Social Status, Lifestyle and Cultural Consumption: A Comparative
Study
This project is part of Phase II of the Cultures of Consumption
Research Programme of the Economic
and Social Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Board.
It is a macro-sociological study of cultural consumption in Britain,
France, the Netherlands and the US. We bring together an international
team of scholars to study the social bases of consumption and
lifestyle in these countries. We shall investigate how cultural
consumption might be related to social status---a hierarchy of
perceived and often accepted social superiority, equality and
inferiority. We shall also investigate how the status--consumption
link might be modified by social class, education, income, age, gender
and ethnicity.
Outline of project
There is a variety of theories purporting to explain how cultural assumption
is, or is not, related to the social structure. The empirical validity of many
of these theories is open to serious challenge. We argue that the theoretical
and empirical difficulties concerning the social bases of cultural consumption
is, to a large extent, due to a disregard of Max Weber's distinction between
social status and social class. While class is known to have important
consequences for individuals' life chances, such as economic security and
prospects, it is social status that is more directly related to cultural
consumption.
We shall compare and evaluate three main theses on the social bases of
cultural consumption, namely Bourdieu's class--culture homology thesis, the
postmodern individualisation thesis, and the cultural omnivore thesis. We will
develop an alternative theory based on Max Weber's distinction between social
class and social status, and will evaluate this new theory using a wide range
of emprical data on cultural consumption.
Key questions
- Does a status order still exist in contemporary societies?
- If so, what is its general form, how does it map onto the class
structure, and what are the main discrepancies that exist between
the two?
- Is there a common status order for both men and women, and for
different ethnic groups, or are there gender-specific or ethnic
group-specific status orders?
- What is the relationship between the positions individuals hold
in the status order and their patterns of cultural consumption and
what are the implications in this regard of class--status
discrepancies? To what extent, and in what ways, do income, age,
education, gender and ethnicity modify the relationship between
status and cultural consumption?
- To what extent are status orders and the relationship between
status and cultural consumption common across national societies and
to what extent and in what ways do they differ?
Approach
The project will be based on the secondary, and primarily quantitative
analysis of large-scale and nationally representative data-sets
collected in recent years. The surveys that we have identified cover a
wide range of both `high' and `popular' cultural activities, thus
allowing us to consider the social bases of, for example, reading
tabloids as well as broadsheets, going to the cinema as well as the
opera, listerning to pop as well as classical music.
Researchers
Published and Draft Papers
comments very welcome,
but please do not cite or quote draft papers without permission.
(pdf files)
-
Social stratification of cultural consumption across three domains:
music, theatre, dance and cinema, and the visual arts
(Tak
Wing Chan and John H Goldthorpe)
- The
social stratification of cultural consumption: some policy
implications of a research project
(Tak Wing Chan and John H
Goldthorpe, forthcoming at Cultural Trends.)
-
Data, methods and interpretation in analyses of cultural consumption: A reply to Peterson and Wuggenig
(Tak Wing Chan and John H Goldthorpe, 2007,
Poetics, 35:317--329.)
-
Social stratification and cultural consumption: the visual arts in
England
(Tak Wing Chan and John H Goldthorpe, 2007,
Poetics, 35:168--190.)
-
Class and status: the conceptual distinction and its empirical
relevance
(Tak Wing Chan and John H Goldthorpe, American
Sociological Review, 2007, 72:512--532.)
-
Social stratification and cultural consumption: music in England
(Tak Wing Chan and John H Goldthorpe, European Sociological
Review, 2007, 23:1--29)
- An early
version without the local dependence terms in latent class
models, but with one extra indicator.
-
Social status and newspaper readership
(Tak Wing Chan and
John H Goldthorpe, American Journal of Sociology, 2007,
112:1095--1134.)
- The
social stratification of theatre, dance and cinema attendance
(Tak Wing Chan and John H Goldthorpe, Cultural
Trends, 2005, 14:193--212.)
- Is
there a status order in contemporary British society? evidence from
the occupational structure of friendship
(Tak Wing Chan and
John H Goldthorpe, European Sociological Review, 2004,
20:383--401.)
- An early
version containing additional analysis using Goodman's RC(M)
models, and an appendix documenting the rules used in forming the
31 occupational categories.
- An even earlier
version based on 25 occupational categories.
Events and Presentations
- 18--21 August 2005, Los Angeles, Conference presentation "Class,
Status and Party in Contemporary British Society", in the Summer 2005
meeting of the ISA RC 28 on Social Stratification and
Mobility.
- 13--16 August 2005, Philadelphia, Conference peresentation Social
Stratification and Cultural Consumption: Music in England", at
the Annual
Meeting of the American Sociological Association.
- 3 August 2005, London, Seminar presentation at Arts Council
England "The Social Stratification of Cultural Consumption:
Theatre, Dance and Cinema, The Visual Arts, and Music".
- 5--9 July 2005, Stockholm, Session on "Social Class, Social
Status and Lifestyle", in the 37th World Congress of the
International Institute of Sociology.
- 26 May 2005, NDPB research network at the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport, The Social
Stratification of Cultural Participation: Theatre and Cinema, the
Visual Arts, and Reading".
- 6--8 May 2005, Oslo, Conference presentation "The Social
Stratification of Cultural Participation: Theatre and Cinema, the
Visual Arts, and Reading", in the Spring
2005 meeting of the ISA RC 28 on Social Stratification and
Mobility.
- 18 March 2005, Department of Sociology, Oxford, One-day workshop
on The
Social Bases of Cultural Consumption
- 20 October 2004, Nuffield College, Oxford, Seminar
presentation "Social Stratification and Cultural Consumption:
Music in England".
Contact Info:
Department of Sociology
University of Oxford
Manor Road,
Oxford OX1 3UQ
United Kingdom
tel: +44 (1865) 286176
fax: +44 (1865) 286171
email: tw [dot] chan [at] sociology [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk
Last modified: Sun Dec 23 13:54:21 GMT 2007