Methods in Dialogue: Social Class / Stratification
Date: 10 December 2008, 3-5pm
Location: University of Manchester, venue to be confirmed.
Workshop summary
'The dazzle of data: measuring moving targets in the analysis of C19th occupational social mobility' - Wendy Bottero, Morgan Centre, University of Manchester
This paper explores the challenge that social movement and change pose for theoretical and methodological accounts of inequality, given that such movement means that the social meaning of unequal social locations is constantly shifting. I discuss the difficulties of measuring moving targets by exploring the research of the Family History project, a study which looked at the social reproduction of hierarchy in Britain, from the period 1790-1950.
This study was based on the ancestors of a group of amateur family historians, and generated a complex dataset of 80,000 ancestors, with multiple indicators of occupation and status obtained at varying points in the life-course and derived from a range of sources. The paper discusses the difficulty of constucting meaningful measures of social position, explores how such difficulties are compounded when examining very long-run processes of social change, and examines the solutions adopted in the Family History project.
View Wendy's presentation slides as a pdf [new window, 107kb]
Wendy Bottero is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester. View Wendy Bottero's web page for more details of her research.
'The Social Interaction Distance approach to researching social class and stratification' - Paul Lambert, University of Stirling
This talk will describe the programme of sociological research associated with the 'Cambridge scale' (or 'CAMSIS'). This involves analysing social interaction patterns between the incumbents of occupational positions, in order to develop the occupation-based measures of social class and social stratification. The talk will introduce this approach, and will discuss the benefits and implications of researching social stratification from this perspective.
Paul Lambert is a lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Applied Social Science at Stirling. View Paul Lambert's web page for more details of his research.
View Paul's presentations slides as a pdf [new window, 945kb]
'Using mixed methods for the analysis of class and culture in Britain' - Alan Warde, University of Manchester
This presentation discusses the use of material generated from an investigation, Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion, conducted in Britain from 2003 to 2006, about patterns of cultural tastes and practice. It involved a survey, focus groups, household interviews and elite interviews. It presents some of the results of the study, including those arising from the application of multiple correspondence analysis to the survey data. Theoretically, it explores modifications to the stratification theory of Pierre Bourdieu.
Alan Warde is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. View Alan Warde's web page for more details of his research.
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