How class identities shape highbrow consumption: A cross-national analysis of 30 European countries and regions

Highbrow culture may not always be central to cultural capital and, in such circumstances, the distinctiveness of middle-class consumption of highbrow culture may diminish, becoming more similar to working-class consumption. Using data from 30 European countries, I explore this issue through examining three questions: 1) is class identity associated with highbrow consumption; 2) does this association vary across countries; and 3) is the relationship between class identity and highbrow consumption altered when the majority of people in a given society identify as either ‘working-class’ or ‘middle-class’? After accounting for other socio-demographic controls, people who identify as middle-class are more active highbrow consumers than those who identify as working class. Yet, the distinctiveness of middle-class consumption of highbrow culture varies across countries and is negatively correlated with how many people identify as working-class in a society. As more people identify as working-class (rejecting middle-class identities) highbrow culture less clearly distinguishes middle-class and working-class identifiers. In the absence of any class-structured divisions in highbrow culture, whether and how cultural practices function as a form of cultural capital is likely quite different, reinforcing the claim that the centrality of highbrow culture to cultural capital varies geographically.

Disparate Recoveries: Wealth, Race, and the Working Class after the Great Recession

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ◽

10.1177/00027162211028822 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 695 (1) ◽

pp. 173-192

Author(s):

Fenaba R. Addo ◽

William A. Darity

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Working Class ◽

Great Recession ◽

Wealth Inequality ◽

Net Worth ◽

The Great Recession ◽

Consumer Finances ◽

White Working Class ◽

Using Data ◽

What does it mean to be working class in a society of extreme racial wealth inequality? Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we investigate the wealth holdings of Black, Latinx, and white working-class households during the post–Great Recession (pre–COVID-19) period that spanned 2010 to 2019. We then explore the relationship between working-class and middle-class attainment using a wealth-based metric. We find that, in terms of their net worth, fewer Black working-class households benefitted from the economic recovery than white working-class households. Among white households, the working class saw the greatest increase in wealth in both absolute and relative terms. Working-class households were less likely to be middle class as defined by their wealth holdings, and Black and Latinx households were also less likely to be middle class. For Black households, racial identity is a stronger predictor of wealth attainment than occupational sector.

Religious Heterogamy and the Intergenerational Transmission of Religion: A Cross-National Analysis

Religions ◽

10.3390/rel10020109 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 109 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Brian McPhail

Keyword(s):

Fixed Effects ◽

Negative Impact ◽

National Level ◽

Religious Attendance ◽

Social Survey ◽

Using Data ◽

Fixed Effects Regression ◽

National Analysis ◽

The Relationship ◽

This study examines the effect of religious heterogamy on the transmission of religion from one generation to the next. Using data from 37 countries in the 2008 Religion III Module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), I conduct a cross-national analysis of the relationship between parents’ religious heterogamy and their adult childrens’ religious lives. By estimating fixed effects regression models, I adjust for national-level confounders to examine patterns of association between having interreligious parents during childhood and level of adult religiosity as measured by self-rated religiousness, belief in God, and frequencies of religious attendance and prayer. The results indicate that having religiously heterogamous parents or parents with dissimilar religious attendance patterns are both associated with lower overall religiosity in respondents. Parents’ religious attendance, however, mediates the relationship when each parent has a different religion. Having one unaffiliated parent is associated with lower religiosity regardless of parents’ levels of religious attendance. The negative impact of parents’ religious heterogamy on religious inheritance is independent of national-level factors and has implications for anticipating changes in the religious landscapes of societies characterized by religious diversity and growing numbers of interreligious marriages.

Beliefs on Refugees as a Terrorist Threat. The Social Determinants of Refugee-related Stereotypes

Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny ◽

10.4467/25444972smpp.20.011.12327 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (2 (176)) ◽

pp. 53-70

Author(s):

Bartłomiej Walczak ◽

Nikolaos Lampas

Keyword(s):

Terrorist Attacks ◽

Threat Perception ◽

Terrorist Threat ◽

Positive Attitudes ◽

The Social ◽

Using Data ◽

National Analysis ◽

Prejudicial Attitudes ◽

The Relationship ◽

This article performs a cross-national analysis of the causes of refugee-related threat perception. We examine the hypotheses that the number of terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists should negatively coincide with positive attitudes toward refugees in a country. Secondly, we assess the relationship between the number of suspects arrested in relation to Muslim terrorist attacks and prejudicial attitudes toward refugees in a host country. In order to answer these hypotheses, we adopted a quantitative approach. Using data from the Pew Research Center Survey of 2016 we analyze the relationship between the number of terrorist attacks and arrests of Muslim extremists and their impact on the perception of the population in ten European countries. The findings suggest that there is no correlation between the number of terrorist attacks, arrests of Muslim extremists and prejudicial attitudes toward refugees. Among countries which experienced most fundamentalist Muslims attacks, the portrait of people sharing the stereotype is more nuanced. Political convictions were found to be the strongest and most common significant predictor, while age, gender and religiosity were significant in some countries only.

Mastery of Cultural Capital, Social Class Segregation of High Schools and Winning at Sport

10.31235/osf.io/cky4u ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Pat Rubio Goldsmith ◽

Richard D. Abel

Keyword(s):

Social Class ◽

Middle Class ◽

Working Class ◽

Cultural Capital ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Capital Theory ◽

Class Differences ◽

Cultural Capital Theory ◽

Resistance Theory ◽

Using Data

According to cultural capital theory, middle-class families cultivate their children’s cultural capital to promote their social mobility through success in school. We advance the explanatory power of the theory by measuring cultural capital in terms of mastery rather than participation or attendance using data on more than 12 thousand schools about their success in interscholastic athletics. We find that predominantly middle-class schools win more contests and by larger margins than economically integrated and predominantly working-class schools. The margins of victory become larger as the social class differences between the opposing schools grows. We also find evidence consistent with resistance theory because predominantly working class schools also experience success, albeit relatively modest. Our findings have implications for cultural capital theory, resistance theory, and our methods for studying them. By measuring mastery of cultural capital, we identify large social class differences among participants in cultural capital and a close alignment between middle-class culture and school culture.

Do voters punish noncompliance with high courts? A cross-national analysis

Politics ◽

10.1177/0263395720935368 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 026339572093536

Author(s):

Jay N Krehbiel

Keyword(s):

Linear Models ◽

Electoral Success ◽

Constitutional Review ◽

Judicial Decisions ◽

High Courts ◽

Confounding Variables ◽

Using Data ◽

National Analysis ◽

The Relationship ◽

Understanding how high courts successfully constrain the state poses a puzzle central to the study of constitutional review. An increasingly popular answer to this puzzle is that voters electorally punish governments for noncompliance with judicial decisions. This article conducts a cross-national analysis of the relationship between noncompliance and an incumbent government’s electoral success. Using data from the Varieties of Democracy Project on noncompliance with the national high courts of 74 countries from 2007 to 2017, I examine whether voters systematically punish or reward noncompliance. The analysis of a series of hierarchical linear models reveals that engaging in more noncompliance decreases an incumbent government’s vote share in contexts with a strong pre-existing norm of compliance. This result is robust to both the inclusion of potential confounding variables and alternative model specifications.

Gender Ideology and Fertility: Evidence for a Curvilinear Hypothesis

10.31234/osf.io/g4nxh ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Serena Stefani ◽

Gabriele Prati

Keyword(s):

Gender Ideology ◽

Two Dimensions ◽

Curvilinear Relationship ◽

World Population ◽

Fertility Rates ◽

The World ◽

And Gender ◽

Using Data ◽

National Analysis ◽

Research on the relationship between fertility and gender ideology revealed inconsistent results. In the present study, we argue that inconsistencies may be due to the fact that such relationship may be nonlinear. We hypothesize a U- shaped relationship between two dimensions of gender ideology (i.e. primacy of breadwinner role and acceptance of male privilege) and fertility rates. We conducted a cross-national analysis of 60 countries using data from the World Values Survey as well as the World Population Prospects 2019. Controlling for gross domestic product, we found support for a U-shaped relationship between gender ideology and fertility. Higher levels of fertility rates were found at lower and especially higher levels of traditional gender ideology, while a medium level of gender ideology was associated with the lowest fertility rate. This curvilinear relationship is in agreement with the phase of the gender revolution in which the country is located. Traditional beliefs are linked to a complementary division of private versus public sphere between sexes, while egalitarian attitudes are associated with a more equitable division. Both conditions strengthen fertility. Instead, as in the transition phase, intermediate levels of gender ideology’s support are associated with an overload and a difficult reconciliation of the roles that women have to embody (i.e. working and nurturing) so reducing fertility. The present study has contributed to the literature by addressing the inconsistencies of prior research by demonstrating that the relationship between gender ideology and fertility rates is curvilinear rather than linear.

Openness and Self-enhancement are predictors of cultural and economic beliefs: an analysis of European countries across 15 years

10.31234/osf.io/q2s35 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Gabriela Czarnek ◽

Małgorzata Kossowska

Keyword(s):

Cultural Context ◽

Cultural Beliefs ◽

European Social Survey ◽

European Countries ◽

Political Beliefs ◽

Economic Beliefs ◽

Nationally Representative ◽

Self Transcendence ◽

Using Data ◽

In this study, we investigate the relationship between values and political beliefs and how it varies as a function of cultural context and time. In particular, we analyzed the effects of Conservation vs. Openness to change and Self-transcendence vs. Self-enhancement for cultural and economic political beliefs using data from nationally representative samples of citizens from 34 European countries from eight rounds of the European Social Survey (data spans the 2002–2016 period). We found that the effects of values on political beliefs are moderated by the Western vs. Eastern cultural context and that there is a modest round-to-round variation in the effects of values on beliefs. The relationship between Openness and cultural beliefs was negative and largely consistent across the Western and Eastern countries. Similarly, the effects of Self-enhancement were positive across these Western and Eastern countries. In contrast, the effects of Openness on economic beliefs were positive for the Eastern countries but largely weak and inconsistent for the Western countries. Finally, the effects of Self-enhancement on cultural beliefs are weak for both cultural contexts.

Deflecting Privilege: Class Identity and the Intergenerational Self

Sociology ◽

10.1177/0038038520982225 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 003803852098222

Author(s):

Sam Friedman ◽

Dave O’Brien ◽

Ian McDonald

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Working Class ◽

Lived Experience ◽

Long Range ◽

Upward Mobility ◽

Extended Family ◽

Class Identity ◽

Origin Stories ◽

Class Privilege ◽

Privileged Class

Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class? We address this question by drawing on 175 interviews with those working in professional and managerial occupations, 36 of whom are from middle-class backgrounds but identify as working class or long-range upwardly mobile. Our findings indicate that this misidentification is rooted in a self-understanding built on particular ‘origin stories’ which act to downplay interviewees’ own, fairly privileged, upbringings and instead forge affinities to working-class extended family histories. Yet while this ‘intergenerational self’ partially reflects the lived experience of multigenerational upward mobility, it also acts – we argue – as a means of deflecting and obscuring class privilege. By positioning themselves as ascending from humble origins, we show how these interviewees are able to tell an upward story of career success ‘against the odds’ that simultaneously casts their progression as unusually meritocratically legitimate while erasing the structural privileges that have shaped key moments in their trajectory.

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

Qualitative Research ◽

10.1177/14687941211034726 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 146879412110347

Author(s):

Imane Kostet

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Research ◽

Middle Class ◽

Working Class ◽

Cultural Capital ◽

Ethics Committees ◽

Power Dynamics ◽

Class Background ◽

Minority Ethnic

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.

A “Magic and Poetic” Moment of Dissensus: Aesthetics and Politics in the June 2013 (Gezi Park) Protests in Turkey

Space and Culture ◽

10.1177/1206331217697138 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 20 (2) ◽

pp. 191-208 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

E. Attila Aytekin

Keyword(s):

Middle Class ◽

Cultural Capital ◽

New Wave ◽

Aesthetics And Politics ◽

Cultural Symbols ◽

Protest Movement ◽

Political Position ◽

Predominant Form ◽

This article departs from analyses that underline the middle-class character of June 2013 (Gezi Park) protests in Turkey by focusing on the relationship between politics and aesthetics in the protest movement. The predominant form of protest in the movement was aesthetic political acts, which did not bring about any distinction based on class or cultural capital. Rather, the artistic practices and cultural symbols employed by protesters bridged gaps by bringing a large and diverse body of people around a common political position. The June protests constituted a moment of “dissensus” in the Rancièrean sense as the shared position was based on an essential claim for equality of the dēmos and the demands of the anonymous to be seen, heard, counted in, and to partake. The article focuses on the role Second New Wave poetry played in the protests, as the protesters appropriated the ironic and ambiguous verses of the Second New Wave poets to create a unified movement.