be detached from the spoken dialogue, disseminated outside of the public opera house and sung by audiences in various other contexts. The express purpose of these songs, as articulated by librettist Christian Felix Weisse, was to promote communal singing in social circles across Germany. The genre was thus designed for circulation within what Habermas describes as the public sphere: a conceptual space between the State and the private home in which texts, ideas and musical works were circulated and debated.Composed in what was called the German Volkston (in the manner of the Volk), Hiller’s melodies are recorded as being sung and played throughout the streets and parks of major German cities and became so popular that they became known as folksongs. This idea of the Volk as a collective entity and of the Volkston, however, was rooted in a deeper sense of the public as nation. Inspired by Le devin du village and J. J. Rousseau’s writings on politics, language and the fine arts, Weisse and Hiller’s operas employ the pastoral mode, in which idealized peasants sing in the manner of a folksong. The idyllic simplicity of these early German-language comic operas appealed to a diversified German audience by affirming their roots, the public use of their language and their morally upright character as a nation. Thus comic opera as a genre was circulated within the public sphere with the intention of transcending the boundaries of social class to unite the German nation in song.

"A Silent Partner Long Enough": Phelps Rewrites Gaskell's North and South

"A SILENT PARTNER LONG ENOUGH": PHELPS REWRITES GASKELL'S NORTH AND SOUTH Jill Bergman University of Montana Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's 1871 labor novel, The Silent Partner, met with mixed reviews from the beginning. A review in Literary World praised the novel in its day for its "superior realism," but the New York Times criticized it for its "slight story" and its "extremely unsatisfactory and discouraging conclusion."1 The mixed reviews have continued as modern scholars seek to assess literary works on ideological as well as aesthetic grounds. Specifically, recent reception of The Silent Partner has found it difficult to reconcile the novel's pro-labor, anti-capitalist rhetoric with the scene in which protagonist and reformer, Perley Kelso, uses her sway with the mill workers to persuade them to accept reduced wages rather than going on strike. In their afterword to the 1983 edition of the novel, Florence Howe and Mari Jo Buhle credit Phelps with trying to cross the "rigid boundaries of social class," yet they identify as "problematic " "Perley's ability to foreclose [rather than support] the strike near the novel's end." They see this moment as "a sign of the limited political vision of the young novelist."2 Judith Fetterley in 1986 noted inconsistencies in the novel. She convincingly argues that although Phelps's protagonist comes to identify with laborers due to their shared status as outsiders to language, this same protagonist shifts her position in the strike scene to side with the mill owners, "advocating her own silence" and effectively silencing the workers .3 Amy Schräger Lang in 1994 offered an explanation for the novel's incongruities, asserting that the "politics of representation, the imperatives of the novel form, and the reformist intent of the author require radically different interpretive frames."4 In short, scholars seem agreed that the novel is of at least two minds, and have tried to make sense of that. Nina Baym's introduction to Phelps's spiritualist novels may offer an explanation for this reception. Discussing Phelps's life and work, Baym places her among her late-nineteenth-century writing contemporaries and points to the "[nostalgia] for antebellum ideals of Christian domesticity and homogeneous community life" that 148¡ill Bergman caused these women writers to struggle "to situate women like themselves —white, Anglo, genteel, idealistic, socially conscious—in a world constantly outrunning their efforts to grasp it." This struggle, and the work arising from it, says Baym, "has been especially difficult for contemporary critics to appreciate on its own terms."5 We can better appreciate The Silent Partner "on its own terms" by placing its "struggle to situate women" within its transatlantic literary context. Scholars to date have overlooked the striking similarity between Phelps's novel and Elizabeth Gaskell's 1855 novel, North and South; nevertheless, Phelps's novel borrows directly from Gaskell's in its basic plot, as well as in specific scenes—notably, the troubling strike scene.6 If we assume an intentional borrowing (and indeed I do not see how we cannot), an examination of the ways Phelps rewrites Gaskell illuminates her goals in the novel and explains her treatment (or neglect) of class tensions. In responding to and rewriting Gaskell's novel, specifically her treatment of a woman's acceptable role in business and marriage, Phelps responds to a previous generation of women writers, the generation of her own mother, author Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps (1815-1852), writing at roughly the same time as Gaskell. In North and South, Gaskell ultimately proposes the model of a silent partnership for women in business via marriage, a model Phelps explicitly rejects. By rewriting this Victorian novel, Phelps challenges what she judges to be outdated expectations for women, expectations that she encountered in her youth and grappled with in much of her work. Let me begin by highlighting some of the striking similarities between these two novels: In North and South, protagonist Margaret Hale—a gentleman's daughter who has recently relocated to the industrial town of Milton—has taken a keen interest in the labor tensions in the town. She befriends one of the mill workers and his daughter, who is ill due to her work...

Cruising to Familyland: Gay Hypergamy and Rainbow Kinship

Drawing upon ethnographic research conducted among gay men in Los Angeles, this article demonstrates that while gay male recreational sex disrupts conventional family norms and practices, it also serves as a cultural resource for constructing creative ‘families of choice’. In the unfettered pursuit of masculine sexuality, gay men reconfigure eros, domesticity, parenthood and kinship in ways that simultaneously reinforce and challenge conventional gender and family practices and values. Those who breach sexual norms often cross social divides as well, forging hypergamous intimate attachments that cross racial, generational and social class boundaries more frequently than heterosexuals do.

Race and the Pursuit of Happiness

KEYWORDS: Race, African American, leisure, discrimination Race still matters in the United States of America. Yet, too many people would like to believe that race no longer separates this nation in any meaningful way. Hence, the real public shock during the recent O. J. Simpson trial when race was shown to be an extremely important factor in people's opinions of his guilt or innocence (Elias & Schatzman, 1996). Even more difficult for most Americans to face was the realization that these important racial differences were present across gender, education, and social class boundaries (Elias & Schatzman, 1996). Similarly, it appears to be shocking for many leisure researchers to even consider race in their understanding of leisure behavior. Yet, perhaps no where else does race matter as much as during leisure. While schools and work places have been integrated over the last three decades by force of law, no similar laws have been enacted to secure the racial integration of leisure spaces. Indeed, since leisure is something that is usually freely chosen by most participants, it would be difficult for governments to write laws which mandated leisure participation based on race. Consider the political difficulties of closing a beach, park, playground, or activity center if it did not meet established racial integration goals. In addition, since most lawmakers, and the general public, tend to discount the value of leisure, it is easy to suggest that economic concerns, most closely associated with education and work, should be the real test of racial integration. For example, if an African American was prevented from playing golf at a country club, the media would probably run the story as a loss of economic networking opportunities, and not a story about the lost joy of playing golf. From the standpoint of personal economics, most leisure activities do not merit much public attention. So the public and media might easily ask, is it really a big problem if African Americans don't go camping in the National Parks, or should we actually be concerned if Whites don't play basketball in the inner city? Unfortunately, this kind of apathy can usually be associated with two common public attitudes about leisure: a) who really cares what most people do during their leisure time, and b) most people like to feel comfortable or welcome during their leisure. The outcome of these common attitudes is readily apparent to any observer; some public and private leisure places (e.g., beaches, churches, clubs, playgrounds, bars, nightclubs, and parks) can easily be the most racially segregated places currently found in the United States. In addition, even when different racial groups share an urban park, for example, it is still likely to have some kinds of understood racial boundaries (West, 1989). Like the villagers who refused to that their emperor was wearing no clothes, many leisure researchers consciously refuse to what exists right before their eyes. West (1989, p. 12) refers to this situation as the cognitive tyranny of the dominant paradigms in leisure research on minorities, and states that the separation of the races in leisure places is staring many investigators in the face, and yet, due in part perhaps to the dominance of the `subcultural' paradigm . . this stark fact goes unnoticed (or at least without comment). When some leisure researchers do finally see race in leisure places, they are likely to discuss any racial differences they find using theories. Ethnicity as usually presented in the leisure literature, refers to subcultural values, language, and traditions. Unfortunately, ethnicity theories usually function to remove race, and more importantly racial discrimination, from the discussion. Instead, racial differences become social class, gender, language, or value differences, and race quietly disappears from sight. This situation seems convenient for many because it also removes the difficult topic of racial discrimination from the discussion. …

Youth, Lifestyles and Society

This article sets out to consider the role of social class on present-day adolescents' development by briefly examining adolescents' `lifestyles' in western industrial societies. The article goes on to consider empirical evidence about possible social class influences on various aspects of adolescent socialization in Sweden, Germany and Britain within Abel and McQueen's theoretical framework of `resources', `orientations' and `behaviours'. In particular the article highlights findings from a large-scale and comprehensive study of adolescents' lifestyle development. Results show that lifestyle socialization in adolescence is still social class based, though allowing for transitional variations within social class boundaries. The analysis and interpretation suggest that despite opportunities for individual taste and choice to operate in present-day western cultures, elements of social class differentiate among various lifestyles across the teenage years and are especially powerful and pervasive in relation to Abel and McQueen's dimensions of `resources' (i.e. life chances) and behaviours (i.e. `life conduct').