Sociology of the Middle Classes Research Papers (original) (raw)

Contemporary rural gentrification – the colonization of rural communities and small-towns by members of the ex-urban middle class – is a nationwide phenomenon that contradicts nearly two centuries of US urbanization. While previous research primarily describes such counter-urbanization as representing a profound divergence from previous patterns (i.e. urbanization, mass production/consumption, etc.), I contend that rural gentrification is best understood as the product of both continuity and change relative to the ideas/practices of Modernity and current postindustrialization. Based on ethnographic research conducted in a community in south central Montana, I present evidence that the choice by middle-class newcomers to migrate to the rural US is simultaneously the product of: 1) the continued efficacy of the Modern ideals of authenticity and progress; and 2) their aspirations to distinguish themselves as members of an emerging class faction – the postindustrial middle class (PIMC)– through their emphasis upon the production and consumption of experiences.

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- Gentrification, American West, Modernity, Sociology of the Middle Classes
- by Canan Aratemur Cimen, PhD.
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- Education, Neoliberalism, Sociology of the Middle Classes
- by Jakob Tanner
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- Marxism, Capitalism, Marxist theory, Sociology of the Middle Classes
- by Willem R. Boterman
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- Gentrification, Sociology of the Middle Classes
- by Dr Ambika Kohli
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- Gender Studies, Education, Women's Studies, Women's Rights
- by Liráucio Girardi Jr
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- Sociology of the Middle Classes

Children, Rights, and Modernity in China is an ethnographic study of the emergence of a new type of thinking about children and their entitlements in contemporary urban China. Drawing on participant observation and interviews in primary schools and homes in the city of Shanghai, and on diverse evidence from government, academic, media, and pedagogic publications, the book debunks many popular and scholarly stereotypes about the predominance of Confucian ideas of parental authority in China or about the indifference to individual human rights in the political and public culture of the PRC. The author also recognizes the conflicts that exist in Chinese discourses about and practices toward children, as older ideas of filiality, neoliberal ideologies, and the new awareness of children's right to privacy, to expressing their views, and to protection against violence compete and collude in complicated, often contradictory ways.

- by Orna Naftali
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- Education, Sociology of Children and Childhood, Human Rights Law, Ethnography

Published in “Territorio”, XVII, 64 (2013), pp. 75-81

- by Filippo De Pieri
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- Urban Planning, Architectural History, Housing, Sociology of the Middle Classes

Out in January 2020 with Oxford University Press

- by Elizabeth Chatterjee
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- Political Economy, Development Studies, Welfare State, South Asian Studies

Monografija Danila Vukovića predstavlja prvu celovitu sociološko-pravnu studiju o transformaciji socijalne politike u Srbiji pod uticajem neoliberalizma. Studija se temelji na autorovoj doktorskoj disertaciji (“Društveni uslovi stvaranja i primene socijalnog prava u Srbiji”), odbranjenoj 2012. godine, i nizu samostalnih ili koautorskih istraživanja nastalih od 2011. do godine objavljivanja monografije. Prema rečima autora, primarni cilj studije je da opiše promene socijalnog zakonodavstva u sferama obrazovanja, socijalne zaštite i rada i njihove ishode od 2000. godine, dok je sekundarni cilj objašnjenje sukoba društvenih grupa koji stoje u pozadini transformacije socijalne politike. Iz sociološke perspektive sekundarni cilj je daleko značajniji, jer nam polje
socijalne politike prikazuje kao poprište borbe oko kontrole nad strateškim resursima koji definišu okvire reprodukcije klasa u Srbiji tokom deblokirane postsocijalističke transformacije. Prema tome, stanovište autora jeste da klase kao društvene grupe jesu subjekti kolektivnog delanja, a da se kolektivno delanje ostvaruje putem organizacija ili mreža koje povezuju pripadnike iste klase. U fokusu studije su strategije reprodukcije srednje klase i elite, jer su ove klase bile u mogućnosti da formiraju dovoljno moćne saveze koji su branili njihove udele u kontroli resursa.

- by Andrej Cvetić
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- Social Policy, Neoliberalism, Sociology of the Middle Classes, Post-Socialism
- by Christof Dejung
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- World History, Colonialism, Global History, Sociology of the Middle Classes

This chapter surveys the history of the middle classes in Weimar Germany from social, political , and cultural perspectives. Divisions-between industrialists and master artisans; conservatives, liberals, and left-wingers; Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; modernists and anti-modernists-were by no means new. But they were exacerbated during the First World War and in the subsequent period of rapid shifts and drastic ruptures. Occupational interests diverged, depending on how the respective groups were affected by the democratic transformation of 1918/19 and the hyperinflation that peaked in 1923. As a result , many members of the middle classes turned resentfully against the republic. Still, we should be wary of adopting the ubiquitous rhetoric of decline, for studies of associa-tional life have amounted to a rather different picture of confidence and renewal. This middle-class renewal was initially not anti-democratic per se. But it increasingly defined itself against the perceived threat of socialist revolution and, by the mid-1920s, began to fuel the rise of the extreme right. That said, the middle classes in Weimar Germany should not be seen solely in a political perspective. They exhibited remarkably diverse consumer choices and cultural activities, although it was precisely this diversity that the extreme right targeted with considerable success.

Argentina se autopercibe desde hace décadas como un país de clases medias. Es parte del mito fundacional que pervive hasta hoy. El kirchnerismo, como otros movimientos nacional-populares, ha tenido una relación ambivalente con estos sectores: aunque algunos vieron en él un «populismo de las clases medias», estas fueron a menudo consideradas como culturalmente «colonizadas». Y es de las clases medias de donde surge la fuerza del macrismo, recientemente derrotado en las urnas.

- by Tobias Boos
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- Argentina, Sociology of the Middle Classes, Middle Class Identity, Moral Economy

Tato publikace sleduje různé aspekty této turbulentní doby a jejich dopad na českou a evropskou společnost se zvláštním důrazem na střední třídu. Na střední třídě, kterou „život v karanténě“ zasáhl nejvíce, protože se jí nejčastěji týkal, jsme viděli, co je potřeba změnit, aby se jí dařilo lépe i mimo čistě ekonomické incentivy. Autoři ukazují rizika i příležitosti spojené se současnou situací v létě 2020 a navrhují doporučení pro středopravé strany, které nejčastěji zastupují zájmy střední třídy, jež je v této chvíli koronavirovou krizí nejvíce ohrožená.

- by Tomáš Petráček and +2
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- Sociology of the Middle Classes, History of Middle Classes, Middle Class Identity, COVID-19 PANDEMIC
- by Wasisto Raharjo Jati
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- Digital Media, Sociology of the Middle Classes

A meta-analysis of 35 studies found that social class (socioeconomic status) is related to social integration among students in higher education: Working-class students are less integrated than middle-class students. This relation generalized across students’ gender and year of study, as well as type of social class measure (parental education and parental income). However, type of social integration measure was a significant moderator. In particular, the social subscale of the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire obtained the largest effect (r = .18, p < .001). Significant effects were also found using measures of the sense of belonging and participation in formal and informal social activities. Future research in this area should use multidimensional measures of social integration and investigate potential mediators of the social class-social integration relation.

- by Mark Rubin
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- Social Psychology, Sociology of Education, Higher Education, Working Classes

Claudia es recordada como “la” revista femenina de la mujer moderna de los años 60. Este artículo se propone analizar la doble renovación del periodismo y la imagen femenina en ese momento histórico. Propone entender los cambios en la línea editorial como el resultado de una relación de ida y vuelta en la que confluyeron los intereses de la editorial y los del staff de Claudia, la dinámica del mercado de revistas y las experiencias de las mujeres, en especial aquellas de la clase media con aspiraciones culturales en la Argentina de los años sesenta.

This contribution presents an overview on the numerous studies on the history of non-European middle classes which have been published within the last few years. It argues that the establishing of middle classes in different parts of the world can be construed to a considerable extent as the result of global entanglements in the long nineteenth century. The article further discusses the epistemological problems, however also the advantages, of describing these social groups which emerged in the non-European world in the age of empire with European concepts such as bourgeoisie or middle classes. And it explores whether an examination of their history could be extended to a global social history in a next step.

- by Gill Crozier
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- Sociology, Sociology of the Middle Classes

This paper attempts to explore the idea of agelessness through secondary literature, in the light of the successful ageing discourse. It makes an attempt to analyze, the presence of the desire to age well within the construct of beauty and fashion in the realm of the Indian cosmetic products advertisements, especially that of the anti-ageing creams. It tries to understand how the notion of femininity gets regenerated through these advertisements. In the process of the analysis, the paper explores into the meanings of ageing itself within the society and how the consumer culture provides a solution of agelessness in order to age well.

Interrogating the cultural roots of contemporary Malayali middle classes, especially the upper caste Nambudiri community, The Fall of Gods is based on a decade-long ethnography and historico-sociological analyses of the interconnections between colonial history, family memories, and class mobility in twentieth-century south India and in the diaspora. It traces the transformation of normative structures of kinship networks as the community moves from colonial to neo-liberal modernity across generations. The author demonstrates how past family experiences of class and geographical mobility (or immobility) are retrieved and reshaped in the present as alternative ways of conceiving kinship, transforming the idea of collective suffering and sacrifice, and strengthening the felt necessity of territorial, caste, and religious mingling. Rich in anthropological detail and incisive analyses, the book makes original contributions to the understanding of connection between gendered family relations and class mobility, and foregrounds the complex linkages between political history, memory, and the ‘private’ domain of kinship relations in the making of India’s middle classes.

- by Nagihan Haliloglu
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- Multiculturalism, Sociology of the Middle Classes, France, Noir Fiction
- by Martijn Konings and +1
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- Housing, Neoliberalism, Sociology of the Middle Classes, Fiscal policy

Artikel ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis mengenai cyberspace sebagai ruang publik baru bagi kelas menengah Indonesia. Konsep lama ruang publik besasal dari Habermas yang menilai ruang tersebut merupakan bagian dari proses komunikasi dan advokasi publik. Ruang tersebut dipahami sebagai ruang inklusif, deliberatif, dan juga parsipatif yang mendorong publik untuk berdiskusi satu sama lain. Kemunculan cyberspace melalui sosial media ini menarik untuk dicermati karena mampu mentrasnformasi ruang publik dalam bentuk digital. Dibandingkan dengan ruang publik, cyberspace berinteraksi kapanpun dan dimanapun. Dari situlah kemudian proses kesadaran politik kelas menengah kemudian tercipta. Artikel ini akan mengelaborasi lebih lanjut mengenai aktivisme politik onlone di Indonesia

Burjuva "Modern Ekonomi Dönemine Ait İnsanın Ahlaki ve Entelektüel Tarihine Katkı" Çev. Oğuz Adanır Almanca özgün metin Der Bourgeois: zur Geistesgeschichte des modernen Wirtschaftsmenschen olup Oğuz Adanır tarafından çeviride kullanılan Fransızca metin Les Bourgeois: Contribution a l’Histoire Morale et Intellectuelle’dir. Kitabın eleştirisinde bu metinden yararlanılmıştır. "Foundations of the Bourgeoisie and Capitalist Mentality" p.314-319

Since doi moi, Vietnam has undergone a variety of social and economic transformations. Among the most obvious are found in the realm of consumption. The new openness to international trade and foreign investments has radically increased the availability of goods. And new opportunities for income have led to increased purchasing power in most social strata, although to very different extents. High-consuming urban middle classes are emerging rapidly-Vietnam's middle class is indeed considered the fastest growing in Southeast Asia-symbolising economic progress and modernisation on the one hand and growing inequalities and environmental unsustainability on the other. These changes are reflected in surging consumption of a wide variety of goods, from household appliances and food items to vehicles and luxury products. This paper approaches the new 'socialist consumer classes' partly through the particular political-economic contexts that have fostered them, but mainly through the consumption patterns and consumer culture that define them. Combining secondary statistical data with insights from ethnographic fieldwork, the paper discusses the drivers of changing consumption patterns and investigates the new roles of goods in everyday middle-class practices in Hanoi, in turn using consumption as a lens to analyse post-doi moi society.

"The crisis gripping financial markets in late 2008 had brought about multiple bank failures, both investment and commercial, in the USA and Europe, as well as insolvency of the insurance giant AIG and the two US federal mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The resulting instability has sent stock markets
around the world into precipitous decline. Coordinated and unilateral government interventions have used every conceivable policy tool to address the liquidity and solvency problems facing the banking industry as a means of shoring up stability in the global financial system. This article considers the liquidity and solvency problems facing middle-income US households in order to shed light on the political, social and economic dimensions of the crisis."

Middle-class progressives in the early 20th Century wanted to transform a corrupt and chaotic industrial America into an "authentic" democracy. But they were led astray by their privilege. Focused on enhancing the voices of individuals, generations of progressives remained blind to the rich culture of "democratic solidarity" infusing labor unions and organizing in poor communities. This book traces the problematic evolution of progressive democracy in America, focusing on schools as a key site of progressive practice. At the same time, it examines alternative strategies for developing more empowering approaches to democratic education and collective action.

- by Aaron Schutz
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- Sociology, Social Movements, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture

This article analyzes correlation between demographic bonus within economic growth in Indonesia.
Demographic bonus assumed to be able to pushing up national economic through growth of
productive manpower. In the case of Indonesia, demographic bonus is still not optimized to the
fullest due to government policy which is still reluctant about it. Indonesian economic growth has
grew through massive consumption from middle class earned from demographic bonus. Consumption,
however, needs to be balanced with productivity so Indonesia can be avoided from
middle-income countries trap. Therefore, this article will be elaborating more deeply towards demographic
bonus in the context of Indonesia economy.

- by Adwoa Agyei-Ampomah
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- Education, Education Policy, Sociology of the Middle Classes, Social Class

This article examines settler-colonial visuality in West Bank Jewish-Israeli settlements. It argues that settler visuality is attuned to a bourgeois ideal of domestic life, made possible by practices of unseeing. Reading Israeli encounters with the Wall and other artifacts of the occupation, I show that these visual encounters help settlers position themselves politically within Israel-and settlements, as Israel itself. Unseeing is a perceptual practice that makes and remakes space, one required to build the kind of settlements most Israeli settlers desire. This vision is oriented to the domestication of space, cohering with the demands of an extended military occupation.

This article examines the process through which the state nurtured urban middle-class formation during the Park Chung Hee regime in South Korea. While existing studies have focused on the size and characteristics of the middle class, few studies explore the political process or mechanisms through which the middle class was on the rise as a mainstream force. This article argues that urban middle-class formation was a political–ideological project of the authoritarian state to reconstruct the nation and strengthen the regime's political legitimacy. In particular, this article explores the two concurrent processes of urban middle-class formation in Korea: one is the growth of the middle class in an objective sense, as a result of state-directed economic development ; and the other is the production of urban middle-class norms. Drawing on the discourses of the Korean government and the media disseminated during from 1961 to 1979, I trace how the formation of the middle class in Korea was intertwined with modernity and nationalism in order to consolidate state power.

Despite a very large sample size, it has not been possible to extend the MISH-derived income distribution beyond Rs 1,80,000 a year to give robust estimates of consumption at higher income levels. The
principal reason is the small cell sizes, which we do not believe should be extrapolated to give consumption estimates for higher income groups. However, the fact remains that with consumer markets growing the way they are, the upper income groups have a special significance. The flood of premium products from local and multinational firms has made it vital to extend this income distribution beyond the range provided in MISH.
To derive a robust distribution purely through sample surveys would mean increasing the sample many times over. Further, in cluster samples, where intra-clusteral correlations are high, the estimates would
not be efficient, unless stratification at the block/village level is introduced. In view of this, NCAER researchers attempted a model approximating the empirical frequencies obtained through MISH with a theoretical distribution (see pages 98 to 99). This theoretical distribution was extended for the desired income ranges. While doing so, corrections were made to the reported income to take care of conceptual differences between national income statistics and the reported household incomes in the survey.

- by Dr. Rajesh Shukla
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- Finance, Economic Sociology, Economics, Financial Economics

Generally speaking, institutional stability requires a social frame that is compatible with the political system any given society. This lays behind the social struggles that affected the Ancient world in general and Rome in particular, where the emergence of new actors in the military and economic arena determined the dawn of new political systems, such as the Roman Republic in the late 6th century BC or the Empire in the 1st century BC. The emergence of what Harris would call a large middle class, a segment of small independent land owners that conformed the heart of Roman society, was the yeast that transformed the patrician Republic into the democratic entity that finally conquered Italy (4th -3rd BC). The expansion of Rome through Italy meant the expansion of small state holdings, something which is still possible to check in archaeological terms. Anyhow, the emergence of a capitalist economy during the second part of the 3rd century BC and specially during the 2nd, meant a steady decline of this social group whose basic commodity production (wheat) had to face the competition of external producers which, thanks to natural conditions or domination structures, could produce at lower prices and expelled the Italian producers out of the cereal market. At a point it could safely be said that “The wild beasts that roam over Italy have their dens, each has a place of repose and refuge. But the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy nothing but the air and light; without a house or a home they wander about with their wives and children” (Plut. Tib.). This social crises was the base of the social revolutions of the 1st century BC, which eventually destroyed the Republic. In a way, the decline of the Roman middle classes put an end to a democratic cycle whose origins we can detect in the 6th century BC. Nowadays in many developed countries a similar scenario is being staged. The middle classes, which are the backbone of modern democracies, are being challenged in their social predominance and this might bring a new form of instability that might put in danger modern democracy, as it did in the Ancient world.

- by Olga Onuch
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- Collective Behavior, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Eastern European Studies

The task of studying the impact of social class on physical and mental health involves, among other things, the use of a conceptual toolbox that defines what social class is, establishes how to measure it, and sets criteria that help distinguish it from closely related concepts. One field that has recently witnessed a wealth of theoretical and conceptual research on social class is psychology, but geographers' and sociologists' attitude of diffidence toward this " positivistic " discipline has prevented them from taking advantage of this body of scholarship. This paper aims to highlight some of the most important developments in the psychological study of social class and social mobility that speak to the long-standing concerns of health geographers and sociologists with how social position, perceptions, social comparisons, and class-based identities impact health and well-being.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.11.037

- by Dragos Simandan
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- Critical Theory, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Medical Sociology

“There are many experimental forms of ethnography, but here is one written by a digital native for digital natives. It is the first ethnography I am aware of that one inhabits the way one inhabits the Internet—fast paced, disjointed, multi-modal, jumping scales from deeply personal to meta-commentary. Few scholars today could pull this off so effortlessly, though no doubt more and more will try. This could be, and in my mind should be, an effective model for how it is done.”
Daniel J. Hoffman, University of Washington

- by Jess Auerbach
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- Ethics, Media Studies, Digital Humanities, Ethnography

This chapter explores the relation between colonialism, Malayali reform movements and the transformations occurred in the domestic shpere and in middle-class trajectories of mobility more broadly. It discusses specifically the historical context in which the ‘Yoka Kshema Sabha’ (YKS) developed to voice reformist ambitions of young Nambudiris. The YKS ethos will be discussed in relation to colonial de-legitimation of indigenous kinship and to the broader history of kinship reform that marked middle-classes in Kerala and India. Analysis of the YKS documents will highlight how the debate on kinship expressed the intention to draw a ‘divine elite’ into the arena of inter-community competition. Differently from other contexts of colonial India, ‘the domestic’ was not identified as the inviolable domain of Indian authenticity but as the symbol of community corruption and generational decline. The chapter will suggest how the YKS remained an ‘elitist movement within the elite’, and failed to gather the support of Brahmins from different sub-castes. The second part of the chapter will connect the analysis of colonial family changes to the one of postcolonial developments such as land reforms, family planning and mass emigration. This will introduce the reader to the final part of the chapter which discusses changes in material practices and entitlements of kinship that occurred due to the YKS and to subsequent reforms. In tracing collective trajectories of revolution, decline and renewed social mobility this chapter sets the context for the analysis of the political implication of contemporary memories.

- by Ester Gallo
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- Kinship (Anthropology), Colonialism, Domesticity, Sociology of the Middle Classes
- by Leela Fernandes
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- Sociology of the Middle Classes, Indian Politics, India, Indian Middle Class