Class Structure Essay

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Great Britain has always possessed a rigid class structure with few chances for upward mobility. However, in modern times, class structure has received a new face-lift. Instead of the traditional three tiered social class structure, instead is in place a seven tiered class structure that has various ways to measure class that include social, cultural, and economical. Therefore, class within British society, is not just categorized through how much money a person has, but also how socially and culturally active they are. Still, there is some debate to whether or not class plays an important role in British society as much as it did in the past. Evidence suggest it does and the more money and influence a person has in society, the more likely they will do well and receive more opportunities, therefore removing the notion that class does not have much of an impact on a person's future. Going back to the modern class structure, the UK, Great Britain specifically, has various social classes, seven to be exact. In fact, only about 39% of people in Britain fit the traditional social classes of upper class, middle, and working class. The classes, British social structure splits into several distinct labels with the elite being at the top and the lowest class termed precariat. Precariat means precarious, poor, proletariat. When looking deeper into the seven classes it is important to note how the distinctions are made, in terms of categorizing people into them.

Elite, as mentioned prior, has the highest social standing in the Britain. People in the elite class have the most wealth and has the greatest levels of all three capitals. The class before that, the second group with the most wealth, is the established middle class. This scores highly on the three capitals and is the biggest and most sociable class group, with high scores in cultural capital. Below this class is the technical middle class. This class is a one of...

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The people in this class are social isolationists and possess cultural apathy.
The class below this are new affluent workers. This is a young class group that are both culturally and socially active with average levels of monetary capital. The class below this is traditional working class. This social group scores low on every form of capital, however it not entirely deprived. They have moderately high property worth. The emergent service workers fall below this social class and score low in economic capital with score high in cultural and social capital. The lowest class, precariat, score low on all capitals and are the poorest, with the highest levels of deprivation.

These classes although not solely based on job title and income level, are still limiting in terms of people within these classes acquiring future opportunities and quality education. Still there is not enough resource in this field to gain appropriate conclusions. "To gain clarity on causes of and barriers to reducing social inequalities in health, social epidemiologists will need to generate improved theoretical frameworks and the necessary data to test and refine them" (Krieger, 2001, p. 30). In an article by Stephen, Markus and Fryberg, the authors discuss the sociocultural self-model. First, the sociocultural self-model hypothesizes distinct characteristics (i.e., talents) and organizational conditions (i.e., right to use resources) as symbiotic forces that reciprocally establish each other and that are greatest comprehended together. "Second, the sociocultural self-model recognizes that both individual characteristics and structural conditions indirectly influence behavior through the selves that emerge in the situation" (Stephens, Markus and Fryberg, 2012, p. 723). When using this lens to analyze class structure, it…

Sources Used in Documents:

References

Akinwale, B., Lynch, K., Wiggins, R., Harding, S., Bartley, M. And Blane, D. (2010). Work, permanent sickness and mortality risk: a prospective cohort study of England and Wales, 1971-2006. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 65(9), pp.786-792.

Bianchi, S. And Milkie, M. (2010). Work and Family Research in the First Decade of the 21st Century. Journal of Marriage and Family, 72(3), pp.705-725.

Boliver, V. (2010). Expansion, differentiation, and the persistence of social class inequalities in British higher education. High Educ, 61(3), pp.229-242.

Holden, C., Kilkey, M. And Ramia, G. (2011). Social policy review. Bristol, U.K.: Policy Press.


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