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.

Working-Class Culture as Political Participation: Reading Trump as Revolt Against a Middle-Class Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-132
Author(s):  
Liberty Kohn
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Knowledge Construction ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Communication Style ◽  
Deep Foundations ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
White Working Class

The 2016 election cycle and ensuing presidency of Donald Trump has been attributed in large part to his support among working-class whites (Gest 2016, p. 193; Tyson and Maniam 2016). Their reasons for support, however, are open to interpretation. This article will suggest that elements of Donald Trump’s public communication style and ethos align with elements of working-class culture, language use, and knowledge construction. Trump’s anti-institutional, anti-government rhetoric reifies these components of working-class culture because of institutions’ and government’s deep foundations in middle-class culture, language use, and knowledge construction—and the working-class’s, especially the white working-class’s, alienation from these institutions, with the result being anger or apathy (Lareau 2003; Jensen 2012; Gest 2016). These values are often embedded in a master narrative that defines white working-class life as one of victimization (Hochschild 2016; Gest 2016; Cramer 2016). The article next suggests that Trump’s oft-used rhetorical framework of not just immigrants as threat, but of immigrants as protected and valued by institutions that overlook white workingclass concerns (Gest 2016), opens up one possible persuasive framework to legitimate Trump’s xenophobia and racism through white working-class attitudes.

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

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 ◽  
The Relationship

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.

Responsibility and the Big Society

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antje Bednarek
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Good Society ◽  
Big Society ◽  
Class Distinction ◽  
The Welfare State

This paper focuses on the interplay between Conservative thought as evinced by the current Conservative Party leadership and the idea of responsibility, which is a central concern in the Big Society programme. I show that responsibility holds different meanings based on attitudes to work and the welfare state and that the differentiation in meaning map onto a working class/middle class distinction. I then argue that the ‘good society’ as it emerges from the Big Society idea would be a more stratified one that accepts large degrees of inequality. Leaving the conceptual plane, I then provide support for my argument with findings from qualitative research into the lifeworld of young Conservatives.

Millions Standing against Their Own Economic Interest

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mugambi Jouet
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Economic Interest ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Blind Faith

Millions of white working-class and middle-class Americans vote against their own economic interest by defending policies that hurt them while profiting the rich, including the 1% wealthiest Americans. Several factors help explain this peculiar dimension of U.S. politics: myopia fostered by anti-intellectualism; the relationship between religious fundamentalism and free-market fundamentalism; blind faith in the American Dream; and how racism hinders economic solidarity.

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.

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.

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.

Something about Baseball: Gentrification, “Race Sponsorship,” and Neighborhood Boys’ Baseball

2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 307-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherri Grasmuck
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Racial Violence ◽  
Black Middle Class ◽  
New Class ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Unique Character ◽  
Black Politicians ◽  
White Neighborhood ◽  
Depth Interviews

This article examines the factors behind a story of racial accommodation in an unlikely space, one formerly renowned for racial violence and exclusion. The space of boys’ baseball provides an opportunity to understand how class and racial changes in a formerly White, working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia, unfolded over a 30-year period. With gentrification, came new class and racial encounters on the local baseball field. The author’s research included participation as a “bench Mom” over a decade, 2 years of ethnographic fieldwork involving observations of more than 100 games in two boys’ age divisions, and 40 in-depth interviews with coaches and parents of players. Factors identified as central to the smooth racial integration of the space are the centrality of baseball to neighborhood “character,” a demographic shortage of White neighborhood children, the “racial sponsorship” of the first Black middle-class children, a growing external accountability toward new Black politicians, and the unique character of baseball itself.

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