Working Class Research Articles

‘To Make Britain Concrete Minded’: Peter László Peri’s <em>London Life in Concrete</em> (1938)

In 1938, sculptor Peter László Peri staged a solo exhibition in London titled London Life in Concrete, a selection of sculptural works fabricated out of concrete. Contemporaneous critics enthused about Peri’s experiments with the exciting new medium. Multi-coloured relief works, set on a high ledge that encircled the room, showed scenes of everyday life in the capital: figures of shoppers, builders, and commuters arrayed across flattened backgrounds. The simple format of these sculptures belied the political entanglements of Peri’s chosen material. Rough finishes typify Peri’s concrete works, both those exhibited in London Life in Concrete and those later commissioned to decorate a post-war public housing complex in London. Their explicitly modelled surfaces present the medium as one tied to human labour and equate the work of builder and of artist. London Life in Concrete was sponsored by the Cement and Concrete Association (CCA), a new trade group established to promote the use of concrete in building projects in Britain. This paper traces the history of Peri’s concrete sculptures and the relationship between Peri and the CCA. It reveals the role that Peri’s work played in the commercial project to establish concrete as the architectural material best suited—both practically and ideologically—to the homes of the British working class.

The Critical Edge of Learning

In this article, Jacqueline Rose argues that nineteenth-century literary writing, notably Mary Shelley’s relatively unknown Valperga, published the year Birkbeck was launched, has much to say about the crisis facing the humanities in the UK and worldwide today. Shelley’s text is a plea against tyranny. Birkbeck was founded, to acclaim and hostility, in order to make the pursuit of knowledge and critical thought available to the working class. Tracing her own educational experience, Rose argues that these issues have never been more urgently in need of attention than today.

The revival of radical popular education in Italy as a new form of cultural and class struggle: The case of popular schools in Rome

The aim of this article is to examine the revival of popular schools in Italy, focusing on the ‘network of Roman popular schools’. This is a little researched but highly relevant topic in sociology nowadays, due to the innovative way it links politics and education in an increasingly unequal society. Inspired by research gathered over 4 years of participant observation and 28 in-depth interviews, I describe the way in which popular educators combine social mutualism, typical of Italian Antagonistic Left movements, with critical pedagogical practices: education is considered by activists as a way of doing politics by other means, in line with the origins of popular education enacted by the labor movement in the two past centuries and in particular with the pedagogical experience promoted by Lorenzo Milani, in turn capable of uniting Gramscian and Freirian thought. Popular educators address their educational actions to the social recognition of subaltern students, who are otherwise stigmatized by the dominant culture. In this way, a very interesting counter-hegemonic practice seems to be generated that entails not only the learners’ identity but also that of the educator themselves. This analysis leads to the identification of new popular education as a form of class and cultural struggle aimed at restoring social recognition to the working class.

Research on the Dilemmas and Coping Strategies of Newly-Employed Counselors in Class Management from Junior College to Undergraduate Level

Counselors, as an important force in college students' ideological and political education and daily management, play a crucial role in colleges and universities at different levels. This paper aims to explore the dilemmas faced by newly-employed counselors who transfer from junior colleges to undergraduate institutions during the process of class management and propose corresponding coping strategies. Through interviews and observations of newly-employed counselors, problems in aspects such as role transformation, student’s characteristics, and work pressure were analyzed. Combined with the actual situation, coping measures such as strengthening learning and training, adjusting work methods, and enhancing personal qualities were put forward to improve the work ability and class management effectiveness of newly-employed counselors.

The Labor movement and Revolutionary Social Democracy in the borderlands of late Imperial Russia

A review of a new monograph by Professor Eric Blanc of Rutgers University (USA) is presented. The book is devoted to the history of the labor movement and the development of revolutionary social democracy on the outskirts of the Russian Empire from 1882 (the year of the creation of the first social democratic organization in Poland) to the revolutionary 1917. Blanc focuses specifically on the "non-Russian" socialist parties in the territory of modern Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic States, Georgia and Armenia. The author concludes that the development of the socialist and labor movement in the border areas of late Imperial Russia was characterized by greater radicalism, a more developed structure and popularity among the local working class. At the same time, the situation in Finland with its autonomy and legalized party struggle, which could include socialists, differed from the virtually illegal life of social democracy in Poland and the Caucasus.

“No one actually starves”?: from proletariat to working class and back again

“No one actually starves”?: from proletariat to working class and back again

School District Housing Buyers and Educational Investment Returns: A Case Study of X District in Shanghai

As a dual carrier of educational resources and economic assets, school district housing has become an important tool for family educational investment and social class reproduction. This paper takes Shanghai's X District as an example to explore, from a sociological perspective, the purchasing behaviors of different groups regarding school district housing and their educational investment returns. It reveals the key role of school district housing in the accumulation of cultural and social capital. The study finds that high-income families, the middle class, and the working class in X District exhibit different demand tendencies when purchasing school district housing, reflecting goals of obtaining high-quality educational resources, expanding social capital, and achieving upward social mobility, respectively. The phenomenon of school district housing exacerbates the imbalance in the distribution of educational resources and limits social mobility.

Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class by Aimee Loiselle (review)

Beyond Norma Rae: How Puerto Rican and Southern White Women Fought for a Place in the American Working Class by Aimee Loiselle (review)

Young Sánchez de Ignacio Aldecoa vs Young Serra de Manuel Vázquez Montalbán: dos derrotados sobre el ring de la historia

The article compares the protagonist of Ignacio Aldecoa’s short story “Young Sánchez” (1957) with the character of Young Serra, created by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán as a tribute to the writer from Vitoria. Serra appears in the novel El pianista (1985) and in the Carvalho’s short story “Desde los tejados”, included in the collection Historias de padres e hijos (1987). Both Aldecoa and Vázquez Montalbán portray their respective boxers as symbols of the working class fighting to break the silence and the marginalisation imposed by history. However, neither of them will succeed because if in El pianista the Young Serra character appears as an almost perfect double of Young Sánchez, in “Desde lo tejados” he is presented as a kind of future projection of the former, defeated by fate and death.

The formation of tea culture in British

When foreign people think of British culture nowadays, they can easily picture gentlemen and ladies elegantly dressed, surrounded by fine furniture and utensils, enjoying afternoon tea. The unique tea culture has already become a strong impression of Britain. This article explores the positioning of tea within the map of cultural differentiation, highlighting its status as a significant symbol of British culture, despite Britain not being its country of origin. The success of tea arose from the collision of Eastern and Western civilizations, with Chinese tea being introduced to Britain by Dutch merchant ships in the 17th century, marking its economic rise. The paper raises key questions about how tea transformed from an exotic product into a British cultural icon and whether the promotion of tea culture in Britain is mere imitation or rooted in local traditions. Additionally, it reviews research by Chinese and foreign scholars on British tea culture, focusing on the origins of tea culture in China, including the history of tea cultivation and consumption, and the evolution of tea culture in various dynasties. The second half describes in detail the thriving process of tea trade in Britain since the 17th century, the background of tea culture breaking the gender status and other restrictions in British society, and the different connotations and influences of tea culture in the British upper society and working class.

Filsafat Materialisme Karl Marx (Epistimologi Dialectical And Historical Materiali)

With the premise that the production and distribution of products and services is vital to aid people in growing their life, this article examines Karl Marx's historical materialism and its methodology. Economic considerations serve as the foundation of human existence, while the concrete problems of human awareness in the fields of science, philosophy, ideology, and religion serve as the superstructure, according to him. According to Marx, society's superstructure is defined by its economic foundation. Marx argued that the struggle between social classes was the driving force behind all major historical shifts. Marx posits a social hierarchy in which the capitalist bourgeoisie and the working class proletariat are the two main social groups. Thus, rather than people, social class is a product of historical development that dictates how events unfold. A class revolution is inevitable given the presence of these two social strata. Religion is the opium of the masses, according to Marx; the more one devotes oneself to religion, the more lost he will become. Religion does not create man, but rather, Marx argues that humans create religion.

Can the Two Karls – Karl Polanyi and Karl Marx Meet? A Critical Examination of Chinese Vocational Education, Internship Regimes, and Labor Forms

Can the two Karls – Karl Polanyi and Karl Marx meet? Sociological debates tend to provide a negative answer and prioritize Karl Polanyi in current education and labor studies. This article poses an alternative approach by examining how the commodification of human life, the central postulation of Karl Polanyi, can be bridged into Karl Marx’s labor process theory where different forms of commodified student-labor will eventually end up in the production sphere, producing variegated internship and labor regimes. Using China’s vast vocational education system as an anchor to ground the theoretical dialogue, I contribute not only to raising an intellectual puzzle, but disclosing complex school-to-work phenomena that internship regimes, namely, the dual-despotic, market despotic or hegemonic, shapes the world’s largest young working class. By studying the complex configuration of the student-labor regimes, I argue that commodification process of human life could hardly escape the class perspective, as Karl Polanyi put it.

Dynamic Forces in Xu Beihong’s “Ba Ren Ji Shui”: Analyzing the Aesthetics of Shi in Republic of China Literati Painting

This study explores the artistic qualities of shi (internal energy) within Xu Beihong’s depiction of the working class, guided by the principles of traditional Chinese aesthetics. Focusing on the painting Ba Ren Ji Shui (Sichuan Folks Drawing Water from the River), the analysis examines how shi—alongside elements of nature, qi (vital energy), and emotion—interacts within the structural and thematic composition of the artwork. Xu Beihong’s application of shi not only reveals deep emotional resonance but also integrates qi into the broader Chinese aesthetic tradition, creating a harmonious and dynamic expression of life. His paintings embody the unity of nature and humanity, capturing both the physical and spiritual essence of the Chinese people’s perseverance and resistance during times of hardship. By synthesizing traditional aesthetics with modern realism, Xu Beihong’s work transcends mere visual representation, reflecting the inner vitality and indomitable spirit of the Chinese people in the face of adversity.

Social realism and labour strikes in interwar Bombay: what has socialism got to do with it?

ABSTRACT The 1920s and 30s were a period of frequent, industry-wide labour strikes in the cotton mills of Bombay city. Labour upheaval inspired literary production in Marathi, the primary language of many workers in the city. In the early 1930s, the prolific and beloved Marathi writer Bhargavram (Mama) Varekar published a play and a novel set in the mill district of the city (Mumbai in Marathi); social realism was the mode of depiction in these works. The setting, storyline, and many characters in the play and the novel were the same, but the resolution of the central conflict in these works – the tussle between millowners and millworkers – was different. At around the same time, a textile worker from the city, P. S. Sawant, wrote a play when he was on strike; it was performed in the mill district of the city. Both the plays by Varerkar and Sawant proposed co-operation between millowners and workers as a solution to the strike. The novel, though, left the conflict unresolved. Does genre itself account for a different ending? What was the politics of depiction of the working class in these works? What role did the literary history of the region and the politics of the conjuncture play in influencing them? The paper argues that political economic categories deployed by the city’s Marxists at the time inform the play and the novel. But the authors take great pains to skirt a socialist horizon. In its absence, the works reflect the perspective of social reformers who had an important presence in working-class neighbourhoods and imagined the mill district as an insular space where socialists and socialism were intrusions from outside.

Why I Paint Thousands of Circles

Why I paint Thousands of Circles explores psychological barriers and multilayered themes that stem from a single horrific event that involved Moran’s father and his brother. The artist collates information, photos and constructs an ar(t)chaeological archive where family photos, product imagery, together with newspaper clips to form units of a historical and psychological mind map. The exposition becomes an auto-ethnographical exploration of mid 90's working class North West London. The repetitive painting process, exposed and documented in the exposition, functions as transformative method, where ambiguous feelings of a violent upbringing are directed towards the creation of a visual system with an inherent logic – “creating some kind of beauty out of ugliness.”

The price of inequality: How state tax policies widen the wealth gap

State taxation has become particularly regressive in recent decades. Across the country, states have increasingly begun to rely on sales and consumption taxes to fund significant portions of their expenditures. Given that these taxes disproportionately hurt lower classes that spend a larger portion of their income on consumable goods and services, these trends widen wealth gaps. By replacing and reducing progressive income taxes with these regressive forms of taxation, levels of inequality have risen. This paper examines the impact of such state and local taxes on the levels of income inequality within each state. Through empirical analysis, it identifies a substantial and positive correlation between the regressivity of state tax codes, as measured by the relative tax burdens on different income brackets, and the levels of inequality, as quantified by the income share of the top 1%. In this study, I examine the relationship between state tax policies and income inequality in the United States. By analyzing the tax structures of different states, I identify a significant correlation between regressive taxes, that disproportionately burden the less wealthy, and increased income inequality. Using quantitative data from 2013 to 2019, I show that states that rely more on taxes that burden working class families, like sales and excise taxes, witness larger portions of wealth concentration within the top 1%. These findings suggest that tax policy at the state level significantly shapes wealth distribution and highlight the need for reforms to reduce inequality at the state level.

Coordinator and Young Adult Perceptions in Attracting and Retaining Chicago Youth in Out-of-School Time Programming

Youth from families with greater economic means have seen an increase in their participation in extracurricular activities, while the participation levels of youth from working class families have decreased. Knowing the benefits to youth participation in extracurricular activities, communities where youth of marginalized backgrounds reside have an obligation to engage their youth in activities offered through school and community out-of-school time programs. Interviews and focus groups with program coordinators and young adults were conducted to identify how youth in Chicago have been attracted, engaged, recruited, and retained in out-of-school time programs. Program aspects and strategies used to connect with youth and their families emerged, some of which have been previously found in the relevant literature to be positively related to youth outcomes, and some of which are specific to youth who identify as Latine and youth who identify as male. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are further discussed.

The Revolution That Did Not Happen. Labor Insurgency in Late Russian Poland

Abstract Russian Poland was among the most militant tsarist borderlands during the 1905–1907 Revolution in the Russian Empire. However, only a decade later, when revolutionary movements again loomed large and shook the whole region after 1917, Poland remained relatively calm. Forging a new statehood after 1918 rivaled the earlier popular drive toward social revolution. Revolution was aborted in Poland; in other rim regions of the Russian Empire, however, the situation evolved differently, and this scenario should not be taken as self-explanatory. The dynamic of political contention on the ground in the inter-revolutionary decade is the key to understand the pathways of the new state and its society. But the existing accounts deliver only a fragmentary picture, concentrating on the teleology of nation, nation state and its elites or party politics. Meanwhile, the dynamics of labor contention can be hardly squared with unanimous class or national mobilizations. This article addresses this gap drawing from an extensive collection of courses on social unrest and conflict in the Kingdom of Poland based on administrative sources from local Polish and central Russian archives (more than 3300 entries on contentious events). Covering broad available sources, it offers a picture of labor unrest spanning from tinier township workshops, insular, dispersed industrialization of smaller cities harboring quite large mills, to fully-fledged industrial power hubs. The findings show the large heterogeneity of conflict among urban workers. The initial enthusiasm of the 1905 upheaval did not hold sway for long. Workers were tired with the revolutionary mobilization, derailed by the state repression and reluctant to embark on political action again. The lore of 1905 was not an important point of reference for the forthcoming mobilizations. Instead, protests had their own rhythms and spatial patterns, resembling the pre-industrial calendar of festivities turning into insurgencies but also followed pan-imperial causes. Inter-ethnic tensions kicked in: within crews (mostly Polish-Jewish) but above all between rank-and-file workers and foremen, often of German origin. This plurality resulted in various possibilities to build a working class imagined community ranging from a single factory, through branch-wide solidarities, national filiation up to pan-imperial class alliance. Also the tsarist administration, interested in maintaining the basic stability of supply and keep the state going was an important factor. These heterogenous field of tensions did not form any cleavage conductive to singular mobilization. However, it was susceptible to broader political projects binding various claims. Such a project was a new Poland, supported by major parties and perceived by many as nothing less as a revolutionary state for a while promising anti-imperial self-assertion, national rights, political freedom, and social emancipation.

Socialism, Democracy, Bureaucracy, and Umbrella Organizations

Abstract Among the dilemmas faced by labor, socialist, and other movements of the subaltern classes striving to change society over the past two centuries, three are discussed here: forms of ownership, bureaucracy and “big tent” formulas for both unity of the working class broadly defined, and alliances with movements of independent owners or undefined class status. Examples are drawn from various countries (France, Italy, Britain, the USA, Brazil, Korea) and from international programmatic discussions. Socialists, notably Marxists, shared the radical republican goal of a true democracy of equals, but differed on the extent of collective ownership (state, local, cooperative) needed in the economy, and the definition of privately owned personal goods that insured an individual’s dignity and independence. The rise and contraction of capitalist states with social services (“welfare states”) complicated the issue. Such movements also accumulated experiences with the growth of experts and/or bureaucrats, and the means to limit their privileges and transformation into a caste-type elite. Three environments which generate such phenomena are identified: social-democratic and big labor, post-capitalist states and, more recently, nongovernmental organizations. Finally, the author discusses alliances with broader social forces which include working-class and non-working-class interests, and the management of cross-class ideologies such as certain varieties of nationalism, feminism, environmentalism, and anti-tax movements.

Urban Entrepreneurship on the Fringe: Action Research on the Challenges of Street Vendors in Manila

The presence of street vendors in metropolitan cities has been a cause for debate as vending provides these vendors with a source of livelihood but at the expense of regulatory oversight and urban order. Vending as a business emerged due to the lack of work opportunities available despite the growing demand. Vendors, however, remain crucial stakeholders of the informal economy as their existence fills a need for the minimum-income working class. As such, the objective of the study is to determine and understand the different factors that affect the business of street vendors and their coping mechanisms to these challenges and propose an action plan. This study is unique in its focus on the informal economy, specifically street vendors in Manila, an often overlooked yet vital part of urban livelihoods. By employing a qualitative approach, it delves deeply into the lived experiences of street vendors, uncovering the cultural, socioeconomic, and regulatory challenges they face in a highly urbanized Southeast Asian city. The study highlights human-centered narratives often missed in quantitative research and provides valuable insights into the dynamics between street vendors and government regulations. Its findings could influence inclusive policies that better support informal entrepreneurs, contributing to broader discussions on inclusive business practices. The results reveal that factors affecting street vendors relate to interpersonal dynamics, family dynamics and obligations, educational aspirations, financial vulnerability, market competition, operational challenges, supply chain dependency, health and labor, and enforcement of regulations. To manage these factors, vendors have adopted mechanisms to combat these issues through debt and financial management, operational adaptation, community assistance and support, adaptation to regulation, and emotional resilience. In the end, this research proposes a five-point agenda to support street vendors' adherence to social and legal norms, beginning with developing inclusive policies that formally recognize and regulate street vending, ensuring legal protection and designated vending zones. It then focuses on economic empowerment through improved access to financial services, microcredit, and financial literacy programs while introducing social security measures. Health and safety programs are implemented to enhance vendors' well-being, providing access to healthcare, ergonomic training, and sanitation standards. Governance improvements, anti-harassment initiatives, and transparent law enforcement to protect vendors from exploitation should also materialize. Finally, community engagement and public relations efforts aim to foster positive perceptions of street vendors, highlighting their contributions to the economy and encouraging cooperation with local businesses and authorities.