Social Class Differences Research Articles

Risky investments: Parenting and the production of the ‘resilient child’

In recent years, consciousness of high levels of societal and familial risk have made raising a ‘resilient child’ a key theme in parenting culture. Using evidence from the popular literature on parenting resilient children, this interpretive discourse-based critique explores the ways resilience has been conceptualised in the parenting advice literature. It suggests that this literature advocates a ‘resilience pedagogy’ that reflects social class differentials and dramatically expands the possibilities for parental intervention in children's lives. The analysis identifies clear links between resilience pedagogy and an emphasis on parenting strategies focused on fostering children's emotional competencies. While ostensibly legitimising and valuing children's emotional worlds, the underlying message of resilience pedagogy is more one of social control and conformity, in which parents become a primary means for the delivery of rationalised and therapeutic models of parent–child relationships that respond to larger political, cultural, and class-based visions of social order.

Beyond Script Destiny: Chance and Circumstance in the Life Course

This article aims to contribute to the development of Berne's psychology of human destiny, going beyond what Berne (1972) referred to as “script destiny.” The author draws a distinction between the life script and the life course, with the latter including influences of chance and circumstance on life outcomes. These influences include being born into a particular culture, gender, sexual orientation, and racial/ethnic identity as well as into differences of social class, economic status, and family educational levels. Against a backdrop of what he perceives as a risk society, the author proposes that many clients' life outcomes can be related to such unscripted influences of fortune and misfortune, social advantage and disadvantage, chance encounters, and the effects of differences in risk perception. In relating these to issues of assessment and intervention, he highlights the role of choice in, and responsibility for, life outcomes when integrated with the essential roles that chance, circumstance, and risk play in the process of change.

Social Class Inequalities in the Utilization of Health Care and Preventive Services in Spain, a Country with a National Health System

In Spain, despite the existence of a National Health System (NHS), the utilization of some curative health services is related to social class. This study assesses (1) whether these inequalities are also observed for preventive health services and (2) the role of additional private health insurance for people of advantaged social classes. Using data from the Spanish National Health Survey of 2006, the authors analyze the relationships between social class and use of health services by means of Poisson regression models with robust variance, controlling for self-assessed health. Similar analyses were performed for waiting times for visits to a general practitioner (GP) and specialist. After controlling for self-perceived health, men and women from social classes IV-V had a higher probability of visiting the GP than other social classes, but a lower probability of visiting a specialist or dentist. No large class differences were observed in frequency of hospitalization or emergency services use, or in breast cancer screening or influenza vaccination; cervical cancer screening frequency was lower among women from social classes IV-V. The inequalities in specialist visits, dentist visits, and cervical cancer screening were larger among people with only NHS insurance than those with double health insurance. Social class differences in waiting times were observed for specialist visits, but not for GP visits. Men and women from social classes IV-V had longer waits for a specialist; this was most marked among people with only NHS insurance. Clearly, within the NHS, social class inequalities are still evident for some curative and preventive services. Further research is needed to identify the factors driving these inequalities and to tackle these factors from within the NHS. Priority areas include specialist services, dental care, and cervical cancer screening.

Social Class and Work Functioning in Treatment for Depression

Social Class and Work Functioning in Treatment for Depression

The influence of social class salience on self-assessed inTelligence

Previous research on self-assessed intelligence (SAI) has been focused on sex differences to the exclusion of other pertinent factors, including objective and subjective social class differences. In this study, 343 participants completed an online questionnaire in which the salience of social class identity was manipulated and measures of self-assessed overall intelligence, participant sex, and objective and subjective social class status were obtained. Results showed that participants of a high social class had a significantly higher SAI when their social class identity was salient, but there was no significant difference in the SAI of low social class groups with or without their social class identity salient. Results also revealed significant sex differences in SAI, but only among participants of a high social class. Overall, these results suggest that social class salience may be an important factor in shaping SAI.

Faking It: Social Bluffing and Class Difference in Howells's The Rise of Silas Lapham

In Howells's distinctive vision of the social world, there is something inimitable about upper- bourgeois culture—something that defies the aspirants' attempts to acquire or fake upper-class behaviors. In The Rise of Silas Lapham, he dramatizes for readers what none of his characters can articulate but all of them finally “feel,” namely the “fine yet impassable” differences between classes.

The Everyday Lives of Young Children: Culture, Class, and Child Rearing in Diverse Societies ‐ by Jonathan Tudge

The Everyday Lives of Young Children: Culture, Class, and Child Rearing in Diverse Societies. Jonathan Tudge. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2008. 328 pp. ISBN 9780521803847. $85.00 (cloth). Anthropologists have a long tradition of immersing readers in the flavors and textures of various cultures through detailed accounts of their time spent observing, listening, and talking to family members all over the world. Jonathan Tudge's The Everyday Lives of Young Children: Culture, Class, and Child Rearing in Diverse Societies (2008) is a nod to this tradition, though, as a developmental psychologist, Tudge introduces some interesting bifurcations from traditional approaches to studying culture. First, the family members at the center of Tudge's research are generally shorter, more prone to napping, and less inhibited than the typical subjects of ethnographic work. Thus insights into values, beliefs, and practices are granted by a dedicated focus on how young children are socialized into a given society's ways of being and doing. Tudge takes us one step further by considering how young children themselves shape and change their own cultures. This is a brilliant departure from classic studies of cultural transmission that frame children as culture bearers. Second, the cultural-ecological theory guiding Tudge's research, and inspired by Vygotsky and Bronfenbrenner, brings many layers of analysis, including psychological, sociological, historical, and anthropological. This multiplicity of lenses is one of the primary characteristics that makes Tudge's work stand out among studies of young children and marks the book as a breakthrough contribution. The multidisciplinary nature of the work also invites readers to consider culture (what it is, what it means for our lives, how it changes) in all of its complexity and fluidity, and presents interesting possibilities for studying education, urbanicity, and childrearing as shaped by - and as they shape - culture. Third, this work pushes the boundaries of research typically classified as cross-cultural by spotlighting children in urban settings around the world and by including comparisons not only across societies but also within societies (Cohen, 2009). Traditionally, when children in the ' 'majority world' ' - a term for nonindustrialized countries Tudge borrows from Kagitccibasi (1996) - are studied, the subjects are from communities. This contributes to the predominant impression among members of the industrialized (minority) world that rural is a concomitant of non- Western societies. In contrast, Tudge's research was conducted in seven cities similar in one or more ways to Greensboro, North Carolina, United States, where the study began. They include Obninsk, Russia; Tartu, Estonia; OuIu, Finland; Suwon, South Korea; Kisumu, Kenya; and Porto Alegre, Brazil. Besides Kenya and to some extent Brazil, these countries are not part of the usual lineup in comparative studies, as the objective of many such studies is to contrast societies perceived to be radically different from one another (Hallpike, 2004). In addition, traditional crosscultural studies comparing majority- world societies with minority-world industrialized urban ones tend to conflate societal differences with social class differences. By including middle- and working-class participants in his study, Tudge is able to engage within-society comparisons. Further, the Greensboro site also includes two ethnic groups, White and Black, allowing for within-society comparisons across ethnicity and attention to the intersections of culture, class, and ethnicity (Tudge & Putnam, 1997). Tudge accomplishes these sophisticated contributions in nine well-organized chapters. In Chapter 1, Tudge sets the backdrop for the research presented in the book and provides an overview of approaches to studying children from three disciplines - developmental psychology, sociology, and anthropology. …

Die kwalitatiewe onderhoud as data-insamelingstegniek: sterk en swak punte

In qualitative research, in-depth interviewing is an important research tool for data gathering, with the researcher as the measuring instrument. The qualitative interview is flexible and dynamic and has been referred to as nondirective, unstructured, nonstandardised and open-ended. Taylor and Bogdan (1984:77) define the qualitative interview as repeated face-to-face encounters between the researcher and informants directed toward understanding informants’ perspectives on their lives, experiences, or situations as expressed in their own words. Some authors stress the role of talk as well as various ways of communication during interviewing. Although the qualitative interview - like other datagathering techniques - has its strengths and weaknesses, it is argued that this method is a tool and that its utility depends largely on its pertinence to the research question. It is also argued that its strengths and weaknesses are functions of the competencies and skills of the researcher using this tool to elicit the required information. The following aspects are discussed: ¨ Qualitative interviews are particularly suitable for studying people’s understanding of their world, for describing their experiences and selfunderstanding, and for clarifying and elaborating their perspectives of their world (Seidman, 1998:3-4). In gathering such information, the researcher should be interested in people and the subjects should be studied in their own setting to discover the meanings the subjects attach to their behaviour. Data gathering presupposes a certain familiarity with the subjects’ culture. ¨ The very virtue of a qualitative interview is its openness. Apart from certain standard choices, this openness and the absence of a prescribed set of rules create a variety of opportunities for the researcher. These opportunities demand skills, knowledge and intuition from the interviewer. It has been said that interviewing is a craft that is closer to art than to standardised social science methods (Kvale, 1996:84, 105; Seidman, 1998:9, 11). ¨ Qualitative research interviews could serve as an auxiliary method in conjunction with other methods (Walker, 1985:4). This process of triangulation enhances the validity of the research (Smaling, 1992:319). ¨ Qualitative interviewing is both a research technique and a social relationship that has to be nurtured. An intersubjective understanding between the interviewer and the interviewee depends upon creating an ‘I – Thou’ relationship (Seidman, 1998:79). ‘Thou’ is someone close to the interviewer. There are mutual respect and sensitivity for differences in social class, ethnicity and gender. These aspects could stand in the way of crafting a good relationship. Feminists have strong negative feelings about a hierarchical relationship between the researcher and participants as well as the exploitation of interviewees. It should be a give-and-take relationship (Oakley, 1981:31-41). ¨ Data gathering by means of qualitative interviewing is time-consuming (Jones, 1985:46-47) and requires considerable expertise in both subject matter and human interaction (Kvale, 1996:103). It is therefore often difficult, and is by implication expensive. ¨ It cannot be assumed that everyone is equally capable of expressing his or her thoughts on and reasons for certain behaviours (Seidman, 1998:3-4). Researchers should be encultured in aspects relevant to the research. It is also known that expressed attitudes are not necessarily good predictors of actual behaviour (Baron & Byrne, 1996:140-141). Language could also be a barrier in cross-cultural studies (Fontana & Frey, 19367; Stewart, 1998:25). ¨ The objectivity of knowledge acquired by way of qualitative interviewing is discussed with specific regard to different concepts of objectivity: as freedom from bias, as intersubjective knowledge, and as reflective of the nature of the object (Kvale, 1992:64-66; Smaling, 1989:162).

Gender differences in sickness absence – the contribution of occupation and workplace

The aim of this study was to examine whether differences in male and female occupations and workplaces explain gender differences in self-certified (1-3 days) and medically confirmed sickness absence episodes of various lengths (> or = 4 days, >2 weeks, >60 days). Analyses in the main ICD-10 diagnostic groups were conducted for absence episodes of >2 weeks. Furthermore, we examined whether the contribution of occupation is related to different distributions of female and male jobs across the social class hierarchy. All municipal employees of the City of Helsinki at the beginning of 2004 (N=36 395) were followed-up until the end of 2007. Conditional fixed-effects Poisson regression was used to control for differences between occupations and workplaces. Controlling for occupation accounted for half of the female excess in self-certified and medically confirmed episodes lasting >60 days. In the intermediate categories, this explained about one third of the female excess. The effect of workplace was similar but weaker. Occupational and workplace differences explained the female excess in sickness absence due to mental and behavioral disorders, musculoskeletal diseases, and respiratory diseases. The effect of occupation was clearly stronger than that of social class in self-certified absence episodes, whereas in medically confirmed sickness absence episodes gender differences were to a large extent related to social class differences between occupations. Differences between occupations held by women and men explain a substantial part of the female excess in sickness absence. Mental and behavioral disorders and musculoskeletal diseases substantially contribute to this explanation.

Hispanic Spaces, Latino Places: Community and Cultural Diversity in Contemporary America (review)

Reviewed by: Hispanic Spaces, Latino Places: Community and Cultural Diversity in Contemporary America Mario Montaño Hispanic Spaces, Latino Places: Community and Cultural Diversity in Contemporary America. Ed. Daniel D. Arreola. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. Pp. x+ 291, 41 photographs and illustrations, references cited, index.) Based on papers from the Association of American Geographers annual meeting in 2002, Daniel D. Arreola's essay collection Hispanic Spaces, Latino Places offers rich information and insights on changing demographics and settlement patterns in the United States. Divided into sections focusing on "Continuous Communities," "Discontinuous Communities," and "New Communities," this book enhances the study of Hispanics/Latinos through an array of research methodologies and data collection strategies. Essays examine the historical dynamics surrounding the immigration, economic conditions, and regional cultural landscapes of Hispanic/Latino neighborhoods. In his introduction, Arreola gives a well-documented intellectual history of cultural geography relevant to Hispanics while outlining different research categories and bibliographic sources pertinent to Hispanic/Latino cultural landscapes. The first chapter provides an overview of this population and identifies where they live in the United States, using census data and supplementary linguistic, cultural, and historical information to clarify the concept of Hispanic/Latino Americans. In the first section, titled "Continuous Communities," the contributors examine pivotal cultural landscapes, such as the plaza and specific neighborhoods, and pay special attention to social and economic factors. Jeffrey S. Smith writes in "The Plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico: A Community Gathering Place" that the plaza is not a tourist attraction; on the contrary, it serves as a key cultural site for the town's residents. In "Social Geography of Laredo, Texas, Neighborhoods: Distinctiveness and Diversity in a Majority-Hispanic Place," Michael S. Yoder and René La Perriére de Gutiérrez compare two poor, working-class neighborhoods with two emerging, middle-class suburbs in Laredo. They observe that the social class differences among these neighborhoods give rise to similar cultural practices operating at different socioeconomic levels, such as carne asadas (cook-outs), landscaping, and neighborhood designs. The three chapters in the "Discontinuous Communities" section provide very good synopses of the history of settlement patterns of Latinos, incorporating demographic data to account for changes in urban landscapes. Brian J. Godfrey's "Barrio Under Siege: Latino Sense of Place in San Francisco, California" portrays Latinos as agents who resist external pressures by utilizing community events and projects, such as festivals, neighborhood art projects, housing groups, and urban planning groups. Lawrence A. Herzog, in "Globalization of the Barrio: Transformation of the Latino Cultural Landscapes of San Diego, California," discusses several models for studying urban cultural sites. These chapters offer insightful explanations of reinvented cultural landscapes from social, economic, political, and cultural perspectives. The third section consists of eight chapters that examine the cultural landscapes of newly settled Hispanic/Latino urban neighborhoods and small towns originally founded by non-Hispanic whites. These chapters document cultural objects that signal membership in a particular Hispanic culture and analyze how Latino identity changes throughout the neighborhoods, taking into account the source country, the initial experience in the host country, and the international and transnational movements that affect the cultural landscape. Marie Price and Courtney Whitworth examine places where immigrants affirm their cultural identities, like soccer leagues, and refer to these sites [End Page 237] as "thirdspaces." Other studies focus on documenting the commercial landscapes and residential spaces. These chapters address contemporary issues surrounding the recent Hispanic/ Latino immigration and its impact on the cultural landscape in the United States. These studies make connections between the rate of the Hispanic/Latino population's growth and the number of Spanish-language cultural markers in neighborhoods. Here, authors identify and compare these spatial patterns to assess social changes and develop public policies. All of the chapters in this book are well researched and documented; they use a variety of methods and fieldwork strategies, and offer a rich database of commercial, residential, and leisure landscapes, which lend themselves readily to folklore analysis. I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in folklore research methods, urban planning, immigrant folklore, and Hispanic studies in the United States. Mario Montaño Colorado College Copyright © 2010 Board of Trustees of the University of...

Disadvantage or Disadvantaging: Conceptualising Class Differences in Education as a Disease or as a Process?

Much of the writing on differences in educational attainment by different social classes in Ireland has started by accepting the use of the tenn 'educational disadvantage' and trying to define it afterwards (Kellaghan et at., 1995; Boldt and Devine, 1998). Others, like Drudy and Lynch have simply dismissed the use of the tenns out of hand, preferring instead to write about social class differences in education (1993, p 52). Far from discouraging the use of the term, this latter sort of intervention seems to have had no effect and the use of the tenn has continued to proliferate in this decade. The tenn is now widely used by agencies from the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORl) to the Combat Poverty Agency (CPA) to the Government of Ireland. It is used by researchers, teachers, policy makers and those who fund research. It appears that the tenn is here to stay. Despite a recent comprehensive review of research in the area (Boldt and Devine, 1998), it is still far from clear what is meant by educational disadvantage. In this paper I will look at the different definitions of educational disadvantage proposed. I will argue that the use of the tenn in Ireland has many similarities with the use of the tenn in the US and has similar problems. The at-risk model understands educational disadvantage as akin to a disease or a condition it is something the individual has. I will

Gender Segregation in Pre-Adolescent Peer Groups as a Matter of Class

This study examines social class differences in the gender segregation of children and pre-adolescents and draws upon data from two recent German studies. Based on longitudinal quantitative data from a representative children’s survey, the first analysis suggests that in comparison to children from upper-class families, lower-class children tend to remain longer in gender-heterogeneous peer groups, a major proportion of students continue to have opposite-sex friends and changes between same- and opposite-sex peers appear earlier. In two further sections, material from a reconstructive study of 10- to 12-year-old pre-adolescents is used to describe more in-depth reflections of children themselves on gender segregation as well as orientations that develop in same-sex peer groups in contrasting social classes.

Socioeconomic inequalities in cancer incidence and mortality—a spatial analysis in Bremen, Germany

Several international studies have already investigated the influence of socioeconomic factors on the risk of cancer. For Germany, however, the data are still insufficient. We examined the effects of social differences on cancer incidence and mortality on the population of Bremen, a town in northwest Germany. Data were obtained from the Bremen Cancer Registry, a population-based registry. The database comprised 27,430 incident cases, newly diagnosed between 2000 and 2006. The allocation of social class for each patient was based on the home address at the time of diagnosis, which led to the corresponding town district, which again could be linked to the “Bremen discrimination index.” Based on this index, cases were allocated to five categories, for which we compared standardized incidence ratios (SIR) and mortality ratios (SMR) for different cancers: prostate, breast, lung, colorectal, bladder, uterine, ovarian, cervical, malignant melanoma of the skin, non-melanoma skin cancer and all cancer sites summarized. The influence of social status was observed for different cancer sites. An inverse association was ascertained for all cancer sites (only men) and for tumors of the oral cavity and pharynx, and for lung, cervical and bladder cancers. A positive correlation was observed for female breast cancer, malignant melanoma, non-melanoma skin tumors and prostate cancer. In spite of the methodical restrictions, our analyses suggest an association between social factors and cancer incidence and mortality. The results are in agreement with international studies. Many of the observed social class differences could probably be explained by known risk factors, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and physical activity.

Occupational Justice—Bridging theory and practice

The evolving theory of occupational justice links the concept to social justice and to concerns for a justice of difference: a justice that recognizes occupational rights to inclusive participation in everyday occupations for all persons in society, regardless of age, ability, gender, social class, or other differences. The purpose of this descriptive paper is to inspire and empower health professionals to build a theoretical bridge to practice with an occupational justice lens. Using illustrations from a study of leisure and the use of everyday technology in the lives of very old people in Northern Sweden, the authors argue that an occupational justice lens may inspire and empower health professionals to engage in critical dialogue on occupational justice; use global thinking about occupation, health, justice, and the environment; and combine population and individualized approaches. The authors propose that taking these initiatives to bridge theory and practice will energize health professionals to enable inclusive participation in everyday occupations in diverse contexts.

Wage determinants among medical doctors and nurses in Spain

This paper examines the determination of wage rates for health professionals using three well known, and commonly used, econometric techniques: ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and Heckman’s method. The data come from a graduate survey and the analysis focuses on a regional labor market, due to nationwide information on salaries is absent in Spain. After estimating different wage equations, the results suggest that OLS estimates are preferable. The findings show an important wage premium for medical doctors relative to nurses, but also a wage advantage for workers who are civil servants and a gender wage-gap that favors men. Although the expansion of higher education in Spain has reduced social inequalities in access, the main policy implication from this paper is that social class differences can still persist at the degree level—in the choice of degree—if students of higher socioeconomic status get a place at university in a degree of higher earnings, a fact that is corroborated in this study.

Social class differences in anxiety and depression across the life-course: evidence from three cohorts in the west of Scotland

Studies of social inequalities in common mental disorders – anxiety and depression – often use measures that do not discriminate between conditions, but these disorders may differ from one another...

Time-for-Money Exchanges Between Older and Younger Generations in Swedish Families

Despite the maturation of welfare states, family solidarity continues to be strong and a growing body of research has shown that substantial financial transfers are passed from older to younger generations within the family. At the same time, family solidarity in terms of instrumental and social support is found to be mutual. This study examines eventual reciprocity in time-for-money exchanges, by combining two large-scale Swedish representative longitudinal studies. It analyzes how earlier social contacts (time) are related to financial transfers (money) and to what extent social class and gender differentials are visible. The findings indicate that parents provide economic transfers if they have more frequent social contact with any of their children, and that these time investments pay off for children who were of higher social class origins. In contrast, no support for gender-specific patterns is found. In conclusion, family solidarity seems to have different bases in different social strata.

Cultural capital as an explanation of variation in participation in higher education

Cultural capital is frequently referred to as a construct in the analysis of inequality in higher education. It has been suggested that variations in cultural capital contribute to social class differences in levels of participation, distribution of students between elite and other universities, and the likelihood of dropping out. However, recent analyses of quantitative data suggest that once students’ attainments are included in analysis of levels of participation the effects of social class disappear. One possibility is that cultural capital affects the likelihood of participation in higher education independently of the common measures of social class variation (parental occupation and education). In this analysis we include a measure of students’ cultural capital to investigate whether it exerts an effect on the likelihood of participation that is independent from students’ attainment. We also present and evaluate a practicable method of measuring students’ cultural capital.

Social class differences in health behaviours among employees from Britain, Finland and Japan: The influence of psychosocial factors

This study aims to examine social class differences in smoking, heavy drinking, unhealthy food habits, physical inactivity and obesity, and work-related psychosocial factors as explanations for these differences. This is done by comparing employee cohorts from Britain, Finland and Japan. Social class differences in health behaviours are found in the two western European countries, but not in Japan. The studied psychosocial factors related to work, work–family interface and social relationships did not explain the found class differences in health behaviours.

‘The weight of class’: clients’ experiences of how perceived differences in social class between counsellor and client affect the therapeutic relationship

ABSTRACT The impact of a difference in social class on the therapeutic relationship has received less attention than other differences between counsellor and client, such as gender, race and sexual orientation. In this qualitative research study six clients who identified as working class were interviewed about their experience of a therapeutic relationship with a middle class counsellor and one middle class client was interviewed about a therapeutic relationship with a counsellor whom she identified as working class. Implications for counselling practice are discussed. These include the importance for therapists, supervisors and trainers of exploring their own class background and acknowledging the frame of reference from which they operate; the results show that counselling does not exist in an ideological vacuum.