Rethinking Social Class: Qualitative Perspectives on Class and Gender

Sociology ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Reay
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
And Gender

Blackface Minstrelsy and the Reception of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Julia J. Chybowski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Black Swan ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Blackface Minstrelsy ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThis article explores blackface minstrelsy in the context of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield's singing career of the 1850s–1870s. Although Greenfield performed a version of African American musicality that was distinct from minstrel caricatures, minstrelsy nonetheless impacted her reception. The ubiquity of minstrel tropes greatly influenced audience perceptions of Greenfield's creative and powerful transgressions of expected race and gender roles, as well as the alignment of race with mid-nineteenth-century notions of social class. Minstrel caricatures and stereotypes appeared in both praise and ridicule of Greenfield's performances from her debut onward, and after successful US and transatlantic tours established her notoriety, minstrel companies actually began staging parody versions of Greenfield, using her sobriquet, “Black Swan.” These “Black Swan” acts are evidence that Greenfield's achievements were perceived as threats to established social hierarchies.

Preference as Performance: Doing Social Class and Gender in Three School Libraries

1997 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Dressman
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
School Libraries ◽  
Third Grade ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Reader Preference

This study examines the construct of reader preference along the lines of gender and social class. Data were collected through focused interviews and participant observation from one third-grade class in each of three elementary school libraries that served children from a range of ethnic and social class backgrounds. The study argues that children's expressions of preference are often enactments of what they believe it means to be categorically male or female, whereas their ways of relating to different genres of text, as well as how they choose to read, often enact the “habitus,” or material logic, of their social class. This analysis is complicated by three events in which the doing of gender or class by students is interrupted by stronger desires. The article concludes with a reconsideration of preference as a construct, and questions why educators might want to know what children like to read in the first place.

Equal Rights and Unequal People

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard D. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
The Law ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Ideal

Though Americans have favored the idea of equal rights and equal opportunity, they recognize that differences in wealth and social advantage, like differences in ability and appearance, influence the realization, or not, of equal rights, including equality before the law. In the generations after 1776 the rights of creditors, for example, often overrode the rights of debtors. And criminal trials demonstrate that in courtrooms equal treatment was most often achieved when defendant and victim came from the same social class. Otherwise if they came from different classes social realities, including ethnicity, color, and gender could shape court officials and public opinion. And when a woman’s sexual virtue was compromised, her credibility was almost always discounted. In principle officials paid homage to the ideal of equality before the law, but in practice unequal rights often prevailed.

scholarly journals Far Beyond the Gay Village: LGBTQ Urbanism and Generation in Montréal’s Mile End

2021 ◽  
pp. 289-306
Author(s):  
Julie A. Podmore
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Inner City ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractResearch on LGBTQ neighbourhood formation in the urban West suggests that new patterns of community and identity are reshaping the queer inner-city and its geographies. As gay village districts “decline” or are “de-gayed” and new generations “dis-identify” with the urban ideals that once informed their production, LGBTQ subcultures are producing varied alternatives in other inner-city neighbourhoods. Beyond the contours of ethno-racialization and social class, generational interpretations of LGBTQ urbanism—subcultural ideals regarding the relationship between sexual and gender identity and its expression in urban space—are central to the production of such new inner-city LGBTQ subcultural sites. This chapter provides a qualitative case study Montréal’s of Mile End, an inner-city neighbourhood that, by the early 2010s, was touted as the centre of the city’s emerging queer subculture. Drawing on a sample of young-adult (22 to 30 years) LGBTQ-identified Mile Enders (n = 40), it examines generational shifts in perceptions of sexual and gender identity, queer community and neighbourhoods. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of queer Mile End for theorizing the contemporary queer inner-city.

Making Class: Children's Perceptions of Social Class through Illustrations

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Adam Howard ◽  
Katy Swalwell ◽  
Karlyn Adler
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Young People ◽  
Sixth Graders ◽  
Third Graders ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
The Rich ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Background Context ◽  
Do So

Background/Context Though there has been attention to how class differences impact children's experiences in schools and how young people perceive racial and gender differences, very little research to date has examined how young people make sense of social class differences. Purpose In this article, the authors examine young children's conceptualizations of differences between the rich and the poor to better understand children's process of classmaking. Research Design To access young children's ideas about social class, the authors examined kindergartners’, third graders’, and sixth graders’ (N = 133) drawings depicting differences between rich and poor people and their corresponding explanations of their drawings. These children attended two schools, one public serving a majority working- class population, and one private serving a majority affluent population. Findings/Results Children understand social class to be inclusive emotions, social distinctions, and social status. Children's drawings and explanations show that perpetuated ideology-justifying status quo of poverty and economic inequality. Children have complex sociocultural insights into how social class operates that manifest themselves through four domains: material, intersectional, emotional, and spatial. Conclusions/Recommendations Educators should provide more opportunities for teaching about social class, and can do so in ways that engages students in processes of classmaking that do not reinforce stereotypes and that interrupts inequality.

Life stories: biography and creativity

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-44
Author(s):  
Paul Thompson ◽  
Ken Plummer ◽  
Neli Demireva
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
World War ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
And Gender ◽  
University Expansion ◽  
Second World

This chapter traces the engine of the pioneers' success and discusses their earlier lives, hinting or reflecting on how these experiences may have shaped their research. It begins by analyzing how the pioneers' were influenced by the communities where they grew up. Looking at the pioneers' families as a whole, even though this generation for which unprecedented university expansion brought rare opportunities for upward mobility, the chapter examines the pioneers' working-class families and old Oxbridge intellectual aristocracy. It notes that some of the key factors which brought them opportunities were due to national social changes and international events. The chapter also looks at how the older generation generally benefitted from Second World War experiences that took them out of their social-class cocoon. The chapter then discusses the pioneers who chose to explore other cultures rather than to research their own communities. It emphasizes social class injustice, racism, and gender injustice.

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