Is Britain a Class-Divided Society? A Re-Analysis and Extension of Marshall et al.'s Study of Class Consciousness

Abstract

Marshall et al. have claimed that class is the major social structural influence on social consciousness and ideological conflict in modern Britain. In this paper I re-analyse data from the Essex class study and demonstrate that the class consciousness index devised by Marshall et al. is not an adequate measure of a unitary concept of class consciousness and that their claims about the pre-eminence of class as a structuring influence on identities and attitudes are not supported by the data. My analysis shows that education, income and several other factors influence levels of `class consciousness'. I go on to show that the class consciousness index in-appropriately aggregates diverse types of attitudes and identities, of which only `class identification' has a substantial association with social class. Moreover, class differences in attitudes towards redistribution disappear completely when they involve costs as well as benefits for working class respondents, thus indicating that classes do not differ in their commitment to egalitarianism. In the discussion several responses to the problems encountered in measuring class consciousness in contemporary Britain are examined.

Can Class Analysis Be Salvaged?

“…Although one can find, then, a great many sociologists who remain convinced that contemporary identities are strongly shaped by aggregate affiliations (e.g., Marshall et al 1988), the prevailing post-Marxist position is that conventional classes now have a rather weak hold over workers. For example, Emmison and Western (1990) report that only 7% of all Australians regard their social class as a "very important" identity, while other commentators (e.g., Saunders 1989) have stressed that open-ended queries about class identification tend to yield numerous confused responses, refusals to answer, and even explicit denials of the very existence of classes (Evans 1995;Evans 1992;Nisbet 1959;Kahl and Davis 1955;Haer 1957;Gross 1953). This evidence has led many sociologists to conclude that "class is now a passive rather than active identity" (Bradley 1996, p. 72) and that the system of production is not, therefore, any longer the principal locus of identity formation.…”

“…This evidence has led many sociologists to conclude that "class is now a passive rather than active identity" (Bradley 1996, p. 72) and that the system of production is not, therefore, any longer the principal locus of identity formation. As noted by Evans (1992), some scholars emphasize the situation-specific and contingent basis of social identities (e.g., Laclau and Mouffe 1985), whereas others have sought to locate alternative identity-shaping forces that arise outside the productive system (e.g., Larañ a et al 1994;Aronowitz 1992; also, see Calhoun 1994).…”

Class, powerlessness and political polarization

“…The Cronbach's Alpha for the scale is 0.75, which is not unreasonable given the small number of items used. The construction of the scale is described in more detail in Evans (1988). The Likert scales measuring authoritarianism and redistributive ideology are presented in Table 2.…”

“…From previous research we would expect working class respondents to have higher levels of subjective powerlessness (e.g. Gurin, Gurin and Morrison, 1978;Kohn and Schooler 1983;Gecas, 1989;Evans, 1988). Thus if powerlessness is associated with redistributive attitudes and support for the Labour Party, it should accentuate political differences between classes: the working class would be more left-wing and the middle class more right-wing.…”

Da desigualdade de classe à desigualdade de conhecimento

“…Ao contrário, o conhecimento diz respeito a "um conjunto muito mais amplo de meios de construção de competência e é a única forma incorporada em um assunto constituído por várias áreas de competên-cia" (Lyotard, [1979(Lyotard, [ ] 1984 22 Se nos propuséssemos a manter -contrariamente às perspectivas que afirmam que a posição de classe perdeu significado nas últimas décadas como fonte de consciência ideológica -a noção de uma "consciência de classe" (subjetiva) como um fator relevante na sociedade moderna, a conseqüência lógica seria que a formação e conservação dessa consciência de classe talvez tivesse de ser efetuada por outros fatores além do status material dos indivíduos e das famílias (cf. Evans, 1992, onde se encontra uma crítica empírica de uma concepção estreita dos fatores associados à consciência de classe na Grã-Bretanha).…”