1. Social Class in the UK How much does it matter?
Learning Intentions: To define and examine the importance of social class today. While social class is not directly examinable in Higher Modern Studies, this power point is valuable for exploring some of the ideas of class which permeate Social Issues and also much of Political Issues in the UK too.

2. Are we all middle class now?
In the past 40 years the proportion of Britons who regard themselves as middle class has risen from 30 to 43%.
According to a report from the Future Foundation think-tank, the working classes are in rapid decline, with the middle class poised to become the majority of the population by 2020
What social class are you?
In the past 40 years the proportion of Britons who regard themselves as middle class has risen from 30 to 43 per cent. According to a report from the Future Foundation think-tank, the working classes are in rapid decline, with the middle class poised to become the majority of the population by 2020.
Although the report predicts that this trend is set to continue, it notes that class distinctions are becoming increasingly blurred, with 36 per cent of builders classifying themselves as middle class and 29 per cent of bank managers saying they are working class.
Tony Blair famously used this argument for transforming the Labour Party’s image and policies away from its working class roots.

3. National Readership Survey Social class definition
Upper middle class and managerial B
Lower middle class C1
Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative or professional C2
Skilled manual occupations D
Manual labourers E
Casual labourers, state pensioners, long term unemployed
Many businesses, prefer to use the definition of social class as provided by the National Readership Survey.
This enables them to market their products towards the people most likely to buy them. For example,
Many businesses, prefer to use the definition of social class as provided by the National Readership Survey.
Note that terms such as “working class” or “middle class” are not used. Such terms are seen as subjective, as indeed they often are. If a person in an “Intermediate occupation”, such as a nurse, believes he/she is middle class, then who is to say they are not?
According to a survey carried out in 2006 by the Liverpool Victoria Building Society, the proportion of people who say they are middle-class has risen by nearly half in 40 years.
43% of people surveyed said they were middle-class, compared with 30% of people in Home ownership among the working-class is now very common but middle-class people live in properties worth on average 70% more than those owned by working-class people.
M&S Advert
Which social class does M&S target?

4. Newspaper readership by social class
Daily Readers, January - June 2007
Social Class AB (%)
Social Class DE (%
The Guardian
1,128,000
60.6 6
The Independent
792,000
57.7
2.9
The Star
1,786,000
9.1 34
The Sun
7,909,000
10.8
33.1
Why do so few people from classes DE read The Guardian?
Why do so few people from classes AB read The Sun?
Newspaper readership tells a lot about social class in the UK.
Why do so few people from classes DE read The Guardian?
Why do so few people from classes AB read The Sun?

5. Traditional definitions of social class
The sociologist who pioneered much of our thinking on social class was Karl Marx. While he lived in the 19th century, much of today’s discussions of social class still revolve around Marx’s language and his model of social class, that is deriving from a person’s economic status.
Marx analysed the new capitalist society as it evolved after the industrial revolution. For Marx, the owners of industry were the “ruling class”, or to use the language of the day, the “bourgeoisie”.
The working class, or the “proletariat”, according to Marx, were those who worked for the ruling class. While Marx acknowledged the existence of a middle class, the “petty bourgeoisie”, Marx essentially saw Britain divided into two, conflicting classes, whose interests were fundamentally incompatible. The ruling class was driven to increase profits.
The way they could do this was to exploit the workers. As the workers sought to defend or improve their earnings, Marx argued, conflict was inevitable.
Marx claimed that, ultimately, the workers would organise and set up a classless, communist society, where no one would be exploited and all would be, mostly, equal.
Marx’s definition has its merits. The 20th century, as Marx predicted, saw the development of a large, identifiable working class. In the UK’s manufacturing industries, thousands of people had similar occupations, incomes and lifestyles. Few people owned property or shares in companies. Working- class life was collective. People prospered, or declined, as a group.
Working-class people lived in government housing. They often worked in industries owned by the government, where trade unions were popular, even compulsory. Trade unions negotiated pay rises for the collective group.
Working class children went to the local state school. Even the travelling to work by bus, rather than private car, reinforced a sense of collective, rather than individual experience.
The sociologist who pioneered much of our thinking on social class was Karl Marx.
While he lived in the 19th century, much of today’s discussions of social class still revolve around Marx’s language and his model of social class, deriving from a person’s economic status.

6. Has the working class disappeared?
In the 1980s many “traditional” working jobs and communities disappeared. This was popularised on tv by, left, “Loadsamoney”, right, “Yosser” Hughes.
Loadsamoney was a plasterer who became self employed. He made “Loadsamoney” as the sale of council houses prompted people to improve their homes. By contrast, Yosser became long term unemployed, unable to find a job as his skills in manufacturing industry became obselete
The latter part of the 20th century saw the demise of what could be described as the “traditional” British working-class community.
The labour-intensive, highly-unionised industries of shipbuilding and car manufacturing had been in decline since the 1970s. The defeat of the National Union of Mineworkers in the year-long strike of saw the closure of most of Britain’s mines and the disintegration of the communities which had grown up alongside these mines.
The 1960s saw a massive expansion of higher education and new opportunities for working class children to gain degrees and move away from their class roots. The “new” middle class had arrived.
Many worked in the private sector, in industries such as finance, tourism and IT. These industries have little tradition of trade unionism or collective identity.
While the new middle class work for a living, often very hard, in insecure working conditions, the old collective identity of the working class was lost. Prosperity often comes today, not by collective trade union bargaining, but by individual performance.
The sale of council houses further eroded the collective identity of the working class. The best quality council houses were purchased, often at a large discount. The new owners could sell their council house, making a large profit. They often reinvested this sum in a new, privately-owned home, in the suburbs or in new-build communities.
Scotland, traditionally, had a higher percentage of its population living in council housing. There was no stigma attached to council housing, indeed many comfortably off people lived alongside poorer people in Scottish council estates. However, the individualist Thatcher Government, elected in 1979, promoted a “property owning democracy”.
The Thatcher governments were highly ideological. They sought to change the mindset of the working class away from collectivist towards individualist values.
Owning, rather than renting, according to the Conservatives of the day, would promote independence from government. Housing, for many, became a financial investment as much as a place to live.

7. Is there an underclass?
The theory of the underclass was first put forward by the American sociologist Charles Murray. It became popular among conservatives in the USA and the UK who opposed the collective principles of the welfare state, believing that collectivism created a “dependency culture”.
Murray focuses on three aspects of the underclass: illegitimacy, crime and the absence of a work ethic.
Murray contends that the underclass has little interest in paid employment. The availability of a range of state benefits means that such people have little incentive to work. As the second, perhaps third generation, of long-term unemployed, the underclass, it is argued, form a new, identifiable, and now growing, social class in Britain today.
This analysis is challenged by some of the Left, who see the underclass as neither “neds” nor “chavs”, but as a new “marginalised” group who have been left behind by the “winner takes all” nature of modern capitalist society.
They argue that Murray and New Labour social policy blame the victim of poverty rather than addressing the inequalities created by capitalism.
For the Left, as government social policy encourages individual gain, it is only to be expected that will be losers. The focus on NEETS, or “Neds”, it is argued, is a convenient scapegoat to divert attention away from government’s inability to properly fund and resource education, housing and social facilities.
SSP poster, above, challenging the use of the word “ned”.
Has the working class disappeared? Either upwardly into the middle class or downwardly into a “chav” lifestyle?
Is it fair to label people as “neds” or “chavs”?

8. Class and education Education is often the key to social mobility
Not just formal qualifications, but “soft skills”, such as confidence and connections
But, do we all get an equal chance to have a good education?
What are the factors that determine who does best at school?
Education has, traditionally, been the escape route into the middle classes for ambitious working-class families.
But, inequality of access to university education has widened. The proportion of people from the poorest fifth of families obtaining a degree has increased from 6 per cent to 9 per cent, but the graduation rates for the richest fifth have risen from 20 per cent to 47 per cent.
In 2007, education in Scotland came under the microscope of the Organisation for Economic Development (OECD).
Scotland has always been proud of the fact that its good state education system could lift a child from a modest background to a career in the professions, should he/she work hard enough.
The data collected by the OECD shows that while social mobility is possible, it is much harder for a child from a poor background to succeed in qualifications, than it is for a child from a better-off background. The picture was little different in England.
Young people from disadvantaged homes were five times more likely to fail to get five top grade A-C GCSE passes than those from more affluent backgrounds.
Above Cameron/Common People spoof.
Three of the 24 members of Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet, including Cameron himself, went to the £25,000-a-year school, as did London Mayor, Boris Johnson.

9. Location Location Kelvinside Morningside? or
Where someone is brought up has a key part to play in social mobility. Kelvinside (Glasgow) and Morningside (Edinburgh) are desirable and expensive residential areas. And for good reason.
Peer pressure? Access to a “good” school? Local facilities? Opportunities to socialise at home? Housing, education and social class are all bound up together.
Members of social classes pass on their advantages, or in some cases, disadvantages, through family life. The more advantaged social groups can pass on material wealth in the form of property or money.
The children of the advantaged are also brought up in areas where there are higher standards of education and less impediments to education, such as negative role models or gang cultures.
Above, two very desirable residences in Scotland: Kelvinside, Glasgow or Morningside, Edinburgh

10. NEETS
It is estimated that in Scotland there are around 35,000 NEETS. Government research suggests that each new NEET dropping out of education at 16 will cost taxpayers an average of £97,000 during their lifetime. These figures include the costs of benefits, lost tax revenue, the extra cost of health and medical services, and the costs of their criminal activity.
It is estimated that in Scotland there are around 35,000 NEETS. Government research suggests that each new NEET dropping out of education at 16 will cost taxpayers an average of £97,000 during their lifetime. These figures include the costs of benefits, lost tax revenue, the extra cost of health and medical services, and the costs of their criminal activity.
The wider costs to society - the impact of their behaviour and poor health - may be even higher.
The former Scottish Executive had a specific NEET strategy – “More Choices, More Chances” was about ensuring every young person: gets the best possible start in life, fulfils their potential, is not held back by a lack of ambition (on their part or the part of others); and can always 'do something' with the right support (so that 'doing nothing' is not an option).
The Hunter Foundation was established in 1998 by Tom and Marion Hunter. The Foundation's focus is on investment in national educational programmes that, as described on its website, 'challenge stubborn, system wide issues that prevent children from achieving their potential'.
The Hunter Foundation was established in 1998 by Tom and Marion Hunter. The Foundation's focus is on investment in national educational programmes that, as described on its website, 'challenge stubborn, system wide issues that prevent children from achieving their potential'.

11. The rich get richer
While incomes and living standards for all Britons have grown in recent years, inequality between the classes has grown too.
The top 10% of individuals in the UK now receive 40% of all personal income.
The top 0.1% get 4.3% of all income - the highest figure in the UK since the 1930s, and three times as much as they received as a share of income in 1979.
The UK is becoming a more divided and fragmented society.
Emmanuel Adebayor signed for Man City in July Won’t have been for the money; £170,000 per week
Simon Cowell earned £40 million (or thereabouts) in 2008
Sir Fred Goodwin got a £2.7m pay off from the Government for resigning as head of RBS
While incomes and living standards for all Britons have grown in recent years, inequality between the classes has grown too. The top 10% of individuals in the UK now receive 40% of all personal income.
The top 0.1% get 4.3% of all income - the highest figure in the UK since the 1930s, and three times as much as they received as a share of income in The UK is becoming a more divided and fragmented society.

12. Is there social mobility in the UK?
“I believe that together we can create
a Britain where individuals can rise
as far as their talents can take them,
and where the talents of each of us
then contribute to the well being of all.”
Gordon Brown, June 2007
Milburn suggests a voucher system to enable children from poorer backgrounds to attend “better” schools. But what about those left behind?
“It is the unholy alliance between home ownership and education policies that has done most to reduce the diversity of young people’s networks.
The less well-off are ghettoised in enclaves of deprivation, with schools to which their near neighbours in more affluent catchments would not dream of sending their children”
Anna Minton, author of “Ground Control”
Social mobility refers to the ability of a child to move up the social class ladder from the class he/she was born into. In 2007, a report by the Sutton Trust found that working-class children in Britain are less likely to climb the social ladder than in any other developed nation. Researchers disclosed that children born in the 1950s had a greater chance of escaping the cycle of deprivation than those born in recent times.
In 2009, former Labour Minister Alan Milburn published Unleashing Aspiration. Once again this research showed that it has become more difficult for children from poorer backgrounds to improve their position in life. He speaks of the closed shop society where middle class parents with connections to internships and better schools find it easier to gain access for their children to the professions.
But Alan Milburn’s 2009 research shows that we still have a “closed shop” society