Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, The Sum of Small Things. A Theory of the Aspirational Class

Chabault, Vincent

doi:10.4000/lectures.24392

Cited by 12 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…As Elizabeth Currid Halkett has argued, the "inconspicuous consumption" of things like extra tutoring, to which the elite turned after 2008, offers genuine class advantages. Helicopter parenting in this sense, is a rational choice (Currid-Halkett, 2017). The ever-escalating expectations on elite children and young people have produced what Daniel Markovits calls the "meritocracy trap" (Markovits, 2019).…”

Section: Massification Of Investment In Human Capital C 1970-nowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education as economic stimulus in the human capital century

Forsyth

2023

HER

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeThis paper explores the economic and social effects of human capital investment in the 20th century. As well as drawing on census data and statistical yearbooks in Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand, the paper develops its argument by an intersection of scholarly work in sociology, economics and the history of education to consider the effects of increased human capital investment on economic growth but also on the experiences of childhood, work discipline and the present climate crisis.Design/methodology/approachThis paper considers the implications of what economic historian Claudia Goldin has described as the “human capital century” for the history of school and university education. By reconsidering education in the settler colonies, especially Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand, as “stimulus”, this helps explain key aspects of contemporary human capital investment, which the paper argues should be understood as constituted by children's and young people's free labour at school, university and across the economy.FindingsThis research argues that children's and young people's free labour, performed in educational institutions, constitutes a large portion of Australia and Aoteoroa/New Zealand's national investment in human capital. At key points, this investment has acted as an economic stimulus, promoting surges of profitability. The effects were not confined to young people. Systematised, educational expansion also became the foundation of environmental degradation, labour market exploitation and a relentless increase in service-sector productivity that is worn on professional bodies. Productivity increases have been associated with reduced professional autonomy as a managerial class coerced professionals into working harder, though often under the guise of working “smarter” – a fiction that encouraged or coerced even greater personal investment in collective human capital. This investment of personal time, effort and selfhood by children and the professionals they grew into can thus be seen, in Marxian terms, as a crucial vector of capitalist exploitation in the 20th century.Practical implicationsThe paper concludes by suggesting that a reduction of managerial influence in educational settings would improve learner and professional autonomy with improved labour and environmental conditions.Originality/valueThe paper makes a unique contribution to the history of education by exploring education as stimulus as a key component of education’s role in 20th and 21st century capitalism. It interrogates exploitative aspects of human capital investment, especially in the midst of environmental catastrophe and the recent COVID crisis.

show abstract

Section: Massification Of Investment In Human Capital C 1970-nowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education as economic stimulus in the human capital century

Forsyth

2023

HER

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This challenge is compounded by growing concerns about the environmental and social implications of corporatized industrial agriculture and the failures of proper oversight (Goodman, 2003;MacKendrick, 2018;Parga-Dans and Alonso González, 2017;Sassatelli and Scott, 2001). These are interlinked challenges of taste and trust for the cultural omnivore, especially given that an increasingly common dimension of their habitus is an orientation that values artisanality, provenance, and genuineness (Carfagna et al, 2014;Currid-Halkett, 2017;Huddart Kennedy et al, 2019). If every food option is available at any time and seemingly no food genre is beyond the pale for discerning consumption, then how are cultural omnivores to know what and whom to trust, ethically and aesthetically?…”

Section: Trust and The Cultural Omnivore's Dilemmamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In taking this approach, we orient our contribution to expanding understanding of the "creation of norms, standards and institutions" (Warde, 2014: 295) that make cultural omnivorousness possible as a quotidian marketplace reality (cf. Currid-Halkett, 2017). Despite the breadth of research, examinations of how omnivorous tastes impact on market development have been largely "confined to cultural consumption activities, overlooking cultural production activities" (Lee et al, 2015: 121).…”

Section: Trust and The Cultural Omnivore's Dilemmamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, the "reproduction of omnivorous orientations" (Karademir Hazir and Warde, 2016: 86) and "the (macro to micro) linkage between institutional context and individual patterns of cultural choice" (Fishman and Lizardo, 2013: 214) have been less theorized. With few exceptions (e.g., Currid-Halkett, 2017;Johnston and Baumann, 2007;Lizardo and Skiles, 2012), there has been little focus on how omnivorous norms and notions of worth are institutionalized at the aesthetic and discursive level.…”

Section: Trust and The Cultural Omnivore's Dilemmamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mobile trust regimes: Modes of attachment in an age of banal omnivorousness

Maguire

Ocejo

DeSoucey

2022

Journal of Consumer Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The 21st century rise of culturally omnivorous tastes and classifications proffers a new dilemma for how markets create attachments and achieve trust for global consumers. Consumer entities must be both globally circulatable and offer a sense of localized authenticity without compromising either. Drawing from research on market trust and attachment, this article introduces the concept of mobile trust regimes to account for how sets of actors and repertoires attempt to address this tension. Through two case studies from gastronomic industries—food halls and natural wine—we investigate the devices of mobility used to facilitate the global circulation of the local. These include standardized aesthetic and affective templates communicated through physical décor, recurrent narratives, and social media curation. We argue that the concept of mobile trust regimes helps clarify two key issues in contemporary consumer culture: tensions between homogenization and heterogenization and how the symbolic value of omnivorous tastes becomes institutionalized and even banal.

show abstract

“…In addition, socio‐cultural norms in more‐educated social environments have shifted to disapproval and stigmatization of sedentary activities, such as screen use, in favor of a more active lifestyle (Currid‐Halkett, 2017). For instance, in a recent epidemiological study of children's screen use and obesity, Oude Groningen et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infant screen media and child development: A prospective community study

Slobodin,

Hetzroni,

Mandel

et al. 2023

Infancy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The current study examined longitudinal associations between early screen media exposure (assessed at 6, 12, and 24 months) and the child's motor and language/communication development at the ages of 24 and 36 months. We also aimed to study whether these associations varied by socioeconomic status (SES). Participants were 179 parent‐infant dyads, recruited from well‐baby clinic services during routine visits. Child development measures included standardized measures of developmental milestones as assessed by professionals and referral data to child developmental centers. Both measures were retrieved from the official health maintenance organization records by an expert in child development. Results indicated that screen exposure at 6 and 12 months was associated with a higher risk for language/communication deficits at 36 months in children with moderate or high SES but not in children with low SES. Our findings are consistent with existing literature demonstrating cross‐sectional and longitudinal associations between early screen exposure and language development deficits. Given that media use practices and motivations vary among families from different backgrounds, further investigation of the interaction between SES and screen exposure is needed.

show abstract

Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, The Sum of Small Things. A Theory of the Aspirational Class

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Education as economic stimulus in the human capital century

Education as economic stimulus in the human capital century

Mobile trust regimes: Modes of attachment in an age of banal omnivorousness

Infant screen media and child development: A prospective community study

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About