Social and Cultural Inequalities in Britain: A Relational Analysis

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Over the past 30 years there have been very different views as to whether social class still matters in contemporary UK. Influential sociologists such as Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens have emphasised the 'end of class'. Other sociologists such as John Goldthorpe have emphasised the entrenched nature of class inequalities. There are also uncertainties as to whether social class still affects cultural tastes and practices, and over how class conscious we are today.In the context of current worries about the possible entrenchment of social inequality linked to the recession, my Fellowship will pursue a distinctive approach which explores both the objective and subjective/ cultural dimensions of class and stratification. I will further unravel 'the paradox of class' (Savage 2000), where class inequalities appear more marked in their effects on health, educational attainment, and income, but appear relatively unimportant in terms of people's overt identities, cultural tastes and values. I will pursue my research which argues that these apparently different findings can be reconciled through a 'relational' approach to social stratification. Thus, although the content of people's activities and identities (e.g. whether people identify as middle or working class, or prefer heavy metal or classical music) may appear to be relatively independent of class, their form (e.g. the way that they appreciate music, or claim to belong to a social class) remains highly socially specific. My Fellowship will pursue these ideas into a major research statement through three specific projects, each to lead to a major book, and each to last a year. The first two of these will take advantage of two very important but relatively under-used data sets which I have helped to generate. 1. The BBC's Great British Class Survey (2011) on which I and Fiona Devine were consultants. This has generated a remarkable 161,000 valid responses and offers a very detailed source of data for examining inequalities in cultural, social and economic domains. I will build on the initial report written for the BBC documenting striking class divisions in cultural and social, as well as economic capital, to examine the coherence of social class groups and whether alternative occupational categories might give a better fit on the detailed BBC data.2. The qualitative study on the 1958 National Child Development Study. In 2008-09 I was involved in a project collecting 230 qualitative interviews with a sub sample of the NCDS. I will examine this data, and link it to the panel data in order to explore the kinds of identities which these respondents articulate, and how they are related to their life histories and social backgrounds.3. Finally, I will write a major research monograph which will elaborate a relational approach to social stratification avoiding the reductionist tendencies of traditional approaches to social stratification. This conceptualises the class structure not in terms of fixed attributes, but in terms of the complex relationships between social, cultural and economic factors. This approach to social stratification draws on important currents in social science theory, notably field analysis, social network theory, and assemblage theory, and I expect a monograph drawing these themes together will have major interest. In pursuing these projects I will also make distinctive methodological contributions. These will include using multiple correspondence analysis to elaborate mixed method research strategies where individual qualitative interview accounts can be linked to survey responses. I will also contribute to developing strategies for the archiving of digital data. Through holding user workshops and international seminars I will also ensure that this research has the maximum possible reach.