Making Spaces of Their Own

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifton Hood
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
Organizational Transformation ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Senior Executives ◽  
Corporate Elite ◽  
Preparatory Schools ◽  
Modern Business ◽  
Mode Of Life ◽  
Corporate Elites

From the standpoint of the upper class, the most significant development in the early twentieth century was an organizational transformation that gave rise to the corporate executive. As corporations grew larger and more complex, salaried managers became the cornerstone of modern business enterprises. Senior executives and their families and close associates formed the corporate elite – and New York’s was easily the largest and most powerful in the nation. The mode of life these corporate elites constructed and the ideology they and their successors formulated became the basis of a new upper class that in time would challenge the prerogatives and meanings of the Gilded Age upper class. Corporate elites cared more about managing these gigantic organizations than about social pedigree, and they took pride in their educational and career successes. Their attention to career and their work ethic gave them a middle-class orientation, yet they also wanted to separate themselves from those in the broader middle class who had not reached their level of wealth and status. They did so by means of their elite suburban residences, their membership in country clubs, and the preparatory schools where they sent their children.

Privilege Accumulation Among Upper Middle-Class Youth in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minor Mora-Salas ◽  
Orlandina de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Mexican Families ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
Class Background ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Class Youth

This chapter demonstrates how upper middle-class Mexican families mobilize a vast array of social, cultural, and economic resources to expand their children’s opportunities in life and ensure the intergenerational transmission of their social position. The authors analyze salient characteristics of families’ socioeconomic and demographics in the life histories of a group of young Mexicans from an upper middle-class background. Many believe that micro-social processes, especially surrounding education, are key to understanding how upper-class families mobilize their various resources to shape their children’s life trajectories. These families accumulate social advantages over time that accrue to their progeny and benefit them upon their entrance to the labor market.

Ever-Single Heterosexual Couples in Nonmarital Cohabitation: Spirituality, Connectedness, and Adjustment

2021 ◽  
pp. 106648072110239
Author(s):  
Samta P. Pandya
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Relationship Quality ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Heterosexual Couples ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
Christian Couples ◽  
Work Intervention ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Near Future

This article reports a study on the effectiveness of WhatsApp-based spiritual posts in promoting connectedness and adjustment among ever-single heterosexual couples in nonmarital cohabitation in four global cities. In comparison with trivia posts, the spiritual posts had greater impact and were more effective for Christian couples, middle class, highly qualified, and professionals-salaried cohabitants. This was in comparison with Hindu–Buddhist–Sikh dyads, upper class, with college degree, and entrepreneurs. However, cohabitation duration, initial cohabitation experience with other partners, having children/cohabitation dependents, and near future marriage plans were not significant predictors. Gender also did not significantly moderate spiritual intervention responses as proposed in the previous research. Couple intervention outcomes were mutually interdependent and intervention compliance in terms of number of posts read and do-it-yourself exercises posted were robust predictors of intervention success. With some subgroup-specific refinements, WhatsApp-based spiritual posts would be an effective spiritually sensitive social work intervention for improving relationship quality of nonmarital cohabitants.

The Rise of the Middle Class in Iran before the Second World War

2019 ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
H. E. Chehabi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Consumption Patterns ◽  
World War ◽  
Village Level ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Modern Business ◽  
State Employment ◽  
The Village ◽  
Second World

This chapter traces the formation of a modern middle class that emerged as a result of Reza Shah's rigorous modernization policies in the 1920s and 1930s. The state expanded the educational system and bureaucracy, reaching down from the court to the village level. At the same time, it fostered lifestyles and consumption patterns modeled on those of Europe, which this new and increasingly secular middle class embraced, setting it apart from the rest of society. Given its reliance on state employment, this was not a bourgeoisie stricto sensu. This new middle class existed next to the traditional mercantile elite, which was centered on the bazaar and closely allied to the clergy. In the 1920s, however, many Iranian businessmen adopted a middle-class lifestyle, and, as a consequence, a modern business bourgeoisie gradually emerged that was to some extent a link between the traditional mercantile elite centered on the bazaar and the modern middle class.

Protestantism and the Latin American Middle Class

1971 ◽  
Vol os-18 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-28
Author(s):  
Charles F. Denton
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Economic Reform ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Upward Social Mobility ◽  
The Church ◽  
Positive Force

The author feels that the development of a middle class in Latin America has been fostered by the effects of Protestant evangelism among the lower classes, which has spurred upward social mobility. But instead of becoming a positive force for social and economic reform, this middle class has become as reactionary as the small traditional upper class. This, together with the inability of most Protestant pastors to minister effectively to middle class persons and intellectuals, is a serious problem for the church in Latin America.

The Lady Lisle

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Ifill
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Child

The Lady Lisle features two near-identical boys from different ends of the social spectrum. The possibility of altering the development of their inborn natures through upbringing and education is explored and contested when the two are swapped by the villain, Major Varney. The upper-class child is sent to a middle-class school where he is raised in such a way as to negate detrimental qualities which initially seemed innate. Contrastingly, the lower-class child, James, impersonates the true heir and proves to be selfish, violent and eventually murderous, like his father. Yet it is never entirely clear to what extent James’s behaviour is due to heredity or to his emotionally abusive upbringing. A shift in narrative tone is identified which moves from making allowances for James due to ‘nurture’ towards castigating him as bad by ‘nature’. In this way Braddon raises questions about the malleability or fixity of the personality, about how we define, recognise and value naturalness, but ultimately combines the forces of education and hereditary degeneracy in order to segregate the lower classes, and to bring the morally upright middle classes together with the affluent upper classes.

Plural StratiWcation: Colour-Class and Culture

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Colour Class ◽  
Piped Water ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
East Indians

Urbanization in Kingston since independence, as the previous chapter demonstrated, has placed a very heavy burden on the already disadvantaged lower class. This burden is expressed in their dependence on the informal sector of employment, high rates of unemployment, rental of high-density accommodation (or outright squatting), shared access to toilet facilities, and lack of piped-water connections in the tenements—all these problematic characteristics piling up in the downtown areas—quintessentially in West Kingston. There is clearly a stratification of living conditions ranging from affluence in the uptown suburbs via a modicum of comfort in the middle zone around Half Way Tree and Cross Roads to outright deprivation in the downtown neighbourhoods. It was argued in the previous chapter that this stratification of living conditions is underpinned by class-differentiated neighbourhoods; as this chapter will show, these circumstances mesh with—and reinforce—colour-class stratification and cultural pluralism, or what I have called plural stratification (to distinguish it from class stratification alone). After the Second World War, it became the conventional wisdom among Caribbean social scientists (of local birth) to depict Jamaica—and the Windward and Leeward Islands—as colour-class stratifications. This had the advantage of linking these Caribbean stratifications to occupational/class systems in the US and Europe, while pointing to a colonial history of colour differentiation, which shadowed class and reinforced it. So, the upper class was white or pass-as-white, the middle class brown and black, and the lower class black with some brown (Henriques 1953: 42). A number of racially or ethnically distinct groups originally fell outside this colour-class stratification, but had, over time, been accommodated within it: Jews were absorbed into the upper class, as were the Syrian professionals; Chinese, the remaining Syrians, and a few East Indians were middle class; the majority of East Indians were lower class. Two further aspects of colour-class need underlining. There was a tendency for its advocates to regard class as unproblematic and consensual, as in the American tradition of social analysis (Parsons 1952). In short, the whole colour-class system was dependent upon the almost complete acceptance by each group of the superiority of the white, and the inferiority of the black (Henriques 1953).

Who Runs the Firm? A Long-Term Analysis of Gender Inequality on Swiss Corporate Boards

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
STEPHANIE GINALSKI
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Corporate Boards ◽  
The Past ◽  
Corporate Elite ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
Recent Arrival ◽  
Women On Corporate Boards ◽  
Corporate Elites ◽  
Term Analysis

The recent arrival of women on corporate boards has been extensively discussed in the literature. However, most of the studies focus on very recent times. This article analyzes the presence of women on the corporate boards of the largest firms in Switzerland across the past hundred years. It shows that until the beginning of the 1970s, the very few women sitting on the boardrooms belonged to the families owning the firms. Two main factors contributed then to the progressive opening of the corporate elites to women. First, the extending in 1971 of “universal suffrage” to women led to a feminization of the political elites, and women with a political profile entered the boardrooms of firms in the distribution and retailing sector. Second, the increasing globalization of the economy at the end of the twentieth century contributed to weaken the cohesion of the very male and Swiss corporate elite. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the presence of women remained low in international comparison, and they were still hitting the “glass ceiling” regarding the top positions in the firm.

Trickle-Round Signals: When Low Status Is Mixed with High

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Bellezza ◽  
Jonah Berger
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Potato Chips ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
High Status ◽  
Signaling Dynamics ◽  
Costly Signal ◽  
Multiple Signaling ◽  
Mix And Match ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Middle Status

Abstract Trickle-down theories suggest that status symbols and fashion trends originate from the elites and move downward, but some high-end restaurants serve lowbrow food (e.g., potato chips, macaroni and cheese), and some high-status individuals wear downscale clothing (e.g., ripped jeans, duct-taped shoes). Why would high-status actors adopt items traditionally associated with low-status groups? Using a signaling perspective to explain this phenomenon, the authors suggest that elites sometimes adopt items associated with low-status groups as a costly signal to distinguish themselves from middle-status individuals. As a result, signals sometimes trickle round, moving directly from the lower to the upper class, before diffusing to the middle class. Furthermore, consistent with a signaling perspective, the presence of multiple signaling dimensions facilitates this effect, enabling the highs to mix and match high and low signals and differentiate themselves. These findings deepen the understanding of signaling dynamics, support a trickle-round theory of fashion, and shed light on alternative status symbols.

“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.

Just Poor Enough: Gilded Age Charity Applicants Respond to Charity Investigators

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-287
Author(s):  
Brent Ruswick
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Charity Organization

This article examines the strategies used by charity applicants of the 1880s to present themselves in ways most likely to win relief from the Indianapolis Charity Organization Society (COS), while also preserving autonomy from an organization willing to use threats of starvation or institutionalization to force compliance from the poor. Investigators treated charity applicants as objects to be scientifically observed and categorized and then molded to conform to middle-class mores, but the applicants’ responses ranged from accommodation to complete defiance. Successful applications to the COS ultimately depended more on the vagaries of the investigator than on the strategies chosen by the applicant. Those applications often led to decisions that illustrate the draconian, punitive tendencies suggested by the leading theoretical treatises in the scientific charity movement. However, they also reveal instances where charity applicants guided investigators toward more generous decisions.

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