education level social class

Report | Education

Early Education Gaps by Social Class and Race Start U.S. Children Out on Unequal Footing : A Summary of the Major Findings in Inequalities at the Starting Gate

Report • By Emma García and Elaine Weiss • June 17, 2015

Download PDF

Share this page:

Understanding disparities in school readiness among America’s children when they begin kindergarten is critically important, now more than ever. In today’s 21st century global economy, we expect the great majority of our children to complete high school ready to enter college or begin a career, and assume their civic responsibilities. This requires strong math, reading, science, and other cognitive skills, as well as the abilities to work well and communicate effectively with others, solve problems creatively, and see tasks to completion.

Unfortunately, the weak early starts that many of our children are getting make it hard to attain these societal goals. Since key foundations for learning are established beginning at birth, starting school behind makes it likely that early disadvantages will persist as children progress through school, and last into their adult lives.

Knowing which groups of children tend to start school behind, how far behind they are, and what factors contribute to their lag, can help us develop policies to avert the early gaps that become long-term problems. Inequalities at the Starting Gate: Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills Gaps between 2010–2011 Kindergarten Classmates explores gaps by social class and race/ethnicity in both cognitive skills—math, reading, and executive function—and noncognitive skills such as self-control, approaches to learning, and interactions with teachers and peers. We refer to these skills gaps as gaps in school readiness.

The gaps reported in Inequalities at the Starting Gate are presented as a group’s score on a given skill relative to a comparison group. (Skills are measured in standard deviations—a metric commonly used in education research—with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. This allows for measuring how far a group’s average score is from the comparison group’s average score and report it as a fraction of one.) For more information on the methodology, sources (the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics and others), and findings, please visit epi.org to review the full report: Inequalities at the Starting Gate: Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills Gaps between 2010–2011 Kindergarten Classmates , by Emma García, Economic Policy Institute, June 17, 2015.

The paper uses data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class, a cohort of students who entered kindergarten in 2010 for the 2010–2011 school year (ECLS-K 2010–2011). The nationally representative sample provides information about the children—their race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, language spoken at home, etc.—and their experiences in their early years, such as how actively their parents engaged them in enriching activities and whether they received prekindergarten care (see table at right). The analyses focus on the association between these characteristics and children’s readiness for school.

Student and family characteristics of the kindergarten class of 2010–2011

Note: SES stands for socioeconomic status. Among Hispanic children, some do not report their language status (Hispanic children with language reported account for 24 percent of the Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011).

Source: ECLS-K, Kindergarten Class of 2010–2011 (National Center for Education Statistics)

Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website.

The findings reflect broader societal inequities. As is true of odds of school and life success among Americans today, social class is the single factor with the most influence on how ready to learn a child is when she first walks through the school’s kindergarten door. Low social class puts children far behind from the start. Race and ethnicity compound that disadvantage, largely due to factors also related to social class.

A substantial minority are so far behind that school success will be very hard. Given the large share of children entering our schools from disadvantaged contexts, these findings demand our urgent attention on both economic and moral grounds.

Low social class poses major barriers to young children’s readiness in reading and math

Measured skills.

• Working memory
• Cognitive flexibility
• Self control
• Approaches to learning
• Social interactions
• Closeness to teacher
• Eagerness to learn
• Persistence
• Focus (pays attention)
• Internalizing behavioral problems
• Externalizing behavioral problems

Research has established that growing up in poverty tends to put children behind. Inequalities at the Starting Gate seeks to determine how much social class matters, both absolutely and relative to other factors, such as race and ethnicity. It also assesses how a range of family characteristics and parenting practices, such as family composition, paid care, and enriching activities with parents, influence education gaps between groups of young children.

To understand the influence of social class—parents’ income levels, level of education, and job status—on children’s early development, the study divides children into five groups based on social class and compares the second (low-middle), third (middle), fourth (middle-high), and fifth (high) quintiles or “fifths” with the first (low) fifth.

We use the term social class to refer to the socioeconomic status (SES) construct created for the ECLS-K by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics based on five different components, including parents’ (or guardians’) educational attainment, occupational prestige score, and household income.

In line with prior research, Inequalities at the Starting Gate finds that the most socioeconomically disadvantaged children lag substantially in both reading and math skills, and that these skill levels rise along with social class. As such, poor children face substantial obstacles to school success. For example:

• Children in the highest socioeconomic group (the high SES fifth) have reading and math scores that are significantly higher—by a full standard deviation—than scores of their peers in the lowest socioeconomic group.
• Reading and math skills advantages of children in the middle of the SES distribution relative to the lowest SES group are roughly half as large as advantages of high-SES children to the lowest SES group.
• Considering race in addition to social class reduces math and reading skills gaps minimally. And even adding in controls for the full range of parental and care activities shrinks these gaps only slightly more (to 0.8 standard deviations).

Black and Hispanic ELL children begin kindergarten with the greatest disadvantages in math and reading, due largely to links between minority status and social class

To better understand the links between racial and ethnic status and children’s school readiness, Inequalities at the Starting Gate looks at gaps between black, white, Asian, and Hispanic children. Because Hispanics are the largest minority in the United States and also heterogeneous—and thus likely to experience gaps along different dimensions—they are divided into subgroups, based on English-speaking versus non-English speaking status. As multiple prior studies have also found, there are substantial gaps in reading and math skills when comparing white and Asian children with black and Hispanic children, and those gaps can largely be attributed to relative social status:

• There are significant gaps between the reading and math skills of both white and Asian children and the reading and math skills of black and Hispanic children. However, these gaps are much smaller than gaps based on social class.
• Race-based skills gaps shrink significantly when children’s social class is taken into account. This, too, affirms prior research, which finds that racial minorities’ lower socioeconomic status largely explains gaps that appear to be due to race.
• Adding controls for social class and a set of parenting characteristics and practices makes the gap in reading between black and white children disappear almost entirely and the reading gap between non-English speaking Hispanic children and their white counterparts shrink by more than two-thirds. That such characteristics do little to mitigate the influence of social class (shrinking SES gaps only slightly), but substantially reduce the influence of race on gaps suggests an association between these characteristics and socioeconomic status. In other words, black parents may read to their children less often not because of their race, but because they are less likely to have a second parent to help out.
• In real life we cannot disentangle black and Hispanic children’s race and ethnicity from the contexts in which they live, which put them at a major disadvantage relative to their average white and Asian peers. It is not race itself, then, but the poverty and other things that too often go along with being a minority child in America, that compound disadvantage. In addition to the high odds of living in poverty (as do 46 percent of black and 63 percent of non-English speaking Hispanic children), these disadvantages include living with one parent (as do 65 percent of black children), and lacking access to preschool (as do 53 percent of Hispanic children, compared with only 40 percent of white children and less than 40 percent of Asian children).

Low social class also affects children’s social, behavioral, and other noncognitive skills

When assessing students’ readiness to enter school, it is increasingly apparent that researchers need to focus on a much broader set of skills than math and reading. Persistence is as likely as math and reading aptitude to help a student actually finish high school. Effective communication with teachers and peers is also critical to school success, as is the ability to play well with others. These so-called noncognitive skills tend to develop—or lag—in tandem with cognitive skills.

Noncognitive skills are harder to measure than cognitive skills because they are harder to define and lack reliable “tests.” Despite these measurement challenges, since they interact with cognitive skills and are key to every child’s full development, it is critically important to understand the gaps in these noncognitive skills.

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study asks both parents and teachers to rate children’s abilities across a range of these skills. Of course, the specific skills measured may vary between the home and classroom setting; creativity, for example, could look different when constructing a tower of blocks at home versus writing an essay in class. Expectations may also vary by context. Teachers likely evaluate their students’ skills levels relative to those of other children they teach. Parents, on the other hand, may be basing their expectations on family, community, culture, or other factors. Nonetheless, all adults report gaps by social class.

• The most socioeconomically disadvantaged children lag substantially in noncognitive skills, as rated by both parents and teachers, although the gaps are not as large as those in reading and math. For example, social class–based gaps in self-control and approaches to learning, as reported by teachers, are roughly half as large as gaps in math and reading; as reported by parents, SES-based gaps in these noncognitive skills are between a third and a half as large as gaps in math and reading.
• Both parents and teachers also perceive social class–based gaps in students’ social skills, with the high-SES students enjoying even larger advantages when reported by teachers.
• Both groups of adults note gaps in persistence between low- and high-SES students. Again, teachers see larger gaps than do parents.

Race influences how parents and teachers perceive children’s noncognitive skills

Parents’ and teachers’ assessments of the same students’ noncognitive skills vary by race. For example, in simple terms, black children are doing fine on these skills according to their parents but lagging according to their teachers. We don’t know whether this is due to expectations in the classroom versus at home, different measures of these skills in those two contexts, or some other reason. But these disparities between parents’ and teachers’ perceptions merit further research because they may have important implications for policy. And these differences can be striking:

• Both Asian and non-English speaking Hispanic parents give their children low scores on approaches to learning compared with how white parents score their kids. On the other hand, teachers perceive no advantage for white students.
• There is a visible gap between parents’ and teachers’ assessments of black children. Black and white parents equally rate their children’s persistence, approaches to learning, and social interactions, but when teachers do the rating, black students have a distinct disadvantage relative to whites in these skills.
• The disparity with respect to self-control is even more visible than differences in persistence, learning approaches, and social skills. According to parents, black children exhibit a relatively high degree of self-control, while teachers perceive black children to have substantially less self-control than white students.
• The fact that parents’ and teachers’ assessments match when broken down by social class, but not by race, suggests that race introduces some biases—whether on the part of parents or teachers—that we must seek to better understand.

Starkly unequal starts call for policy action

The findings of Inequalities at the Starting Gate study affirm decades of research that connects parents’ economic resources and opportunities with their children’s school readiness. When those resources are limited, children aren’t prepared, cognitively or noncognitively. When those resources are evident, children are well prepared. These unequal starts by race, ethnicity, and, most stubborn of all, social class, emphasize the urgent need to rethink how we design and implement not only our education policies but also our social and economic policies.

Expand access to care and education for disadvantaged families

Research provides guidance on strategies to mitigate poverty-related early skills gaps. Some of these strategies, such as home visiting and other programs that help disadvantaged parents support their children’s development, and access to quality care and prekindergarten, have bipartisan backing by Congress and President Obama. These and other evidence-based policies provide a significant societal return by enhancing children’s readiness for school while also improving parents’ job prospects and productivity:

• Home visits by nurses that help parents understand and ensure their children’s healthy development improve child well-being and school readiness. Congress has reauthorized federal funding for the Maternal Infant and Early Child Home Visiting program, which supports state home-visiting programs. However, many at-risk mothers are not being served.
• Quality child care helps ensure that children go to school ready to learn (and that parents have a stable place in the workforce). The recent reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) was an important step toward improving the safety and quality of child care for children whose parents need federal subsidies. However, funding is so limited that even many eligible families cannot receive the support they need.
• Prekindergarten boosts children’s odds of thriving in kindergarten and after, with the biggest benefits for low-income children. While states have made real progress toward making pre-K available to low-income children, quality remains very uneven, and as the data show, some of the children who would benefit most—such as non English-speaking Hispanic children—still lack access to such programs.

Given the societal returns from these programs, policymakers at all levels should ensure the needed public investments to expand them in states with strong programs and establish quality programs in other states.

Enhance policies to boost jobs and income

Poverty poses such huge challenges to life success that mitigating its effects is insufficient. If we really aim to close achievement gaps, not just narrow them, we need to have fewer poor kids. As Robert Putnam warns in his recent book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis , saving the American Dream requires ensuring not just opportunity but mobility; a child’s life odds should not be determined by her parents’ employment or wealth. And that equality of opportunity cannot exist unless we tackle the severe inequities underlying our findings through policies to boost parents’ socioeconomic status:

• Raise wages , starting with the federal minimum wage. Many states and cities have already raised the minimum earned by the lowest-wage workers and it is time for Congress to follow. One current proposal would raise the minimum wage, which is lower in real terms than it was in 1968, to $12 an hour. Policymakers could also make those wages go further by increasing the earned income tax credit.
• Boost employment . Low-SES families are particularly vulnerable in times of high unemployment, as the recent slow recovery from the recession of 2007–2009 has shown. The federal government has a range of jobs-boosting policies at its disposal, including interest rate policies of the Federal Reserve and investments in infrastructure, in addition to initiatives to connect unemployed workers with existing jobs.
• Sustain the social safety net . As many studies have shown, unemployment insurance, food stamps, cash assistance, and other federal programs that help families navigate tough economic times help ensure that children do not suffer the effects of poverty. These programs must be sustained and extended to all families that need them, especially those with vulnerable children.
• Reform corrections policies . Other structural factors influence a child’s odds of growing up poor. For example, millions of American children are growing up in single-parent households (or with no parent) because one or both parents are in jail. While there are many barriers to growing up in a two-parent family, smart reforms to corrections policies, which research shows would also benefit states economically, would address one major obstacle.
• Enact immigration reform . Hispanic children growing up in immigrant households may face additional roadblocks to success. Lack of legal status severely limits many parents’ work options and can destabilize families, which obviously affects children’s well-being. In this way, immigration reform discussions are relevant, too, to school improvement efforts.
• Address segregation and concentrated poverty . Finally, we must address societal and structural biases that compound the effects of poverty for children of color. Black and non-English speaking Hispanic children tend to grow up in isolated neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, and many black children live in those conditions over multiple generations. Decades of research suggests that poor children growing up in segregated minority communities are more likely to remain in poverty because they have less access to good schools and social capital and other resources. Thus reducing segregation and multigenerational poverty through fair and affordable housing policies is an additional imperative if we are to improve education.

A wake-up call

The education gaps highlighted in Inequalities at the Starting Gate sometimes narrow as children grow. But they nevertheless represent bleak life prospects that portend serious problems for our society as a whole. If we do not treat them as both the moral and economic crisis they represent, we waste the human capital contributions of groups that have shaped our country’s uniquely diverse, dynamic, and entrepreneurial nature. We share a national ideal that everyone should have the opportunity for prosperity and success. Reclaiming this vision for our children begins with ensuring that all children start school on equal footing.

See related work on Education | Educational inequity | Inequality and Poverty

See more work by Emma García and Elaine Weiss

Sign up to stay informed

New research, insightful graphics, and event invites in your inbox every week.

See related work on Education , Educational inequity , and Inequality and Poverty

Track EPI on Twitter

How Social-Class Norms Impact Disparities in Education and Work

• Cross Cultural Differences
• Current Directions in Psychological Science
• Social Norms

The social-class disparities prevalent in US institutions of higher education and professional workplaces are influenced by many factors, including access to resources, individual differences in skill, and cultural barriers. In an article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science , Nicole Stephens and Andrea Dittmann of Northwestern University and Sarah Townsend of the University of Southern California analyze the impact of one such cultural barrier: norms.

“Different social-class contexts in the United States tend to reflect and foster different cultural models of self, or culture-specific understandings of what it means to be a good or appropriate person in the world,” the authors explain .

A cultural model of self influences how we view ourselves and how we interact with others, and there are two common models:

“The independent model of self assumes that a normatively appropriate person should influence the context, be separate from other people, and act freely on the basis of personal motives, goals, and preferences. In contrast, the interdependent model of self assumes that the normatively appropriate person should adjust to the conditions of the context, be connected to others, and respond to the needs of others,” the authors describe.

Although people from all social classes have access to both models, our experiences, including the social class context we come from, can put emphasis on one model over the other.

The authors explain that individuals from working-class contexts tend to have an interdependent model of self, as working together and addressing the needs of others helps mitigate the effects of having fewer financial resources, more environmental constraints, lower power and status, and fewer opportunities for control and choice. Those from middle-class contexts tend to have an independent model of self as a result of having access to more resources, fewer constraints, higher power and status, and more opportunities for control and choice.

Both models can be highly effective and functional, but organizations in the US tend to prioritize independent norms, placing value on using relationships for personal gain, promoting personal interests, and advocating for oneself. This can create a cultural mismatch for individuals from a working-class context, who may be less likely to view relationships in this way.

The authors discuss some important challenges of this cultural mismatch, including gaining access to opportunities. For example, one study found that even the highest achieving students from working-class contexts are unlikely to apply to elite schools, in part because they don’t want to separate from their family and community. Another study found that employees from working-class contexts are less likely to pursue organizational power if it requires independent behaviors, such as using connections for personal gain.

Additionally, institutional decision makers are less likely to view an employee positively or admit a student if they diverge from the institution’s norms. People tend to rate job applicants with independent skills as more competent, and are more likely to hire them relative to those with interdependent skills.

And cultural mismatch can have consequences for individuals’ performance within an institution. People from working-class contexts can experience more discomfort in educational and professional environments that have an independent culture. They may be less likely to perform to their potential as a result, leading to less favorable evaluations from educators and managers. For example, students from working-class contexts who attend universities that advertise having an independent culture report having more difficulty completing tasks, higher stress, and lower performance than similar students who are at universities that communicate an interdependent culture.

Stephens, Townsend, and Dittman conclude that institutions organized by middle-class norms can reduce opportunities for those from working-class contexts who have an interdependent model of self. They recommend that cultural mismatch be reduced by integrating diverse norms into an institution’s culture, such as recognizing the advantage of collaboration and teamwork, thereby creating a setting in which a larger range of students or employees can succeed.

Stephens, N. M., Townsend, S. S., & Dittman, A. G. (2018). Social-class disparities in higher education and professional workplaces: The role of cultural mismatch. Current Directions in Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0963721418806506

APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines .

Please login with your APS account to comment.

Scientists Look Beyond the WEIRD World of Happiness

Psychological scientists once equated happiness with well-being, but recent research suggests that there is significant cultural variation in the ingredients of a good life.

Global Science Requires Greater Equity, Diversity, and Cultural Precision  

Three authors discuss the discrepancy between espoused ideals for a global science and implicit biases that perpetuate unequal visibility and representation in psychological science.

Complexities and Lessons in Researching Culture-Specific Experiences

Gheirat exemplifies a complex, culture-specific experience that requires using culturally sensitive research practices to investigate. Explore these case-specific ideas and solutions for researching phenomena from little-understood and/or studied phenomena.

Privacy Overview

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Wiley Open Access Collection

The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour

Antony s. r. manstead.

1 Cardiff University, UK

Drawing on recent research on the psychology of social class, I argue that the material conditions in which people grow up and live have a lasting impact on their personal and social identities and that this influences both the way they think and feel about their social environment and key aspects of their social behaviour. Relative to middle‐class counterparts, lower/working‐class individuals are less likely to define themselves in terms of their socioeconomic status and are more likely to have interdependent self‐concepts; they are also more inclined to explain social events in situational terms, as a result of having a lower sense of personal control. Working‐class people score higher on measures of empathy and are more likely to help others in distress. The widely held view that working‐class individuals are more prejudiced towards immigrants and ethnic minorities is shown to be a function of economic threat, in that highly educated people also express prejudice towards these groups when the latter are described as highly educated and therefore pose an economic threat. The fact that middle‐class norms of independence prevail in universities and prestigious workplaces makes working‐class people less likely to apply for positions in such institutions, less likely to be selected and less likely to stay if selected. In other words, social class differences in identity, cognition, feelings, and behaviour make it less likely that working‐class individuals can benefit from educational and occupational opportunities to improve their material circumstances. This means that redistributive policies are needed to break the cycle of deprivation that limits opportunities and threatens social cohesion.

We are all middle class now. John Prescott, former Labour Deputy Prime Minister, 1997

Class is a Communist concept. It groups people as bundles and sets them against one another. Margaret Thatcher, former Conservative Prime Minister, 1992

One of the ironies of modern Western societies, with their emphasis on meritocratic values that promote the notion that people can achieve what they want if they have enough talent and are prepared to work hard, is that the divisions between social classes are becoming wider, not narrower. In the United Kingdom, for example, figures from the Equality Trust ( 2017 ) show that the top one‐fifth of households have 40% of national income, whereas the bottom one‐fifth have just 8%. These figures are based on 2012 data. Between 1938 and 1979, income inequality in the United Kingdom did reduce to some extent, but in subsequent decades, this process has reversed. Between 1979 and 2009/2010, the top 10% of the population increased its share of national income from 21% to 31%, whereas the share received by the bottom 10% fell from 4% to 1%. Wealth inequality is even starker than income inequality. Figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS, 2014 ) show that in the period 2012–2014, the wealthiest 10% of households in Great Britain owned 45% of household wealth, whereas the least wealthy 50% of households owned <9%. How can these very large divisions in material income and wealth be reconciled with the view that the class structure that used to prevail in the United Kingdom until at least the mid‐20th century is no longer relevant, because the traditional working class has ‘disappeared’, as asserted by John Prescott in one of the opening quotes, and reflected in the thesis of embourgeoisement analysed by Goldthorpe and Lockwood ( 1963 )? More pertinently for the present article, what implications do these changing patterns of wealth and income distribution have for class identity, social cognition, and social behaviour?

The first point to address concerns the supposed disappearance of the class system. As recent sociological research has conclusively shown, the class system in the United Kingdom is very much still in existence, albeit in a way that differs from the more traditional forms that were based primarily on occupation. In one of the more comprehensive recent studies, Savage et al . ( 2013 ) analysed the results of a large survey of social class in the United Kingdom, the BBC's 2011 Great British Class Survey, which involved 161,400 web respondents, along with the results of a nationally representative sample survey. Using latent class analysis, the authors identified seven classes, ranging from an ‘elite’, with an average annual household income of £89,000, to a ‘precariat’ with an average annual household income of £8,000. Among the many interesting results is the fact that the ‘traditional working‐class’ category formed only 14% of the population. This undoubtedly reflects the impact of de‐industrialization and is almost certainly the basis of the widely held view that the ‘old’ class system in the United Kingdom no longer applies. As Savage et al .'s research clearly shows, the old class system has been reconfigured as a result of economic and political developments, but it is patently true that the members of the different classes identified by these researchers inhabit worlds that rarely intersect, let alone overlap. The research by Savage et al . revealed that the differences between the social classes they identified extended beyond differences in financial circumstances. There were also marked differences in social and cultural capital, as indexed by size of social network and extent of engagement with different cultural activities, respectively. From a social psychological perspective, it seems likely that growing up and living under such different social and economic contexts would have a considerable impact on people's thoughts, feelings and behaviours. The central aim of this article was to examine the nature of this impact.

One interesting reflection of the complicated ways in which objective and subjective indicators of social class intersect can be found in an analysis of data from the British Social Attitudes survey (Evans & Mellon, 2016 ). Despite the fact that there has been a dramatic decline in traditional working‐class occupations, large numbers of UK citizens still describe themselves as being ‘working class’. Overall, around 60% of respondents define themselves as working class, and the proportion of people who do so has hardly changed during the past 33 years. One might reasonably ask whether and how much it matters that many people whose occupational status suggests that they are middle class describe themselves as working class. Evans and Mellon ( 2016 ) show quite persuasively that this self‐identification does matter. In all occupational classes other than managerial and professional, whether respondents identified themselves as working class or middle class made a substantial difference to their political attitudes, with those identifying as working class being less likely to be classed as right‐wing. No wonder Margaret Thatcher was keen to dispense with the concept of class, as evidenced by the quotation at the start of this paper. Moreover, self‐identification as working class was significantly associated with social attitudes in all occupational classes. For example, these respondents were more likely to have authoritarian attitudes and less likely to be in favour of immigration, a point I will return to later. It is clear from this research that subjective class identity is linked to quite marked differences in socio‐political attitudes.

A note on terminology

In what follows, I will refer to a set of concepts that are related but by no means interchangeable. As we have already seen, there is a distinction to be drawn between objective and subjective indicators of social class. In Marxist terms, class is defined objectively in terms of one's relationship to the means of production. You either have ownership of the means of production, in which case you belong to the bourgeoisie, or you sell your labour, in which case you belong to the proletariat, and there is a clear qualitative difference between the two classes. This worked well when most people could be classified either as owners or as workers. As we have seen, such an approach has become harder to sustain in an era when traditional occupations have been shrinking or have already disappeared, a sizeable middle‐class of managers and professionals has emerged, and class divisions are based on wealth and social and cultural capital.

An alternative approach is one that focuses on quantitative differences in socioeconomic status (SES), which is generally defined in terms of an individual's economic position and educational attainment, relative to others, as well as his or her occupation. As will be shown below, when people are asked about their identities, they think more readily in terms of SES than in terms of social class. This is probably because they have a reasonable sense of where they stand, relative to others, in terms of economic factors and educational attainment, and perhaps recognize that traditional boundaries between social classes have become less distinct. For these reasons, much of the social psychological literature on social class has focused on SES as indexed by income and educational attainment, and/or on subjective social class, rather than social class defined in terms of relationship to the means of production. For present purposes, the terms ‘working class’, which tends to be used more by European researchers, and ‘lower class’, which tends to be used by US researchers, are used interchangeably. Similarly, the terms ‘middle class’ and ‘upper class’ will be used interchangeably, despite the different connotations of the latter term in the United States and in Europe, where it tends to be reserved for members of the land‐owning aristocracy. A final point about terminology concerns ‘ideology’, which will here be used to refer to a set of beliefs, norms and values, examples being the meritocratic ideology that pervades most education systems and the (related) ideology of social mobility that is prominent in the United States.

Socioeconomic status and identity

Social psychological analyses of identity have traditionally not paid much attention to social class or SES as a component of identity. Instead, the focus has been on categories such as race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality and age. Easterbrook, Kuppens, and Manstead ( 2018 ) analysed data from two large, representative samples of British adults and showed that respondents placed high subjective importance on their identities that are indicative of SES. Indeed, they attached at least as much importance to their SES identities as they did to identities (such as ethnicity or gender) more commonly studied by self and identity researchers. Easterbrook and colleagues also showed that objective indicators of a person's SES were robust and powerful predictors of the importance they placed on different types of identities within their self‐concepts: Those with higher SES attached more importance to identities that are indicative of their SES position, but less importance on identities that are rooted in basic demographics or related to their sociocultural orientation (and vice versa).

To arrive at these conclusions, Easterbook and colleagues analysed data from two large British surveys: The Citizenship Survey (CS; Department for Communities and Local Government, 2012 ); and Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study (USS; Buck & McFall, 2012 ). The CS is a (now discontinued) biannual survey of a regionally representative sample of around 10,000 adults in England and Wales, with an ethnic minority boost sample of around 5,000. The researchers analysed the most recent data, collected via interviews in 2010–2011. The USS is an annual longitudinal household panel survey that began in 2009. Easterbrook and colleagues analysed Wave 5 (2013–2014), the more recent of the two waves in which the majority of respondents answered questions relevant to class and other social identities.

Both the CS and the USS included a question about the extent to which respondents incorporated different identities into their sense of self. Respondents were asked how important these identities were ‘to your sense of who you are’. The CS included a broad range of identities, including profession, ethnic background, family, gender, age/life stage, income and education. The USS included a shorter list of identities, including profession, education, ethnic background, family, gender and age/life stage. When the responses to these questions were factor analysed, Easterbrook and colleagues found three factors that were common to the two datasets: SES‐based identities (e.g., income), basic‐demographic identities (e.g., age), and identities based on sociocultural orientation (e.g., ethnic background). In both datasets, the importance of each of these three identities was systematically related to objective indicators of the respondents’ SES: As the respondent's SES increased, the subjective importance of SES‐related identities increased, whereas the importance of basic‐demographic and (to a lesser extent) sociocultural identities decreased. Interestingly, these findings echo those of a qualitative, interview‐based study conducted with American college students: Aries and Seider ( 2007 ) found that affluent respondents were more likely than their less affluent counterparts to acknowledge the importance of social class in shaping their identities. As the researchers put it, ‘The affluent students were well aware of the educational benefits that had accrued from their economically privileged status and of the opportunities that they had to travel and pursue their interests. The lower‐income students were more likely to downplay class in their conception of their own identities than were the affluent students’ (p. 151).

Thus, despite SES receiving relatively scant attention from self and identity researchers, there is converging quantitative and qualitative evidence that SES plays an important role in structuring the self‐concept.

Contexts that shape self‐construal: Home, school, and work

Stephens, Markus, and Phillips ( 2014 ) have analysed the ways in which social class shapes the self‐concept through the ‘gateway contexts’ of home, school, and work. With a focus on the United States, but with broader implications, they argue that social class gives rise to culture‐specific selves and patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. One type of self they label ‘hard interdependence.’ This, they argue, is characteristic of those who grow up in low‐income, working‐class environments. As the authors put it, ‘With higher levels of material constraints and fewer opportunities for influence, choice, and control, working‐class contexts tend to afford an understanding of the self and behavior as interdependent with others and the social context’ (p. 615). The ‘hard’ aspect of this self derives from the resilience that is needed to cope with adversity. The other type of self the authors identify is ‘expressive independence’, which is argued to be typical of those who grow up in affluent, middle‐class contexts. By comparison with working‐class people, those who grow up in middle‐class households ‘need to worry far less about making ends meet or overcoming persistent threats … Instead, middle‐class contexts enable people to act in ways that reflect and further reinforce the independent cultural ideal – expressing their personal preferences, influencing their social contexts, standing out from others, and developing and exploring their own interests’ (p. 615). Stephens and colleagues review a wide range of work on socialization that supports their argument that the contexts of home, school and workplace foster these different self‐conceptions. They also argue that middle‐class schools and workplaces use expressive independence as a standard for measuring success, and thereby create institutional barriers to upward social mobility.

The idea that schools are contexts in which social class inequalities are reinforced may initially seem puzzling, given that schools are supposed to be meritocratic environments in which achievement is shaped by ability and effort, rather than by any advantage conferred by class background. However, as Bourdieu and Passeron ( 1990 ) have argued, the school system reproduces social inequalities by promoting norms and values that are more familiar to children from middle‐class backgrounds. To the extent that this helps middle‐class children to outperform their working‐class peers, the ‘meritocratic’ belief that such performance differences are due to differences in ability and/or effort will serve to ‘explain’ and legitimate unequal performance. Consistent with this argument, Darnon, Wiederkehr, Dompnier, and Martinot ( 2018 ) primed the concept of merit in French fifth‐grade schoolchildren and found that this led to lower scores on language and mathematics tests – but that this only applied to low‐SES children. Moreover, the effect of the merit prime on test performance was mediated by the extent to which the children endorsed meritocratic beliefs. Here, then, is evidence that the ideology of meritocracy helps to reproduce social class differences in school settings.

Subjective social class

Stephens et al .’s ( 2014 ) conceptualization of culture‐specific selves that vary as a function of social class is compatible with the ‘subjective social rank’ argument advanced by Kraus, Piff, and Keltner ( 2011 ). The latter authors argue that the differences in material resources available to working‐ and middle‐class people create cultural identities that are based on subjective perceptions of social rank in relation to others. These perceptions are based on distinctive patterns of observable behaviour arising from differences in wealth, education, and occupation. ‘To the extent that these patterns of behavior are both observable and reliably associated with individual wealth, occupational prestige, and education, they become potential signals to others of a person's social class’ (Kraus et al ., 2011 , p. 246). Among the signals of social class is non‐verbal behaviour. Kraus and Keltner ( 2009 ) studied non‐verbal behaviour in pairs of people from different social class backgrounds and found that whereas upper‐class individuals were more disengaged non‐verbally, lower‐class individuals exhibited more socially engaged eye contact, head nods, and laughter. Furthermore, when naïve observers were shown 60‐s excerpts of these interactions, they used these disengaged versus engaged non‐verbal behavioural styles to make judgements of the educational and income backgrounds of the people they had seen with above‐chance accuracy. In other words, social class differences are reflected in social signals, and these signals can be used by individuals to assess their subjective social rank. By comparing their wealth, education, occupation, aesthetic tastes, and behaviour with those of others, individuals can determine where they stand in the social hierarchy, and this subjective social rank then shapes other aspects of their social behaviour. More recent research has confirmed these findings. Becker, Kraus, and Rheinschmidt‐Same ( 2017 ) found that people's social class could be judged with above‐chance accuracy from uploaded Facebook photographs, while Kraus, Park, and Tan ( 2017 ) found that when Americans were asked to judge a speaker's social class from just seven spoken words, the accuracy of their judgments was again above chance.

The fact that there are behavioural signals of social class also opens up the potential for others to hold prejudiced attitudes and to engage in discriminatory behaviour towards those from a lower social class, although Kraus et al . ( 2011 ) focus is on how the social comparison process affects the self‐perception of social rank, and how this in turn affects other aspects of social behaviour. These authors argue that subjective social rank ‘exerts broad influences on thought, emotion, and social behavior independently of the substance of objective social class’ (p. 248). The relation between objective and subjective social class is an interesting issue in its own right. Objective social class is generally operationalized in terms of wealth and income, educational attainment, and occupation. These are the three ‘gateway contexts’ identified by Stephens et al . ( 2014 ). As argued by them, these contexts have a powerful influence on individual cognition and behaviour who operate within them, but they do not fully determine how individuals developing and living in these contexts think, feel, and act. Likewise, there will be circumstances in which individuals who objectively are, say, middle‐class construe themselves as having low subjective social rank as a result of the context in which they live.

There is evidence from health psychology that measures of objective and subjective social class have independent effects on health outcomes, with subjective social class explaining variation in health outcomes over and above what can be accounted for in terms of objective social class (Adler, Epel, Castellazzo, & Ickovics, 2000 ; Cohen et al ., 2008 ). For example, in the prospective study by Cohen et al . ( 2008 ), 193 volunteers were exposed to a cold or influenza virus and monitored in quarantine for objective and subjective signs of illness. Higher subjective class was associated with less risk of becoming ill as a result of virus exposure, and this relation was independent of objective social class. Additional analyses suggested that the impact of subjective social class on likelihood of becoming ill was due in part to differences in sleep quantity and quality. The most plausible explanation for such findings is that low subjective social class is associated with greater stress. It may be that seeing oneself as being low in subjective class is itself a source of stress, or that it increases vulnerability to the effects of stress.

Below I organize the social psychological literature on social class in terms of the impact of class on three types of outcome: thought , encompassing social cognition and attitudes; emotion , with a focus on moral emotions and prosocial behaviour; and behaviour in high‐prestige educational and workplace settings. I will show that these impacts of social class are consistent with the view that the different construals of the self that are fostered by growing up in low versus high social class contexts have lasting psychological consequences.

Social cognition and attitudes

The ways in which these differences in self‐construal shape social cognition have been synthesized into a theoretical model by Kraus, Piff, Mendoza‐Denton, Rheinschmidt, and Keltner ( 2012 ). This model is shown in Figure  1 . They characterize the way lower‐class individuals think about the social environment as ‘contextualism’, meaning a psychological orientation that is motivated by the need to deal with external constraints and threats; and the way that upper‐class people think about the social environment as ‘solipsism’, meaning an orientation that is motivated by internal states such as emotion and by personal goals. One way in which these different orientations manifest themselves is in differences in responses to threat. The premise here is that lower‐class contexts are objectively characterized by greater levels of threat, as reflected in less security in employment, housing, personal safety, and health. These chronic threats foster the development of a ‘threat detection system’, with the result that people who grow up in such environments have a heightened vigilance to threat.

Model of the way in which middle‐ and working‐class contexts shape social cognition, as proposed by Kraus et al . ( 2012 ). From Kraus et al . ( 2012 ), published by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.

Another important difference between the contextualist lower‐class orientation and the solipsistic upper‐class one, according to Kraus et al . ( 2012 ), is in perceived control. Perceived control is closely related to other key psychological constructs, such as attributions. The evidence shows very clearly that those with lower subjective social class are also lower in their sense of personal control, and it also suggests that this reduced sense of control is related to a preference for situational (rather than dispositional) attributions for a range of social phenomena, including social inequality. The logic connecting social class to perceptions of control is straightforward: Those who grow up in middle‐ or upper‐class environments are likely to have more material and psychological resources available to them, and as a result have stronger beliefs about the extent to which they can shape their own social outcomes; by contrast, those who grow up in lower‐class environments are likely to have fewer resources available to them, and as a result have weaker beliefs about their ability to control their outcomes. There is good empirical support for these linkages. In a series of four studies, Kraus, Piff, and Keltner ( 2009 ) found that, by comparison with their higher subjective social class counterparts, lower subjective social class individuals (1) reported lower perceived control and (2) were more likely to explain various phenomena, ranging from income inequality to broader social outcomes like getting into medical school, contracting HIV, or being obese, as caused by external factors, ones that are beyond the control of the individual. Moreover, consistent with the authors’ reasoning, there was a significant indirect effect of subjective social class on the tendency to see phenomena as caused by external factors, via perceived control.

Another important social cognition measure in relation to social class is prejudice. There are two aspects of prejudice in this context. One is prejudice against people of a different class than one's own and especially attitudes towards those who are poor or unemployed; the other is the degree to which people's prejudiced attitudes about other social groups are associated with their own social class. Regarding attitudes to people who belong to a different social class, the UK evidence clearly shows that attitudes to poverty have changed over the last three decades, in that there is a rising trend for people to believe that those who live in need do so because of a lack of willpower, or because of laziness, accompanied by a corresponding decline in the belief that people live in need because of societal injustice (Clery, Lee, & Kunz, 2013 ). Interestingly, in their analysis of British Social Attitudes data over a period of 28 years, Clery et al . conclude that ‘there are no clear patterns of change in the views of different social classes, suggesting changing economic circumstances exert an impact on attitudes to poverty across society, not just among those most likely to be affected by them’ (p. 18). Given the changing attitudes to poverty, it is unsurprising to find that public attitudes to welfare spending and to redistributive taxation have also changed in a way that reflects less sympathy for those living in poverty. For example, attitudes to benefits for the unemployed have changed sharply in the United Kingdom since 1997, when a majority of respondents still believed that benefits were too low. By 2008, an overwhelming majority of respondents believed that these benefits were too high (Taylor‐Gooby, 2013 ). The way in which economic austerity has affected attitudes to these issues was the subject of qualitative research conducted by Valentine ( 2014 ). Interviews with 90 people in northern England, drawn from a range of social and ethnic backgrounds, showed that many respondents believed that unemployment is due to personal, rather than structural, failings, and that it is a ‘lifestyle choice’, leading interviewees to blame the unemployed for their lack of work and to have negative attitudes to welfare provision. Valentine ( 2014 , p. 2) observed that ‘a moralised sense of poverty as the result of individual choice, rather than structural disadvantage and inequality, was in evidence across the majority of respondents’, and that ‘Negative attitudes to welfare provision were identified across a variety of social positions and were not exclusively reserved to individuals from either working class or middle class backgrounds’.

Turning to the attitudes to broader social issues held by members of different social classes, there is a long tradition in social science of arguing that working‐class people are more prejudiced on a number of issues, especially with respect to ethnic minorities and immigrants (e.g., Lipset, 1959 ). Indeed, there is no shortage of evidence showing that working‐class white people do express more negative attitudes towards these groups. One explanation for this association is that working‐class people tend to be more authoritarian – a view that can be traced back to the early research on the authoritarian personality (Adorno, Frenkel‐Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950 ). Recent research providing evidence in favour of this view is reported by Carvacho et al . ( 2013 ). Using a combination of cross‐sectional surveys and longitudinal studies conducted in Europe and Chile, these authors focused on the role of ideological attitudes, in the shape of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer, 1998 ) and social dominance orientation (SDO; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999 ), as mediators of the relation between social class and prejudice. To test their predictions, the researchers analysed four public opinion datasets: one based on eight representative samples in Germany; a second based on representative samples from four European countries (France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands); a third based on longitudinal research in Germany; and a fourth based on longitudinal research in Chile. Consistent with previous research, the researchers found that income and education, the two indices of social class that they used, predicted higher scores on a range of measures of prejudice, such that lower income and education were associated with greater prejudice – although education proved to be a more consistently significant predictor of prejudice than income did. RWA and SDO were negatively associated with income and education, such that higher scores on income and education predicted lower scores on RWA and SDO. Finally, there was also evidence consistent with the mediation hypothesis: The associations between income and education, on the one hand, and measures of prejudice, on the other, were often (but not always) mediated by SDO and (more consistently) RWA. Carvacho and colleagues concluded that ‘the working class seems to develop and reproduce an ideological configuration that is generally well suited for legitimating the social system’ (p. 283).

Indeed, a theme that emerges from research on social class and attitudes is that ideological factors have a powerful influence on attitudes. The neoliberal ideology that has dominated political discourse in most Western, industrialized societies in the past three decades has influenced attitudes to such an extent that even supporters of left‐of‐centre political parties, such as the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, regard poverty as arising from individual factors and tend to hold negative beliefs about the level of welfare benefits for the unemployed. Such attitudes are shared to a perhaps surprising extent by working‐class people (Clery et al ., 2013 ) and, as we have seen, the research by Carvacho et al . ( 2013 ) suggests that working‐class people endorse ideologies that endorse and preserve a social system that materially disadvantages them.

The notion that people who are disadvantaged by a social system are especially likely to support it is known as the ‘system justification hypothesis’, which holds that ‘people who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it’ (Jost, Pelham, Sheldon, & Sullivan, 2003 , p. 13). The rationale for this prediction derives in part from cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957 ), the idea being that it is psychologically inconsistent to experience oppression but not to protest against the system that causes it. One way to reduce the resulting dissonance is to support the system even more strongly, in the same way that those who have to go through an unpleasant initiation rite in order to join a group or organization become more strongly committed to it.

Two large‐scale studies of survey data (Brandt, 2013 ; Caricati, 2017 ) have cast considerable doubt on the validity of this hypothesis, showing that any tendency for people who are at the bottom of a social system to be more likely to support the system than are their advantaged counterparts is, at best, far from robust. Moreover, it has been argued that there is in any case a basic theoretical inconsistency between system justification theory and cognitive dissonance theory (Owuamalam, Rubin, & Spears, 2016 ). However, the fact that working‐class people may not be more supportive of the capitalist system than their middle‐ and upper‐class counterparts does not mean that they do not support the system. Thus, the importance of Carvacho et al .'s ( 2013 ) findings is not necessarily undermined by the results reported by Brandt ( 2013 ) and Caricati ( 2017 ). Being willing to legitimate the system is not the same thing as having a stronger tendency to do this than people who derive greater advantages from the system.

The finding that there is an association between social class and prejudice has also been explained in terms of economic threat. The idea here is that members of ethnic minorities and immigrants also tend to be low in social status and are therefore more likely to be competing with working‐class people than with middle‐class people for jobs, housing, and other services. A strong way to test the economic threat explanation would be to assess whether higher‐class people are prejudiced when confronted with immigrants who are highly educated and likely to be competing with them for access to employment and housing. Such a test was conducted by Kuppens, Spears, Manstead, and Tausch ( 2018 ). These researchers examined whether more highly educated participants would express negative attitudes towards highly educated immigrants, especially when threat to the respondents’ own jobs was made salient, either by drawing attention to the negative economic outlook or by subtly implying that the respondents’ own qualifications might be insufficient in the current job market. Consistent with the economic threat hypothesis, a series of experimental studies with student participants in different European countries showed that attitudes to immigrants were most negative when the immigrants also had a university education.

The same researchers also combined US census data with American National Election Study survey data to examine whether symbolic racism was higher in areas where there was a higher number of Blacks with a similar education to that of the White participants. In areas where Blacks were on average less educated, a higher number Blacks was associated with more symbolic racism among Whites who had less education, but in areas where Blacks were on average highly educated, a higher number of Blacks was associated with more symbolic racism on the part of highly educated White people. Again, these findings are consistent with the view that prejudice arises from economic threat.

Research reported by Jetten, Mols, Healy, and Spears ( 2017 ) is also relevant to this issue. These authors examined how economic instability affects low‐SES and high‐SES people. Unsurprisingly, they found that collective angst was higher among low‐SES participants. However, they also found that high‐SES participants expressed anxiety when they were presented with information suggesting that there was high economic instability, that is, that the ‘economic bubble’ might be about to burst. Moreover, they were more likely to oppose immigration when economic instability was said to be high, rather than low. These results reflect the fact that high‐SES people have a lot to lose in times of economic crisis, and that this ‘fear of falling’ is associated with opposition to immigration.

Together, these results provide good support for an explanation of the association between social class and prejudice in terms of differential threat to the group (see also Brandt & Henry, 2012 ; Brandt & Van Tongeren, 2017 ). Ethnic minorities and immigrants typically pose most threat to the economic well‐being of working‐class people who have low educational qualifications, and this provides the basis for the observation that working‐class people are more likely to be prejudiced. The fact that higher‐educated and high‐SES people express negative views towards ethnic minorities and immigrants when their economic well‐being is threatened shows that it is perceived threat to one's group's interests that underpins this prejudice. It is also worth noting that the perception of threat to a group's economic interests is likely to be greater during times of economic recession.

Emotion and prosocial behaviour

A strong theme emerging from research investigating the relation between social class and emotion is that lower‐class individuals score more highly on measures of empathy. The rationale for expecting such a link is that because lower‐class individuals are more inclined to explain events in terms of external factors, they should be more sensitive to the ways in which external events shape the emotions of others, and therefore better at judging other people's emotions. A complementary rationale is that the tendency for lower social class individuals to be more socially engaged and to have more interdependent social relationships should result in greater awareness of the emotions experienced by others. This reasoning was tested in three studies reported by Kraus, Côté, and Keltner ( 2010 ).

In the first of these studies, the authors examined the relation between educational attainment (a proxy for social class) and scores on the emotion recognition subscale of the Mayer‐Salovey‐Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002 ). High‐school‐educated participants attained a higher score than did their college‐educated counterparts. In a second study, pairs of participants took part in a hypothetical job interview in which an experimenter asked each of them a set of standard questions. This interaction provided the basis for the measure of empathic accuracy, in that each participant was asked to rate both their own emotions and their partner's emotions during the interview. Subjective social class was again related to empathic accuracy, with lower‐class participants achieving a higher score. Moreover, lower‐class participants were more inclined to explain decisions they made in terms of situational rather than dispositional factors, and the relation between subjective social class and empathy was found to be mediated by this tendency to explain decisions in terms of situational factors. The researchers conducted a third study in which they manipulated subjective social class. This time they assessed empathic accuracy using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (Baron‐Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001 ). Participants who were temporarily induced to experience lower social class were better at recognizing emotions from the subtle cues available from the eye region of the face.

These findings are compatible with the view that lower social class individuals are more sensitive to contextual variation and more inclined to explain events in situational terms. However, some aspects of the results are quite surprising. For example, there seems to be no compelling reason to predict that greater sensitivity to contextual variation would be helpful in judging static facial expressions, which were the stimuli in Studies 1 and 3 of Kraus et al .'s ( 2010 ) research. Thus, the relation between social class and emotion recognition in these studies would seem to depend on the notion that the greater interdependence that is characteristic of lower‐class social environments fosters greater experience with, and therefore knowledge of, the relation between facial movement and subjective emotion, although it still seems surprising that a temporary induction of lower subjective social class, as used in Study 3, should elicit the same effect as extensive real‐life experience of inhabiting lower‐class environments.

If lower‐class individuals are more empathic than their higher‐class counterparts, and are therefore better at recognizing the distress or need of others, this is likely to influence their behaviour in settings where people are distressed and/or in need. This, indeed, is what the evidence suggests. In a series of four studies, Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, and Keltner ( 2010 ) found a consistent tendency for higher‐class individuals to be less inclined to help others than were their lower‐class counterparts. In Study 1, participants low in subjective social class made larger allocations in a dictator game (a game where you are free to allocate as much or as little of a resource to another person as you want) played with an anonymous other than did participants high in subjective social class. In Study 2, subjective social class was manipulated by asking participants to compare themselves to people either at the very top or very bottom of the status hierarchy ladder, the idea being that subjective social class should be lower for those making upward comparisons and higher for those making downward comparisons. Prosocial behaviour was measured by asking participants to indicate the percentage of income that people should spend on a variety of goods and services, one of which was charitable donations. Participants who were induced to experience lower subjective social class indicated that a greater percentage of people's annual salary should be spent on charitable donations compared to participants who were induced to experience higher subjective social class. In Study 3, the researchers used a combination of educational attainment and household income to assess social class and used social value orientation (Van Lange, De Bruin, Otten, & Joireman, 1997 ) as a measure of egalitarian values. These two variables were used to predict behaviour in a trust game. Consistent with predictions, lower‐class participants showed greater trust in their anonymous partner than did their higher‐class counterparts, and this relation was mediated by egalitarian values. In their final study, the researchers manipulated compassion by asking participants in the compassion condition to view a 46‐s video about child poverty. Higher‐ and lower‐class participants were then given the chance to help someone in need. The researchers predicted that helping would only be moderated by compassion among higher‐class participants, on the grounds that lower‐class participants would already be disposed to help, and the results were consistent with this prediction. Overall, these four studies are consistent in showing that, relative to higher‐class people, lower‐class people are more generous, support charity to a greater extent, are more trusting towards a stranger, and more likely to help a person in distress.

The reliability of this finding has been called into question by Korndörfer, Egloff, and Schmukle ( 2015 ), who found contrary evidence in a series of studies. One way to resolve these apparently discrepant findings is to argue, as Kraus and Callaghan ( 2016 ) did, that the relation between social class and prosocial behaviour is moderated by a number of factors, including whether the context is a public or private one. To test this idea, Kraus and Callaghan ( 2016 ) conducted a series of studies in which they manipulated whether donations made to an anonymous other in a dictator game were made in a private or public context. In the private context, the donor remained anonymous. In the public context, the donor's name and city of residence were announced, along with the donation. Lower‐class participants were more generous in private than in public, whereas the reverse was true for higher‐class participants. Interestingly, higher‐class participants were more likely to expect to feel proud about acting prosocially, and this difference in anticipated pride mediated the effect of social class on the difference between public and private donations.

The fact that lower‐class people have been found to hold more egalitarian values and to be more likely to help regardless of compassion level suggests that it is the greater resources of higher‐class participants that makes them more selfish and therefore less likely to help others. This ‘selfishness’ account of the social class effect on prosocial behaviour is supported by another series of studies reported by Piff, Stancato, Côté, Mendoza‐Denton, and Keltner ( 2012 ), who found that, relative to lower‐class individuals, higher‐class people were more likely to show unethical decision‐making tendencies, to take valued goods from others, to lie in a negotiation, to cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize and to endorse unethical behaviour at work. There was also evidence that these unethical tendencies were partly accounted for by more favourable attitudes towards greed among higher‐class people. Later research shows that the relation between social class and unethical behaviour is moderated by whether the behaviour benefits the self or others. Dubois, Rucker, and Galinsky ( 2015 ) varied who benefited from unethical behaviour and showed that the previously reported tendency for higher‐class people to make more unethical decisions was only observed when the outcome was beneficial to the self. These findings are consistent with the view that the greater resources enjoyed by higher‐class individuals result in a stronger focus on the self and a reduced concern for the welfare of others.

Interestingly, this stronger self‐focus and lesser concern for others’ welfare on the part of higher‐class people are more evident in contexts characterized by high economic inequality. This was shown by Côté, House, and Willer ( 2015 ), who analysed results from a nationally representative US survey and showed that higher‐income respondents were only less generous in the offers they made to an anonymous other in a dictator game than their lower‐income counterparts in areas that were high in economic inequality, as reflected in the Gini coefficient. Indeed, in low inequality areas, there was evidence that higher‐income respondents were more generous than their lower‐income counterparts. To test the causality of this differential association between income and generosity in high and low inequality areas, the authors conducted an experiment in which participants were led to believe that their home state was characterized by high or low degree of economic inequality and then played a dictator game with an anonymous other. High‐income participants were less generous than their low‐income counterparts in the high inequality condition but not in the low inequality condition.

A possible issue with Côté et al . ( 2015 ) research in the current context is that it focuses on income rather than class. Although these variables are clearly connected, class is generally thought to be indexed by more than income. The research nevertheless suggests that economic inequality plays a key role in shaping the attitudes and behaviours of higher‐class individuals. There are at least three (not mutually exclusive) explanations for this influence of inequality. One is that inequality increases the sense of entitlement in higher‐class people, because they engage more often in downward social comparisons. Another is that higher‐class people may be more concerned about losing their privileged position in society if they perceive a large gap between the rich and the poor. A final explanation is that higher‐class people may be more highly motivated to justify their privileged position in society when the gap between rich and poor is a large one. Whichever of these explanations is correct – and they may all be to some extent – the fact that prosocial behaviour on the part of higher‐class individuals decreases under conditions of high economic inequality is important, given that the United States is one of the most economically unequal societies in the industrialized world. In unequal societies, then, it seems safe to conclude that on average, higher‐class individuals are less likely than their lower‐class counterparts to behave prosocially, especially where the prosocial behaviour is not public in nature.

Universities and workplaces

The selective nature of higher education (HE), involving economic and/or qualification requirements to gain entry, makes a university a high‐status context. Working‐class people seeking to attain university‐level qualifications are therefore faced with working in an environment in which they may feel out of place. Highly selective universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in the United Kingdom, or Harvard, Stanford, and Yale in the United States, are especially likely to appear to be high in status and therefore out of reach. Indeed, the proportion of working‐class students at Oxford and Cambridge is strikingly low. According to the UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency , the percentage of students at Oxford and Cambridge who were from routine/manual occupational backgrounds was 11.5 and 12.6, respectively, in the academic year 2008/9. This compares with an ONS figure of 37% of all people aged between 16 and 63 in the United Kingdom being classified with such backgrounds. The figures for Oxford and Cambridge are extreme, but they illustrate a more general phenomenon, both in the United Kingdom and internationally: students at elite, research‐led universities are more likely to come from middle‐ and upper‐class backgrounds than from working‐class backgrounds (Jerrim, 2013 ).

The reasons for the very low representation of working‐class students at these elite institutions are complex (Chowdry, Crawford, Dearden, Goodman, & Vignoles, 2013 ), but at least one factor is that many working‐class students do not consider applying because they do not see themselves as feeling at home there. They see a mismatch between the identity conferred by their social backgrounds and the identity they associate with being a student at an elite university. This is evident from ethnographic research. For example, Reay, Crozier, and Clayton ( 2010 ) interviewed students from working‐class backgrounds who were attending one of four HE institutions, including an elite university (named Southern in the report). A student at Southern said this about her mother's reaction to her attending this elite university: ‘I don't think my mother really approves of me going to Southern. It's not what her daughter should be doing so I don't really mention it when I go home. It's kind of uncomfortable to talk about it’ (p. 116). In a separate paper, Reay, Crozier, and Clayton ( 2009 ) focus on the nine students attending Southern, examining whether these students felt like ‘fish out of water’. Indeed, there was evidence of difficulty in adjusting to the new environment, both socially and academically. One student said, ‘I wasn't keen on Southern as a place and all my preconceptions were “Oh, it's full of posh boarding school types”. And it was all true … it was a bit of a culture shock’ (p. 1111), while another said, ‘If you were the best at your secondary school … you're certainly not going to be the best here’ (p. 1112). A similar picture emerges from research in Canada by Lehmann ( 2009 , 2013 ), who interviewed working‐class students attending a research‐intensive university, and found that the students experienced uncomfortable conflicts between their new identities as university students and the ties they had with family members and non‐student friends.

Such is the reputation of elite, research‐intensive universities that working‐class high‐school students are unlikely to imagine themselves attending such institutions, even if they are academically able. Perceptions of these universities as elitist are likely to deter such students from applying. Evidence of this deterrence comes from research conducted by Nieuwenhuis, Easterbrook, and Manstead ( 2018 ). They report two studies in which 16‐ to 18‐year‐old secondary school students in the United Kingdom were asked about the universities they intended to apply to. The studies were designed to test the theoretical model shown in Figure  2 , which was influenced by prior work on the role of identity compatibility conducted by Jetten, Iyer, Tsivrikos, and Young ( 2008 ). According to the model in Figure  2 , SES influences university choice partly through its impact on perceived identity compatibility and anticipated acceptance at low‐ and high‐status universities.

Theoretical model of the way in which the socioeconomic status ( SES ) influences application to high‐status universities as a result of social identity factors and academic achievement, as proposed by Nieuwenhuis et al . ( 2018 ).

In the first study conducted by Nieuwenhuis and colleagues, students who were 6 months away from making their university applications responded to questions about their perceptions of two universities, one a research‐intensive, selective university (SU), the other a less selective university (LSU). Both universities were located in the same geographical region, not far from the schools where the participants were recruited. In the second study, students who were 6 weeks away from making their university applications responded to similar questions, but this time about three universities in the region, two of which were the same as those in Study 1, while the third was a highly selective institution (HSU). The questions put to respondents measured their perceptions of identity compatibility (e.g., consistency between family background and decision to go to university) and anticipated acceptance (e.g., anticipated identification with students at the university in question). Measures of parental education and academic achievement in previous examinations were taken, as well as the three universities to which they would most like to apply, which were scored in accordance with a published national league table.

In both studies, it was found that relatively disadvantaged students (whose parents had low levels of educational attainment) scored lower on identity compatibility and that low scores on identity compatibility were associated with lower anticipated acceptance at the SU (Study 1) or at the HSU (Study 2). These anticipated acceptance scores, in turn, predicted the type of university to which participants wanted to apply, with those who anticipated feeling accepted at more selective universities being more likely to apply to higher status universities. All of these relations were significant while controlling for academic achievement. Together, the results of these studies show that perceptions of acceptance at different types of university are associated with HE choices independently of students’ academic ability. This helps to explain why highly able students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to settle for less prestigious universities.

Alternatively, working‐class students may opt out of HE altogether. Hutchings and Archer ( 2001 ) interviewed young working‐class people who were not participating in HE and found that a key reason for their non‐participation was a perception that the kinds of HE institutions that were realistically available to them were second‐rate: ‘[O]ur respondents constructed two very different pictures of HE. One was of Oxbridge and campus universities, pleasant environments in which middle‐class students … can look forward to achieving prestigious degrees and careers. The second construction was of rather unattractive buildings in which “skint” working‐class students … have to work hard under considerable pressure, combining study with a job and having little time for social life. This second picture was the sort of HE that our respondents generally talked about as available to them, and they saw it as inferior to ‘real’ HE’ (p. 87).

Despite the deterrent effect of perceived identity incompatibility and lack of psychological fit, some working‐class students do gain entry to high‐status universities. Once there, they are confronted with the same issues of fit. Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson, and Covarrubias ( 2012 ) describe this as ‘cultural mismatch’, arguing that the interdependent norms that characterize the working‐class backgrounds of most first‐generation college students in the United States do not match the middle‐class independent norms that prevail in universities offering 4‐year degrees and that this mismatch leads to greater discomfort and poorer academic performance. Their cultural mismatch model is summarized in Figure  3 .

Model of cultural mismatch proposed by Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al . ( 2012 ). The mismatch is between first‐generation college students’ norms, which are more interdependent than those of continuing‐generation students, and the norms of independence that prevail in universities. From Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al . ( 2012 ), published by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.

To test this model, Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al . ( 2012 ) surveyed university administrators at the top 50 national universities and the top 25 liberal arts colleges. The majority of the 261 respondents were deans. They were asked to respond to items expressing interdependent (e.g., learn to work together with others) or independent (e.g., learn to express oneself) norms, selecting those that characterized their institution's culture or choosing statements reflecting what was more often emphasized by the institution. More than 70% of the respondents chose items reflecting a greater emphasis on independence than on interdependence. Similar results were found in a follow‐up study involving 50 administrators at second‐tier universities and liberal arts colleges, showing that this stronger focus on independence was not only true of elite institutions. Moreover, a longitudinal study of first‐generation students found that this focus on independence did not match the students’ interdependent motives for going to college, in that first‐generation students selected fewer independent motives (e.g., become an independent thinker) and twice as many interdependent motives (e.g., give back to the community), compared to their continuing‐generation counterparts, and that this greater focus on interdependent motives was associated with lower grades in the first 2 years of study, even after controlling for race and SAT scores.

As Stephens and her colleagues have shown elsewhere (e.g., Stephens, Brannon, Markus, & Nelson, 2015 ), there are steps that can be taken to reduce working‐class students’ perception that they do not fit with their university environment. These authors argue that ‘a key goal of interventions should be to fortify and to elaborate school‐relevant selves – the understanding that getting a college degree is central to “who I am”, “who I hope to become”, and “the future I envision for myself”’ (p. 3). Among the interventions that they advocate as ways of creating a more inclusive culture at university are: providing working‐class role models; diversifying the way in which university experience is represented, so that university culture also provides ways of achieving interdependent goals that may be more compatible with working‐class students’ values; and ensuring that working‐class students have a voice, for example, by providing forums in which they can express shared interests and concerns.

Although there is a less well‐developed line of work on the ways in which high‐status places of work affect the aspirations and behaviours of working‐class employees, there is good reason to assume that the effects and processes identified in research on universities as places to study generalize to prestigious employment organizations as places to work (Côté, 2011 ). To the extent that many workplaces are dominated by middle‐class values and practices, working‐class employees are likely to feel out of place (Ridgway & Fisk, 2012 ). This applies both to gaining entry to the workplace, by negotiating the application and selection process (Rivera, 2012 ), and (if successful) to the daily interactions between employees in the workplace. In the view of Stephens, Fryberg, and Markus ( 2012 ), many workplaces are characterized by cultures of expressive independence, where working‐class employees are less likely to feel at home. As Stephens et al . ( 2014 , p. 626) argue, ‘This mismatch between working‐class employees and their middle‐class colleagues and institutions could also reduce employees’ job security and satisfaction, continuing the cycle of disadvantage for working‐class employees.’

Towards an integrative model

The work reviewed here provides the basis for an integrative model of how social class affects thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. The model is shown in Figure  4 and builds on the work of others, especially that of Nicole Stephens and colleagues and that of Michael Kraus and colleagues. At the base of the model are differences in the material circumstances of working‐class and middle‐class people. These differences in income and wealth are associated with differences in social capital, in the form of friendship networks, and cultural capital, in the form of tacit knowledge about how systems work, that have a profound effect on the ways in which individuals who grow up in these different contexts construe themselves and their social environments. For example, if you have family members or friends who have university degrees and/or professional qualifications, you are more likely to entertain these as possible futures than if you do not have these networks; and if through these networks you have been exposed to libraries, museums, interviews, and so on, you are more likely to know how these cultural institutions work, less likely to be intimidated by them, and more likely to make use of them. In sum, a middle‐class upbringing is more likely to promote the perception that the environment is one full of challenges that can be met rather than threats that need to be avoided. These differences in self‐construal and models of interpersonal relations translate into differences in social emotions and behaviours that are noticeable to self and others, creating the opportunity for people to rank themselves and others, and for differences in norms and values to emerge. To the extent that high‐status institutions in society, such as elite universities and prestigious employers, are characterized by norms and values that are different from those that are familiar to working‐class people, the latter will feel uncomfortable in such institutions and will perform below their true potential.

Integrative model of how differences in material conditions generate social class differences and differences in social cognition, emotion, and behaviour.

Also depicted in Figure  4 is the way in which ideology moderates the relations between social class, on the one hand, and social cognition and social behaviour, on the other, and the ways in which economic inequality and threat moderate the relations between psychological dispositions and social behaviour. Although there is good evidence for many of the proposed relations depicted in the model, there is relatively little hard evidence concerning the moderating roles of ideology and economic inequality and threat. There is evidence that economic threat is associated with prejudice (e.g., Billiet, Meuleman, & De Witte, 2014 ), and that this also applies to higher‐educated people (e.g., Kuppens et al ., 2018 ). There is also evidence that high economic inequality increases the tendency for high‐income people to be less generous to others (Côté et al ., 2015 ), but these are influences that need further examination. Likewise, there is evidence of the moderating impact of ideology on the translation from social class to social cognition and behaviour (e.g., Wiederkehr, Bonnot, Krauth‐Gruber, & Darnon, 2015 ), but this, too, is an influence that merits additional investigation. A further point worth making is that much of the work on which this integrative model is based was conducted in the United States, which raises the question of the extent to which it is applicable to other contexts. There are some differences between the United States and other Western, industrialized countries that are relevant to the model. For example, the United States is more economically unequal than virtually every other industrialized country (Piketty & Saez, 2014 ). At the same time, the perceived degree of social mobility is greater in the United States than in other countries (Isaacs, 2008 ) – although the reality is that social mobility is lower in the United States (and indeed in the United Kingdom; see Social Mobility Commission, 2017 ) than in many other industrialized counties (Isaacs, 2008 ). These differences in economic inequality and ideology mean that the moderating roles played by these factors may vary from one country to another. For example, there is evidence that those in Europe who are poor or on the left of the political spectrum are more concerned with and unhappy about inequality than are their American counterparts, which may be related to different beliefs about social mobility (Alesina, Di Tella, & MacCulloch, 2004 ). Although there seems to be no good reason to question the generalizability of the other relations posited in the model, there is an obvious need to expand the research base on which the model is founded.

Prospects for social change

The cycle of disadvantage that starts with poor material conditions and ends with lower chances of entering and succeeding in the very contexts (universities and high‐status workplaces) that could increase social mobility is not going to be changed in the absence of substantial pressure for social change. It is therefore interesting that when people are asked about social inequality, they generally say that they are in favour of greater equality.

Norton and Ariely ( 2011 ) asked a nationally representative sample of more than 5,500 Americans to estimate the (then) current wealth distribution in the United States and also to express their preferences for how wealth should be distributed. The key findings from this research were (1) that respondents greatly underestimated the degree of wealth inequality in the United States, believing that the wealthiest 20% of the population owned 59% of the wealth, where the actual figure is 84% and (2) that their preferred distribution of wealth among citizens was closer to equality than even their own incorrect estimations of the distribution (e.g., they expressed a preference that the top 20% should own 32% of the nation's wealth). This also held for wealthy respondents and Republican voters – albeit to a lesser extent than their poorer and Democrat counterparts. Similar results for Australian respondents were reported by Norton, Neal, Govan, Ariely, and Holland ( 2014 ).

These studies have been criticized on the grounds that the ‘quintile’ methodology they use provides respondents with an anchor (20%) from which they adjust upwards or downwards. However, when Eriksson and Simpson ( 2012 ) used a different methodology, they found that although American respondents’ preferences for wealth distribution were more unequal than those found using the quintile methodology, they were still much more egalitarian than the actual distribution. Similar conclusions were reached in a study of American adolescents conducted by Flanagan and Kornbluh ( 2017 ), where participants expressed a strong preference for a much more egalitarian society than the degree of stratification they perceived to exist in the United States. It is also worth noting that similar findings have been reported in a study of preferences for income inequality (Kiatpongsan & Norton, 2014 ), where it was found that American respondents underestimated the actual difference in income between CEOs and unskilled workers (354:1), and that their preferences regarding this difference (7:1) were more egalitarian than were their estimates (30:1).

Given the evidence that citizens consistently express a preference for less wealth and income inequality than what currently prevails in many societies, it is worth considering why there is not greater support for redistributive policies. It is known that one factor that weakens support for such policies is a belief in social mobility. American participants have been found to overestimate the degree of social mobility in the United States (Davidai & Gilovich, 2015 ; Kraus & Tan, 2015 ), and Shariff, Wiwad, and Aknin ( 2016 ) have shown, using a combination of survey and experimental methods, that higher perceived mobility leads to greater acceptance of income inequality. These authors also showed that the effect of their manipulation of perceived income mobility on tolerance for inequality was mediated by two factors: the expectation that respondents’ children would be upwardly mobile; and perceptions of the degree to which someone's economic standing was the result of effort, rather than luck. This suggests that people's attitudes to income inequality – and therefore their support for steps to reduce it – are shaped by their perceptions that (1) higher incomes are possible to achieve, at least for their children, and (2) when these higher incomes are achieved, they are deserved. It follows that any intervention that reduces the tendency to overestimate income mobility should increase support for redistributive policies.

Another factor that helps to account for lack of support for redistribution is people's perceptions of their own social standing or rank. Brown‐Iannuzzi, Lundberg, Kay, and Payne ( 2015 ) have shown that subjective status is correlated with support for redistributive policies, and that experimentally altering subjective status leads to changes in such support. In both cases, lower subjective status was associated with stronger support for redistribution, even when actual resources and self‐interest were held constant. So one's perception of one's own relative social rank influences support for redistribution. This points to the importance of social comparisons and suggests that those who compare themselves with others who have a lower social standing are less likely to be supportive of redistribution.

Evidence that people's attitudes to inequality and to policies that would reduce it can be influenced by quite straightforward interventions comes from research reported by McCall, Burk, Laperrière, and Richeson ( 2017 ). In three studies, these researchers show that exposing American participants to information about the rising economic inequality, compared to control information, led to stronger perceptions that economic success is due to structural factors rather than individual effort. In the largest of the three studies, involving a representative sample of American adults, it was also found that information about rising inequality led to greater endorsement of policies that could be implemented by government and by business to reduce inequality. This research shows that, under the right conditions, even those living in a society that is traditionally opposed to government intervention would support government policies to reduce inequality.

Also relevant to the likelihood of people taking social action on this issue is how descriptions of inequality are framed. Bruckmüller, Reese, and Martiny ( 2017 ) have shown that relatively subtle variations in such framing, such as whether an advantaged group is described as having more or a disadvantaged group is described as having less, influence perceptions of the legitimacy of these differences; larger differences between groups were evaluated as less legitimate when the disadvantaged group was described as having less. Perceptions of the illegitimacy of inequality in group outcomes are likely to evoke group‐based anger, which in turn is known to be one of the predictors of collective action (Van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004 ).

There is solid evidence that the material circumstances in which people develop and live their lives have a profound influence on the ways in which they construe themselves and their social environments. The resulting differences in the ways that working‐class and middle‐ and upper‐class people think and act serve to reinforce these influences of social class background, making it harder for working‐class individuals to benefit from the kinds of educational and employment opportunities that would increase social mobility and thereby improve their material circumstances. At a time when economic inequality is increasing in many countries, this lack of mobility puts a strain on social cohesion. Most people believe that economic inequality is undesirable and, when presented with the evidence of growing inequality, say that they would support government policies designed to reduce it. Given that the social class differences reviewed here have their origins in economic inequality, it follows that redistributive (or ‘predistributive’; Taylor‐Gooby, 2013 ) policies are urgently needed to create greater equality.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Colin Foad, Matt Easterbrook, Russell Spears and John Drury for their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.

• Adler, N. E. , Epel, E. S. , Castellazzo, G. , & Ickovics, J. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy, White women . Health Psychology , 19 , 586–592. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.19.6.586 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Adorno, T. W. , Frenkel‐Brunswik, E. , Levinson, D. J. , & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality . New York, NY: Harper & Row. [ Google Scholar ]
• Alesina, A. , Di Tella, R. , & MacCulloch, R. (2004). Inequality and happiness: Are Europeans and Americans different? Journal of Public Economics , 88 , 2009–2042. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2003.07.006 [ Google Scholar ]
• Altemeyer, R. A. (1998). The other “authoritarian personality” . Advances in Experimental Social Psychology , 30 , 47–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60382-2 [ Google Scholar ]
• Aries, E. , & Seider, M. (2007). The role of social class in the formation of identity: A study of public and elite private college students . Journal of Social Psychology , 147 , 137–157. https://doi.org/10.3200/socp.147.2.137-157 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baron‐Cohen, S. , Wheelwright, S. , Hill, J. , Raste, Y. , & Plumb, I. (2001). The “Reading the mind in the eyes” test revised version: A study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high‐functioning autism . Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines , 42 , 241–251. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-7610.00715 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Becker, J. C. , Kraus, M. W. , & Rheinschmidt‐Same, M. (2017). Cultural expressions of social class and their implications for group‐related beliefs and behaviors . Journal of Social Issues , 73 , 158–174. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12209 [ Google Scholar ]
• Billiet, J. , Meuleman, B. , & De Witte, H. (2014). The relationship between ethnic threat and economic insecurity in times of economic crisis: Analysis of European Social Survey data . Migration Studies , 2 , 135–161. https://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnu023 [ Google Scholar ]
• Bourdieu, P. , & Passeron, J.‐C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brandt, M. J. (2013). Do the disadvantaged legitimize the social system? A large‐scale test of the status‐legitimacy hypothesis . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 104 , 765–785. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031751 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Brandt, M. J. , & Henry, P. J. (2012). Psychological defensiveness as a mechanism explaining the relationship between low socioeconomic status and religiosity . International Journal for the Psychology of Religion , 22 , 321–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2011.646565 [ Google Scholar ]
• Brandt, M. J. , & Van Tongeren, D. R. (2017). People both high and low on religious fundamentalism are prejudiced toward dissimilar groups . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 112 ( 1 ), 76–97. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000076 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Brown‐Iannuzzi, J. L. , Lundberg, K. B. , Kay, A. C. , & Payne, B. K. (2015). Subjective status shapes political preferences . Psychological Science , 26 , 15–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614553947 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bruckmüller, S. , Reese, G. , & Martiny, S. E. (2017). Is higher inequality less legitimate? Depends on how you frame it! British Journal of Social Psychology , 56 , 766–781. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12202 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Buck, N. , & McFall, S. (2012). Understanding society: Design overview . Longitudinal and Life Course Studies , 3 , 5–17. https://doi.org/10.14301/llcs.v3i1.159 [ Google Scholar ]
• Caricati, L. (2017). Testing the status‐legitimacy hypothesis: A multilevel modeling approach to the perception of legitimacy in income distribution in 36 nations . Journal of Social Psychology , 157 , 532–540. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2016.1242472 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Carvacho, H. , Zick, A. , Haye, A. , González, R. , Manzi, J. , Kocik, C. , & Bertl, M. (2013). On the relation between social class and prejudice: The roles of education, income, and ideological attitudes . European Journal of Social Psychology , 43 , 272–285. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1961 [ Google Scholar ]
• Chowdry, H. , Crawford, C. , Dearden, L. , Goodman, A. , & Vignoles, A. (2013). Widening participation in higher education: Analysis using linked administrative data . Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A , 176 , 431–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-985x.2012.01043.x [ Google Scholar ]
• Clery, E. , Lee, L. , & Kunz, S. (2013). Public attitudes to poverty and welfare, 1983–2011: Analysis using British attitudes data . London, UK: NatCen Social Research. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cohen, S. , Alper, C. M. , Doyle, W. J. , Adler, N. , Treanor, J. J. , & Turner, R. B. (2008). Objective and subjective socioeconomic status and susceptibility to the common cold . Health Psychology , 27 , 268–274. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.27.2.268 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Côté, S. (2011). How social class shapes thoughts and actions in organizations . Research in Organizational Behavior , 31 , 43–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2011.09.004 [ Google Scholar ]
• Côté, S. , House, J. , & Willer, R. (2015). High economic inequality leads higher‐income individuals to be less generous . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 112 , 15838–15843. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1511536112 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Darnon, C. , Wiederkehr, V. , Dompnier, B. , & Martinot, D. (2018). ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’: Belief in school meritocracy and the social‐class achievement gap . British Journal of Social Psychology , 57 , 250–262. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12214 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Davidai, S. , & Gilovich, T. (2015). Building a more mobile America – One income quintile at a time . Perspectives on Psychological Science , 10 , 60–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614562005 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Department for Communities and Local Government . (2012). Citizenship survey . Retrieved from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120919133219/http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/research/citizenshipsurvey/
• Dubois, D. , Rucker, D. D. , & Galinsky, A. D. (2015). Social class, power, and selfishness: When and why upper and lower class individuals behave unethically . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 108 , 436–449. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000008 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Easterbrook, M. , Kuppens, T. , & Manstead, A. S. R. (2018). Socioeconomic status and the structure of the self‐concept . Unpublished manuscript, University of Sussex. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Equality Trust . (2017). How has inequality changed? Retrieved from https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed
• Eriksson, K. , & Simpson, B. (2012). What do Americans know about inequality? It depends on how you ask them . Judgment and Decision Making , 7 , 741–745. [ Google Scholar ]
• Evans, G. , & Mellon, J. (2016). Social class: Identity, awareness and political attitudes: Why are we still working class? British Social Attitudes , 33 , 1–19. [ Google Scholar ]
• Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Flanagan, C. A. , & Kornbluh, M. (2017). How unequal is the United States? Adolescents’ images of social stratification . Child Development . Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12954 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldthorpe, J. H. , & Lockwood, D. (1963). Affluence and the British class structure . Sociological Review , 11 , 133–163. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.1963.tb01230.x [ Google Scholar ]
• Higher Education Statistics Agency . Retrieved from https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/overviews?keyword=All&year=13
• Hutchings, M. , & Archer, L. (2001). ‘Higher than Einstein’: Constructions of going to university among working‐class non‐participants . Research Papers in Education , 16 , 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671520010011879 [ Google Scholar ]
• Isaacs, J. B. (2008). International comparisons of social mobility . Washington, DC: Pew Charitable Trusts. [ Google Scholar ]
• Jerrim, J. (2013). Family background and access to high ‘status’ universities . London, UK: The Sutton Trust. [ Google Scholar ]
• Jetten, J. , Iyer, A. , Tsivrikos, D. , & Young, B. M. (2008). When is individual mobility costly? The role of economic and social identity factors . European Journal of Social Psychology , 38 , 866–879. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.471 [ Google Scholar ]
• Jetten, J. , Mols, F. , Healy, N. , & Spears, R. (2017). “Fear of falling”: Economic instability enhances collective angst among societies’ wealthy class . Journal of Social Issues , 73 , 61–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12204 [ Google Scholar ]
• Jost, J. T. , Pelham, B. W. , Sheldon, O. , & Sullivan, B. N. (2003). Social inequality and the reduction of ideological dissonance on behalf of the system: Evidence of enhanced system justification among the disadvantaged . European Journal of Social Psychology , 33 , 13–36. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.127 [ Google Scholar ]
• Kiatpongsan, S. , & Norton, M. I. (2014). How much (more) should CEOs make? A universal desire for more equal pay . Perspectives on Psychological Science , 9 , 587–593. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614549773 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Korndörfer, M. , Egloff, B. , & Schmukle, S. C. (2015). A large scale test of the effect of social class on prosocial behavior . PLoS One , 10 ( 7 ), e0133193 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133193 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraus, M. W. , & Callaghan, N. (2016). Social class and prosocial behavior: The moderating role of public versus private contexts . Social Psychological and Personality Science , 7 , 769–777. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616659120 [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraus, M. W. , Côté, S. , & Keltner, D. (2010). Social class, contextualism, and empathic accuracy . Psychological Science , 21 , 1716–1723. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610387613 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraus, M. W. , & Keltner, D. (2009). Signs of socioeconomic status: A thin‐slicing approach . Psychological Science , 20 , 99–106. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02251.x [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraus, M. W. , Park, J. W. , & Tan, J. J. X. (2017). Signs of social class: The experience of economic inequality in everyday life . Perspectives on Psychological Science , 12 , 422–435. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616673192 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraus, M. W. , Piff, P. K. , & Keltner, D. (2009). Social class, the sense of control, and social explanation . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 97 , 992–1004. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016357 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraus, M. W. , Piff, P. K. , & Keltner, D. (2011). Social class as culture: The convergence of resources and rank in the social realm . Current Directions in Psychological Science , 20 , 246–250. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411414654 [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraus, M. W. , Piff, P. K. , Mendoza‐Denton, R. , Rheinschmidt, M. L. , & Keltner, D. (2012). Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: How the rich are different from the poor . Psychological Review , 119 , 546–572. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028756 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kraus, M. W. , & Tan, J. J. (2015). Americans overestimate social class mobility . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , 58 , 101–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.01.005 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kuppens, T. , Spears, R. , Manstead, A. S. R. , & Tausch, N. (2018). Education and lower prejudice towards immigrants and ethnic minorities: A question of increased enlightenment or reduced economic threat? Unpublished manuscript, University of Groningen. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lehmann, W. (2009). Becoming middle class: How working‐class university students draw and transgress moral class boundaries . Sociology , 43 , 631–647. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038509105412 [ Google Scholar ]
• Lehmann, W. (2013). Habitus transformation and hidden injuries: Successful working‐class university students . Sociology of Education , 87 ( 1 ), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040713498777 [ Google Scholar ]
• Lipset, S. M. (1959). Democracy and working‐class authoritarianism . American Sociological Review , 24 , 482–501. https://doi.org/10.2307/2089536 [ Google Scholar ]
• Mayer, J. D. , Salovey, P. , & Caruso, D. R. (2002). Mayer‐Salovey‐Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) user's manual . Toronto, ON: Multi‐Health Systems. [ Google Scholar ]
• McCall, L. , Burk, D. , Laperrière, M. , & Richeson, J. A. (2017). Exposure to rising inequality shapes Americans’ opportunity beliefs and policy support . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 114 , 9593–9598. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1706253114 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nieuwenhuis, M. , Easterbrook, M. , & Manstead, A. S. R. (2018). Accounting for unequal access to higher education: The role of social identity factors . Unpublished manuscript, University of Sussex. [ Google Scholar ]
• Norton, M. I. , & Ariely, D. (2011). Building a better America – One wealth quintile at a time . Perspectives on Psychological Science , 6 , 9–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610393524 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Norton, M. I. , Neal, D. T. , Govan, C. L. , Ariely, D. , & Holland, E. (2014). The not‐so‐common wealth of Australia: Evidence for a cross‐cultural desire for a more equal distribution of wealth . Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy , 14 , 339–351. https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12058 [ Google Scholar ]
• Office for National Statistics . (2014). Wealth in Great Britain Wave 4: 2012 to 2014 . Retrieved from https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/compendium/wealthingreatbritainwave4/2012to2014
• Owuamalam, C. K. , Rubin, M. , & Spears, R. (2016). The system justification conundrum: Re‐examining the cognitive dissonance basis for system justification . Frontiers in Psychology , 7 , 1889 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01889 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Piff, P. K. , Kraus, M. W. , Côté, S. , Cheng, B. , & Keltner, D. (2010). Having less, giving more: The influence of social class on prosocial behavior . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 99 , 771–784. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020092 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Piff, P. K. , Stancato, D. , Côté, S. , Mendoza‐Denton, R. , & Keltner, D. (2012). Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 109 , 4086–4091. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Piketty, T. , & Saez, E. (2014). Inequality in the long run . Science , 344 , 838–843. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1251936 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Reay, D. , Crozier, G. , & Clayton, J. (2009). ‘Strangers in paradise’? Working‐class students in elite universities Sociology , 43 , 1103–1121. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038509345700 [ Google Scholar ]
• Reay, D. , Crozier, G. , & Clayton, J. (2010). ‘Fitting in’ or ‘standing out’: Working‐class students in UK higher education . British Educational Research Journal , 36 ( 1 ), 107–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/01411920902878925 [ Google Scholar ]
• Ridgway, C. L. , & Fisk, S. R. (2012). Class rules, status dynamics, and “gateway” interactions In Fiske S. T. & Markus H. R. (Eds.), Facing social class: How societal rank influences interaction (pp. 131–151). New York, NY: Russell Sage. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rivera, L. (2012). Hiring as cultural matching: The case of elite professional service firms . American Sociological Review , 77 , 999–1022. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412463213 [ Google Scholar ]
• Savage, M. , Devine, F. , Cunningham, N. , Taylor, M. , Li, Y. , Hjellbrekke, J. , … Miles, A. (2013). A new model of social class? Findings from the BBC's Great British class experiment . Sociology , 47 , 219–250. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038513481128 [ Google Scholar ]
• Shariff, A. F. , Wiwad, D. , & Aknin, L. B. (2016). Income mobility breeds tolerance for income inequality: Cross‐national and experimental evidence . Psychological Science , 11 , 373–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616635596 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sidanius, J. , & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchies and oppression . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139175043 [ Google Scholar ]
• Social Mobility Commission . (2017). State of the nation 2017: Social mobility in Great Britain . London, UK: HM Stationery Office; Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/662744/State_of_the_Nation_2017_-_Social_Mobility_in_Great_Britain.pdf [ Google Scholar ]
• Stephens, N. M. , Brannon, T. N. , Markus, H. R. , & Nelson, J. E. (2015). Feeling at home in college: Fortifying school‐relevant selves to reduce social class disparities in higher education . Social Issues and Policy Review , 9 ( 1 ), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12008 [ Google Scholar ]
• Stephens, N. M. , Fryberg, S. A. , & Markus, H. R. (2012). It's your choice: How the middle‐class model of independence disadvantages working class Americans In Fiske S. T. & Markus H. R. (Eds.), Facing social class: How societal rank influences interaction (pp. 87–106). New York, NY: Russell Sage. [ Google Scholar ]
• Stephens, N. M. , Fryberg, S. A. , Markus, H. R. , Johnson, C. , & Covarrubias, R. (2012). Unseen disadvantage: How American universities’ focus on independence undermines the academic performance of first‐generation college students . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 102 , 1178–1197. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027143 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stephens, N. M. , Markus, H. M. , & Phillips, L. T. (2014). Social class culture cycles: How three gateway contexts shape selves and fuel inequality . Annual Review of Psychology , 65 , 611–634. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115143 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Taylor‐Gooby, P. (2013). Why do people stigmatise the poor at a time of rapidly increasing inequality, and what can be done about it? The Political Quarterly , 84 ( 1 ), 31–42. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-923x.2013.02435.x [ Google Scholar ]
• Valentine, G. (2014). Inequality and class prejudice in an age of austerity . Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute; Retrieved from http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Brief8-inequality-and-class-prejudice-in-an-age-of-austerity.pdf . [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Lange, P. A. , De Bruin, E. , Otten, W. , & Joireman, J. A. (1997). Development of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive orientations: Theory and preliminary evidence . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 73 , 733 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.4.733 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Zomeren, M. , Spears, R. , Fischer, A. H. , & Leach, C. W. (2004). Put your money where your mouth is! Explaining collective action tendencies through group‐based anger and group efficacy . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 87 , 649–664. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.5.649 [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wiederkehr, V. , Bonnot, V. , Krauth‐Gruber, S. , & Darnon, C. (2015). Belief in school meritocracy as a system‐justifying tool for low status students . Frontiers in Psychology , 6 , 1053 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01053 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

• school Campus Bookshelves
• menu_book Bookshelves
• perm_media Learning Objects
• login Login
• how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
• hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

• Download Page (PDF)
• Download Full Book (PDF)
• Periodic Table
• Physics Constants
• Scientific Calculator
• Reference & Cite
• Tools expand_more
• Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

9.5E: Education

• Last updated
• Save as PDF
• Page ID 8223

\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)

\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\)

\( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)

\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\)

\( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)

\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\)

\( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)

\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}}      % arrow\)

\( \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} \)

\( \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} \)

Educational attainment is tied to social class, with upper class individuals acquiring higher degrees from more prestigious schools.

Learning Objectives

• Discuss three factors contributing to educational inequality
• Those in high social classes are likely to have greater educational attainment than those in low social classes.
• Educational inequality is also perpetuated by legacy admission.
• Because members of high social classes tend to be better educated and have higher incomes, they are more able to provide educational advantages to their children as well.
• Educational inequality is one factor that perpetuates the class divide across generations.
• educational attainment : Educational attainment is a term commonly used by statisticians to refer to the highest degree of education an individual has completed.
• private school : A fee-charging private or independent school.
• legacy student : A student who is admitted to a school (often a college or university), primarily because one or both of their parents are alumni of the same institution.

Education is a major component of social class, both directly and indirectly. Directly, individuals from higher social classes are more likely to have the means to attend more prestigious schools, and are therefore more likely to receive higher educations. Indirectly, individuals who benefit from such higher education are more likely to land prestigious jobs, and in turn, higher salaries. Just as education and social class are closely intertwined, stratification in education contributes to stratification in social class.

Educational attainment refers to the level of schooling a person completes — for instance, high school, some college, college, or a graduate degree. Upper class individuals are likely to attend schools of higher quality and of greater prestige than those attended by their lower class counterparts. Because members of high social classes tend to be better educated and have higher incomes, they are able to offer greater educational advantages, such as private schooling, to their children as well.

Upper-class parents are better able to send their children not only to exclusive private schools, but also to public state-funded schools. Such schools are likely to be of higher quality in affluent areas than in impoverished ones, since they are funded by property taxes within the school district. Wealthy areas will provide more property taxes as revenue, which leads to higher quality schools. Educational inequality is one factor that perpetuates the class divide across generations.

Such educational inequality is further reinforced by legacy admission, the preference given by educational institutions to applicants who are related to alumni of that institution. Germane to to university and college admissions (particularly in the United States), this practice emerged after World War I, primarily in response to the resulting immigrant influx. Ivy League institutions admit roughly 10% to 30% of students from each incoming class based on this factor.

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Social Class in the United States

Learning objectives.

• Distinguish objective and subjective measures of social class.
• Discuss whether the United States has much vertical social mobility.

Most sociologists define social class as a grouping based on similar social factors like wealth, income, education, and occupation. These factors affect how much power and prestige a person has. Social stratification reflects an unequal distribution of resources. In most cases, having more money means having more power or more opportunities. There is a surprising amount of disagreement among sociologists on the number of social classes in the United States and even on how to measure social class membership. We first look at the measurement issue and then discuss the number and types of classes sociologists have delineated.

Measuring Social Class

We can measure social class either objectively or subjectively . If we choose the objective method, we classify people according to one or more criteria, such as their occupation, education, and/or income. The researcher is the one who decides which social class people are in based on where they stand in regard to these variables. If we choose the subjective method, we ask people what class they think they are in. For example, the General Social Survey asks, “If you were asked to use one of four names for your social class, which would you say you belong in: the lower class, the working class, the middle class, or the upper class?” Figure 8.3 “Subjective Social Class Membership” depicts responses to this question. The trouble with such a subjective measure is that some people say they are in a social class that differs from what objective criteria might indicate they are in. This problem leads most sociologists to favor objective measures of social class when they study stratification in American society.

Figure 8.3 Subjective Social Class Membership

Source: Data from General Social Survey, 2008.

Yet even here there is disagreement between functionalist theorists and conflict theorists on which objective measures to use. Functionalist sociologists rely on measures of socioeconomic status (SES) , such as education, income, and occupation, to determine someone’s social class. Sometimes one of these three variables is used by itself to measure social class, and sometimes two or all three of the variables are combined (in ways that need not concern us) to measure social class. When occupation is used, sociologists often rely on standard measures of occupational prestige. Since the late 1940s, national surveys have asked Americans to rate the prestige of dozens of occupations, and their ratings are averaged together to yield prestige scores for the occupations (Hodge, Siegel, & Rossi, 1964). Over the years these scores have been relatively stable. Here are some average prestige scores for various occupations: physician, 86; college professor, 74; elementary school teacher, 64; letter carrier, 47; garbage collector, 28; and janitor, 22.

Despite SES’s usefulness, conflict sociologists prefer different, though still objective, measures of social class that take into account ownership of the means of production and other dynamics of the workplace. These measures are closer to what Marx meant by the concept of class throughout his work, and they take into account the many types of occupations and workplace structures that he could not have envisioned when he was writing during the 19th century.

For example, corporations have many upper-level managers who do not own the means of production but still determine the activities of workers under them. They thus do not fit neatly into either of Marx’s two major classes, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Recognizing these problems, conflict sociologists delineate social class on the basis of several factors, including the ownership of the means of production, the degree of autonomy workers enjoy in their jobs, and whether they supervise other workers or are supervised themselves (Wright, 2000).

The American Class Structure

As should be evident, it is not easy to determine how many social classes exist in the United States. Over the decades, sociologists have outlined as many as six or seven social classes based on such things as, once again, education, occupation, and income, but also on lifestyle, the schools people’s children attend, a family’s reputation in the community, how “old” or “new” people’s wealth is, and so forth (Coleman & Rainwater, 1978; Warner & Lunt, 1941). For the sake of clarity, we will limit ourselves to the four social classes included in Figure 8.3 “Subjective Social Class Membership” : the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class. Although subcategories exist within some of these broad categories, they still capture the most important differences in the American class structure (Gilbert, 2011). The annual income categories listed for each class are admittedly somewhat arbitrary but are based on the percentage of households above or below a specific income level.

The Upper Class

The upper class is considered the top, and only the powerful elite get to see the view from there. In the United States, people with extreme wealth make up 1 percent of the population, and they own one-third of the country’s wealth (Beeghley 2008).

The upper class in the United States consists of about 1% of all households and possesses much wealth, power, and influence.

Steven Martin – Highland Park Mansion – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Money provides not just access to material goods, but also access to a lot of power. As corporate leaders, members of the upper class make decisions that affect the job status of millions of people. As media owners, they influence the collective identity of the nation. They run the major network television stations, radio broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, and sports franchises. As board members of the most influential colleges and universities, they influence cultural attitudes and values. As philanthropists, they establish foundations to support social causes they believe in. As campaign contributors, they sway politicians and fund campaigns, sometimes to protect their own economic interests.

U.S. society has historically distinguished between “old money” (inherited wealth passed from one generation to the next) and “new money” (wealth you have earned and built yourself). While both types may have equal net worth, they have traditionally held different social standings. People of old money, firmly situated in the upper class for generations, have held high prestige. Their families have socialized them to know the customs, norms, and expectations that come with wealth. Often, the very wealthy don’t work for wages. Some study business or become lawyers in order to manage the family fortune. Others, such as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, capitalize on being a rich socialite and transform that into celebrity status, flaunting a wealthy lifestyle.

However, new-money members of the upper class are not oriented to the customs and mores of the elite. They haven’t gone to the most exclusive schools. They have not established old-money social ties. People with new money might flaunt their wealth, buying sports cars and mansions, but they might still exhibit behaviors attributed to the middle and lower classes.

The Middle Class

Many people consider themselves middle class, but there are differing ideas about what that means. People with annual incomes of $150,000 call themselves middle class, as do people who annually earn $30,000. That helps explain why, in the United States, the middle class is broken into upper and lower subcategories. Upper-middle-class people tend to hold bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees. They’ve studied subjects such as business, management, law, or medicine. Lower-middle-class members hold bachelor’s degrees from four-year colleges or associate’s degrees from two-year community or technical colleges.

The upper-middle class in the United States consists of about 4.4% of all households, with incomes ranging from $150,000 to $199,000.

Alyson Hurt – Back Porch – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Comfort is a key concept to the middle class. Middle-class people work hard and live fairly comfortable lives. Upper-middle-class people tend to pursue careers that earn comfortable incomes. They provide their families with large homes and nice cars. They may go skiing or boating on vacation. Their children receive high-quality education and healthcare (Gilbert 2010).

In the lower middle class, people hold jobs supervised by members of the upper middle class. They fill technical, lower-level management or administrative support positions. Compared to lower-class work, lower-middle-class jobs carry more prestige and come with slightly higher paychecks. With these incomes, people can afford a decent, mainstream lifestyle, but they struggle to maintain it. They generally don’t have enough income to build significant savings. In addition, their grip on class status is more precarious than in the upper tiers of the class system. When budgets are tight, lower-middle-class people are often the ones to lose their jobs.

The Working Class

The working class in the United States consists of about 25% of all households, whose members work in blue-collar jobs and less skilled clerical positions.

Lisa Risager – Ebeltoft – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Working-class households generally work in blue-collar jobs such as factory work, construction, restaurant serving, and less skilled clerical positions. People in the working class typically do not have 4-year college degrees, and some do not have high school degrees. Although most are not living in official poverty, their financial situation is very uncomfortable. A single large medical bill or expensive car repair would be almost impossible to pay without going into considerable debt. Working-class families are far less likely than their wealthier counterparts to own their own homes or to send their children to college. Many of them live at risk for unemployment as their companies downsize by laying off workers even in good times, and hundreds of thousands began to be laid off when the U.S. recession began in 2008.

The Lower Class

The lower class or poor in the United States constitute about 25% of all households. Many poor individuals lack high school degrees and are unemployed or employed only part time.

Chris Hunkeler – Trailer Homes – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Although lower class is a common term, many observers prefer a less-negative sounding term like the poor, which is used here. Just like the middle and upper classes, the lower class can be divided into subsets: the working class, the working poor, and the underclass. Compared to the lower middle class, lower-class people have less of an educational background and earn smaller incomes. They work jobs that require little prior skill or experience and often do routine tasks under close supervision.

The working poor have unskilled, low-paying employment. However, their jobs rarely offer benefits such as healthcare or retirement planning, and their positions are often seasonal or temporary. They work as sharecroppers, migrant farm workers, house cleaners, and day laborers. Some are high school dropouts. Some are illiterate, unable to read job ads.

How can people work full-time and still be poor? Even working full-time, millions of the working poor earn incomes too meager to support a family. Minimum wage varies from state to state, but in many states it is approaching $8.00 per hour (Department of Labor 2014). At that rate, working 40 hours a week earns $320. That comes to $16,640 a year, before tax and deductions. Even for a single person, the pay is low. A married couple with children will have a hard time covering expenses.

The underclass is the United States’ lowest tier. Members of the underclass live mainly in inner cities. Many are unemployed or underemployed. Those who do hold jobs typically perform menial tasks for little pay. Some of the underclass are homeless. For many, welfare systems provide a much-needed support through food assistance, medical care, housing, and the like.

We will discuss the poor further when we focus later in this chapter on inequality and poverty in the United States.

Social Mobility

Social mobility refers to the ability to change positions within a social stratification system. When people improve or diminish their economic status in a way that affects social class, they experience social mobility.

Individuals can experience upward or downward social mobility for a variety of reasons. Upward mobility refers to an increase—or upward shift—in social class. In the United States, people applaud the rags-to-riches achievements of celebrities like Oprah Winfrey or LeBron James. But the truth is that relative to the overall population, the number of people who rise from poverty to wealth is very small. Still, upward mobility is not only about becoming rich and famous. In the United States, people who earn a college degree, get a job promotion, or marry someone with a good income may move up socially. In contrast, downward mobility indicates a lowering of one’s social class. Some people move downward because of business setbacks, unemployment, or illness. Dropping out of school, losing a job, or getting a divorce may result in a loss of income or status and, therefore, downward social mobility.

Nazareth College – Commencement 2013 – CC BY 2.0.

A key vehicle for upward mobility is formal education. Regardless of the socioeconomic status of our parents, we are much more likely to end up in a high-paying job if we attain a college degree or, increasingly, a graduate or professional degree. Figure 8.4 “Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007” vividly shows the difference that education makes for Americans’ median annual incomes. Notice, however, that for a given level of education, men’s incomes are greater than women’s. Figure 8.4 “Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007” thus suggests that the payoff of education is higher for men than for women, and many studies support this conclusion (Green & Ferber, 2008). The reasons for this gender difference are complex and will be discussed further in Chapter 11 “Gender and Gender Inequality” . To the extent vertical social mobility exists in the United States, then, it is higher for men than for women and higher for whites than for people of color.

Figure 8.4 Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007

Source: Data from U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). Statistical abstract of the United States: 2010 . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab .

It is not uncommon for different generations of a family to belong to varying social classes. This is known as intergenerational mobility . For example, an upper-class executive may have parents who belonged to the middle class. In turn, those parents may have been raised in the lower class. Patterns of intergenerational mobility can reflect long-term societal changes.

Similarly, intragenerational mobility refers to changes in a person’s social mobility over the course of his or her lifetime. For example, the wealth and prestige experienced by one person may be quite different from that of his or her siblings.

Structural mobility happens when societal changes enable a whole group of people to move up or down the social class ladder. Structural mobility is attributable to changes in society as a whole, not individual changes. In the first half of the twentieth century, industrialization expanded the U.S. economy, raising the standard of living and leading to upward structural mobility. In today’s work economy, the recent recession and the outsourcing of jobs overseas have contributed to high unemployment rates. Many people have experienced economic setbacks, creating a wave of downward structural mobility.

When analyzing the trends and movements in social mobility, sociologists consider all modes of mobility. Scholars recognize that mobility is not as common or easy to achieve as many people think. In fact, some consider social mobility a myth. The American Dream does exist, but it is much more likely to remain only a dream unless we come from advantaged backgrounds. In fact, there is less vertical mobility in the United States than in other Western democracies. As a recent analysis summarized the evidence, “There is considerably more mobility in most of the other developed economies of Europe and Scandinavia than in the United States” (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009, p. 108).

Key Takeaways

• Several ways of measuring social class exist. Functionalist and conflict sociologists disagree on which objective criteria to use in measuring social class. Subjective measures of social class, which rely on people rating their own social class, may lack some validity.
• Sociologists disagree on the number of social classes in the United States, but a common view is that the United States has four classes: upper, middle, working, and lower. Further variations exist within the upper and middle classes.
• The United States has some vertical social mobility, but not as much as several nations in Western Europe.

Beeghley, Leonard. 2008. The Structure of Social Stratification in the United States . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Coleman, R. P., & Rainwater, L. (1978). Social standing in America . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Gilbert, D. (2011). The American class structure in an age of growing inequality (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Green, C. A., & Ferber, M. A. (2008). The long-term impact of labor market interruptions: How crucial is timing? Review of Social Economy, 66 , 351–379.

Hodge, R. W., Siegel, P., & Rossi, P. (1964). Occupational prestige in the United States, 1925–63. American Journal of Sociology, 70 , 286–302.

Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Shierholz, H. (2009). The state of working America 2008/2009 . Ithaca, NY: ILR Press [An imprint of Cornell University Press].

Warner, W. L., & Lunt, P. S. (1941). The social life of a modern community . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Wright, E. O. (2000). Class counts: Comparative studies in class analysis . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Introduction to Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Advertisement

A First Class Measure: Evidence for a Comprehensive Social Class Scale in Higher Education Populations

• Open access
• Published: 21 April 2022
• Volume 63 , pages 1427–1452, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Olivia Evans   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0453-7679 1 ,
• Romany McGuffog   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6071-6199 2 ,
• Monica Gendi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9662-7059 2 &
• Mark Rubin   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6483-8561 2  

6959 Accesses

2 Citations

38 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Despite social class being a burgeoning area of research in the higher education literature, there is no single comprehensive measure of social class in university student populations. Most previous research has included objective single-item measures (e.g., parent education or occupation) to assess social class and then sorted students into distinct social class categories using these items. Such approaches do not adequately capture the complexity and nuance of class, and they ignore the subjective and social components involved. The present paper reports the development and validation of an 11-item Comprehensive Social Class Scale (CSCS) that uses a mix of objective and subjective items to assess multiple aspects of social class, including education level, occupational prestige, family affluence, social class identity and subjective social status. Across 12 samples ( N  = 4926), we provide evidence for a single factor structure of the CSCS and demonstrate aspects of its reliability and validity. We conclude by discussing some limitations and suggestions for use of the CSCS in higher education populations.

Similar content being viewed by others

The Role of Family Support in Facilitating Academic Success of Low-Income Students

The Relation Between Family Socioeconomic Status and Academic Achievement in China: A Meta-analysis

Parental involvement and adolescents’ educational success: the roles of prior achievement and socioeconomic status.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Research in higher education has demonstrated that social class is a key factor in predicting the experiences and successes of university students and an important demographic factor when considering how to improve the equity and diversity of universities (James et al., 2008 ; Maras, 2007 ; Rubin et al., 2014 ). Social class affects a wide range of experiences and outcomes for university students, including likelihood of attending university (Rosado & David, 2006 ), degree choice (Reimer & Pollak, 2010 ; Tsiplakides, 2017 ), and academic performance (Stephens et al., 2014 ), as well as less traditional markers of university success such as social integration and mental health (Rubin et al., 2016 , 2019 ).

Despite being an important predictor of outcomes for university students and a focal point of research on equity and diversity in higher education, there is no clear consensus among researchers about what the term “social class” refers to or how best to conceptualise and measure it in a university population. However, contemporary researchers tend to agree that social class should be conceptualised and measured along multiple social and economic lines (Diemer et al., 2012 ; Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ). Moreover, the American Psychological Association’s taskforce on socioeconomic status (SES) concluded with a recommendation that social class be measured using both objective and subjective measures (Saegert et al., 2006 ).

In the higher education context in particular, Rubin et al. ( 2014 ) have argued that both subjective and objective indicators are needed to provide an appropriately nuanced and comprehensive assessment of class. Consistent with this approach, most modern definitions of social class highlight objective social and economic indicators as well as the perceptions that people have about their own status (Manstead, 2018 ). Nonetheless, there is currently a disparity in higher education research between what we understand social class to be and how it is operationalised and measured, because most of the literature exploring the social class of university students has focused on single demographic or economic-based variables (Rubin et al., 2014 ). In light of contemporary recommendations for measuring social class and the current lack of consensus in the literature, we have developed a Comprehensive Social Class Scale (CSCS) that covers most of the commonly used indicators of student social class.

The Need for a Comprehensive Social Class Scale

On a purely descriptive level, social class refers to the division in society along the lines not just economic but also social status (Diemer et al., 2012 ; Sheppard & Biddle, 2017 ). Thus, social class is not solely determined by what quartile one’s income falls in, one’s neighbourhood, or one’s family, but rather from a mixture of these and many more variables. Social class research is particularly prominent in higher education contexts because, historically, university education was only available to individuals from higher classes. In more recent times, efforts to increase the proportion of students from lower class backgrounds in university education have intensified. This is particularly true in Australia, where social, cultural and political changes, including government subsidised student loans and a shift to a highly skilled workforce, have led to the university population becoming increasingly heterogenous in terms of class (Bradley et al., 2008 ). Although the historically exclusionary context has been slowly changing over time, the legacy of classism lingers in higher education systems worldwide and manifests through processes such as university admissions and administrations as well as university cultures and the student experience (e.g., James et al., 2008 ; Maras, 2007 ). Research highlighting, explaining, and intervening on these social class differences in higher education is important and necessary in the process of making higher education more diverse and equitable. However, researchers and practitioners in this area are missing a comprehensive measure of social class, which factors in cultural, social and economic aspects of class. Without this measure, research is providing only a limited picture of social class.

As mentioned above, most research in this area tends to use single-item objective economic measures as proxies for student social class (for reviews, see Rubin, 2012a ; Sirin, 2005 ). These measures normally include the income, education level, or occupation of one or more parental figures. Although each of these factors has been found to be closely related to student outcomes, these measures are not directly measuring class, but rather economic and resource-based variables that are related to class. It is now widely regarded that social class is as much a social variable as an economic one (Ostrove & Cole, 2003 ). For example, social class has been described as a cultural and qualitative group identity based on a shared history and collective conscious among groups (Manstead, 2018 ). Missing from most education research are these social and cultural components of class.

To remain relevant and informative, higher education research needs to employ robust and informative research practices that represent and communicate the diversity of contemporary university populations. Researchers in this area have previously communicated the need for subjective measures of class in higher education research to keep up with the changing makeup of student populations (Rubin et al., 2014 ). In the present research we take this approach one step further by suggesting a scale consisting of subjective and objective items that are designed to capture student social class more fully while also avoiding overburdening participants. The CSCS is an 11-item measure that assesses education, occupation, family economic background, class identity and subjective social status. It was developed from an empirical, quantitative methods perspective, and utilises measures and concepts that are consistent with this approach. This comprehensive, multi-item approach is necessary because:

Social class is a latent variable that can only be indirectly measured using other related variables (Rubin et al., 2019 ). Measuring social class complexly and comprehensively with multiple variables brings us closer to capturing this latent construct.

Measurement of broad constructs, such as social class, should avoid narrow (single item) approaches to measurement that do not assess the construct optimally (Clark & Watson, 2019 ).

Social class is a powerful demographic variable that exerts influence across multiple domains of life, particularly regarding access to social, cultural and economic capital (Manstead, 2018 ). Therefore, measures of social class should include more than economic factors.

Finally, from a statistical perspective, using single variable measures of social class are not ideal because (a) single items suffer from greater measurement error and (b) related single items may be collinear. Combining these variables into a single measure is thus a more statistically robust and appropriate option.

Measuring Social Class

As Rubin et al. ( 2014 ) pointed out, it is imperative that researchers seek to comprehensively conceptualise and measure social class and supplement objective measures with subjective measures. Below, we discuss some of the most common approaches to measuring social class in university samples and outline how they fit into the CSCS.

First, we should note the necessity of using variables that relate to students’ parents, rather than the students themselves, when measuring social class in university samples (for reviews, see Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ; Lareau & Conley, 2008 ; Oakes & Rossi, 2003 ; Saegert et al., 2006 ). This approach is necessary because (a) university students generally have the same primary occupation (i.e., university student) and education level, and (b) they are more likely to be young adults whose social class background is largely determined by that of their parents. Thus, using parental variables often provides a better indication of the access students have to cultural and economic capital.

We begin with one of the most common objective indicators of social class: level of educational attainment (Diemer et al., 2012 ; Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ). Education, especially higher education, is considered the most important catalyst for the other markers of social class and upward class mobility (Day & Newburger, 2002 ; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991 ; Snibbe & Markus, 2005 ). That is, education provides access to more prestigious, high-power, and high-paying jobs which in turn provide the economic and cultural experiences and attributes of the upper- and middle-classes (Domhoff, 1998 ). In contrast, lower education stalls an individual’s upward trajectory and leads to lower-prestige and lower-paying jobs with less economic and cultural benefit to the individual. Level of education is therefore considered one of the most fundamental measures of social class (Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ).

In the university context, education is an important resource for students to draw upon, especially the education of their family members. Parental education, for example, is a strong predictor of enrolment in university and adaptation to university (Nelson et al., 2008 ; Wilks & Wilson, 2012 ). These patterns have been attributed to concepts such as “college knowledge” (York-Anderson & Bowman, 1991 ), whereby parents with more experience with higher education are more likely to impart information about the university/college experience that influences students to attend and helps them to navigate the experience once they get there (Conley, 2008 ). Thus, parental education is often an important part of social class in the higher education context and, for this reason, it was included in the CSCS.

Income and Occupation

Other common indicators of social class are income and wealth (Diemer et al., 2012 ; Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ). Higher education affords higher incomes, which in turn provide opportunities for the accumulation of wealth. Thus, relatively high income and wealth are common outcomes of higher education and markers of economic and social status (Howell & Howell, 2008 ; Kraus et al., 2009 ; Norton & Ariely, 2011 ). However, income and wealth provide information about social class above and beyond that provided by education measures. It is quite possible to have a high income or a great deal of wealth without a high level of education (e.g., some workers in the mining industry), and it is also possible to have a high level of education but low income and wealth (e.g., an unemployed university graduate). Income and wealth also represent the most direct measure of an individual’s access to material goods and services, and thus their affluence.

Higher education students’ access to social and economic resources is an important predictor of numerous outcomes including retention and completion (Brändle, 2017 ). Thus, student wealth is an important variable when considering class. However, as outlined above, student income and wealth are likely to be unreliable indicators of class in the higher education context because of the employment circumstances of students. Indeed, counterintuitively, lower class students may have higher personal incomes than upper- and middle-class students because they are more likely to be working to support themselves and their families (Rubin & Wright, 2015 , 2017 ). Income is also generally a difficult variable to measure because people often struggle to accurately report their own income (Jetten et al., 2008 ), and this problem becomes even more fraught when asking people to recall the collective income of a household (Moore et al., 2000 ). For these reasons, the CSCS includes items relating to perceptions of wealth during childhood, to capture the general affluence of a student’s background.

An additional related indicator of social class is occupation, and more specifically, occupational prestige. Again, occupation is linked to education and wealth, in that high levels of education are needed for most high prestige jobs, and high prestige jobs are generally high paying (Diemer, 2009 ; Diemer et al., 2012 ; Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ). Prestigious jobs are those which are held in high regard by others and usually involve skills, tasks, and activities that yield greater social and economic status.

In the higher education context, students are likely to have less prestigious jobs in the retail and service industry while they are studying because of factors related to age, time availability, and education level. Parental occupational prestige, on the other hand, has been found to be related to important factors such as student degree choice (Leppel et al., 2001 ; Wells & Lynch, 2012 ) and uptake of networking opportunities (Mayer & Puller, 2008 ). Thus, a measure of parental occupational prestige was included in the CSCS.

Subjective Social Status

Although most research uses some combination of the variables outlined above to measure social class, more recent research has pointed out that these indicators alone do not adequately capture the social side of status, because people’s perceptions of their wealth and status relative to others is an important part of the social comparison processes that give power to these status indicators (Diemer et al., 2012 ; Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ; Manstead, 2018 ; Rubin et al., 2014 ). In particular, social class involves subjective perceptions of social status, such that how much people think they have compared to other people is just as important as how much they actually have (e.g., Adler et al., 2000 ; Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ). Individuals with high levels of education, occupation or income can believe that they are relatively low in these indicators compared to others, while other individuals can consider themselves highly ranked compared to others while having relatively low wealth and lower education and occupation.

Of course, subjective social status is related to objective social class indicators, meaning that most people are at least partially aware of where they sit objectively (Sheppard & Biddle, 2017 ). However, there is some discrepancy between subjective social status and objective indicators of education, income and occupation (Adler et al., 2000 ; Kraus & Keltner, 2013 ; Ostrove & Long, 2007 ). Thus, although subjective social status (i.e., people ranking themselves relative to other people in their community or country) is related to people’s actual social and economic position, it is also an important independent marker of social class. In the higher education context, subjective social status is particularly important because it is a more proximal and accurate representation of students’ social class compared to the parental measures (Rubin et al., 2014 ) and so was included in the CSCS.

Self-identified Social Class

One final aspect missing from current measures of social class is affiliation or identity with a particular class. This social identity approach recognises social class as a distinct identity that people use to define themselves (e.g., Jetten et al., 2008 ; Ostrove & Long, 2007 ; Rubin et al., 2014 ; Soria et al., 2013 ). This approach borrows from the long-standing sociological approach to identity and asks participants to self-identify and categorise themselves into a social class, with options that generally include “working class,” “middle-class,” and “upper-class” (Jetten et al., 2008 ; Ostrove & Long, 2007 ; Rubin et al., 2014 ).

Self-identification is an important aspect of social class because it moves beyond the objective societal-level demographic-based conceptualisation and instead captures the cultural and identity-based aspects of social class. Asking people to select the social class with which they identify requires them to consider not just their economic position but also their cultural and family background and other aspects that they believe contribute to their social class identity. In general, group identification and social identities derived from these groups are strong indicators of health and other psychosocial variables (Jetten et al., 2008 ; Soria et al., 2013 ; Tajfel & Turner, 1979 ). Thus, self-identified social class is a powerful and vital component of ascertaining social class.

In higher education contexts, social class identities are thought to be particularly important, because the middle- and upper-class history of universities have resulted in pervasive classism in higher education (Langhout et al., 2009 ). In particular, there is a long history of research on the class reproductions that take place in universities, in which the culture, expectations, and practices of universities serve to include students from upper and middle classes while excluding those from the lower classes (Bourdieu, 1986 ; Jack, 2016 ; Wells, 2008 ). From this perspective, class identity plays an important role in interpreting and challenging these experiences. Thus, class identity is an important but often overlooked aspect of the social class of students (Rubin et al., 2014 ), and it is for this reason that we included it in the CSCS.

A Continuous Aggregate Approach

Each of the measures outlined above form necessary but insufficient components of social class, representing related but distinct aspects of a student’s social and economic position and background. Research aiming to investigate social class differences and issues at university should therefore seek to measure each of these concepts to obtain a fuller picture. As outlined above, the CSCS includes items covering all of these components.

To obtain a complete score of social class accounting for each of these variables, we propose transforming the items of the CSCS to z -scores and combining them to form a global measure of social class. In the present paper, we conduct a number of factor analyses to demonstrate the efficacy of this one-factor solution for the CSCS. We then demonstrate aspects of the reliability and validity of this single factor CSCS.

In addition to this aggregate approach, we argue that social class should be measured on a continuum rather than separated into discrete hierarchical categories. The approach of artificially categorising continuous variables has been criticised by researchers for both reducing the power to detect real effects and, in some cases, increasing the possibility of detecting spurious effects (e.g., Bennette & Vickers, 2012 ). Combining each of the social class constructs outlined above places individuals on a continuous spectrum of social class that incorporates their objective circumstances and subjective experiences. Despite having discrete labels (e.g., “working class;” “upper class”), an individual’s social class exists as a nexus of their economic, cultural and social status. This is a highly nuanced construct with no definite cut-off points. Even the discrete class categories that exist can have significant variance within them. For example, research has found that adding sub-categories (i.e. “upper middle class” and “lower middle class”) to a self-identifying social class measure leads people who are ostensibly in the same overall class to differentiate themselves within this class (Morin & Motel, 2012 ). Conceptualising social class as a continuous dimension that ranges from low to high avoids this kind of categorisation that can at times be misleading.

In this paper, we provide evidence for the multi-faceted continuous approach to measuring the social class of university students using the CSCS. Using data from 10 different university samples, we provide exploratory and confirmatory evidence for a one-factor structure, and we provide some confirmation of the scale’s validity and reliability.

Participants

The data were collected from 12 individual samples that were obtained between 2015 and 2019. Participants were 4926 undergraduate university students from nine higher education institutions in Australia and one university in Ireland. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling methods using a range of methods including research participation credit and prize draw advertisements. All universities were typical of Australian and Irish universities, which usually offer 3–4 year undergraduate degrees. The majority of universities were regional universities, which tend to have higher representations of low SES students. Two universities were Group of Eight Universities, which represents the highest ranking and most prestigious universities in Australia. One sample also included students from an Australian Technical and Further Education college, which is similar to a community college or trade school. Representation of low SES students at the universities in these samples range from between 7 to 30%. Footnote 1 The demographic breakdown of each of the samples is reported in Table 1 . The mean age of students sampled ranged between 22.27 and 24.48 years, with all samples being significantly skewed towards younger ages. The samples also tended to overrepresent female students, with females comprising between 62.75–82.30% of the samples.

Different samples completed different surveys. Each survey had a different focus and included different items and scales on the front end. Footnote 2 The CSCS items were always presented at the end of these surveys along with some additional demographic items. All data was collected using online survey software (either Qualtrics or Survey Monkey). Table 2 contains the items and response scales for the CSCS. Participants from Samples 5 and 9 were recruited from the general student population and incentivised to participate through prize draws. Participants from all other samples were recruited from psychology research participant pools.

Data Preparation

For all samples, all item scores were standardised before analysis. Sample 9 included a don’t know response for the measures of parental education, occupation, and social class identity. These responses were coded as missing data. Less than 1% of the sample contained any missing data, and missing data was deleted listwise for factor analyses. All participants with missing data had data missing from less than half of the items used to form the CSCS. Based on the recommendations of Graham ( 2009 ), an aggregate was made for these participants using the data that was available. We conducted the analyses described below using SPSS and AMOS.

Exploratory Factor Analysis

To investigate the factor structure of the CSCS, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis on one of the largest samples (Sample 1; N  = 628) that included students from multiple institutions. We used a principal axis factor analysis. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy was substantially greater than 0.50 (0.81), indicating good sampling adequacy, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was statistically significant ( Χ 2  = 2318.82, df  = 55, p  < 0.001), indicating that the included variables were related to one another and suitable for structure identification. A principal axis factor analysis on the standardised CSCS items identified four factors with an eigenvalue greater than one. However, Cattell’s ( 1966 ) scree plot indicated one factor before the plot changed direction at greater than 40% and tailed off.

We also conducted a parallel analysis (Horn, 1965 ), as suggested by Russell ( 2002 , p. 1637) and Wilson and Cooper ( 2008 ). A Monte Carlo simulation (Watkins, 2000 ) was used to conduct factor analyses on 100 random data sets, each consisting of 11 variables and 628 cases. This analysis revealed that only two factors in the real data set had eigenvalues that were larger than the first two eigenvalues in the simulated data set (4.30, 1.21), providing evidence for a two-factor solution.

We used a promax rotation to extract one factor to investigate the appropriateness of a single factor. Items in the scale all had positive loadings on this factor and ranged from 0.36 to 0.71. There was one item below the standard cut-off of 0.40 (Costello & Osborne, 2005 ): mother’s education level (0.36). Father’s education level was also quite low (0.41). This result is most likely because these items are the most objective items compared to the other social class items, and so are least likely to be related to the other subjective measures of social class. However, removing these items did not improve the Cronbach’s alpha.

To keep the CSCS factor structure consistent with theory and literature, and because mother’s education was close to the standard 0.40 cutoff on the first factor (0.36), we retained the single factor structure. This single factor accounted for 39.10% of the variance and had excellent internal reliability (α = 0.84). With the exception of mother’s education, all variables loaded onto this factor between 0.41 and 0.71. Thus, the EFA provided some evidence for a single factor solution for social class.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

To confirm the single factor model from the EFA of Sample 1, we conducted confirmatory factor analyses of the CSCS items for each sample. We conducted the first confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on Sample 1 and modelled the cross-loadings for subsequent CFAs based on the modelling for this data. The same one factor model was then tested using CFA for all samples. We report below in detail the CFA process for Sample 1.

When designing our CFA model, we accounted for the high chance of covariance between some of the CSCS items. This approach was based on previous research and theory, which shows that many social class variables are related to one another. For example, an individual’s education is highly predictive of their occupation and income (Barrow & Rouse, 2005 ). Thus, we accounted for the theoretical covariances between particular variables (e.g., parental income and occupation). To confirm these theoretical assumptions, we also checked the correlations between the suspected covaried variables and confirmed that the correlations were moderate (i.e., > 0.30). These covariances were then applied to each model fit across all samples. A visual representation of this model is represented in Fig.  1 .

Standardized coefficients of the single factor model for Sample 1. ***p < 0.001

The results from the CFA using Sample 1 showed a good model fit, with the Normed Fit Index (0.98) and the Comparative Fit Index (0.99) being above the cut-off of 0.95 (Bagozzi, 2010 ; Iacobucci, 2010 ). The Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (0.04) was also below the cut-off of 0.08 (Hooper et al., 2008 ; Kline, 2015 ). Thus, the single-factor model for the CSCS was confirmed. The loadings for this model are included in Fig.  1 . The relevant output from the CFA of each sample is shown in Table 3 .

As can be seen in Table 3 , the majority of samples generated CFA results that suggest that a single factor model is appropriate for the items of the CSCS. There is no widely agreed upon cut-off for CMIN values, with some suggesting the value should be not much higher than 1 (Arbuckle, 1999 ), some suggesting a ratio as high as 5 can be acceptable (Marsh & Hocevar, 1985 ), and others suggesting the limit falls somewhere in between (e.g., Byrne, 2013 ; Carmines & McIver, 1981 ). The CMIN value for all of the samples fell below Marsh and Hocevar’s ( 1985 ) cut-off of 5. However, the highest CMIN value was 4.85, and many of the samples had CMIN values above 2, which violated the other proposed cut-offs cited above. It should be noted that, out of the various indices used to assess model fit, CMIN is thought to be the least reliable and most sensitive to model misspecifications (Crede & Harms, 2019 ), and it is usually disregarded if (a) sample sizes exceed 200 and (b) other indices indicate an acceptable fit (Moss, 2016 ), both of which are true of all 12 samples reported in the current research. We have included this fit statistic here in the interest of transparency. However, based on the points raised above, we disregarded the CMIN values in our assessment of model fit.

Tests for Predictive Validity

To provide some evidence for the predictive validity of the measure, we correlated the global CSCS scores with theoretically related concepts from the various research surveys. Based on existing research, we expected to find that higher social class was significantly correlated with mental and physical health (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2007 ; Rubin et al., 2016 ; Said et al., 2013 ) and sleep (e.g., Bagley et al., 2015 ; Felden et al., 2015 ; McGuffog, 2020 ), as well as loneliness, sense of belonging, and social support (e.g., Evans, 2019 ; Rubin & Kelly, 2015 ; Rubin, 2012b ). Table 4 reports the correlations for these tests.

As can be seen in Table 4 , lower CSCS scores were significantly correlated with poorer mental and physical health, poorer sleep, a lower sense of belonging and social support at university, and more loneliness. There were two exceptions to these results, with Samples 3 and 4 showing negative but nonsignificant correlations between CSCS scores and mental health. Nonetheless, the majority of CSCS scores in our included samples demonstrated significant correlations with the expected variables, providing evidence of predictive validity.

To provide evidence of criterion validity, we tested for age and gender differences in CSCS scores using Sample 1. As expected, there was no significant difference in male ( M  = − 0.00, SD  = 0.58) compared to female ( M  = − 0.00, SD  = 0.63) CSCS scores, t (625) = − 0.00, p  = 0.993. Also, as expected there was a significant difference in CSCS scores for younger vs mature aged (over 22 years old) students, t (625) = 5.20, p  < 0.001. Consistent with previous literature (e.g., Rubin & Wright, 2015 ) mature aged students had lower CSCS scores ( M  = − 0.20, SD  = 0.62) than younger students ( M  = 0.09, SD  = 0.60). Finally, we tested the hypothesis that CSCS scores would be higher at prestigious institutions compared to less prestigious institutions. Consistent with predictions, standardised CSCS scores were significantly higher among Group of Eight students ( M  = 0.15, SD  = 0.51) compared to non-Group of Eight students ( M  = − 0.15, SD  = 0.55), t (724.36) = 7.76, p  < 0.001, 95% CI [0.23, 0.38]. The CSCS is therefore able to detect known differences in social class characteristics of different types of Australian universities.

Individual Components vs the Aggregate Variable

To provide some evidence for the strength of the CSCS compared to its individual components, we correlated the global CSCS scores and individual CSCS variables with theoretically related concepts from Sample 1. The results of these correlations can be seen in Table 5 . The global CSCS had stronger correlation coefficients than its individual items for all but one of these variables.

Test–Retest Reliability

As outlined previously, social class is expected to be a relatively stable construct, at least relative to SES. Hence, we expected the CSCS to demonstrate evidence of good test–retest reliability across a moderate period of time (e.g., 6 months). To investigate this issue, we compared the CSCS results across multiple waves in the samples that were part of longitudinal studies. In particular, Sample 6 was part of a two-wave study, and Sample 9 was part of a three-wave study. Table 5 contains the correlations and paired sample t -test results for the comparisons across multiple waves. As can be seen in Table 6 , paired samples t -tests revealed no significant changes to the CSCS scores across waves, and the scores were significantly strongly positively correlated to one another over time. Thus, there is longitudinal evidence for the test–retest reliability of the measure over time.

Age Sensitivity Analyses

As discussed in the Introduction section, an individual’s parental background theoretically becomes less relevant to or indicative of their own social class over time (Rubin & Wright, 2015 ). To test the robustness of the CSCS to the effects of age, we conducted sensitivity analyses comparing the results of confirmatory factor analyses, splitting the sample between younger and mature aged students (i.e., students over 22 years old). These analyses revealed viable single factor structures for the CSCS in both the younger and mature aged samples, with only negligible differences to the results reported in Table 3 . Full details of the results of these analyses are reported in the supplementary materials.

Social class is a complex, context-dependent nexus of people’s social and economic circumstances that does not lend itself easily to precise mass-measurement. This is particularly true in the university context, where social class is influential but seldom adequately conceptualised. In the present research, we developed a comprehensive measure of social class (CSCS) that includes a combination of subjective and objective approaches, and we demonstrated the efficacy of combining these measures together in a singular global continuous indicator of social class.

Evidence for the CSCS

Across 12 samples, we combined multiple variables relevant to social class together to form the global CSCS measure. Specifically, the CSCS included subjective measures of occupation, childhood wealth, self-identified social class, and subjective social status as well as an objective measure of education. This multidimensional approach represents a substantial divergence from previous literature, which has usually treated social class variables separately (Diemer et al., 2012 ; Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ). In contrast, the present research demonstrates the convergence of social class variables and provides compelling evidence for taking a multifaceted approach to measuring social class. The confirmatory factor analyses for each sample demonstrated that these variables all share some commonality and load onto one factor, with some minor caveats.

Validity and Reliability

The CSCS had good predictive validity, being reliably related to theoretically relevant variables including mental and physical health, sense of belonging, and sleep. The results of the correlation analyses comparing the global CSCS to its individual items demonstrated that the CSCS is more than the sum of its parts, because it had the strongest correlation in four out of five of the tests. However, there are instances in which the CSCS approach may not be appropriate for all research on social class or SES and university students. For example, parental education is likely to be predictive of adaptation to university over and above the global CSCS because parents with university degrees can impart their “college knowledge” to their children (Rubin, 2012a ; York-Anderson & Bowman, 1991 ). Similarly, parental occupation may have a stronger influence on career choice than other measures. Thus, we do not advocate for indiscriminate use of the aggregate of all items of the CSCS for all research. Rather, we propose that the 11 items of the CSCS be included when investigating student social class, and that the use of each of the separate components should be thoughtfully considered on a case-by-case basis. The individual items can also be tested separately in sensitivity checks to determine the robustness of findings about social class.

The correlations and paired samples t -tests conducted on the longitudinal samples demonstrate that this approach to measuring social class remains relatively stable over time and provides evidence for its test-retest reliability. Social class is not a stagnant social demographic; however, it is also not prone to change substantially over short periods of time. In the higher education context, we would not expect large differences in student social class to be present over the course of 6 months. Nonetheless, there are several aspects of social class that may change over the course of a university degree. For example, completing a university degree represents a significant change in education level, and so it is likely that a working-class student’s social class will change on this dimension between the time they start and finish a degree (Loveday, 2015 ). Thus, although we believe that researchers should reasonably expect the CSCS to remain stable over short periods of time, there are dynamic relationships between the context and the variables being measured that mean that scores will change over longer periods or at specific times (e.g., end of degree).

Researchers should also note that, due to the standardization approach used to create CSCS scores, it is not possible to compare CSCS scores across different samples. Researchers who wish to compare the CSCS scores of different samples (e.g., in a meta-analysis) will need to obtain the raw component values for each sample, combine the different samples into a single dataset, and apply the standardization process across the combined dataset.

Moreover, in the present research we make the case for using the CSCS as a continuous variable. However, our approach is not intended to discredit categorical class levels, which have significant meaning to both researchers and laypersons (Jetten et al., 2008 ). The CSCS is a method of quantitatively measuring social class for research, but further exploration is needed to qualitatively interpret CSCS scores. The CSCS includes an item of self-identified social class, which could alone be used to categorise students into social classes. Alternatively, numerical cut-off points could be developed to categorise CSCS scores into social class categories. However, this approach would need to be undertaken with extreme caution taking into account the specific sample demographics and context.

Considering Student Demographics

One limitation of the CSCS is its reliance on referring to the social and economic situation of students’ parents (e.g., mother’s education, father’s education, mother’s occupation, and father’s occupation). As explained earlier, using parental social class factors as a proxy for student social class is necessary because university students generally have the same primary full-time occupation (i.e., university student), the same education level, and are less likely to have developed their own social class identity (for reviews, see Kraus & Stephens, 2012 ; Oakes & Rossi, 2003 ; Saegert et al., 2006 ). However, there are also some key limitations to the use of parental measures (Rubin et al., 2014 ). First, students’ recollections of their parent’s occupation, education and income are not always accurate (e.g., Jetten et al., 2008 ). Second, parental measures are less relevant to older mature-aged students. Thus, parental measures should be used and interpreted with some degree of caution and reference to student demographics, especially if used alone. Nonetheless, the age sensitivity analyses demonstrated that the factor structure of the CSCS remained the same for older students compared to younger students, indicating it is robust to the differences in age groups despite the limitations associated with the use of parental measures alone.

The consistent demonstration of a single factor solution across all samples demonstrates that this variance in circumstances of students is not enough to disrupt the cohesion of the measured constructs. However, it is important to note that mother’s education was an anomaly in the EFA results and had a sub-par loading on the single factor. Mother’s education being the least cohesive of the measures is likely attributable to the nature of the relationship between the education and occupation of women with children. Specifically, women who have children are likely to have less prestigious occupations than women of the same age and education level without children (Avellar & Smock, 2003 ). The result might also be explained by the lesser influence of mother’s background on the economic and social position of a family compared to the father’s background (Goldthorpe, 1983 ). Although more mothers are now working full-time and earning the highest income in the family, there is still a lingering societal and economic trend for the father’s background to be more influential than the mother’s on the family’s overall position (Korupp et al., 2002 ). Consequently, it is possible that mother’s education currently has less impact on family social class than the other variables, and this may be why it had the weakest loading in the factor analyses. Nonetheless, we believe that including variables from multiple parents is necessary to be inclusive and reflect the changing social and economic situations of families. Footnote 3

Researchers who use the CSCS should also carefully consider the demographics of students that they are surveying when choosing the specific items and their wordings. For example, researchers studying mature-aged students may consider items that refer to participants rather than participants’ parents. Researchers should also take into account cultural background and ethnicity. One limitation of the current evidence for this measure is that the vast majority of the students included in the samples were White. Class is an inherently intersectional concept, with most marginalised groups in society also having a relatively low economic and social status (Cole, 2009 ). In the higher education sphere, lower-class students are more likely than middle- and upper-class students to be older and female (Rubin, 2012b ) and from an ethnic minority (Lundy-Wagner, 2012 ). We do not expect that the construction and cohesion of the CSCS would change across different demographics. However, it is important to consider social class in conjunction with these other demographics to obtain a meaningful understanding of equity and diversity issues in higher education.

Generalizability

There is a renewed research focus on social class outside of the university sphere (for a recent summary, see Manstead, 2018 ). Like research in higher education populations, this research tends to use single item/construct approaches to measuring social class. We believe that the CSCS that is presented here would be suitable for measuring social class in the general population as well. However, as discussed above, individual rather than parent-based approaches should be used in this context. Future research should seek to validate this approach in general populations.

In terms of the wider generalisability of the CSCS, it should be noted that all but one sample included students from Australian universities, and many of the samples were convenience samples obtained through psychology research participant pools, which means that it is not clear whether the CSCS will have the same psychometric characteristics in other countries or samples. It is likely that the relationships demonstrated here would be replicated in other Western industrialised countries and countries with similar patterns of social demographics (e.g., income and wealth distributions, widening access to higher education). However, researchers using the CSCS in samples from other countries should do so with careful consideration to the specific context and conduct relevant analyses to ensure a one-factor approach is suitable.

Conclusions

Social class is an important but often overlooked or misunderstood mix of demographics, experiences and culture that students bring with them to the university experience. To date, there is no consensus on how to measure a students’ social class. We aimed to contribute to building this consensus by proposing a global measure that incorporates a number of variables related to social and economic standing.

This paper demonstrates support for this approach from 12 separate samples, and it provides evidence of the scale’s reliability and validity. However, we acknowledge that a broad-stroke, one-size-fits-all approach to measuring social class is inconsistent with the complicated nuances of social class. Thus, although we believe that using the CSCS represents best practice when measuring social class in certain situations, flexibility is needed in its application. For example, the specific context and demographic of the students (e.g., mature aged students for whom parental measures are less relevant) should be considered. Additionally, the CSCS items can be used separately when theoretically or methodologically appropriate.

Overall, we suggest that researchers in higher education expand their measurement of social class to cover multiple domains using the CSCS. Doing so should provide a more nuanced, articulated and comprehensive picture of students’ social class that is better positioned to inform research on the experiences of students in higher education.

Data Availability

The data for each of the studies reported in the paper can be made available upon request.

Code Availability

The code for each of the studies reported in the paper can be made available upon request.

These percentages are based on data from the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education. In this instance, socioeconomic status is based on the status of the Statistical Area 1 (SA1) in which they reside, using the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Socio-Economic Index for Areas — Index of Education and Occupation derived from ABS census data. Low SES students are identified as being in the lowest quartile of the Australian population in the national ranking of SA1s on this measure.

Samples 10 and 11 are from studies conducted as part of the first author’s PhD thesis, which investigated the relations between university student social class, social integration, and mental health. Samples 1, 7, 8 and 9 are from studies that formed the second author’s PhD thesis on social class, sleep, and mental and physical health. Samples 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are from studies included in the third author’s PhD thesis on the need for closure, the ability to achieve cognitive structure, and mental health. Sample 12 is from a study published by the fourth author investigating different types of social class identity and mental health. Hence, some parts of the analyses reported here have been included in other publications.

This anomaly speaks to a larger issue with changing family structures and influences. Specifically, we expect that using the terms mother and father will become increasingly incompatible with students’ family backgrounds as familial structures continue to change (e.g., as same-sex parents become more common). Thus, although we believe that parental education and occupation will continue to be an important proxy through which to measure student social class, we advocate for the use of more inclusive phrasing/terminology when constructing these questions. For example, the questions could be altered to ask about the two most relevant parent/guardians, with participants able to indicate which parents/guardians they are responding about. Researchers might also opt to add the option for participants to choose how many parents/guardians they provide information about (e.g. for single parent households). Although we have not applied this approach in the present research, we have no reason to believe that making the language and method of questioning more inclusive would significantly change the structure of the factor. Notably, ethics boards have requested similar changes to the phrasing of these questions in more recent research protocols proposed by the researchers.

Adler, N. E., Epel, E. S., Castellazzo, G., & Ickovics, J. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy White Women. Health Psychology, 19 (6), 586–592. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.19.6.586

Article   Google Scholar  

Adler, N. E., & Stuart, J. (2007). The Macarthur scale of subjective social status . The MacArthur Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health. Retrieved from https://macses.ucsf.edu/research/psychosocial/subjective.php

Arbuckle, J. L., & Wothke, W. (1999). Amos 4.0. user’s guide . SmallWaters Corporation.

Google Scholar  

Avellar, S., & Smock, P. J. (2003). Has the price of motherhood declined over time? A cross-cohort comparison of the motherhood wage penalty. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65 (3), 597–607. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12086

Bagley, E. J., Kelly, R. J., Buckhalt, J. A., & El-Sheikh, M. (2015). What keeps low-SES children from sleeping well: The role of presleep worries and sleep environment. Sleep Medicine, 16 (4), 496–502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2014.10.008

Bagozzi, R. P. (2010). Structural equation models are modelling tools with many ambiguities: Comments acknowledging the need for caution and humility in their use. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 20 (2), 208–214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2010.03.001

Barrow, L., & Rouse, C. E. (2005). Does college still pay? The Economists' Voice , 2 (4).

Bennette, C., & Vickers, A. (2012). Against quantiles: Categorization of continuous variables in epidemiologic research, and its discontents. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 12 (1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-12-21

Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. Cultural Theory: an Anthology, 1 , 81–93.

Bradley, D., Noonan, P., Nugent, H., & Scales, B. (2008). Review of Australian higher Education: Final report. Canberra: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

Brändle, T. (2017). How availability of capital affects the timing of enrollment: The routes to university of traditional and non-traditional students. Studies in Higher Education, 42 (12), 2229–2249. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2016.1141401

Byrne, B. M. (2013). Structural equation modeling with EQS: Basic concepts, applications, and programming . Routledge.

Book   Google Scholar  

Carmines, E. G., & McIver, J. P. (1981). Analyzing models with unobserved variables. In G. W. Bohrnstedt & E. F. Borgatta (Eds.), Social measurement: Current issues (pp. 65–115). Sage.

Cattell, R. B. (1966). The scree test for the number of factors. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1 (2), 245–276. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr0102_10

Clark, L. A., & Watson, D. (2019). Constructing validity: New developments in creating objective measuring instruments. Psychological Assessment, 31 (12), 1412. https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000626

Cole, E. R. (2009). Intersectionality and research in psychology. American Psychologist, 64 (3), 170–180. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014564

Conley, D. T. (2008). College knowledge: What it really takes for students to succeed and what we can do to get them ready . Wiley.

Costello, A. B., & Osborne, J. W. (2005). Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 10 (7), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.7275/jyj1-4868

Crede, M., & Harms, P. (2019). Questionable research practices when using confirmatory factor analysis. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 34 (1), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-06-2018-0272

Day, J. C., & Newburger, E. C. (2002). The big payoff: Educational attainment and synthetic estimates of work-life earnings (current population reports, special studies, pp. 23–210).

Diemer, M. A. (2009). Pathways to occupational attainment among poor youth of color: The role of sociopolitical development. The Counseling Psychologist, 37 (1), 6–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000007309858

Diemer, M. A., Mistry, R. S., Wadsworth, M. E., López, I., & Reimers, F. (2012). Best practices in conceptualizing and measuring social class in psychological research. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 13 (1), 77–113. https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12001

Diener, E. D., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49 (1), 71–75. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13

Domhoff, G. W. (1998). Who rules America?: Power and politics in the year 2000 . McGraw-Hill Humanities.

Eisenberg, D., Gollust, S. E., Golberstein, E., & Hefner, J. L. (2007). Prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality among university students. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 77 (4), 534–542. https://doi.org/10.1037/0002-9432.77.4.534

Evans, O. (2019). It’s lonely at the bottom: Investigating the role of social integration in the association between social class and mental health [Doctoral dissertation, University of Newcastle]. University of Newcastle NOVA Repository.

Felden, É. P. G., Leite, C. R., Rebelatto, C. F., Andrade, R. D., & Beltrame, T. S. (2015). Sleep in adolescents of different socioeconomic status: A systematic review. Revista Paulista De Pediatria, 33 (4), 467–473. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rpped.2015.01.011

Gatt, J. M., Burton, K. L., Schofield, P. R., Bryant, R. A., & Williams, L. M. (2014). The heritability of mental health and wellbeing defined using COMPAS-W, a new composite measure of wellbeing. Psychiatry Research, 219 (1), 204–213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2014.04.033

Goldthorpe, J. H. (1983). Women and class analysis: In defence of the conventional view. Sociology, 17 , 465–488. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038583017004001

Graham, J. W. (2009). Missing data analysis: Making it work in the real world. Annual Review of Psychology, 60 (1), 549–576. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085530

Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Delton, A. W., & Robertson, T. E. (2011). The influence of mortality and socioeconomic status on risk and delayed rewards: A life history theory approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100 (6), 1015–1026.

Hill, S. E., Prokosch, M. L., DelPriore, D. J., Griskevicius, V., & Kramer, A. (2016). Low childhood socioeconomic status promotes eating in the absence of energy need. Psychological Science, 27 (3), 354–364. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615621901

Hooper, D., Coughlan, J., & Mullen, M. R. (2008). Structural equation modelling: Guidelines for determining model fit. Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 6 (1), 53–60. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989X.12.1.58

Horn, J. L. (1965). A rationale and test for the number of factors in factor analysis. Psychometrika, 32 (2), 179–185. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02289447

Howell, R. T., & Howell, C. J. (2008). The relation of economic status to subjective well-being in developing countries: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 134 (4), 536–560. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.4.536

Iacobucci, D. (2010). Structural equations modelling: Fit indices, sample size, and advanced topics. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 20 (1), 90–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2009.09.003

Jack, A. A. (2016). (No) harm in asking: Class, acquired cultural capital, and academic engagement at an elite university. Sociology of Education, 89 (1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040715614913

James, R., Bexley, E., Anderson, A., Devlin, M., Garnett, R., Marginson, S., & Maxwell, L. (2008). Participation and equity: A review of the participation in higher education of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds and Indigenous people. Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30006777

Jetten, J., Iyer, A., Tsivrikos, D., & Young, B. M. (2008). When is individual mobility costly? The role of economic and social identity factors. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38 (5), 866–879. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.471

Kline, R. B. (2015). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling . Guilford Publications.

Korupp, S. E., Ganzeboom, H. B., & Van Der Lippe, T. (2002). Do mothers matter? A comparison of models of the influence of mothers’ and fathers’ educational and occupational status on children’s educational attainment. Quality and Quantity, 36 (1), 17–42. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014393223522

Kraus, M. W., & Keltner, D. (2013). Social class rank, essentialism, and punitive judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105 (2), 247–261. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032895

Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2009). Social class, sense of control, and social explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97 (6), 992–1004. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016357

Kraus, M. W., & Stephens, N. M. (2012). A road map for an emerging psychology of social class. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 (9), 642–656. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00453.x

Langhout, R. D., Drake, P., & Rosselli, F. (2009). Classism in the university setting: Examining student antecedents and outcomes. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 2 (3), 166–181. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016209

Lareau, A., & Conley, D. (2008). Social class: How does it work? Russell Sage Foundation.

Leppel, K., Williams, M. L., & Waldauer, C. (2001). The impact of parental occupation and socioeconomic status on choice of college major. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 22 (4), 373–394. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012716828901

Loveday, V. (2015). Working-class participation, middle-class aspiration? Value, upward mobility and symbolic indebtedness in higher education. The Sociological Review, 63 (3), 570–588. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12167

Lundy-Wagner, V. C. (2012). ’Class’ifying ethnicity/race and gender: An intersectional critique of bachelor’s degree completion research. InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies, 8 (2), 1–22.

Manstead, A. S. R. (2018). The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57 (2), 267–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12251

Maras, P. (2007). ‘But no one in my family has been to University’ Aiming Higher: School Students’ Attitudes to Higher Education. The Australian Educational Researcher, 34 (3), 69–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03216866

Marsh, H. W., & Hocevar, D. (1985). Application of confirmatory factor analysis to the study of self-concept: First-and higher order factor models and their invariance across groups. Psychological Bulletin, 97 (3), 562–582. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.97.3.562

Mayer, A., & Puller, S. L. (2008). The old boy (and girl) network: Social network formation on university campuses. Journal of Public Economics, 92 (1–2), 329–347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2007.09.001

McGuffog, R. (2020). Sleep tight and don’t let the socioeconomic inequality bite! Relations between social class, sleep, and mental and physical health [Doctoral dissertation, University of Newcastle]. University of Newcastle NOVA Repository. Retrieved from https://nova.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/uon:36304

Moore, J. C., Stinson, L. L., & Welniak, E. J. (2000). Income measurement error in surveys: A review. Journal of Official Statistics-Stockholm, 16 (4), 331–362.

Morin, R., & Motel, S. (2012). A third of Americans now say they are in the lower classes. Pew Social and Demographic Trends , 1–16. Retrieved from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2012/09/the-lower-classes-final.pdf

Moss, S. (2016, June 27). Fit indices for structural equation modelling . SICO Tests. Retrieved from https://www.sicotests.com/psyarticle.asp?id=277

Nelson, K., Kift, S., & Clarke, J. (2008). Expectations and realities for first year students at an Australian university. In Thomas, J (Ed.) Proceedings of the 11th Pacific Rim First Year in Higher Education Conference, 2008. Queensland University of Technology Publications, Australia, Queensland, Brisbane, pp. 1–9.

Norton, M. I., & Ariely, D. (2011). Building a better America—One wealth quintile at a time. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6 (1), 9–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610393524

Oakes, J. M., & Rossi, P. H. (2003). The measurement of SES in health research: Current practice and steps toward a new approach. Social Science & Medicine, 56 (4), 769–784. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0277-9536(02)00073-4

Ostrove, J. M., & Cole, E. R. (2003). Privileging class: Toward a critical psychology of social class in the context of education. Journal of Social Issues, 59 , 677–692. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0022-4537.2003.00084.x

Ostrove, J. M., & Long, S. M. (2007). Social class and belonging: Implications for college adjustment. Review of Higher Education, 30 (4), 363–389. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2007.0028

Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (1991). How college affects students . Jossey-Bass.

Reimer, D., & Pollak, R. (2010). Educational expansion and its consequences for vertical and horizontal inequalities in access to higher education in West Germany. European Sociological Review, 26 (4), 415–430. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcp029

Rosado, D. L., & David, M. E. (2006). “A massive university or a university for the masses?” Continuity and change in higher education in Spain and England. Journal of Education Policy, 21 (3), 343–365. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680930600600630

Rubin, M. (2012a). Social class differences in social integration among students in higher education: A meta-analysis and recommendations for future research. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 5 (1), 22–38. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026162

Rubin, M. (2012b). Working-class students need more friends at university: A cautionary note for Australia’s higher education equity initiative. Higher Education Research & Development, 31 (3), 431–433. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2012.689246

Rubin, M., Denson, N., Kilpatrick, S., Matthews, K. E., Stehlik, T., & Zyngier, D. (2014). “I Am Working-Class” Subjective self-definition as a missing measure of social class and socioeconomic status in higher education research. Educational Researcher, 43 (4), 196–200. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x14528373

Rubin, M., Evans, O., & McGuffog, R. (2019). Social class differences in social integration at university: Implications for academic outcomes and mental health. In J. Jetten & K. Peters (Eds.), The social psychology of inequality (pp. 87–102). New York: Springer.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Rubin, M., Evans, O., & Wilkinson, R. B. (2016). A longitudinal study of the relations among university students’ subjective social status, social contact with university friends, and mental health and well-being. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 35 (9), 722–737. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2016.35.9.722

Rubin, M., & Kelly, B. M. (2015). A cross-sectional investigation of parenting style and friendship as mediators of the relation between social class and mental health in a university community. International Journal for Equity in Health, 14 (87), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-015-0227-2

Rubin, M., & Wright, C. L. (2015). Age differences explain social class differences in students’ friendship at university: Implications for transition and retention. Higher Education, 70 (3), 427–439. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9844-8

Rubin, M., & Wright, C. L. (2017). Time and money explain social class differences in students’ social integration at university. Studies in Higher Education, 42 (2), 315–330. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1045481

Russell, D. W. (2002). In search of underlying dimensions: The use (and abuse) of factor analysis in personality and social psychology Bulletin. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28 (12), 1629–1646. https://doi.org/10.1177/014616702237645

Saegert, S. C., Adler, N. E., Bullock, H. E., Cauce, A. M., Liu, W. M., & Wyche, K. F. (2006). APA Task Force on socioeconomic status (SES) . Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/task-force-2006.pdf .

Said, D., Kypri, K., & Bowman, J. (2013). Risk factors for mental disorder among university students in Australia: Findings from a web-based cross-sectional survey. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 48 (6), 935–944. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-012-0574-x

Sheppard, J., & Biddle, N. (2017). Class, capital, and identity in Australian society. Australian Journal of Political Science, 52 (4), 500–516. https://doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2017.1364342

Sirin, S. R. (2005). Socioeconomic status and academic achievement: A meta-analytic review of research. Review of Educational Research, 75 (3), 417–453. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543075003417

Snibbe, A. C., & Markus, H. R. (2005). You can’t always get what you want: Educational attainment, agency, and choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88 (4), 703. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.4.703

Soria, K. M., Stebleton, M. J., & Huesman, R. L. (2013). Class counts: Exploring differences in academic and social integration between working-class and middle/upper-class students at large, public research universities. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 15 (2), 215–242. https://doi.org/10.2190/cs.15.2.e

Stephens, N. M., Hamedani, M. G., & Destin, M. (2014). Closing the social-class achievement gap: A difference-education intervention improves first-generation students’ academic performance and all students’ college transition. Psychological Science, 25 (4), 943–953. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613518349

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Brooks-Cole.

Tsiplakides, I. (2017). Has the expansion of participation in higher education led to a decrease in socio-economic inequalities within it? The role of cultural and social capital. European Journal of Education Studies, 3 (8), 250–261. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.826962

Watkins, M. W. (2000). Monte Carlo PCA for parallel analysis [computer software]. Ed & Psych Associates , 432–442.

Wells, R. (2008). Social and cultural capital, race and ethnicity, and college student retention. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 10 (2), 103–128. https://doi.org/10.2190/CS.10.2.a

Wells, R. S., & Lynch, C. M. (2012). Delayed college entry and the socioeconomic gap: Examining the roles of student plans, family income, parental education, and parental occupation. The Journal of Higher Education, 83 (5), 671–697. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2012.0028

Wilks, J., & Wilson, K. (2012). Going on to uni? Access and participation in university for students from backgrounds of disadvantage. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 34 (1), 79–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2012.642335

Wilson, P., & Cooper, C. (2008). Finding the magic number: Investigating the methods used to extract the number of factors in a factor analysis. The Psychologist, 21 (10), 866–867.

York-Anderson, D. C., & Bowman, S. L. (1991). Assessing the college knowledge of first-generation and second-generation college students. Journal of College Student Development, 32 (2), 116–122.

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Chelsea Scott, Justine Gatt, Navjot Bhullar, Lisa Phillips, Mark Boyes, Marie Caltabiano, James Collison, Geoff P. Lovell, Orla Muldoon, and Mary Ann Hill for their assistance in facilitating data collection across different institutions. The authors would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their generous and helpful feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. This research was supported by the Australian Government through the Research Training Scholarship Program and the Australian Research Council.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions. This research was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Scholarship Program. This research was partially by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Indigenous Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project IN200100047).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

Olivia Evans

The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia

Romany McGuffog, Monica Gendi & Mark Rubin

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

All authors conceived the research idea and assisted with the design of the scale. MG and MR were responsible for designing and running the research projects associated with Samples 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. RM and MR were responsible for designing and running the research projects associated with Samples 1, 7, 8, and 9. OE and MR were responsible for designing and running the research projects associated with Samples 10, 11, and 12. OE, RM and MG conducted the analyses and OE wrote the first draft of the article. This manuscript has not been published elsewhere and it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Olivia Evans .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval

Ethics approval for both studies was obtained from the a university Human Research Ethics Committee.

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Consent for Publication

Informed consent included consenting to the use of data in publications.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 16 KB)

Rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Evans, O., McGuffog, R., Gendi, M. et al. A First Class Measure: Evidence for a Comprehensive Social Class Scale in Higher Education Populations. Res High Educ 63 , 1427–1452 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09693-9

Download citation

Received : 26 May 2021

Accepted : 30 March 2022

Published : 21 April 2022

Issue Date : December 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09693-9

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Social class
• Socioeconomic status
• Social status
• University students
• Working-class students
• Higher education
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

8.3 Social Class in the United States

Learning objectives.

• Distinguish objective and subjective measures of social class.
• Outline the functionalist view of the American class structure.
• Outline the conflict view of the American class structure.
• Discuss whether the United States has much vertical social mobility.

There is a surprising amount of disagreement among sociologists on the number of social classes in the United States and even on how to measure social class membership. We first look at the measurement issue and then discuss the number and types of classes sociologists have delineated.

Measuring Social Class

We can measure social class either objectively or subjectively . If we choose the objective method, we classify people according to one or more criteria, such as their occupation, education, and/or income. The researcher is the one who decides which social class people are in based on where they stand in regard to these variables. If we choose the subjective method, we ask people what class they think they are in. For example, the General Social Survey asks, “If you were asked to use one of four names for your social class, which would you say you belong in: the lower class, the working class, the middle class, or the upper class?” Figure 8.3 “Subjective Social Class Membership” depicts responses to this question. The trouble with such a subjective measure is that some people say they are in a social class that differs from what objective criteria might indicate they are in. This problem leads most sociologists to favor objective measures of social class when they study stratification in American society.

Figure 8.3 Subjective Social Class Membership

Source: Data from General Social Survey, 2008.

Yet even here there is disagreement between functionalist theorists and conflict theorists on which objective measures to use. Functionalist sociologists rely on measures of socioeconomic status (SES) , such as education, income, and occupation, to determine someone’s social class. Sometimes one of these three variables is used by itself to measure social class, and sometimes two or all three of the variables are combined (in ways that need not concern us) to measure social class. When occupation is used, sociologists often rely on standard measures of occupational prestige. Since the late 1940s, national surveys have asked Americans to rate the prestige of dozens of occupations, and their ratings are averaged together to yield prestige scores for the occupations (Hodge, Siegel, & Rossi, 1964). Over the years these scores have been relatively stable. Here are some average prestige scores for various occupations: physician, 86; college professor, 74; elementary school teacher, 64; letter carrier, 47; garbage collector, 28; and janitor, 22.

Despite SES’s usefulness, conflict sociologists prefer different, though still objective, measures of social class that take into account ownership of the means of production and other dynamics of the workplace. These measures are closer to what Marx meant by the concept of class throughout his work, and they take into account the many types of occupations and workplace structures that he could not have envisioned when he was writing during the 19th century.

For example, corporations have many upper-level managers who do not own the means of production but still determine the activities of workers under them. They thus do not fit neatly into either of Marx’s two major classes, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Recognizing these problems, conflict sociologists delineate social class on the basis of several factors, including the ownership of the means of production, the degree of autonomy workers enjoy in their jobs, and whether they supervise other workers or are supervised themselves (Wright, 2000).

The American Class Structure

As should be evident, it is not easy to determine how many social classes exist in the United States. Over the decades, sociologists have outlined as many as six or seven social classes based on such things as, once again, education, occupation, and income, but also on lifestyle, the schools people’s children attend, a family’s reputation in the community, how “old” or “new” people’s wealth is, and so forth (Coleman & Rainwater, 1978; Warner & Lunt, 1941). For the sake of clarity, we will limit ourselves to the four social classes included in Figure 8.3 “Subjective Social Class Membership” : the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class. Although subcategories exist within some of these broad categories, they still capture the most important differences in the American class structure (Gilbert, 2011). The annual income categories listed for each class are admittedly somewhat arbitrary but are based on the percentage of households above or below a specific income level.

The Upper Class

Depending on how it is defined, the upper class consists of about 4% of the U.S. population and includes households with annual incomes (2009 data) of more than $200,000 (DeNavas-Walt, Proctor, & Smith, 2010). Some scholars would raise the ante further by limiting the upper class to households with incomes of at least $500,000 or so, which in turn reduces this class to about 1% of the population, with an average wealth (income, stocks and bonds, and real estate) of several million dollars. However it is defined, the upper class has much wealth, power, and influence (Kerbo, 2009).

The upper class in the United States consists of about 4% of all households and possesses much wealth, power, and influence.

Steven Martin – Highland Park Mansion – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Members of the upper-upper class have “old” money that has been in their families for generations; some boast of their ancestors coming over on the Mayflower . They belong to exclusive clubs and live in exclusive neighborhoods; have their names in the Social Register ; send their children to expensive private schools; serve on the boards of museums, corporations, and major charities; and exert much influence on the political process and other areas of life from behind the scenes. Members of the lower-upper class have “new” money acquired through hard work, lucky investments, and/or athletic prowess. In many ways their lives are similar to those of their old-money counterparts, but they do not enjoy the prestige that old money brings. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the richest person in the United States in 2009, would be considered a member of the lower-upper class because his money is too “new.” Because he does not have a long-standing pedigree, upper-upper class members might even be tempted to disparage his immense wealth, at least in private.

The Middle Class

Many of us like to think of ourselves in the middle class, as Figure 8.3 “Subjective Social Class Membership” showed, and many of us are. The middle class includes the 46% of all households whose annual incomes range from $50,000 to $199,999. As this very broad range suggests, the middle class includes people with many different levels of education and income and many different types of jobs. It is thus helpful to distinguish the upper-middle class from the lower-middle class on the upper and lower ends of this income bracket, respectively. The upper-middle class has household incomes from about $150,000 to $199,000, amounting to about 4.4% of all households. People in the upper-middle class typically have college and, very often, graduate or professional degrees; live in the suburbs or in fairly expensive urban areas; and are bankers, lawyers, engineers, corporate managers, and financial advisers, among other occupations.

The upper-middle class in the United States consists of about 4.4% of all households, with incomes ranging from $150,000 to $199,000.

Alyson Hurt – Back Porch – CC BY-NC 2.0.

The lower-middle class has household incomes from about $50,000 to $74,999, amounting to about 18% of all families. People in this income bracket typically work in white-collar jobs as nurses, teachers, and the like. Many have college degrees, usually from the less prestigious colleges, but many also have 2-year degrees or only a high school degree. They live somewhat comfortable lives but can hardly afford to go on expensive vacations or buy expensive cars and can send their children to expensive colleges only if they receive significant financial aid.

The Working Class

The working class in the United States consists of about 25% of all households, whose members work in blue-collar jobs and less skilled clerical positions.

Lisa Risager – Ebeltoft – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Working-class households have annual incomes between about $25,000 and $49,999 and constitute about 25% of all U.S. households. They generally work in blue-collar jobs such as factory work, construction, restaurant serving, and less skilled clerical positions. People in the working class typically do not have 4-year college degrees, and some do not have high school degrees. Although most are not living in official poverty, their financial situation is very uncomfortable. A single large medical bill or expensive car repair would be almost impossible to pay without going into considerable debt. Working-class families are far less likely than their wealthier counterparts to own their own homes or to send their children to college. Many of them live at risk for unemployment as their companies downsize by laying off workers even in good times, and hundreds of thousands began to be laid off when the U.S. recession began in 2008.

The Lower Class

The lower class or poor in the United States constitute about 25% of all households. Many poor individuals lack high school degrees and are unemployed or employed only part time.

Chris Hunkeler – Trailer Homes – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Although lower class is a common term, many observers prefer a less negative-sounding term like the poor, which is the term used here. The poor have household incomes under $25,000 and constitute about 25% of all U.S. households. Many of the poor lack high school degrees, and many are unemployed or employed only part time in semiskilled or unskilled jobs. When they do work, they work as janitors, house cleaners, migrant laborers, and shoe shiners. They tend to rent apartments rather than own their own homes, lack medical insurance, and have inadequate diets. We will discuss the poor further when we focus later in this chapter on inequality and poverty in the United States.

Social Mobility

Regardless of how we measure and define social class, what are our chances of moving up or down within the American class structure? As we saw earlier, the degree of vertical social mobility is a key distinguishing feature of systems of stratification. Class systems such as in the United States are thought to be open, meaning that social mobility is relatively high. It is important, then, to determine how much social mobility exists in the United States.

Here we need to distinguish between two types of vertical social mobility. Intergenerational mobility refers to mobility from one generation to the next within the same family. If children from poor parents end up in high-paying jobs, the children have experienced upward intergenerational mobility. Conversely, if children of college professors end up hauling trash for a living, these children have experienced downward intergenerational mobility. Intragenerational mobility refers to mobility within a person’s own lifetime. If you start out as an administrative assistant in a large corporation and end up as an upper-level manager, you have experienced upward intragenerational mobility. But if you start out from business school as an upper-level manager and get laid off 10 years later because of corporate downsizing, you have experienced downward intragenerational mobility.

Sociologists have conducted a good deal of research on vertical mobility, much of it involving the movement of males up or down the occupational prestige ladder compared to their fathers, with the earliest studies beginning in the 1960s (Blau & Duncan, 1967; Featherman & Hauser, 1978). For better or worse, the focus on males occurred because the initial research occurred when many women were still homemakers and also because women back then were excluded from many studies in the social and biological sciences. The early research on males found that about half of sons end up in higher-prestige jobs than their fathers had but that the difference between the sons’ jobs and their fathers’ was relatively small. For example, a child of a janitor may end up running a hardware store but is very unlikely to end up as a corporate executive. To reach that lofty position, it helps greatly to have parents in jobs much more prestigious than a janitor’s. Contemporary research also finds much less mobility among African Americans and Latinos than among non-Latino whites with the same education and family backgrounds, suggesting an important negative impact of racial and ethnic discrimination (see Chapter 7 “Deviance, Crime, and Social Control” ).

A college education is a key step toward achieving upward social mobility. However, the payoff of education is often higher for men than for women and for whites than for people of color.

Nazareth College – Commencement 2013 – CC BY 2.0.

A key vehicle for upward mobility is formal education. Regardless of the socioeconomic status of our parents, we are much more likely to end up in a high-paying job if we attain a college degree or, increasingly, a graduate or professional degree. Figure 8.4 “Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007” vividly shows the difference that education makes for Americans’ median annual incomes. Notice, however, that for a given level of education, men’s incomes are greater than women’s. Figure 8.4 “Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007” thus suggests that the payoff of education is higher for men than for women, and many studies support this conclusion (Green & Ferber, 2008). The reasons for this gender difference are complex and will be discussed further in Chapter 11 “Gender and Gender Inequality” . To the extent vertical social mobility exists in the United States, then, it is higher for men than for women and higher for whites than for people of color.

Figure 8.4 Education and Median Earnings of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers, 2007

Source: Data from U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). Statistical abstract of the United States: 2010 . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab .

Certainly the United States has upward social mobility, even when we take into account gender and racial discrimination. Whether we conclude the United States has a lot of vertical mobility or just a little is the key question, and the answer to this question depends on how the data are interpreted. People can and do move up the socioeconomic ladder, but their movement is fairly limited. Hardly anyone starts at the bottom of the ladder and ends up at the top. As we see later in this chapter, recent trends in the U.S. economy have made it more difficult to move up the ladder and have even worsened the status of some people.

One way of understanding the issue of U.S. mobility is to see how much parents’ education affects the education their children attain. Figure 8.5 “Parents’ Education and Percentage of Respondents Who Have a College Degree” compares how General Social Survey respondents with parents of different educational backgrounds fare in attaining a college (bachelor’s) degree. For the sake of clarity, the figure includes only those respondents whose parents had the same level of education as each other: they either both dropped out of high school, both were high school graduates, or both were college graduates.

Figure 8.5 Parents’ Education and Percentage of Respondents Who Have a College Degree

As Figure 8.5 “Parents’ Education and Percentage of Respondents Who Have a College Degree” indicates, we are much more likely to get a college degree if our parents had college degrees themselves. The two bars for respondents whose parents were high school graduates or dropouts, respectively, do represent upward mobility, because the respondents are graduating from college even though their parents did not. But the three bars taken together also show that our chances of going to college depend heavily on our parents’ education (and presumably their income and other aspects of our family backgrounds). The American Dream does exist, but it is much more likely to remain only a dream unless we come from advantaged backgrounds. In fact, there is less vertical mobility in the United States than in other Western democracies. As a recent analysis summarized the evidence, “There is considerably more mobility in most of the other developed economies of Europe and Scandinavia than in the United States” (Mishel, Bernstein, & Shierholz, 2009, p. 108).

Key Takeaways

• Several ways of measuring social class exist. Functionalist and conflict sociologists disagree on which objective criteria to use in measuring social class. Subjective measures of social class, which rely on people rating their own social class, may lack some validity.
• Sociologists disagree on the number of social classes in the United States, but a common view is that the United States has four classes: upper, middle, working, and lower. Further variations exist within the upper and middle classes.
• The United States has some vertical social mobility, but not as much as several nations in Western Europe.

For Your Review

• Which way of measuring social class do you prefer, objective or subjective? Explain your answer.
• Which objective measurement of social class do you prefer, functionalist or conflict? Explain your answer.

Blau, P. M., & Duncan, O. D. (1967). The American occupational structure . New York, NY: Wiley.

Coleman, R. P., & Rainwater, L. (1978). Social standing in America . New York, NY: Basic Books.

DeNavas-Walt, C., Proctor, B. D., & Smith, J. C. (2010). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2009 (Current Population Report P60-238). Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Featherman, D. L., & Hauser, R. M. (1978). Opportunity and change . New York, NY: Academic Press.

Gilbert, D. (2011). The American class structure in an age of growing inequality (8th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.

Green, C. A., & Ferber, M. A. (2008). The long-term impact of labor market interruptions: How crucial is timing? Review of Social Economy, 66 , 351–379.

Hodge, R. W., Siegel, P., & Rossi, P. (1964). Occupational prestige in the United States, 1925–63. American Journal of Sociology, 70 , 286–302.

Kerbo, H. R. (2009). Social stratification and inequality . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Shierholz, H. (2009). The state of working America 2008/2009 . Ithaca, NY: ILR Press [An imprint of Cornell University Press].

Warner, W. L., & Lunt, P. S. (1941). The social life of a modern community . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Wright, E. O. (2000). Class counts: Comparative studies in class analysis . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

What Is Social Class, and Why Does it Matter?

How Sociologists Define and Study the Concept

smartboy10 / Getty Images

• Key Concepts
• Major Sociologists
• News & Issues
• Research, Samples, and Statistics
• Recommended Reading
• Archaeology
• Ph.D., Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
• M.A., Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
• B.A., Sociology, Pomona College

Class, economic class, socio-economic class, social class. What's the difference? Each refers to how people are sorted into groups—specifically ranked hierarchies —in society. There are, in fact, important differences among them.

Economic Class

Economic class refers specifically to how one ranks relative to others in terms of income and wealth. Simply put, we are sorted into groups by how much money we have. These groups are commonly understood as lower (the poorest), middle, and upper class (the richest). When someone uses the word "class" to refer to how people are stratified in society, they are most often referring to this.

The model of economic class we use today is a derivation of German philosopher Karl Marx 's (1818–1883) definition of class, which was central to his theory of how society operates in a state of class conflict. In that state, an individual's power comes directly from one's economic class position relative to the means of production—one is either an owner of capitalist entities or a worker for one of the owners. Marx and fellow philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) presented this idea in " The Manifesto of the Communist Party ," and Marx expounded in much greater length in volume one of his work called "Capital."

Socio-Economic Class

Socio-economic class, also known as socioeconomic status  and often abbreviated as SES, refers to how other factors, namely occupation and education, are combined with wealth and income to rank a person relative to others in society. This model is inspired by the theories of German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920), who viewed the stratification of society as a result of the combined influences of economic class, social status (the level of a person's prestige or honor relative to others), and group power (what he called "party"). Weber defined "party" as the level of one's ability to get what they want, despite how others may fight them on it. Weber wrote about this in an essay titled "The distribution of power within the political community: Class, status, party," in his 1922 book "Economy and Society," published after his death.

Socio-economic class is a more complex formulation than economic class because it takes into account the social status attached to certain professions considered prestigious, like doctors and professors, for example, and to educational attainment as measured in academic degrees. It also takes into account the lack of prestige or even stigma that may be associated with other professions, like blue-collar jobs or the service sector, and the stigma often associated with not finishing high school. Sociologists typically create data models that draw on ways of measuring and ranking these different factors to arrive at a low, middle, or high SES for a given person.

Social Class

The term "social class" is often used interchangeably with SES, both by the general public and by sociologists alike. Very often when you hear it used, that is what it means. In a technical sense, however, social class is used to refer specifically to the characteristics that are less likely to change, or harder to change, than one's economic status, which is potentially changeable over time. In such a case, social class refers to the socio-cultural aspects of one's life, namely the traits, behaviors, knowledge, and lifestyle that one is socialized into by one's family. This is why class descriptors like "lower," "working," "upper," or "high" can have social as well as economic implications for how we understand the person described.

When someone uses "classy" as a descriptor, they are naming certain behaviors and lifestyle and framing them as superior to others. In this sense, social class is determined strongly by one's level of cultural capital , a concept developed by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) in his 1979 work "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste." Bourdieu said that levels of class are determined by the attainment of a specific set of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that allow a person to navigate in society.

Why Does It Matter?

So why does class, however you want to name it or slice it, matter? It matters to sociologists because the fact that it exists reflects unequal access to rights, resources, and power in society—what we call social stratification . As such, it has a strong effect on the access an individual has to education, the quality of that education, and how high a level he or she can reach. It also affects who one knows socially, and the extent to which those people can provide advantageous economic and employment opportunities, political participation and power, and even health and life expectancy, among many other things.

Sources and Further Reading

• Cookson Jr., Peter W. and Caroline Hodges Persell. "Preparing for Power: America's Elite Boarding Schools." New York: Basic Books, 1985.
• Marx, Karl. " Capital: A Critique of Political Economy ." Trans. Moore, Samuel, Edward Aveling and Friedrich Engels. Marxists.org, 2015 (1867).
• Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. " The Communist Manifesto ." Trans. Moore, Samuel and Friedrich Engels. Marxists.org, 2000 (1848).
• Weber, Max. "Economy and Society." ed. Roth, Guenther and Claus Wittich. Oakland: University of California Press, 2013 (1922).
• What Is Capitalism?
• What Is Social Stratification, and Why Does It Matter?
• What You Need to Know About Economic Inequality
• Understanding Karl Marx's Class Consciousness and False Consciousness
• The Differences Between Socialism and Communism
• The Sociology of Consumption
• Max Weber's Key Contributions to Sociology
• Introduction to Sociology
• 15 Major Sociological Studies and Publications
• What Does Consumerism Mean?
• What is a Norm? Why Does it Matter?
• Understanding Alienation and Social Alienation
• Visualizing Social Stratification in the U.S.
• Definition of Scapegoat, Scapegoating, and Scapegoat Theory
• Understanding Conflict Theory
• What Is Cultural Capital? Do I Have It?

• Institute of Continuing Education (ICE)

Please go to students and applicants to login

• Course search
• Courses by subject overview
• Archaeology, Landscape History and Classics
• Biological Sciences
• Business and Entrepreneurship
• Creative Writing and English Literature
• Education Studies and Teaching
• Engineering and Technology
• History overview
• Holocaust Studies
• International Relations and Global Studies
• Leadership and Coaching overview
• Coaching FAQs
• Medicine and Health Sciences
• Philosophy, Ethics and Religion
• History of Art and Visual Culture
• Undergraduate Certificates & Diplomas overview
• Postgraduate Certificates & Diplomas overview
• Applying for a Postgraduate Award
• Part-time Master's Degrees overview
• What is a Master's Degree (MSt)?
• How to apply for a Master's Degree (MSt)
• Apprenticeships
• Online Courses
• Career Accelerators overview
• Career Accelerators
• Weekend Courses overview
• Student stories
• Booking terms and conditions
• International Summer Programme overview
• Accommodation overview
• Newnham College
• Queens' College
• Selwyn College
• St Catharine's College
• Tuition and accommodation fees
• Evaluation and academic credit
• Language requirements
• Visa guidance
• Make a Donation
• Register your interest
• Creative Writing Retreats
• Gift vouchers for courses overview
• Terms and conditions
• Financial Support overview
• Concessions
• External Funding
• Ways to Pay
• Information for Students overview
• Student login and resources
• Earn your digital badge with Accredible
• Events overview
• Open Days/Weeks overview
• Master's Open Week 2023
• Postgraduate Open Day 2024
• STEM Open Week 2024
• MSt in English Language Assessment Open Session
• Undergraduate Open Day 2024
• Lectures and Talks
• Cultural events
• In Conversation with...
• International Events
• About Us overview
• Our Mission
• Our anniversary
• Academic staff
• Administrative staff
• Student stories overview
• Advanced Diploma
• Archaeology and Landscape History
• Architecture
• Classical Studies
• Creative Writing
• English Literature
• Leadership and Coaching
• Online courses
• Politics and International Studies
• Visual Culture
• Tell us your student story!
• News overview
• Social class – is education unequal?
• Madingley Hall overview
• Make a donation
• Digital Credentials
• Centre for Creative Writing overview
• Creative Writing Mentoring
• BBC Short Story Awards
• Latest News
• How to find us
• The Director's Welcome
• Staff profiles
• Madingley Hall
• Centre for Creative Writing

Submitted by Carla Dobson-Pérez on Tue, 21/07/2020 - 15:07

Educational inequality is nothing new, explains Dr Nigel Kettley, ICE’s Academic Director for Education and Social Science, as he guides us through the past, present and future of class in the classroom.

The relationship between social class and equality in education has been the subject of research since the 1950s, and there are three major ways in which educational inequality manifests itself: inequality of opportunity, of resources and of outcomes, by which we mean things like GCSE and A-level results.

Throughout those 70 years of study, the persistent message is that class does impact pupils’ school outcomes. When it comes to addressing the root causes of that disparity, however, work often centres on trying to identify discrete facets of class that might be the ‘solvable’ source of all attainment inequality. For example, by investigating whether working-class children have lower aspirations than their middle-class peers, or whether the school environment or curriculum is somehow inherently biased. I’d argue that we should think more holistically about students’ social backgrounds. The trigger for educational inequality isn’t solely access to material resources, parental involvement or what happens within the classroom itself, but the sum of all experience – a child’s aggregate lifestyle.

Media commentators suggest that our present social regulations are likely to be exacerbating inequality, and they may be right. But trying to pin that down to single explanations, like not having access to technology or a good diet, only tells part of the story. We need to take account of a child’s neighbourhood, their friendship circle, their engagement with parents, their hopes and dreams and everything else that forms the basis of their day-to-day experience.

Predicting grades, determining futures - the Class of 2020

What’s interesting right now from an academic perspective is to see how students from different backgrounds fare with their upcoming GCSE and A-level results. Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen the gap between the grades attained by disadvantaged pupils and their peers widen. This year, we’ll see students admitted to universities based largely on teacher-predicted grades. Will the attainment gap between classes remain much as it is? Or will it shrink or grow? What’s going to be important is that once teachers make their grade predictions, exam boards will need to verify them as rigorously as possible.

Spooling into the future, as an observer, it will be fascinating to watch the Class of 2020 during their degree courses and beyond. Will they perform any worse than students admitted after traditional public examinations? These are the lives of real people we’re talking about so without taking that lightly, it could produce some interesting social scientific evidence if we find that pupils admitted to universities on predicted grades do just as well as those who are made to sit exams.

At this present time, we don’t really know whether the exam outcomes achieved by different social classes are a good indicator of subsequent performance as, understandably, there’s been very little experimentation to see if institutions can take comprehensively educated students with lower grades and teach them a higher education syllabus to the same level of outcome. This is particularly true in highly selective universities like Cambridge.

How do we change the narrative?

Historically, society has tried to tackle educational inequality in several different ways. For example, there have been initiatives aimed at making the curriculum more relevant to working-class kids or at raising their aspirations, new systems of comprehensive schooling, university outreach programmes and policies like the Pupil Premium designed to increase the resources directed at disadvantaged students. These strategies have tended to focus on changing the values or behaviours of working-class children rather than creating a concerted, structural effort to transform the circumstances people find themselves in.

Later, continuing education has an important role to play for those who, for whatever reason, didn’t take the traditional education route. These programmes provide valuable, additional opportunities to access higher education and to learn new skills, allowing more people to flourish in their careers and enhance their own personal development when they might otherwise have perceived that chance to have gone.

But the fact that we’re still talking about educational inequality today suggests that making teachers in schools take sole responsibility for resolving the issue can only change so much. To significantly improve opportunities, resources and outcomes for disadvantaged students over the long-term, we probably need to make a deeper, more systemic shift and work together to help create a more equal society for all.

To find out more about Education and Social Science programmes currently available at ICE visit: https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/courses/search/subject/education/subject/socio...  

Do you have any questions? Contact us here »

Whilst you're there, make sure that you sign up to receive emails from ICE to be kept up-to-date with courses, events and other activities here at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.

You can unsubscribe at any time. See our privacy notice for more information on how we take care of your data.

Institute of Continuing Education Madingley Hall Madingley Cambridge CB23 8AQ

Find us Contact us

Useful information

• Jobs and other opportunities
• Gift vouchers
• Student policies
• Privacy policy
• Data protection policy
• General terms and conditions

Connect with us

© 2024 University of Cambridge

• University A-Z
• Contact the University
• Accessibility
• Freedom of information

Study at Cambridge

• Undergraduate
• Postgraduate
• International students
• Continuing education
• Executive and professional education
• Courses in education

About the University

• How the University and Colleges work
• Visiting the University
• Giving to Cambridge

Research at Cambridge

• Spotlight on...
• About research at Cambridge

The Sociology Teacher

The 'nutshells' provide concentrated summaries. Use the arrows or swipe across to explore topics in more detail, including key perspectives  and sociologists .

Want a more engaging way of revising key terms and sociologists? Download our revision app from the App Store!

Topic 1 - Class Differences in Achievement (External Factors)

In a nutshell

Some sociologists believe that working class underachievement is due to factors outside the school. Such factors include material deprivation (the inability to afford basic resources, such as adequate housing, food and heating) and cultural deprivation (deficiencies in home and family backgrounds, such as inadequate socialisation, inadequate language skills and inappropriate attitudes/values). In addition, cultural capital (Knowledge, language, attitudes and values , and lifestyle) gives the middle-class an inbuilt advantage in a middle-class controlled education system.

Topic 2 - Class Differences in Achievement (Internal  Factors)

Some sociologists believe working class underachievement is the product of factors inside the school environment that hinder a pupils ability to achieve. These factors include: labelling, streaming, pupil subcultures, pupil identities and the development of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Topic 3 - ETHNIC Differences in Achievement

Trends in statistics have shown Chinese pupils to achieve the best in education, whereas black Caribbean and Gypsy Roma pupils have fallen behind. Some sociologists identify ethnic differences in achievement as the result of factors outside the school, such as language skills, family structure, attitudes and values, and material deprivation - which place minority ethnic groups at a disadvantage. However, some sociologists argue ethnic differences occur through factors inside the school environment - notably, the ethnocentric curriculum, labelling, pupil subcultures and institutional racism.

Topic 4 - GENDER Differences in Achievement

In recent years, statistics have shown that girls now outperform boys in educational attainment. Sociologists suggest the increased achievement in girls educational performance is the result of external factors (girls changing ambitions, changes in the family, changes in women's employment) and internal factors (equal opportunities, teacher attention, coursework). In reverse, they also suggest reasons for boys underachievement - notably, the feminisation of schooling, the decline in manual labour, and ‘laddish’ subcultures. Sociologists also suggest reasons for the difference in gender subject choices and reflect on gendered identities.

topic 5 - the role of education

Functionalists value education in the respect that it provides necessary functions for the rest of society. Similarly, the New Right determine in order to fulfil such functions, schools should be centred around the consumer and their choices. However, Marxists criticise both Functionalists and the New Right in arguing the education system merely serves the needs of capitalism, by ensuring the failure of working-class pupils. Feminists also reject the education system for producing gender inequalities.

topic 6 - educational policy

Educational policy has had a profound impact on society. There has been a shift in policy from the 1940’s where the tripartite system existed, legitimising inequality in education, to the new system of comprehensive schooling introduced in 1965. Although the New Labour policies sought to reduce inequality, the conservative policies have reintroduced a system of inequality by encouraging privatisation and marketisation.

ReviseSociology

A level sociology revision – education, families, research methods, crime and deviance and more!

Table of Contents

Last Updated on November 21, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Links to posts on the sociology of education for A Level Sociology, including perspectives on education (Functionalism, Marxism etc.), explanations for differential educational achievement (class, gender, ethnicity), in-school processes (labelling etc.) and the impact of social policies such as the 1988 Education Reform Act. 

The first section of this page includes links to posts covering the main content for the different sub topics within the Education topic for A-level sociology, the structure of which is taken directly from the AQA’s specification. These posts are either medium form (like a text book section) or revision notes form, sometimes both!

The second section includes links to my assessment posts – either essay plans, 10 mark questions or general exam advice relevant here to the sociology of education.

PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR THE LINKED PDF GRID VERSION OF THE EDUCATION SPECIFICATION: 

Sociology A-level scheme of work AQA education

The Sociology of Education: An Introduction

An Overview of the Education System in England and Wales – an introduction to the different types of school in England and Wales, the primary, secondary and ‘tertiary’ stages of education and the main compulsory national exams which make up the ‘education system’ .

Education and Schools in the United Kingdom – Key Statistics – a look at of some of the most basic statistics on the UK education system, including the number of schools, school types, pupils and teachers, along with some comments on the validity of such statistics.

Education with Theory and Methods – A Level Sociology Paper 1 – an overview of the first of the three exam papers within A level sociology (AQA focus)

Education Key Concepts – brief definitions of key concepts relevant to the A-level sociology of education module.

The role and functions of education

This really means ‘the perspectives’ on education – mainly Functionalism, Marxism, and the The New Right, but it might also be useful to know about Feminism and Postmodernism, especially for evaluation purposes.

Many of the perspectives discuss education in relation to work and the economy, ‘role allocation’ in Functionalism is about this for example’, and the link to class structure is hopefully obviously mainly ‘Marxism’.

Although vocational education is not explicitly on the syllabus, it would be useful to know something about it here because there are obvious links to work and the economy.

Perspectives on the Role of Education – Knowledge Check List – a simple check list for this sub-topic, covering the five main perspectives you need to know (Functionalism, Marxism, The New Right, Feminism and Post/ Late Modernism), the key concepts and some selected short answer and essay questions

The Functionalist perspective on education  – brief revision notes covering four key ideas of Functionalism on education: how school encourages social solidarity, teaching skills for work, school as a bridge between home and wider society and role allocation and meritocracy. 

Emile Durkheim’s view on the role of education in society – class notes which take a more in-depth look at Durkheim’s view on the role of education in society. Including his views on education and the transmission of share values, education and social roles, and the role education played in the Division of Labour in society. 

Talcott Parsons’ perspective on education – class notes which take a more in-depth look at Parson’s views of the role of education in society. 

Evaluating the Functionalist view of the role of education in contemporary society – detailed evaluative post exploring a range of contemporary evidence which either supports or criticises the Functionalist view of education.

The Marxist perspective on education  – brief revision notes covering four key ideas of the Marxist perspective on education: school as part of the ideological state apparatus, the correspondence theory, and the reproduction and legitimation of class inequality. Also includes a section on Paul Willis’ neo-Marxist study ‘learning to labour’. 

Bowles and Gintis – The Correspondence Principle – detailed class notes on this classic piece of Marxist theory on education from Bowles and Gintis’ classic (1976) work ‘Schooling in Capitalist America’.

Evaluating the Marxist perspective on education – medium length evaluative post focusing on a range of contemporary evidence which either supports or criticises the Marxist view of education.

Joel Spring – Education Networks – Power, Wealth, Cyberspace and the Digital Mind  – book summary. Good supporting contemporary evidence for the Marxist view of education in a global context.

The neoliberal approach to education – neoliberalism has informed New Right policies of education reform in England and Wales. Key neoliberal ideas for education include more exogenous and endogenous privatisation more choice and voice for parents and more surveillance and top down performance management of teachers.

The New Right perspective on education  – brief revision notes covering the key ideas of the New Right, key New Right Policies and some evaluations. NB should be read in conjunction with the 1988 Education reform Act post. This just covers the theory. 

Evaluating the New Right’s perspective on education – a medium length post which looks at the long term trend in GCSE results, PISA international league tables, Stephen Ball’s work and Sue Palmer’s concept of toxic childhood to evaluate the impact (positive and negative) of marketisation policies on pupils in England and Wales.

Postmodernism and education – a medium length post outlining some of the ways in which education seems to have responded to the shift to postmodern society, by becoming more individualised and diverse, for example. 

Homeschooling in England and Wales – Homeschooling is part of the postmodern education landscape but only 1% pupils are homeschooled. This post looks at the characteristics of homeschooled pupils and some of the pros and cons of educating children at home.

Sociological perspectives on the relationship between education and work – a brief summary post covering the Functionalist, Marxist, Feminist, New Right and Postmodern perspectives on education and work. 

Functionalist, Marxist and The New Right Views of Education   – summary vodcast comparing the three perspectives .

Sociological Perspectives on the Role of Education in Society – Summary Grid  – summary revision grid covering Functionalism, Marxism, The New Right, and Post and Late Modern perspectives on education .

Differential Educational Achievement

Sociologists usually examine differential educational achievement by social class, gender and ethnicity.

Students absolutely need to know which groups do better and worse TODAY – in summary, girls do better than boys, Chinese and Indian students to best in terms of ethnicity, and white working class students are the largest group with the lowest results.

You also need to know about why some groups do better than others, which is typically broken down into home versus school explanations.

Sociological Explanations of Educational Underachievement – class notes, and an introduction to the sub-topic 

Social class and educational achievement

The effects of material deprivation on education  – material deprivation refers to lacking in money or resources. This post explores how factors such as low income and poor housing have a detrimental effect on educational achievement for children.

Statistics on social class and educational achievement – the Government does not routinely collect detailed data on the relationship between social class background and educational achievement. Instead we have to rely on two ‘proxies’ for social class: students eligible for free school meals and independent school results compared to state funded school results.

The effects of cultural deprivation on education  – In the 1960s cultural deprivation theory believed that working class children failed in school because of the lack of appropriate norms and values relevant to education. These revision notes cover the concepts of immediate and deferred gratification, restricted and elaborated speech codes.

The effects of cultural and social capital on education  – brief revision notes on how the values and connections of middle class parents give their children an advantage in education

Cultural Capital and Education  – more detailed class notes on the above .

Social Class and In school factors and differential educational achievement  – revision notes on how labelling, pupil subcultures, banding and streaming and the hidden curriculum have differential affects on working class and middle class children.

Gender and educational achievement

Best thought of in terms of three sub topics:

• Why do boys do worse than girls, and vice versa
• Why do boys and girls choose different subjects
• How do different genders/ sexuality experience school differently (gender and identity)

What is the gender gap in education? – an introductory post outlining the extent of gender gap in education, focusing on GCSE and A-level exam results and degree entries by gender. The headline fact is that girls do better than boys in almost every subject and nearly every level of education!

Explaining the Gender Gap in Education – External Factors  – revision notes covering how factors such as gender socialisation and changing gender roles explain why girls do better than boys in education.

Evaluating the role of External Factors in Explaining the Gender Gap in Education  – An evaluation post focusing on what the most significant factors are in explaining why girls do better than boys.

Explaining the Gender Gap in Education – In School Factors  – revision notes explaining how things such as teacher labelling and pupil subcultures affect boys and girls differently

Gender and subject choice – An overview of subject choice by gender, looking at the most female and male dominated subjects at A-level and university and the more gender neutral ones.

Why do boys and girls choose different subjects? Summary revision notes covering socialisation, teacher labelling and gendered subject image .

Gender and identit y – revision notes exploring how hegemonic masculinity and femininity hinder or help boys and girls in education .

Education Policy and Gender – A look at the extent to which policies have focused on improving or ignoring gender equality in education, only focusing on males and females.

Transgender education policies in England and Wales – There is a lack of specific guidance on how schools should avoid discriminating against transgender pupils but this post explores the scant advice that does exist.

Ethnicity and differential educational achievement

How Does Educational Achievement Vary by Ethnicity – an overview of the latest statistics from the Department for Education.

Material Deprivation and Ethnicity  – material deprivation doesn’t seem to explain differential achievement by ethnicity.

Cultural factors and ethnicity  – revision notes  covering such things as ethnic variations in parental attitudes to school and family structure and how these affect education

In school factors and institutional racism  – revision notes focusing on how pupil subcultures and also teacher labelling and racism might affect educational achievement by ethnicity. Includes summaries of Tony Sewell, David Gilborn and the concept of educational triage.

Are Schools Institutionally Racist? David Gilborn has claimed that schools are, this post has a look at some of the evidence to asesss this claim.

Why do Gypsy-Roma Children have such Low Educational Achievement ? – Some of the factors include Tory funding cuts to traveller education services, children not feeling as if the school curriculum is relevant to them, and discrimination in schools.

Policies to Combat Racism within Schools – A historical overview of the main policy dynamics from assimilationism to cynical multiculturalism.

The relative importance of gender/ class and ethnicity in differential educational achievement

White Working Class Underachievement – the white working classes have some of lowest achievement levels l – this post is a summary of a thinking allowed podcast which tries to explain why.

Relationships and Processes Within Schools

Interationists tend to focus on processes within schools, which primarily means teacher labelling, pupil subcultures, banding and streaming and school ethos.

In school factors all partly explain differential educational achievement by class, gender and ethnicity, but are probably not as significant as out of school factors.

Teacher labelling and the self fulfilling prophecy – detailed class notes covering the definitions of labeling and the self fulfilling prophecy, summaries of David Hargreave’s work on typing, Rosenthal and Jacobson’s classic field experiment, and C. Rist’s study of an American Kindergarten which focused on the relationship between social class and labelling, Also includes some evaluations of the labelling theory applied to education. 

Pupil subcultures – detailed class notes on pupil subcultures in school, covering pro and anti-school cultures and Peter Wood’s work on the range of subcultures in-between these extremes – such as retreatist subcultures. 

School Ethos and The Hidden Curriculum –  brief revision notes focusing on how the ethos (basic values) of a school and the hidden (or informal rules) of a school advantage some students and disadvantage others. 

Education Polices

The AQA specification states that students need to know about ‘ the Significance of Educational Policies for an Understanding of the Structure, Role, Impact and Experience of, and Access to Education in British Society ‘.

This section includes links relating to policies of selection, marketisation and privatisation; policies to achieve greater equality of opportunity or outcome, and the impact of globalisation on educational policy.

Education Policies in the UK – a  very brief overview of the Tripartite System, Comprehensives, the 1988 Education Act and New Labour’s and the Coalition government’s policies of 1997 and 2010.

Social democratic perspectives on education – social democrats emphasize the important role which education can play in promoting equality of opportunity. Social democratic views lead to comprehensivisation 

The 1988 Education Reform Act – detailed class notes covering all of the specific policies introduced to implement the marketisation of education – namely GCSEs, league tables, formula funding, OFSTED and the national curriculum.

New Labour’s Education Policies (1997-2010) – detailed class notes covering the  introduction of Academies, Sure Start, Education Action Zones. This post also analyses the impact of New Right or Neoliberal and Social Democratic ideas on Labour’s education policies. 

New Labour’s Education Policies –  summary revision notes of the above.

2010–2015 – The Coalition Government’s education policies – detailed class notes covering funding cuts to education, further acadamization and the pupil premium, among other things. 

2010-2015 – The Coalition Government’s Education policies – summary revision notes of the above topic.

Free Schools – Arguments For and Against  – class notes summarising some of the arguments and evidence for and against Free Schools, which are a type of academy.

E ducation Policy in England Wales 2015 to 2020 – An overview of several polices such as austerity, the Ebacc, progress on Academisation, and the expansion of grammar schools.

Education policy since 2020 – covering the lockdown policies, the impact on children and covid-catch up policies.

Compensatory Education – extra education designed to make up for social disadvantage.

The Privatisation of Education  – class notes covering endogenous and exogenous privatization of education.

Selective Education Since Comprehensivisation  – revision notes on ways in which education has become more selective, including selection by mortgage and covert selection.

Arguments for and Against Reintroducing Grammar Schools  – this was suggested a few years ago now my Theresa May, but I’m not sure it’s on the cards anymore. class notes .

Vocational Education

Vocational Education in Britain today – summarises contemporary vocational policies including vocational GCSEs, T-Levels and apprenticeships.

Trends in Apprenticeships in England and Wales – a statistical overview of Apprenticeships up to 2021.

Evaluating Apprenticeships in England and Wales – a quick look at the strengths and limitations of modern apprenticeships.

Assess Sociological Perspectives on Vocational Education – essay plan

Globalisation and Education

Globalisation is one of the fundamental sociological concepts students must be able to apply to every aspect of the specification!

Globalisation and Education – a summary of five ways in which globalisation has affected education in the U.K.

The globalisation of Education – an exploration of some of the evidence that suggests we have an emerging global education system – from the rise of global tech companies such as Google with learning platforms to international PISA league tables.

Sociology Revision Resources

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my A level sociology revision mega bundle – which contains the following:

• over 200 pages of revision notes
• 60 mind maps in pdf and png formats
• 50 short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers
• Covers the entire A-level sociology syllabus, AQA focus.

Assessment Material

This section includes links to exam technique, and model answers for essays, the two types of 10 mark questions and the short answer questions you’ll find in the education section of the AQA’s A-level sociology paper 7192-1 .

• How I would have answered the June 2018 sociology A-level paper 1 – covering the 4, 6, 10 and 30 mark questions on the education section of this paper. The post also covers the 2 theory and methods questions. 
• How I would have answered the June 2017 Sociology A-level paper 1  – covering the education and theory and methods sections of the paper
• Analyse two reasons why women remain economically disadvantaged compared to men despite the increase in the gender gap in educational achievement (10)
• Possible 10 mark ‘analyse’ questions which you might get on paper one
• Evaluate the Functionalist view of the role of education in society – essay plan, long version
• Evaluate the Functionalist view of the role of education in society – essay plan, brief version
• To what extent do home factors explain social class differences in educational achievement?   essay plan , long version
• Evaluate the view that differences in educational achievement by class, gender and ethnicity are the result of in-school processes – essay plan, long, bullet pointed

Other posts about education which may not be immediately relevant to the A-level:

Education in America – an overview of key facts and stats of the American education system.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

Share this:

• Share on Tumblr

2 thoughts on “Education”

the mind map for education really helps summarise the topic

Really useful information, it is clear and concise and really helped with my understanding of the topic

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

• News & Insights
• All News & Insights

USC Rossier’s Class of 2024 encouraged to keep fighting on

Family, faculty and staff gather to celebrate USC Rossier’s newest graduates.

Perseverance and dedication describe USC Rossier’s graduating Class of 2024. On May 8 and 10, the doctoral hooding ceremony and master’s commencement ceremony , respectively, celebrated the newly minted graduates’ hard work and resilience. The Class of 2024 included 327 doctors and 415 master’s graduates, who have shown that they are ready to take on whatever challenges come their way with grace and determination.

USC Rossier Dean Pedro Noguera presided over both ceremonies. “Education is essential for producing a shift in consciousness about how we live in the world and with each other, and in how we think about our responsibility to future generations,” Noguera said in his opening remarks at the doctoral ceremony. Education is the most powerful when it inspires people to think critically and independently. Noguera said the attacks on education by those who want to ban books and limit access to history, cannot suppress the truth or silence the past. He remains optimistic that education can unleash creativity and problem solving, and “nurture our ability to live ethically and sustainably.”

The doctoral hooding ceremony keynote speaker was USC University Professor Shaun Harper . A nationally respected racial equity expert, his research focuses on race, gender and other dimensions of equity in an array of organizational contexts, including K–12 schools, colleges and universities and corporations.

In Harper’s remarks he invoked the infamous USC Fight On chant and encouraged the class that the nation needs them to keep fighting. He urged them to Fight On for education and racial equity, Fight On to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, to end gun violence, and to “Fight On until the hopes and dreams of your ancestors who migrated from Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Nigeria, Ghana and elsewhere across the globe are more fully realized.”

As graduates pursue what is good and right, Harper reminded them that they are not fighting alone. “You’ll have all these amazing USC Rossier doctoral graduates fighting alongside you,” he said in his closing remarks. “And you’ll have the full force of the Trojan Family behind you.”

The master’s ceremony student speaker was Mariah Lora , who completed her Master of Arts in Teaching . As a first-generation student, she spoke of the valuable lessons she learned while attending USC Rossier and how individuals, like puzzle pieces, all play a role in a larger story. “We are each made up of equal and essential pieces that contribute to the beautiful mosaic of mankind,” she said. Lora added that each piece is created with the help of family, friends and generations before. From her grandmother’s decision to bring her family from Aguascalientes, Mexico to the U.S. to her parents meeting in high school detention and falling in love, these stories contributed to Lora’s experiences from junior college graduate to USC master’s graduate. “My puzzle, your puzzle, our puzzle tells the beautiful story of resilience, strength and power of unity,” she added. “By sharing our journeys and celebrating the diversity of experiences that make us who we are, we create a more inclusive and equitable world for all.”

The following graduates received the 2024 Dissertation of Distinction:

• Zachary J. Barricklow, EdD in Organizational Change and Leadership. Dissertation title: “Leading Innovation and Change: Presidential Perspectives on the Future of Work and How Rural-Serving Community Colleges Adapt” (Chair: Robert A. Filback)
• Eric Obeng-Amoako Edmonds, EdD in Organizational Change and Leadership. Dissertation title: “Understanding Cross-Cultural Knowledge Sharing in Ghana’s Energy Sector: An Exploratory Study” (Chair: Monique Claire Datta)
• Robert James Thrash IV, EdD in Educational Leadership. Dissertation title: “We Gon’ Be Alright: A Phenomenology of Black Educators, Occupational Stressors, and Wellbeing” (Chair: Shaun Harper)
• Jeanette Zambrano, PhD in Urban Education Policy. Dissertation title: “Culturally-Relevant, Autonomy Supportive Instruction: Toward an Integration for Enhancing the Motivation of Racially and Ethnically Diverse Learners” (Chair: Erika A. Patall)

The following were this year’s flag and banner bearers:

• Doctoral Hooding Ceremony: Geni M. Cobb EdD ’24 and Maritza E. Salazar PhD ’24
• Master’s Ceremony: Kelly Michelle Amador MAT ’24 and Keenan Anthony Kalaaualoha Kurihara EMP ’24

Photos and videos of both the doctoral hooding and master’s ceremonies can be found at the USC Rossier 2024 Commencement page.

• Pedro Noguera
• Distinguished Professor of Education
• Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean

Shaun Harper

• University Professor
• Provost Professor of Education and Business
• Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership
• USC Race and Equity Center Founder and Executive Director

Article Type

Article topics.

• Commencement
• Diversity, equity and inclusion

Related News & Insights

May 17, 2024

Student Engagement, Exploration and Development college interns celebrated for their STEM mentorship impacts

This past academic year, 42 SEEDS college interns mentored 450 Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative middle school students.

Featured Faculty

• Darnell Cole
• Shafiqa Ahmadi

May 6, 2024

‘You don’t have to fit in the box that society puts you in’

USC Rossier alum Mariah Lora MAT '24 shares her academic journey from the basketball court and pageant stage to the classroom and commencement podium.

April 30, 2024

Message from Dean Pedro Noguera regarding the USC Rossier Commencement Ceremonies

The USC Rossier ceremony will proceed as planned. We are excited to host your friends and family and to celebrate your accomplishments.

• Latest News
• Emergencies
• Ask the Law
• GN Fun Drive
• Visa+Immigration
• Phone+Internet
• Reader Queries
• Safety+Security
• Banking & Insurance
• Dubai Airshow
• Corporate Tax
• Top Destinations
• Corporate News
• Electronics
• Home and Kitchen
• Consumables
• Saving and Investment
• Budget Living
• Expert Columns
• Community Tips
• Cryptocurrency
• Cooking and Cuisines
• Guide to Cooking
• Art & People
• Friday Partner
• Daily Crossword
• Word Search
• Philippines
• Australia-New Zealand
• Corrections
• From the Editors
• Special Reports
• Pregnancy & Baby
• Learning & Play
• Child Health
• For Mums & Dads
• UAE Success Stories
• Live the Luxury
• Culture and History
• Staying Connected
• Entertainment
• Live Scores
• Point Table
• Top Scorers
• Photos & Videos
• Course Reviews
• Learn to Play
• South Indian
• Arab Celebs
• Health+Fitness
• Gitex Global 2023
• Best Of Bollywood
• Special Features
• Investing in the Future
• Know Plan Go
• Gratuity Calculator
• Notifications
• Prayer Times

UAE's CBSE schools celebrate 'brilliant' Grade 10, 12 results

Uae education.

• Environment

UAE home to over 100 schools that offer the Indian CBSE curriculum

Dubai: UAE’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools are celebrating the performance of their students after the just announced Grade 10 and 12 results .

Delhi Private School Dubai, among the first to announce its results, said its students had performed "brilliantly" in the Class 10 and 12 exams.

“In Grade 12, Vivin Chrysostor is the topper in the Science stream with 98.8 per cent, Sadhana Makesh the Commerce topper with 98 per cent and Saniya Bhatia the Humanities topper with 96.6 per cent,” the school said on Monday morning.

Get exclusive content with Gulf News WhatsApp channel

It said 199 students appeared for the examination and 100 per cent of them have secured a distinction.

“The school average is 90.4 per cent and is up by two per cent compared to last year. 62.8 per cent of students scored 90 per cent and above, 100 per cent of students secured first division, it said and added, there were no second divisions, failures or compartments.

School Principal and Director Rashmi Nandkeolyar said, “Our students and teachers have done us proud with a stellar performance. Our results have improved across the spectrum with 100 per cent pass and top scores in all streams. Many students have already been accepted to top universities around the world. It is the hallmark of our school to excel in every field.”

DPS Sharjah Principal Vandana Marwah, meanwhile, said, “The result announced today has come as another feather in the cap for DPS Sharjah as 90 per cent of students scored distinction, 116 students scored over 90 per cent, A full 100 per cent of the students scored first class and the overall school average was 86 per cent.”

She said Shashwat Krishna is the school topper from the Science stream, Vibha Jain the Commerce topper and Shyla Kapoor the Humanities topper.

The Emirates National School, Sharjah, said 114 students took the CBSE Class 12 examination and achieved outstanding results with 43 per cent of the students securing 90 per cent and above.

As many as 39 students, out of a total of 63 students, secured more than 90 per cent in the Science stream and 10 students out of 51 students scored above 90 per cent in the Commerce stream and 83 per cent of students scored more than 75 per cent in the examination, principal Ravi Thomas said.

Erin Anna Roy topped the Science stream with 95 per cent and Kenneth Paul Kunchattil in the Commerce stream with 95 per cent, he added.

The Gulf Indian High School, Dubai, said it had once again achieved 100 per cent results in its 37th batch of Class 12 students. “The school sat 67 students for the Class 12 examination and all the 67 passed out in first class with 73 per cent of students securing 75 per cent marks and above,” Principal Muhammad Ali Kottakkulam said.

He said in the Science stream, Husna Saeed Hajwani is the school topper with 94.6 per cent while Lisa Angela Lobo topped the school with 93.4 per cent in Commerce.

GEMS schools' results

At the GEMS Education CBSE curriculum schools, 2,305 GEMS students took the Grade 12 board exam across 10 GEMS, with a pass rate of 99.91 per cent. As many as 29.20 per cent of the students scored an average of above 90 per cent, with 22.60 per cent scoring between 85-90 per cent. The school average stood at 84.42 per cent.

The top-performing Grade 12 GEMS students include Zahabia Ali Murtaza, 98.8 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Dubai;  Femy Grace Simon, 98.6 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Sharjah, Girls; Pragati Phoolwani, 98.6 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Dubai; Elena Ann Kurian, 98.6 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Dubai;Muskan Fathima, 98.6 per cent, GEMS Our Own Indian School; Batul Mohammad Zainuddin, 98.6 per cent, GEMS Our Own Indian School; Harsh Shylesh Pillai, 98.6 per cent, GEMS Our Own Indian School; and Nidha Fathima, 98.6 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Dubai.

As for the Grade 10 highlights, 3,025 GEMS students across 10 GEMS CBSE schools took the exams, giving a pass rate of 100 per cent. 32.99 per cent of students scored an average of above 90 per cent. The school average stands at 84.06 per cent. The toppers include Bhadra Unnikrishnan, 98.8 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Dubai; Aaron George Vinay, 98.6 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Sharjah, Boys, Emaan Nayeem Parkar, 98.4 per cent, GEMS Millennium School – Sharjah; Fadi Fathima Sidhiqu, 98.4 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Dubai; Hari Ganesh Babu, 98.4 per cent, GEMS United Indian School – Abu Dhabi; and Riya Sukumar, 98.4 per cent, GEMS Our Own English High School – Dubai.

Dr Saima Rana, Chief Education Officer, GEMS Education, said: “On behalf of the entire GEMS Education family, I am delighted to congratulate our students for their exemplary performance in the CBSE examinations. Their achievements are a testament to their perseverance and dedication. This success also underscores the unwavering commitment and expertise of our devoted teachers and staff, and the invaluable support of our GEMS parents, who play a crucial role in our collaborative educational journey. “As our students progress to higher education or embark on their professional careers, we look forward with great anticipation to seeing their continued growth and success.”

100 per cent pass rate

The Indian High School, Oud Metha, also excelled in the Grade 12 examinations.

Punit MK Vasu, CEO, The Indian High Group of Schools, said, “With a 100 per cent pass rate, the percentage of students securing A1, A2 aggregates has remarkably increased this year. All our students have been placed in first division across all streams. A whopping 70 students have scored a perfect 100 on 100 across 13 subjects. These commendable results are the outcome of a carefully planned and executed strategy on the part of our teachers."

He said, "Right from the beginning of grade 11, students are encouraged to follow a designated plan under the guidance of chosen leaders and educators, in order that they may constantly and consistently focus on the future board exam targets. Motivation as well as one-on-one coaching play key roles in this process. Teachers ensure that all learners get an equal opportunity to better themselves, thereby inspiring them to continuously strive for academic excellence augmented with bespoke wellbeing and happiness programmes. We are also extremely fortunate that our combined efforts have the support, prayers, blessings, and guidance of our parents and wider stakeholders.”

At the Indian High School – Oud Metha campus, there was a 100 percent pass rate, with 309 students securing an aggregate of 90 per cent and above, and 82 per cent students scoring 80 per cent and above in the Grade 10 exams.

Vasu said The Indian International School, DSO campus also recorded a 100 per cent pass rate with all the students securing the first division. The percentage of students with an above 90 per cent score has significantly increased this year with 40 per cent of them achieving the distinguished feat in this year’s exam. Out of a total of 166 students, 12 received a centum in various subjects.

The Scholars Indian Private School also marked a full pas. Of the 64 students who appeared in the Grade X exam, 50 got high distinction and of the 58 Grade 12 students, 40 got high distinctions. In Grade 12 Science, topper Rayna Verma scored 96.6 per cent, in Commerce Sheelnidhi Ranawat 95.9 per cent and in Grade 10, Muhammed Farhan Aslam stood first with 96 per cent.

More From Education

50% of school fees to be covered for 1,800 UAE students

Y-Axis: Demand up for study in New Zealand and Europe

Students and parents start arriving for Edufair Day 2

Exhibitors present excellent options at GN Edufair

Mohamed bin Zayed: A knight of generosity

UAE President meets Saudi Crown Prince

Dubai Police Chief hosts global security delegates

British and Indian nationals win $1m each in Dubai

2 Emirati policemen die in road accident while on duty

Emiratisation: 1,379 violators found, face fines

13-year-old messi's napkin contract sold for almost $1m, woods packing his bags after disastrous pga champs, crypto lender to return $3b to customers in bankruptcy.

Get Breaking News Alerts From Gulf News

We’ll send you latest news updates through the day. You can manage them any time by clicking on the notification icon.

• International

The latest on the massive solar storm

By Angela Fritz, Elise Hammond and Chris Lau, CNN

Incredible lighthouse picture from Maine

From CNN's Chris Lau

Among a flurry of surreal images capturing the dazzling auroras is one taken by Benjamin Williamson of a lighthouse in Portland, Maine.

"It's one of the most incredible things I've ever seen, the awe and wonder," Williamson told CNN.

He said he used a long-exposure technique to snap the shot, but did not edit it.

Watch the full interview with Williamson here .

Things could be about to ramp up

If you still haven't seen the aurora, hold on for another 30 minutes to an hour, according to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers.

The next wave of coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which cause the aurora, is about to arrive, he said.

"Just wait a minute because things are going to start to ramp up here," he said, adding that the increase could arrive "anytime now." "When it comes, get outside, get ready, put your coat on."

For those who are too busy to witness the phenomenon tonight, Myers said the aurora is expected to last three nights.

Why does the aurora last for a weekend?

By CNN's Chris Lau

Generally, it takes just eight minutes for light to travel 93 million miles to the Earth from the sun, but astrophysicist Janna Levin said the energized particles causing the current wave of aurora travel a lot slower, causing the phenomenon to last for the weekend.

"Some of these mass ejections are trillions of kilograms," she said. "They're slower. So they're taking longer, but still hours, maybe tens of hours."

Here's how the solar storm looks in the South and on the East Coast

The aurora was visible across the East Coast and in the South Friday.

Here's how it looked in Chester, South Carolina.

Down in Florida, waves of color swam through the sky.

Up north in New Jersey, a purple-ish haze could be seen in the sky.

Will solar storms get more intense and risky in the future?

The answer is probably not in the short term, according to astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi.

He said scientists study what is constantly happening on the surface of the sun and have found a pattern.

“Geological data shows us that in the past the sun was way more active than it is today. It has cycles where it goes very quiet ... and you have events that show that the solar activity was much, much greater,” he told CNN. “So there's no evidence that we're going to see those big maxima this cycle." 

But the astrophysicist also spoke of a caveat - the limitations of modern science.

“Even though it's predictable in the short term, we still don't quite understand what creates the magnetic fields in the sun,” he said, adding: “That's why NASA has so many satellites looking at the sun.”

In Pictures: Auroras light the sky during rare solar storm

From CNN Digital's Photo Team

A series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun are creating dazzling auroras across the globe .

The rare solar storm may also disrupt communications. The last time a solar storm of this magnitude reached Earth was in October 2003, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center.

See more photos of the aurora from tonight.

Behind dazzling aurora could lie “real danger,” Bill Nye the Science Guy says

The massive solar storm could present “a real danger,” especially with the modern world relying so much on electricity, according to Bill Nye the Science Guy , a science educator and engineer.

Scientists are warning an increase in solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun have the potential to disrupt communication on Earth into the weekend. Solar flares can affect communications and GPS almost immediately because they disrupt Earth’s ionosphere, or part of the upper atmosphere. Energetic particles released by the sun can also disrupt electronics on spacecraft and affect astronauts without proper protection within 20 minutes to several hours.

In comparison to tonight's event, Nye drew comparisons with another incident in 1859, known as the Carrington Event, when telegraph communications were severely affected.

“The other thing, everybody, that is a real danger to our technological society, different from 1859, is how much we depend on electricity and our electronics and so on,” Nye said. "None of us really in the developed world could go very long without electricity."

He noted that there are systems in place to minimize the impact, but “stuff might go wrong,” stressing that not all transformers are equipped to withstand such a solar event.

“It depends on the strength of the event and it depends on how much of our infrastructures are prepared for this the sort of thing,” he said.

Bill Nye breaks down significance of the solar storm | CNN

This post has been updated with more details on solar flares' impact on electronics.

Here's where clouds will block the view of the northern lights in the US

From CNN's Angela Fritz

After an incredibly stormy week, most of the Lower 48 has clear skies to see the northern lights. But there are some areas where clouds and rainy weather are spoiling the view.

A deck of clouds is blocking the sky in the Northeast, from parts of Virginia into Maine, as an area of low pressure spins off the East Coast.

In the Midwest, the aurora will be hard to see through thick clouds in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan — including the Upper Peninsula — and Illinois.

A stripe of clouds is tracking across Texas, including Dallas-Forth Worth, and into Louisiana.

And in the Southwest, patchy clouds across the the Four Corners region could make the northern lights difficult to spot.

Aurora seen at least as far south as Georgia

Barely visible to the naked eye, the aurora can be seen in Atlanta in the 10 p.m. ET hour. 

It is easier to see through photographs using a long exposure. The photos below, taken by CNN's Eric Zerkel and Emily Smith, used 3- and 10-second exposures.

Please enable JavaScript for a better experience.