student presentation

1. SAVAGE ET AL
A PRESENTATION BY HARVEY
LANGFORD AND NAAILAH ASLAM
A New Model of Social Class?
Findings from the BBC’s
Great British Class Survey
Experiment

2. What is social class?
 Social class refers to a status hierarchy in which
individuals and groups are classified through
economic success and accumulation of wealth.
 According to Savage et al, the first phase of class and
stratification saw the dominance of ‘moralising’
official measures of class in Britain, in which
‘standing within the community’ was used to draw a
six-fold class schema, with professionals at the top,
and unskilled manual workers at the bottom.

3. The Great British Class Survey (GBCS)
 This was designed to develop detailed measures of
economic, cultural and social capitals.
 Its questions on cultural capital asked about people’s
leisure interest, musical tastes, use of the media, and
food preferences. Respondents were asked whether they
knew anyone in 37 different occupations, which is the
most complex question of its type ever used in social
research.
 The questions on economic capital asked about
household income, savings and the value of owner-
occupied housing, so allowing unusually detailed
measures of economic capital.

4. Survey findings
 Responses were enthusiastic, however, the
examination of the data revealed that the GBCS web
survey suffered from a strong selection bias, with
respondents being drawn from well-educated social
groups.
 To address this problem, the BBC conducted a
separate face-to-face survey using identical
questions.
 Tests from its field division indicate that its
demographics are nationally representative.

5. A latent class analysis of social class
 Savage et al seek to differentiate between measures
of economic, social and cultural capital to assess
where the main class boundaries are placed. They
introduce seven classes based on this:

6. Class 1: Elite
 This is the most advantaged group in the UK and are
characterised by having the highest levels of every
form of capital.
 Their economic wealth sets them apart from the
majority.

7. Class 2: Established Middle Class
 A much larger class than the elite, and might be seen
as the comfortably off, even though they do not share
the extreme wealth of the elite.
 Average household income of £47k

8. Class 3: Technical Middle Class
 A small class including only 6% of the population
 Competes with Established Middle Class in terms of
economic capital and is economically secure
 However, faces many restrictions regarding cultural
and social capital, and has the most limited social
circle of any class.

9. Class 4: New Affluent Workers
 Scores highly on “emerging” cultural capital but low
on highbrow cultural capital, meaning it seems to
shun established forms of cultural capital but is still
culturally engaged.
 Economically secure without being very well-off
 Scores moderately well on all three forms of capital

10. Class 5: Traditional Working Class
 A moderately poor class with an average household
income of £13k, counting for only 2% of the
population.
 Predominantly female, more than any other class.
 Strongly over-represented amongst old industrial
areas outside the south east of England, especially in
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

11. Class 6: Emergent Service Workers
 A relatively young class, with a mean age of 34.
 Average household income of £21k, but with very low
highbrow cultural capital.
 Unusually high proportion of ethnic minorities in this
class
 Its members tend not to be graduates or to come from
middle-class families, yet they are very different from the
traditional working class in being more culturally
engaged with emerging cultural capital.

12. Class 7: Precariat
 Economically the poorest class with a household
income of £8k.
 Is clearly the most deprived of the seven classes,
being either lowest or second lowest in all factors.
 Despite this are a reasonably large class, counting for
15% of the population.

13. Conclusion
 Savage et al developed a new model of class in
contemporary Britain.
 A multi-dimensional analysis which reveals the
polarisation of social inequality n the form of an elite
and a precariat.
 Also highlights the fragmentation of the middle class
and the working class and divides them into more
segmented forms.