The lower middle class will still find a way to go to university; there's no longer anything else for them and they wouldn't be able to hold their heads up among those of their peers who do manage to go if they didnt.
Let's have a class thread! It'll be fun!
- Thread starter ymu
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The lower middle class will still find a way to go to university; there's no longer anything else for them and they wouldn't be able to hold their heads up among those of their peers who do manage to go if they didnt.
OK, I'll roll with this - in what way have you won the lottery of life? Who defers to you? How & when do they do so?
CyberRose
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I'm not saying a degree guarantees anything (I'd be mad to), I'm saying it opens up opportunities (what you do with that opportunity is down to you). I have a degree and spent 4 years in the "ranks of the admin" (at the lowest level) before I got my current job which still isn't a graduate job (altho my degree will have helped me get it and the pay is equivalent to a graduate career, well, the start of a graduate career then there's pretty much nowhere to go!)
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
And an emergency apology to CR upon seeing a decent post.
I agree. It's the same formulation used by someone brilliant - and posted elsewhere by the always brilliant Mation - to explain to 'oppressed white middle-class anglo-saxon males' exactly why they are whiney little pricks who will get the piss taken a lot.
Racism = prejudice + power
You could do with thinking a bit about those ideas, jon. I get what you're saying, but that's no good if you refuse to 'get' what anyone else is saying. That is the problem, and you can't bridge the gap without trying to understand what it looks like on the other side of the chasm.
_angel_
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Well I did mine at 21 and it is also never been used, if it makes you feel better. At least it didn't cost me a small mortgage to do it, I suppose. Btw employers aren't going to be interested by and large if you've spent any considerable time looking after kids at home, they think your brain must have fallen out.
_angel_
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I wouldn't have gone, simple as that.
The tories don't want former polys full of lower middle class plebs.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Three pages (proper pages 
) in three hours?
And I'm seeing little but quality in my slow trawl through.
On an urban class thread.
That's only slightly less shocking than the sheer scale of Thursday's Clegg-kicking, pan-national frenzy in the first genuine act of union in British history.
) in three hours?And I'm seeing little but quality in my slow trawl through.
On an urban class thread.
That's only slightly less shocking than the sheer scale of Thursday's Clegg-kicking, pan-national frenzy in the first genuine act of union in British history.
CyberRose
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Nice one I'm carcking the bubbly out as we speak! 10 years and finally some recognition for my work!
Anyway, the extended version of what I said in your quote is here if you're interested (and yes it does contain some references to Marxist definitions but you'll just have to live with that):
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/th...ll-be-fun!?p=11747351&viewfull=1#post11747351
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yes they do. keeps them out of the universities.
_angel_
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I think they don't really want a lot of those courses and institutions to exist, in their current form, anyway. How does Leeds Met compete for students when Leeds Uni is only charging £500 more a term?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yeh? but i would expect it is rather easier to gain a place at leeds met than at leeds uni.
_angel_
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Maybe for mature students, not so sure about everyone else actually. I think sometimes they set the bar quite high at Polys and ex-Polys precisely because they don't want to be seen as too "easy". For example, I got asked for higher A level grades at Oxford Poly (as was then) than I did SOAS!
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i got asked for higher grades at birmingham than i did at soas. didn't go there once i'd actually visited brum, but there you go.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Lovin' your work here CR. Interesting to explicitly base it on opportunity. I remember the first sociology tutorial I had with the kind of tutor that makes clued up leftie students choose a disgustingly right-wing college. Not me - I did fuck all research (hence PPE
) - but there were some who applied to be taught by him, and yes, easy to know why. We concluded that equality of opportunity requires equality of access to be a meaningful concept. Otherwise it is simply meaningless spin which says no more than "anyone is allowed to complete an application form for Oxford University".
CyberRose
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I think rather I'm explicitly basing it on wealth - which in turn leads to opportunity and influence, or lack of opportunities and influence depending on the level of wealth you are capable of generating
Edit: Which in turn I suppose answers the second part of your post about 'equality of access' (which I take to mean 'wealth' in our current economic system) without which you don't really have the opportunity in question
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
i'm disgustingly middle class according to those definitions. however, that's not to say that my circuimstances haven't changed throughout my life. if we're going by the marxist definition of class as anyone who works for a wage and has no source of other income, then i am working class. it feels wrong saying that though, because i'm not, i know i'm not.
i'm not ashamed of comin from the p/b. i'm highly unlikely to enjoy the same standards of living my parents did (and my parents both came from upper working class/lower middle class backgrounds anyway). and even if i did i've seen enough of life to know what side i'm on. there is an element sometimes on urban where people are thought to be doomed to be middle class "no matter how poor they get later on" like jon says. however i think it's important to know that education etc and the background of your parents, how much money you had growing up, do give you certain (although frequently slight) advantages. it's important to realise that, but i do think that class also sometimes changes throughout life. it's just that in this day age social mobility is more likely than anything else to be downwards unless you are in a very fortunate position.
for example, i'm probably going to have to work until i drop. my parents arent in that position. (yet).
and you also have to look at the life of the average p/b business owner. when my parents worked for example they had no life, they worked at the weekends and in the evenings until past 9pm/ frequently to past midnight. constantly. i hardly ever got to see them. their entire lives were taken up with work. i'm not saying that materially i had to struggle or anything like that, but remember that a lot of the material wealth comes at the cost of never being able to do anything else except work. and now, even more so - for smaller and smaller rewards due to inflation etc.
i'm in no way saying that it was really hard or anything like that. and i also think you have to understand the advantages in terms of cultural capital that this can give you - even if you are cash poor there are still frequently advantages in terms of jobs and an education if you are "middle class" such as accent, etc.
i'm not trying to get you to feel sorry for me or anything. it's a really complicated issue. and there's no doubt that i've had it easier than others - and it's a good idea to look at these discussions rationally rather than assuming tht it's an attack on you. you can't help your background. as a wise man said , it's where you're going - not where you're coming from. and right now the way i see it even relatively lucky people like me are going in the same direction. unfortunately there are some people who can't see it yet and they are perhaps the ones i feel sorriest for.
i'm not ashamed of comin from the p/b. i'm highly unlikely to enjoy the same standards of living my parents did (and my parents both came from upper working class/lower middle class backgrounds anyway). and even if i did i've seen enough of life to know what side i'm on. there is an element sometimes on urban where people are thought to be doomed to be middle class "no matter how poor they get later on" like jon says. however i think it's important to know that education etc and the background of your parents, how much money you had growing up, do give you certain (although frequently slight) advantages. it's important to realise that, but i do think that class also sometimes changes throughout life. it's just that in this day age social mobility is more likely than anything else to be downwards unless you are in a very fortunate position.
for example, i'm probably going to have to work until i drop. my parents arent in that position. (yet).
and you also have to look at the life of the average p/b business owner. when my parents worked for example they had no life, they worked at the weekends and in the evenings until past 9pm/ frequently to past midnight. constantly. i hardly ever got to see them. their entire lives were taken up with work. i'm not saying that materially i had to struggle or anything like that, but remember that a lot of the material wealth comes at the cost of never being able to do anything else except work. and now, even more so - for smaller and smaller rewards due to inflation etc.
i'm in no way saying that it was really hard or anything like that. and i also think you have to understand the advantages in terms of cultural capital that this can give you - even if you are cash poor there are still frequently advantages in terms of jobs and an education if you are "middle class" such as accent, etc.
i'm not trying to get you to feel sorry for me or anything. it's a really complicated issue. and there's no doubt that i've had it easier than others - and it's a good idea to look at these discussions rationally rather than assuming tht it's an attack on you. you can't help your background. as a wise man said , it's where you're going - not where you're coming from. and right now the way i see it even relatively lucky people like me are going in the same direction. unfortunately there are some people who can't see it yet and they are perhaps the ones i feel sorriest for.
CyberRose
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Because you're attaching a negative/insulting connotations to the term "middle class"!
We always seem to talk about working class and middle class here and that's it. It's like MacDonalds having regular and large, what ever happened to small!?
My definition shifts what we (generally) refer to as middle class to 'upper class' and splits what we refer to as working class into middle class and working class (differentiated by levels of wealth, which are both in turn differentiated by my upper class by the ability to influence the political process)
So don't be too hard on yourself!
Steel Icarus
we move
My wife was a bit flabbergasted & then irritated with me the other day when she was talking about some families on the estate her school's intake is mainly from not giving a fuck about themselves or their kids wanting to get off the estate - and I asked her why should they? Surely it'd be better to make the place less shit?
I dunno - I've had to tread real carefully lately, with the Royal Wedding and all; her innate respect for anyone titled, and my instant distrust and disdain for the same.
I dunno - I've had to tread real carefully lately, with the Royal Wedding and all; her innate respect for anyone titled, and my instant distrust and disdain for the same.
Geri
wasn't born to follow
This is my experience as well. My closest friends are from a similar background, i.e. politicised working class, or lower middle class liberal types.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
By the definition 'has to work for a wage in order to get by', the vast majority of people are working class. And all such people have a hell of a lot of political interests in common. All such people benefit from the universality of social democracy, for instance. None is served well by the current capitalist system.
But of course the waters are muddied because even a large number of people in traditionally 'working class' jobs (socially speaking if not economically) own assets such as houses, make investments, buy shares even. These people have been coopted into the capitalist system as their own personal finances are in part dependent on it. Yet they are in a powerless position regarding their stake - they can lose or gain, but entirely at the whim of forces beyond their control. There are lots of contradictions within this - workers buy pension schemes, pension schemes then buy shares, and in their role as shareholders put pressure on companies to suppress the wages of the worker. Lots of people are stuck to a greater or less extent in this bind.
Then, there are other complications peculiar to here and now. There is a housing crisis in Britain, and there is a pretty clear dividing line between those who are affected by this and those who are not, and that dividing line doesn't run along traditional class lines. Those who obtained a secure social housing tenancy when it was still possible to get one are sorted. Those who bought a house before about 2000 are also sorted. Many other people are paying perhaps two or three times more in their rent/mortgage payments, and are stuck either with the complete lack of security of a private tenancy or perhaps the high mortgage and negative/near-zero equity of a recent purchaser.
Class is complicated, even if you restrict it purely to economics.
But of course the waters are muddied because even a large number of people in traditionally 'working class' jobs (socially speaking if not economically) own assets such as houses, make investments, buy shares even. These people have been coopted into the capitalist system as their own personal finances are in part dependent on it. Yet they are in a powerless position regarding their stake - they can lose or gain, but entirely at the whim of forces beyond their control. There are lots of contradictions within this - workers buy pension schemes, pension schemes then buy shares, and in their role as shareholders put pressure on companies to suppress the wages of the worker. Lots of people are stuck to a greater or less extent in this bind.
Then, there are other complications peculiar to here and now. There is a housing crisis in Britain, and there is a pretty clear dividing line between those who are affected by this and those who are not, and that dividing line doesn't run along traditional class lines. Those who obtained a secure social housing tenancy when it was still possible to get one are sorted. Those who bought a house before about 2000 are also sorted. Many other people are paying perhaps two or three times more in their rent/mortgage payments, and are stuck either with the complete lack of security of a private tenancy or perhaps the high mortgage and negative/near-zero equity of a recent purchaser.
Class is complicated, even if you restrict it purely to economics.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
Kind of similar to southside here, except that I am well-educated, I've got a good degree, but I've still come up against a class ceiling because I never had the ability to take the sort of low-paid intern or voluntary-for-experience type jobs immediately after graduating that are required to get a foot on the career ladder. I had to carry on working in the same job I'd been in part-time throughout university, only full-time, because I couldn't afford to do anything else; bills to pay, roof to keep over head, no cushty well-off parental assistance. Then I had my kids, and as angel says once you've been at home with children for a few years you may as well give up on a 'career' unless you had one already because employers assume your brain has turned to mush. My parents won't be leaving anything of financial note to us when they die so far as I know, they're still renting themselves, my dad had a life assurance policy that's already matured and he's living off it in his retirement which is fine by me. But when I compare myself with friends that were at university at the same time as me, one of whom is now in the Foreign Office and one who works for Audit Scotland earning £50,000, the big difference is their family background and the cushion they had after graduating.
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