Recent Articles on English Working-Class History

1974 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 10-15
Author(s):  
Thomas Milton Kemnitz
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Clear Indication ◽  
Class Bias ◽  
Class A ◽  
Working People ◽  
Working Class History

English labor and working-class history increasingly is becoming a respectable occupation for middle-class historians, and much of the recent work reflects middle-class bias and assumptions. One clear indication of this is the use of middle-class terminology. Much of the work noticed here – and some of it is very good – is about “the lower class.” A “lower class” can be identified only from a middle-class perspective; in the 1830s and 1840s, working people contemptuously rejected terms such as “lower classes” and “humbler classes”, insisting instead that they be referred to as the working or industrious class. Middle-class men anxious for working-class support learned the lesson quickly; historians are proving more insensitive over a century later.

Recent Articles on English Working-Class History

1974 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 10-15
Author(s):  
Thomas Milton Kemnitz
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Clear Indication ◽  
Class Bias ◽  
Class A ◽  
Working People ◽  
Working Class History

English labor and working-class history increasingly is becoming a respectable occupation for middle-class historians, and much of the recent work reflects middle-class bias and assumptions. One clear indication of this is the use of middle-class terminology. Much of the work noticed here – and some of it is very good – is about “the lower class.” A “lower class” can be identified only from a middle-class perspective; in the 1830s and 1840s, working people contemptuously rejected terms such as “lower classes” and “humbler classes”, insisting instead that they be referred to as the working or industrious class. Middle-class men anxious for working-class support learned the lesson quickly; historians are proving more insensitive over a century later.

scholarly journals Labor market insecurity among the middle class: a cross-pressured group

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Schwander
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Class A

AbstractThe political relevance of labor market insecurity has been questioned because (a) insider-outsider divides were considered to be a divide within the low-skilled and politically less active working class and (b) labor market insecurity runs through the middle of the household. Outsiders might therefore align their preferences with those of insiders. This contribution provides, first, evidence that labor market insecurity extends well into the higher-skilled middle class, in particular to high-skilled young adults and high-skilled women. Second, the contribution sheds light on the “household question”, that is the question whether mixed households dampen the political relevance of labor market insecurity. If labor market insecurity is concentrated in specific social groups (young adults, women) that tend to cohabit with secure insiders, the political relevance of labor market insecurity might depend on whether or not outsiders align their preferences with those of the household. In this contribution, I discuss recent work on the relevance of the household in translating labor market divides into preferences divides presenting recent work that shows that the household does not render insider-outsider divides politically irrelevant. In sum, insider-outsider divides have all the potential to become politically relevant.

Social Class and Ethnicity Effects on Clinical Judgments

1978 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph D. Norman ◽  
Ricardo Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Treatment Recommendations ◽  
Clinical Judgments ◽  
Involuntary Hospitalization ◽  
Professional Help ◽  
Class Bias ◽  
Psychotic Behavior

To resolve conflict between earlier studies finding contradictory recommendations on need for professional help of middle- vs lower-class persons given normal, neurotic, and psychotic behavior descriptions, and to explore ethnicity effects, 92 students (70 Anglo, 22 Chicano) rated fictitious biographical vignettes. A pro-middle-class bias was found consistent with Routh and King's study but inconsistent with that by Schofield and Oakes. Also contrary to the latter, treatment recommendations agreed with ratings. Ethnicity bias appeared, since Anglos recommended Chicanos more often for involuntary hospitalization. Inconsistency between the two earlier studies results from a methodological variation, discussed in this study.

Social-Class Bias in Clinical Judgment and Recommendation for Treatment Using the Biographical Vignette Technique

1975 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leon J. Schofield ◽  
James D. Oakes
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Clinical Judgment ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Emotional Problems ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Class Bias ◽  
The Social ◽  
Psychotic Behavior

An autobiographical vignette technique was used with 14 mental hospital attendants and 14 college students rating the severity of emotional problems and recommending various forms of treatment for fictitious individuals. A social-class bias was observed; the lower-class individuals were seen as having a greater need for help than the middle-class individuals, particularly when both were given descriptions of psychotic behavior. However, the recommendation of treatment was not affected by the social class of the individuals. The results are not consistent with those of a recent study by Routh and King which showed middle-class individuals were rated as having a greater need for help than lower-class individuals using a similar vignette technique.

scholarly journals Mockery and Morality in Popular Cultural Representations of the White, Working Class

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayne Raisborough ◽  
Matt Adams
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Strategic Orientation ◽  
Comic Strip ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Comic Strips ◽  
New Class ◽  
Class A ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Class Distinction

We draw on ‘new’ class analysis to argue that mockery frames many cultural representations of class and move to consider how it operates within the processes of class distinction. Influenced by theories of disparagement humour, we explore how mockery creates spaces of enunciation, which serve, when inhabited by the middle class, particular articulations of distinction from the white, working class. From there we argue that these spaces, often presented as those of humour and fun, simultaneously generate for the middle class a certain distancing from those articulations. The plays of articulation and distancing, we suggest, allow a more palatable, morally sensitive form of distinction-work for the middle-class subject than can be offered by blunt expressions of disgust currently argued by some ‘new’ class theorising. We will claim that mockery offers a certain strategic orientation to class and to distinction work before finishing with a detailed reading of two Neds comic strips to illustrate what aspects of perceived white, working class lives are deemed appropriate for these functions of mockery. The Neds, are the latest comic-strip family launched by the publishers of children's comics The Beano and The Dandy, D C Thomson and Co Ltd.

Upper Class Bias and Class Conflict in America

The Forum ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Witko
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Political Science ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Class Bias

AbstractCompared to other affluent democracies, class conflict has not been very intense nor as much of an organizing principle in American politics. However, as wages stagnate for the working class and economic inequality grows, class conflict is becoming increasingly salient. Yet, reviewing recent political science studies, I argue that rather than politics becoming a clearer class “war” between the upper and lower classes, the growing class bias in political mobilization and participation, and the resulting overrepresentation of upper class actors, has prevented a clear articulation of lower class interests

Twenty-First-Century Writers: The Rural Southern Tradition Continues

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean W. Cash
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Education ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Rural Families ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
First Century ◽  
Southern Writers ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Universal Themes

This chapter focuses on twenty-first-century writers who carry on the rural southern tradition in their work. Since 2000, several young southern writers, nearly all born after 1975 and from middle-class rural and lower-class backgrounds, have begun to publish fiction. Both portraying the areas where they were born and grew up and transcending those settings to address more universal themes, they have produced a significant body of praiseworthy work. Most were born into rural families but received the benefits of post-secondary education, but all seem committed to presenting the working-class South with realism and empathy. Among these new novelists are Joe Samuel Starnes, Peter Farris, John Brandon, Wiley Cash, Skip Horack, Barb Johnson, Michael Farris Smith, and Jesmyn Ward. Clearly, novels that address southern characters in southern scenes will continue to be written, whether of the Rough South variety from writers like Johnson or from writers like Ward, Horack, Brandon, Cash, and Smith.

Mass Observers’ Attitudes to Class, 1990

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Class A ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Upward Social Mobility ◽  
Cultural Homelessness ◽  
Post War

This chapter uses responses to Mass Observation’s 1990 directive on ‘social divisions’ to examine what the Mass Observers thought about class. It concludes that earlier accounts have overstated these (largely middle-class) writers’ comfortableness with technical, sociological class language. Rather, many were hostile to or ambivalent about using such terms, and drew on popular culture, especially humour, when talking about class. A rejection of ‘class’ and snobbishness, and an emphasis on ordinariness and authenticity, were again central to many Mass Observers’ writings about class. In their testimonies, we can also see that new ethnic diversity and new, more diverse norms of gender in post-war Britain had disrupted the old class categories. Upwardly mobile people were particularly over-represented among the Mass Observers and their writing shows that upward social mobility—which expanded in the post-war decades—could lead to a cultural ‘homelessness’ and critiques of both traditional working-class and traditional middle-class cultures.

“The Condescension of Posterity:” The Recent Historiography of the English Working Class

1978 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Perkin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Working People ◽  
Independent Country

In a deservedly much-quoted phrase, Edward Thompson set out in The Making of the English Working Class “to rescue the poor stockinger, the ‘obsolete* hand-loom weaver, the ‘Utopian* artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity.” It is no criticism of that great, rugged, sprawling, big-hearted book to say that what the English working class most needs to be rescued from is the enormous condescension of middle-class intellectuals. Ever since Marx and Engels, if not indeed James Mill and Andrew Ure, English working people have not, at least until very recently, been allowed to have their own history but have had it imposed upon them from above by self-appointed champions and apologists from the “higher” classes.Thompson himself is something of an exception, more an old fashioned independent country gentleman than a middle-class intellectual, living in a mansion in Worcestershire and exhibiting in his concern for the long dead poor the traditional paternalism which he decries in the eighteenth-century squire.

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