Social class

Social class is the sociological term for the layering or stratification of society from high to low.

History

See Social History, U.S.

Class and political behavior

see Party Systems

Poverty

Brady (2003) reviews the shortcomings of the official U.S. measure of poverty. Iy was invented in the 1960s and based on the cost of food, which accounted for a third of the budget of poor people at that time, but much less today. Brady examines several theoretical and methodological advances in poverty measurement. He argues that ideal measures of poverty should:

1. measure comparative historical variation effectively;
2. be relative rather than absolute;
3. conceptualize poverty as social exclusion;
4. assess the impact of taxes, transfers, and state benefits; and
5. integrate the depth of poverty and the inequality among the poor.

His article evaluates sociological studies published since 1990 for their consideration of these criteria. Brady advocates three alternative poverty indices: the interval measure, the ordinal measure, and the sum of ordinals measure. Finally, using the Luxembourg Income Study, he examines the empirical patterns with these three measures, across advanced capitalist democracies from 1967 to 1997. He provides estimates of these poverty indices.

Rural poverty

Bibliography

• Louise Archer et al. Higher Education and Social Class: Issues of Exclusion and Inclusion , 2003
• Leonard Beeghley. Structure of Social Stratification in the United States, (5th ed. 2007)
• Daniel Bertaux and Paul Thompson; Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility, (1997) online edition
• Thomas N. Bisson; Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe 1995
• Peter Blau and Otis D. Duncan, The American Occupational Structure (1967) classic study of structure and mobility
• Brady, David "Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty" Social Forces 81#3 2003, pp. 715-751; in Project Muse. * Leonard Broom and F. Lancaster Jones, Opportunity and Attainment in Australia (1977)
• Lizabeth Cohen. Consumer's Republic, (2003), Historical analysis of the expression through consumer goods of class in the United States.
• Gary Day, Class (2001)
• Eichar, Douglas M. Occupation and Class Consciousness in America Greenwood Press, 1989 online edition
• Rick Fantasia, Rhonda F. Levine, Scott G. McNall, eds. Bringing Class Back in: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives 1991 online edition
• David L. Featherman and Robert M. Hauser, Opportunity and Change (1978). major sociology study of US; heavily statistical
• Paul Fussell Class: a painfully accurate guide through the American status system, 1983.
• John Goldthorpe and Robert Erikson, The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Society (1992)
• David B Grusky. ed. Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective (2001) collection of scholarly articles
• David B Grusky. Social Stratification in Sociological Perspective: Class, Race, and Gender, (2007)
• Lawrence E. Hazelrigg and Joseph Lopreato; Class, Conflict, and Mobility: Theories and Studies of Class Structure 1972. online edition
• Helmut Kaeble, Social Mobility in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Europe and America in Comparative Perspective (1985)
• Alan Kerckhoff, ed. Generating Social Stratification (2nd ed. 2005)
• Pat Mahony and Christine Zmroczek; Class Matters: 'Working-Class' Women's Perspectives on Social Class, (1997) online edition
• John M. Merriman; Consciousness and Class Experience in Nineteenth-Century Europe, (1979) online edition
• Susan A. Ostrander; Women of the Upper Class, 1984 online edition
• Ramaswami Mahalingam; "Essentialism, Culture, and Power: Representations of Social Class" Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 59, 2003 pp 733+ on India
• Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks; Social Cleavages and Political Change: Voter Alignments and U.S. Party Coalitions Oxford University Press, 1999 online edition
• Jeff Manza; "Political Sociological Models of the U.S. New Deal" Annual Review of Sociology, 2000 pp 297+ online edition
• Jeff Manza, Michael Hout, and Clem Brooks; "Class Voting in Capitalist Democracies since World War II: Dealignment, Realignment, or Trendless Fluctuation?" Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 21, 1995
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• Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto, (1848). (A famous statement of class conflict as the driver of historical change.)
• Owensby, Brian P. Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of Middle-Class Lives in Brazil (1999) online edition
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• Savage, Mike. Class Analysis and Social Transformation, (2000) excerpt and text search
• G. de Ste Croix, "Class in Marx's Conception of History, Ancient and Modern", New Left Review, no. 146, 1984, pp. 94-111
• Sennett, Richard. and Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class (1972), classic study of the subjective experience of class; excerpt and text search
• Siegelbaum, Lewis H., and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds. Making Workers Soviet: Power, Class, and Identity. 1994. Russia 1870 - 1940
• Sorokin, Pitrim. Social and Cultural Mobility (1927) useful survey of European and American scholarship to mid-1920s online edition
• Walkowitz, Daniel J. Working with Class: Social Workers and the Politics of Middle-Class Identity 1999 online edition
• Warner, W. Lloyd et al. Social Class in America: A Manual of Procedure for the Measurement of Social Status 1949. online edition
• Weber, Max. "Class, Status and Party", in Hans Gerth, and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 1958. (Weber's key statement of the multiple nature of stratification.)
• Wouters; Cas. "The Integration of Social Classes." Journal of Social History. 29#1 1995. pp 107+. on social manners online edition
• Wright, Erik Olin. The Debate on Classes (1990), neo-Marxist excerpt and text search
• Wright, Erik Olin. Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 1997) online edition
• Wright, Erik Olin, ed. Approaches to Class Analysis (2005)scholarly articles
• Zmroczek, Christine, and Pat Mahony, eds. Women and Social Class: International Feminist Perspectives. 1999 online edition

See Also

• Social History, U.S.
• ethnic group
• race
• Latino history
• Plain Folk of the Old South
• Thorstein Veblen