The ‘New Working Class’

1960 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Political History ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Secular Changes ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Wage Earning ◽  
Material Welfare

The problem of the ‘new working class’ is located in the events of recent political history, specifically in the three successive electoral defeats of the Labour Party. In attempting to explain the failure of the traditional working class party to increase, or even retain, its support among the wage-earning population, a good many generalizations about the causes and consequences of secular changes in the class structure have been advanced and disputed. The salient thesis is that which seeks to account for the conservative drift of the working class in terms of their growing prosperity and their gradual assimilation to the middle class in an economy of full employment and rising expectations of material welfare. As one writer puts it: “The whole working class finds itself on the move, moving towards new middle class values and middle class existence” (1).

“The Whirl of Life” The Social Structure

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Robert Reed
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Social

This chapter explores the intricacies of the first discernible class structure that conformed to normative standards of socioeconomic status in Chicago's history. Black Chicago developed a very small but distinguishable upper class, large segments within the broad middle classes, enormous laboring classes including industrial and service sector workers, and an underclass. The members of the upper class owned and managed businesses, chose housing commensurate with their status, consumed their disposable income with conspicuous delight, engaged in civic activities, and socially acted as a group apart from other segments of their racial cohort to which they traditionally held their primary social allegiance. The middle class focused on occupation, wealth production, educational attainment, cultural interests, and character. The working-class, however, formed the bulk of black Chicago's citizenry.

scholarly journals Social Mobility and Class Formation: The Worklife Social Mobility of Men in a New Zealand Suburb, 1902–1928

1999 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Olssen ◽  
Hamish James
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Political History ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Class Formation ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
The Relationship

This paper explores the relationship between social mobility and class formation in a working-class industrial suburb. By establishing the degree of class closure in three periods we can identify the relationship between the country's political history, dominated by the rise of a left-wing Labour Party, and the changing levels of closure. Labour established itself during a period of low mobility then stalled when mobility increased sharply in the 1920s. Comparison with the mobility rates for cities in other countries allows further analysis of the relationship between social structure and political behaviour. Our evidence indicates that voters were not unconscious of the shifting patterns of class rigidity.

New Labour, Class, and Social Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Wide Distribution ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Community Action ◽  
Trade Unionism ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines how ideas about class, community, and individualism figured in the modernization of the Labour Party in the 1980s and 1990s. It examines the development, under Kinnock and Blair, of a new imagined constituency for Labour—a ‘new working class’ or, as Blair put it, ‘new middle class’. The sources of this vision lay partly in academic theorizing, but also in the backgrounds of key modernizers, and in new polling and focus group techniques for researching social attitudes. Modernizers understood the new majoritarian constituency in society as united by aspirations, and reoriented socialism to emphasize the use of community action—through the state—to secure a wide distribution of opportunity and security throughout society, in order to enable individuals to achieve those aspirations. The chapter concludes by examining the impact of these beliefs on policy relating to poverty, inequality, trade unionism, and community.

Homophobia, Class and Party in England

1992 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Rayside
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
North American ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Tabloid Press

AbstractInstitutionalized homophobia in England has been intensified over the last decade, linked to concerns about “permissiveness” so prominent within the lower middle classes so courted by the modern Conservative party. However, anti-gay norms have long been embedded in working-class and middle-class cultures, more than in continental European and North American societies. Moralistic crusades against homosexuality have been common in England, and are still reinforced by the police, the courts and especially the tabloid press. Opposition has been roused within Labour party and Liberal/Liberal Democratic circles, but often reluctantly, and framed by a limited form of tolerance.

Bodies, Sexuality and the “Modernization” of the British Working Classes, 1920s to 1960s

2006 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Class Society ◽  
Female Bodies ◽  
Working Class Women

A neglected aspect of the perceived “embourgeoisement” of the British working-classes in the 1950s was the representation of a blurring of class difference around questions of sexuality. In different ways, female bodies and sexuality in the postwar period became a means of talking about changing class identity and the modernization of society. In the 1920s and 1930s, the working-class body and working-class sexuality served as counterpoints to largely middle-class ideas of modern femininity and sexuality. Working-class women's inability to control their reproduction was portrayed as one cause of the deprivation experienced by the working classes. In the fifties, by contrast, working-class bodies and sexuality had become signifiers of the modernization of British class society. Working-class women were perceived as being able to control the size of their families. Such control was, with full employment and better housing, a mark of a modern, affluent working class. At the same time, working-class marriage was represented as increasingly incorporating notions of companionability and sexual pleasure previously only seen in middle-class life. “Embourgeoisement” in postwar Britain was thus represented as having a sexual aspect.

scholarly journals Don’t Glottal Stop Me Now

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-43
Author(s):  
Jessica Göbel
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Data Set ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Glottal Stop

This paper analyses the speech of Edinburgh speakers from a range of ages and socioeconomic backgrounds: established middle class (EMC), new middle class (NMC), and working class (WC). Findings were compared to previous studies, particularly Titheridge (2020), which examines the same data set collected in 1975. The results show that /t/-glottaling significantly correlates with social class but not age. The following phoneme and position of /t/ within the word were shown to be significant predictors of /t/-glottaling. Evidence of an interaction between the following phoneme and the speakers’ social class was found, which could suggest that NMC has a different ordering hierarchy of the aforementioned factors from WC and EMC.

Attitudes, Issues, and Labour Party Decline in England, 1974-1979

1985 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
IAN McALLISTER ◽  
ANTHONY MUGHAN
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Support Groups ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
Political History ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Natural Support ◽  
Party Decline

This article critically examines the argument that the Labour party's poor performance in the 1979 general election reflects a long-term decline that is largely the result of its own natural support groups, Labour identifiers and the working class, developing political attitudes that serve increasingly to estrange them from the party's traditional principles. This argument further holds that issues emerged in the 1979 campaign that, deriving from these same principles, compounded the tendency for Labour supporters to defect at the polls. We argue that these findings are conceptually and methodologically flawed and that the evidence does not, in fact, support this explanation of Labour party decline. We conclude, instead, that what the evidence does suggest is that Labour suffered from a widespread voter “backlash” as a result of having been in office during a particularly difficult period in British social, economic, and political history.

scholarly journals Da Esperança ao Triunfo: o estudo da formação de uma nova classe trabalhadora de Goiânia (GO)

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Renatha Cândida da Cruz ◽  
João Batista de Deus
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
City Center ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Northwest Region ◽  
The City

Resumo:O objetivo principal deste artigo é tratar do processo de formação da Região Noroeste de Goiânia. Para tanto, realizou-se um amplo levantamento bibliográfico acerca das ocupações urbanas na capital goiana e  elaborou-se uma periodização sobre a ampliação do espaço urbano a noroeste do centro da cidade. Os resultados obtidos permitiram verificar como uma comunidade deixa de ser um grande bolsão de pobreza para ser considerada uma representação da nova classe trabalhadora de Goiânia. A temática torna-se pertinente, visto que os bairros da Região Noroeste têm origem em sucessivas lutas coletivas pelo solo urbano e passam por um longo processo de mudanças sociais e econômicas. O aumento da renda ganha destaque nos estudos sobre a localidade, em que se debate se há uma nova classe média ou uma nova classe trabalhadora.Palavras-chave: Nova classe trabalhadora. Goiânia. Ocupações urbanas. Abstract:The main purpose of this article is figure out the process of formation in the Northwest Region  of Goiania. To achieve this goal it conducted a comprehensive literature about the urban occupations in Goiânia and the development of a timeline on the expansion of urban areas to the northwest of the city center. The results of this research allowed us to understand as a community stops being a large slum to be considered a representation of the new working class of Goiania. The theme  becomes relevant in sense that neighborhoods of the Northwest Region originates in successive collective struggle for urban land and go through a long process of social and economic change and how the increase in income is an important factor in studies about this place and being perceived the discussion  above  new middle class or new working classKeywords: New Workin Class, Goiânia, Urban Occupations. Resumen:El principal objetivo de ese artículo es la comprensión del proceso de formación de la Región Noroeste de Goiânia. Para alcanzar esa meta se ha realizado un amplio levantamiento bibliográfico sobre las ocupaciones urbanas en la capital goiana así como la elaboración de una periodización acerca de la ampliación del espacio urbano al noroeste del centro de la ciudad. Los resultados obtenidos por esta investigación permitieron comprender como una comunidad deja de ser parte de un gran cinturón de pobreza para pasar a ser considerada una representación de la nueva clase trabajadora de Goiânia. La temática se vuelve pertinente puesto que los barrios de la Región Noroeste tienen origen en sucesivas luchas colectivas por el suelo urbano y pasan por un largo proceso de cambios sociales y económicos haciendo con que el incremento de la renta sea un factor relevante en los estudios sobre la localidad, percibiéndose el debate sobre una nueva clase media o nueva clase trabajadora.Palabras clave: Nueva clase trabajadora. Goiânia. Ocupaciones urbanas. 

The Exhaustion of Merkelism: A Conjunctural Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 96 (96) ◽  
pp. 89-131
Author(s):  
Moritz Ege ◽  
Alexander Gallas
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Cultural Representation ◽  
Success Story ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Cultural Crisis

Inspired by Hall et al.'s Policing the Crisis (1978), the authors provide a conjunctural analysis of present-day Germany. It is based on a periodisation of Merkelism – the dominant political mode of managing the economic, political and cultural crisis tendencies in the country from the mid-2000s onwards. This reveals that the Merkelist approach to crisis management has become exhausted. The manifestation point of this process is the 2015 'Summer of Migration'. The Merkel government decided not to prevent hundred thousands of refugees who had been walking across the Balkans for months from entering the country. Hereupon, it was identified, at the level of political discourse, with a liberal stance on the border regime. As a result, the pragmatic and depoliticising interventions typical of Merkelism lost traction; a political and cultural polarisation emerged. Importantly, this happened in the context of a socio-economic consolidation of large parts of the 'new' middle class – and a protracted decline of the working class, which was covered up by narratives of Germany as a success story. Accordingly, the conjuncture in the country is characterised by the weakening of class ties of political and cultural representation and the proliferation of nationalist interpellations. Once again, 'race is the modality in which class is lived' (Hall), which is visible in the widespread assumption that there are clearly defined, homogeneous and incompatible 'cultures' clashing with one another. In this sense, race has become a politically salient category whose discursive predominance contributes to further marginalising a language of class.

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