The decline and fall of a working classicist

Although the academy tends not to recognize it, scholars and students from working-class backgrounds are automatically at a disadvantage. To demonstrate both sides of the university experience, I provide here a detailed, personal account of my journey from undergraduate to postgraduate to post-Ph.D. researcher. I pay special attention to my chosen subject of classics and ancient history, an area of study with its own set of class-based problems – for while those from working-class backgrounds might be (and are) subject to classism in any discipline, the seemingly inherent elitism of the classics and ancient history field makes it doubly hard for the underprivileged to succeed. I begin by illustrating how ‘working-class knowledge’ of popular culture granted me access into an otherwise closed, exclusionary set of subject materials and go from here to detail how such work is undervalued by the field, before ending on the violent effects that the all-too-familiar casualized employment structure has on those would-be academics who lack access to family wealth, savings and freedom of opportunity/action. Ultimately, I try to show how that – no matter how hard you try – if you are from working-class background, you are highly unlikely to succeed in the modern-day academic system.

God’s Guardrails

This chapter explains why religious restraint operates differently based on teens’ social class background. It argues that what religion offers isn’t equally helpful to everyone. Working- and middle-class teens benefit from religious restraint because religion gives these kids access to social capital, which middle- and especially working-class kids can’t access elsewhere. Since boys are especially prone to getting caught up in risky behaviors that derail them from academic success, the social capital of religious communities creates crucial “godly” guardrails that help them stay on the path to college. The benefits of godly guardrails are not distributed evenly, because not everyone’s road to college looks the same. Professional-class kids don’t benefit from godly guardrails as much because they already have access to social capital through other social institutions.

On being a space invader and the thing around my neck

This article presents itself as an autoethnographic reflection on my positionality as a veiled, South African Muslim of Cape Malay descent and lower middle class background, attempting to navigate access to white educational space, as part of my doctoral research in Flemish primary schools. I explore what it means to be racialized as ‘other’ whilst also assuming a position of ‘authority’ as researcher, and occupying a particular space (positioned as neutral and secular) as a ‘body out of place’ (Puwar, 2004), in which a symmetry can be seen between myself and those categorised as ‘other’. The aim of this article is to reflect on how this occurs through certain processes, namely: (in)visibilisation; reprimanding; compartmentalisation; and, interpellation. I also reflect on the body of the anthropologist and the idea of the ‘objective researcher’ in order to illuminate how the mechanisms of racialization work. I engage the ensuing psychological burden brought about by the encounter with the ‘white gaze’ (Fanon, 2008). As a complement to the autoethnography, I make use of literary fiction as a method of analysis, in order to highlight the way in which literature can stimulate the formation of analytical insights (see Craith & Kockel, 2014) and, I draw on film.

Problems and Solutions of Teachers’ Evaluation Activities in Colleges and Universities in China

Teacher evaluation is the action guide of teachers, which is extremely important for the development of schools. The establishment of a scientific and effective evaluation for university teachers is the key step in adapting to the current “double first-class” background in the construction of high-level teachers. Based on Habermas’ theory of communicative action, this study analyzes the shortcomings and the reasons behind the current evaluation activities of university teachers in China as well as explores the standardization of these evaluation activities to meet the needs of the connotative development of higher education.

Intra-generational inequalities in young people’s political participation in Europe: The impact of social class on youth political engagement

The declining political engagement of youth is a concern in many European democracies. However, young people are also spearheading protest movements cross-nationally. While there has been research on political inequalities between generations or inter-generational differences, research looking at differences within youth itself, or inequalities between young people from different social backgrounds, particularly from a cross-national perspective, is rare. In this article, we aim to fill this gap in the literature. Using survey data from 2018 on young people aged 18–34 years, we analyse how social class background differentiates groups of young people in their political engagement and activism across nine European countries. We look at social differentiation by social class background for both political participation in a wide variety of political activities including conventional, unconventional, community and online forms of political participation, and at attitudes linked to broader political engagement, to paint a detailed picture of extant inequalities amongst young people from a cross-national perspective. The results clearly show that major class inequalities exist in political participation and broader political engagement among young people across Europe today.

The Living Conditions and Social Mobility of Rural Households in Yanshan County, Hebei, 1900–1950

An analysis of the Class Background Registers of Yanshan county, Hebei, shows that households of landlord and rich peasant status accounted for less than 10 percent of the local population and possessed less than 15 percent of the land, while households of poor and lower-middle peasant standing owned about half of the land. Overall, land distribution was relatively balanced, as seen in the Gini coefficient of 0.3–0.4 in the distribution of land rights and the fact that about half of the households owned 2–5 mu of land per capita. But the economic condition of the rural population was not determined by the factor of land distribution alone; in places where the natural endowment was poor, off-farm income-making activities mattered a great deal to local residents. Such activities took various forms, which could improve as well as worsen people’s livelihood. An analysis of social mobility in this area further shows the perpetuation of the existing class structure. Those whose grandparents had lived in poverty found it difficult to move up socially. On the whole, the rural area under study shows a prolonged trend of deterioration, which is meaningful for understanding the land reform.

Shifting power dynamics in interviews with children: a minority ethnic, working-class researcher’s reflections

This article aims to contribute to the literature on power dynamics and researchers’ positionality in qualitative research, by shedding light on the experiences of a minority ethnic researcher with a working-class background. Drawing on Bourdieusian concepts, it discusses how middle-class children confronted the researcher with language stigma and how they, while drawing boundaries vis-à-vis those who ‘lack’ cultural capital, (unintentionally) drew boundaries against the researcher herself. In turn, it illustrates how during interviews with working-class children, manners had to be adopted with which the researcher is no longer familiar. This article calls on ethics committees to more strongly consider how researchers might become ‘vulnerable’ themselves during fieldwork and to acknowledge intersectional experiences that potentially cause power dynamics to shift, even in research involving groups that are socially believed to have little power, such as children.

Immigration and economic mobility

We examine how immigration affects natives’ relative prime-age labor market outcomes by economic class background, with class background established on the basis of parents’ earnings rank. Exploiting alternative sources of variation in immigration patterns across time and space, we find that immigration from low-income countries reduces intergenerational mobility and thus steepens the social gradient in natives’ labor market outcomes, whereas immigration from high-income countries levels it. These findings are robust with respect to a wide range of identifying assumptions. The analysis is based on high-quality population-wide administrative data from Norway, which is one of the rich-world countries with the most rapid rise in the immigrant population share over the past two decades. Our findings suggest that immigration can explain a considerable part of the observed relative decline in economic performance among natives with a lower-class background.

Social Class in Organizations: Entrance, Promotion, and Organizational and Societal Consequences of the Corporate Elite

Organizational theorists studying executives of large corporations have long theorized that top management is dominated by elites of upper social class background. Organizations reflect the class system in the societies they are situated in by advantaging those of higher social class background. If organizations are perpetuating societal inequality by favoring those from higher social class and positioning them to dictate organizational outcomes, it is important to understand ways to reduce inequality by increasing social class diversity, and theorize on the implications of this diversity for business and society. This article brings together scholars on the forefront of social class research to understand the influence of social class on the corporate elite. The scholars explore the effect of social class in attaining access to the most influential managerial positions, conditions that enable greater diversity, and how the corporate elite can affect firm strategic actions and key societal outcomes.