2 April 2013
Last updated at 19:49
Mike Savage and Fiona Devine examined class in a brand new way
Amazingly, more than 160,000 of you completed the survey. We now have one of the largest ever studies of class in Great Britain.
A total of 161,458 people from around the UK completed the
survey. The majority (86%) lived in England while 8% lived in Scotland,
3% in Wales and 1% in Northern Ireland.
Of that total, 91,458 men (56%) and 69,902 women (43%) completed the survey. They had an average age of 35 and 145,521 participants (90%) described themselves as 'white'.
This very large sample allowed us to analyse the connections between the different capitals using a technique called 'latent class analysis'.
This produced a lot of very detailed information which took a long time to examine. There's still plenty of exciting work still to be done!
The data from the Great British Class Survey was analysed by a team including Niall Cunningham, Yaojun Li and Andrew Miles from the University of Manchester, Mark Taylor from the University of York, Sam Friedman from City University, Johs Hjellbrekke from the University of Bergen, Norway and Brigette Le Roux of Universite Paris Descartes, France.
...............................................................................................................................
The labels ‘working’, ‘middle’ and ‘upper’ first appeared in the
19th century as a way of classifying the sharp social differences that
arose in Britain as it led the world in the Industrial Revolution. But
can a Victorian system designed to describe the relationship between
industrial workers, managers and owners still be relevant today?
We simply don’t know. It’s clear that social divisions have far from disappeared, and the traditional language of class still pervades public affairs, shapes political thinking, and influences our personal careers. So what does class really mean in Britain in the 21st century?
It’s an important and pressing question, and we need your help to answer it.
You and your social class
It used to be thought that social class was defined by your occupation. Teachers or doctors, for instance, have different income levels, job security, and social experiences than ambulance drivers or gardeners.
Another way of putting this is to say that people in professional
occupations have different lifestyles to people who earn money by
physical labour. But our economy and our lifestyles have changed
profoundly since these categories were invented, so this may no longer
hold true.
Indeed, some sociologists have come to see classification by occupation as too simplistic, and argue that social class actually has three dimensions: economic, social, and cultural. To measure an individual’s ‘resources’ in each of these dimensions, sociologists look at many factors (see below) which can collectively be referred to as ‘capital’.
With your help, our investigation will explore all three dimensions: economic capital, social capital and cultural capital. (Don’t worry, all BBC Lab UK data is made completely anonymous before being analysed by leading experts!)
Economic capital
This is about wealth. Here, we ask you about your occupation, earnings, your assets and your savings. These questions might seem a bit intrusive at first, but they are essential if we are to shed any light on the real class system at work in Britain today.
Social capital
This is about social connections. Here we ask about the sort of people you know, how many people you know and whether you are engaged in any organised groups, like political parties, sports teams, shared hobbies or social clubs.
Cultural Capital
This is about interests. Here we ask about your education, your participation in cultural activities and how you like to spend your free time.
Like wealth, social and cultural capital are resources that can give you the opportunity to do things you would not otherwise be able to do. The Great British Class Survey will tell you your position on each dimension, revealing a lot you may not have known about yourself.
This perspective was developed in France by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. It has attracted a lot of interest, but until now there has not been much in the way of research involving large numbers of people. The Big Class Survey aims to provide the first large-scale test of Bordieu’s ideas.
Why does my participation matter?
Your participation, along with many thousands of other people across the country, will provide incredibly valuable data to help leading experts understand if class is still relevant today and, if so, what Britain's class system really looks like.
There is strong evidence to suggest social class divisions have not disappeared from British life. Indeed, there is some evidence that class matters more in contemporary Britain than it did a couple of decades ago. The global financial crisis and subsequent recession may even have acted to make class divisions more, rather than less defined.
Policy makers tend to focus primarily on the economic dimension of
class. Concepts like progressive taxation (taxing richer people more
heavily than poorer people) are a good example of this.
Increasingly, the social dimension of class is receiving some attention, with initiatives to improve networking opportunities for people who are otherwise socially excluded.
But the cultural aspect of class has so far largely been ignored, perhaps because it is a broad yet subtle concept that can be difficult to measure. The problem is, if we don’t measure it, we can’t know how important it is and how much it influences people’s chances in life.
The Great British Class Survey will measure the cultural dimension of class for the first time, and will put into place another missing piece in a complex and fascinating puzzle.
Invite someone to take part
We would like as many people as possible to take part in the survey. The more people who take part, the better our results will be. Please help us by inviting your friends and family to participate in the survey. Thank you!
BBC Lab UK's Great British Class Survey was designed by Professor Mike Savage and Professor Fiona Devine. Professor Mike Savage, a Fellow of the British Academy, is Professor of Sociology and Director of the York European Centre for Cultural Sociology at the University of York. Between 2004 and 2010 he was also Director of the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at the University of Manchester. Professor Fiona Devine (OBE) is Professor of Sociology and Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. The data from this survey will be analysed by Professors Savage and Devine and the findings will be published in a suitable peer-reviewed journal.
..................................................................................
2013-04-03 〔本報訊〕還在用過去的「上層階級-中產階級-勞動階級」來衡量一個人的社會階級嗎？英國廣播公司（BBC）最新調查指出，這種分類方式只適用於39％的
人，而他們針對16萬人做出英國史上最大的階級研究，發現最新的分類有7種，從上至下分別為菁英、信譽型中產階級、技術型中產階級、新富裕型中產階級、傳
統型中產階級、新興服務勞工階級以及岌岌可危的底層階級。
The Great British class calculator
Mike Savage and Fiona Devine examined class in a brand new way
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/21970879
“Start Quote
We now have a much more complex class system”
We devised a new way of
measuring class, which doesn't define class just by the job that you do,
but by the different kinds of economic, cultural and social resources
or 'capitals' that people possess.
We asked people about their income, the value of their home
and savings, which together is known as 'economic capital', their
cultural interests and activities, known as 'cultural capital' and the
number and status of people they know, which is called 'social capital'.Amazingly, more than 160,000 of you completed the survey. We now have one of the largest ever studies of class in Great Britain.
The results to date
Our new model includes seven classes.What class are you?
- The full class survey takes about 25 minutes and covers wealth and job type, interests and social circle
- Compare your score to the nation's
- Receive a personalised coat-of-arms
- Elite: This is the most privileged class in Great Britain who have high levels of all three capitals. Their high amount of economic capital sets them apart from everyone else.
- Established Middle Class: Members of this class have high levels of all three capitals although not as high as the Elite. They are a gregarious and culturally engaged class.
- Technical Middle Class: This is a new, small class with high economic capital but seem less culturally engaged. They have relatively few social contacts and so are less socially engaged.
- New Affluent Workers: This class has medium levels of economic capital and higher levels of cultural and social capital. They are a young and active group.
- Emergent Service Workers: This new class has low economic capital but has high levels of 'emerging' cultural capital and high social capital. This group are young and often found in urban areas.
- Traditional Working Class: This class scores low on all forms of the three capitals although they are not the poorest group. The average age of this class is older than the others.
- Precariat: This is the most deprived class of all with low levels of economic, cultural and social capital. The everyday lives of members of this class are precarious.
Other unique findings
- Twentieth-century middle-class and working-class stereotypes are out of date. Only 39% of participants fit into the Established Middle Class and Traditional Working Class categories.
“Start Quote
The very rich and very poor are still with us in the 21st Century”
- The traditional working class is changing. It's smaller than it was in the past. The new generation are more likely to be Affluent Workers or Emergent Service Workers.
- People consume culture in a complicated way. The Technical Middle Class are less culturally engaged while emergent service workers participate in various activities.
- The extremes of our class system are very important. The Elite and Precariat often get forgotten with more focus on the middle and working classes. We've discovered detailed findings about them.
What did we measure?
People tend to think they belong to a particular class on the basis of their job and income. These are aspects of economic capital. Sociologists think that your class is indicated by your cultural capital and social capital. Our analysis looked at the relationship between economic, cultural and social capital.Who took part?
Of that total, 91,458 men (56%) and 69,902 women (43%) completed the survey. They had an average age of 35 and 145,521 participants (90%) described themselves as 'white'.
This very large sample allowed us to analyse the connections between the different capitals using a technique called 'latent class analysis'.
This produced a lot of very detailed information which took a long time to examine. There's still plenty of exciting work still to be done!
The data from the Great British Class Survey was analysed by a team including Niall Cunningham, Yaojun Li and Andrew Miles from the University of Manchester, Mark Taylor from the University of York, Sam Friedman from City University, Johs Hjellbrekke from the University of Bergen, Norway and Brigette Le Roux of Universite Paris Descartes, France.
...............................................................................................................................
About the Great British Class Survey
https://ssl.bbc.co.uk/labuk/articles/class/
It's said that the British are obsessed with class, but does the
traditional hierarchy of ‘working’, ‘middle’ and ‘upper’ class really
exist anymore? And does social class even matter in 21st century
Britain?
Professor Mike Savage explains what The Great British Class Survey aims to find out.
Professor Mike Savage explains what The Great British Class Survey aims to find out.
Can a Victorian system still be relevant today?
We simply don’t know. It’s clear that social divisions have far from disappeared, and the traditional language of class still pervades public affairs, shapes political thinking, and influences our personal careers. So what does class really mean in Britain in the 21st century?
It’s an important and pressing question, and we need your help to answer it.
You and your social class
It used to be thought that social class was defined by your occupation. Teachers or doctors, for instance, have different income levels, job security, and social experiences than ambulance drivers or gardeners.
Is society still divided in the ways it used to be?
Indeed, some sociologists have come to see classification by occupation as too simplistic, and argue that social class actually has three dimensions: economic, social, and cultural. To measure an individual’s ‘resources’ in each of these dimensions, sociologists look at many factors (see below) which can collectively be referred to as ‘capital’.
With your help, our investigation will explore all three dimensions: economic capital, social capital and cultural capital. (Don’t worry, all BBC Lab UK data is made completely anonymous before being analysed by leading experts!)
Economic capital
This is about wealth. Here, we ask you about your occupation, earnings, your assets and your savings. These questions might seem a bit intrusive at first, but they are essential if we are to shed any light on the real class system at work in Britain today.
The global financial crisis and subsequent recession may even have acted to make class divisions more, rather than less defined.
This is about social connections. Here we ask about the sort of people you know, how many people you know and whether you are engaged in any organised groups, like political parties, sports teams, shared hobbies or social clubs.
Cultural Capital
This is about interests. Here we ask about your education, your participation in cultural activities and how you like to spend your free time.
Like wealth, social and cultural capital are resources that can give you the opportunity to do things you would not otherwise be able to do. The Great British Class Survey will tell you your position on each dimension, revealing a lot you may not have known about yourself.
This perspective was developed in France by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. It has attracted a lot of interest, but until now there has not been much in the way of research involving large numbers of people. The Big Class Survey aims to provide the first large-scale test of Bordieu’s ideas.
Why does my participation matter?
Your participation, along with many thousands of other people across the country, will provide incredibly valuable data to help leading experts understand if class is still relevant today and, if so, what Britain's class system really looks like.
There is strong evidence to suggest social class divisions have not disappeared from British life. Indeed, there is some evidence that class matters more in contemporary Britain than it did a couple of decades ago. The global financial crisis and subsequent recession may even have acted to make class divisions more, rather than less defined.
Your data will help sociologists discover whether class is still important in 21st century Britain.
Increasingly, the social dimension of class is receiving some attention, with initiatives to improve networking opportunities for people who are otherwise socially excluded.
But the cultural aspect of class has so far largely been ignored, perhaps because it is a broad yet subtle concept that can be difficult to measure. The problem is, if we don’t measure it, we can’t know how important it is and how much it influences people’s chances in life.
The Great British Class Survey will measure the cultural dimension of class for the first time, and will put into place another missing piece in a complex and fascinating puzzle.
Invite someone to take part
We would like as many people as possible to take part in the survey. The more people who take part, the better our results will be. Please help us by inviting your friends and family to participate in the survey. Thank you!
BBC Lab UK's Great British Class Survey was designed by Professor Mike Savage and Professor Fiona Devine. Professor Mike Savage, a Fellow of the British Academy, is Professor of Sociology and Director of the York European Centre for Cultural Sociology at the University of York. Between 2004 and 2010 he was also Director of the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at the University of Manchester. Professor Fiona Devine (OBE) is Professor of Sociology and Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. The data from this survey will be analysed by Professors Savage and Devine and the findings will be published in a suitable peer-reviewed journal.
..................................................................................
