In this article, we address whether and how contemporary social classes are marked by distinct lifestyles. We assess the model of the social space, a novel approach to class analysis pioneered by Bourdieu's Distinction. Although pivotal in Bourdieu's work, this model is too often overlooked in later research, making its contemporary relevance difficult to assess. We redress this by using the social space as a framework through which to study the cultural manifestation of class divisions in lifestyle differences in contemporary Norwegian society. Through a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) of unusually rich survey data, we reveal a structure strikingly similar to the model in Distinction, with a primary dimension of the volume of capital, and a secondary dimension of the composition of capital. While avoiding the substantialist fallacy of predefined notions of 'highbrow' and 'lowbrow' tastes, we explore how 168 lifestyle items map onto this social space. This reveals distinct classed lifestyles according to both dimensions of the social space. The lifestyles of the upper classes are distinctly demanding in terms of resources. Among those rich in economic capital, this manifests itself in a lifestyle which involves a quest for excitement, and which is bodily oriented and expensive. For their counterparts rich in cultural capital, a more ascetic and intellectually oriented lifestyle manifests itself, demanding of resources in the sense of requiring symbolic mastery, combining a taste for canonized, legitimate culture with more cosmopolitan and 'popular' items. In contrast to many studies' descriptions of the lower classes as 'disengaged' and 'inactive', we find evidence of distinct tastes on their part. Our analysis thus affirms the validity of Bourdieu's model of social class and the contention that classes tend to take the form of status groups. We challenge dominant positions in cultural stratification research, while questioning the aptness of the metaphor of the 'omnivore', as well as recent analyses of 'emerging cultural capital'.

Abstract:We draw on 120 years of biographical data (N = 120,764) contained within Who's Who-a unique catalogue of the British elite-to explore the changing relationship between elite schools and elite recruitment. We find that the propulsive power of Britain's public schools has diminished significantly over time. This is driven in part by the wane of military and religious elites, and the rise of women in the labor force. However, the most dramatic declines followed key educational reforms that increased access to the credentials needed to access elite trajectories, while also standardizing and differentiating them. Notwithstanding these changes, public schools remain extraordinarily powerful channels of elite formation. Even today, the alumni of the nine Clarendon schools are 94 times more likely to reach the British elite than are those who attended any other school. Alumni of elite schools also retain a striking capacity to enter the elite even without passing through other prestigious institutions, such as Oxford, Cambridge, or private members clubs. Our analysis not only points to the dogged persistence of the "old boy," but also underlines the theoretical importance of reviving and refining the study of elite recruitment.

Abstract:We investigate the recruitment into the upper class, analysing the impact of different forms of capital and modes of closure. Unlike many Bourdieu-influenced approaches to class, we systematically investigate divisions by composition of capital: the relative weight of economic to cultural capital. We find capital-specific barriers to mobility: Access to the upper classes is not only differentiated by one's parents' volume of capital or the general class hierarchy, but also by the relative weight of cultural to economic capital. Drawing on theories of social closure, we further investigate the role of two distinct modes of closure -credentialism and private property. The degree of closure differs significantly between subfractions of the upper class, based on the degree to which they refer to positions involving specific credential requirements. Our findings underline the importance of capital composition, but also that closure operates by neither credentials nor property alone. In the present paper, we push this line of research further by analysing how inherited economic and cultural capital are shaping recruitment to upper class fractions, and how these intersect with educational credentialization and private property as two distinct modes of closure (Parkin 1979, Murphy 1988.We see class divisions as manifested in the distribution of forms of capital (Savage, Warde, and Devine 2005). While it is widely recognized that economic, cultural and social resources are of great significance for understanding how class 'works' (Goldthorpe, Llewellyn, and Payne 1987:99, Khan 2012), it is with Bourdieu's perspective that they come to be seen as the most 'determinant property' of social class (Bourdieu 1984:106, see the discussion in Flemmen 2013). But unlike recent attempts at applying Bourdieu's ideas in class analysis, like the GBCS, we operationalize the class structure as two-dimensional, shaped by both the total amount of capital, but also the composition of this capital -the relative weight of economic to cultural capital (see Flemmen et al. forthcoming). We therefore distinguish four main hierarchical levels of the class structure -working class, lower middle class, upper 4/34 middle class and upper class. We then differentiate the upper and middle groups into fractions by the type of capital, so that each is split into a cultural-capital fraction, an economic-capital fraction and a fraction with a balanced mix.While most approaches to social stratification emphasize the significance of education, class analysis stresses the role of private property (Flemmen 2013): Marxians see class as anchored in relations of production (Wright 2005), whereas Weberians see the divide between the propertied and the property-less as the basic fault line in the class structure (Breen 2005).But education or property should not be an either/or choice, so we move beyond this dichotomy by drawing on theories of social closure: 'In modern capitalist society the two main exclusionary devices by which the bourgeoisie construct...

In this article we use qualitative interviews to examine how Norwegians possessing low volumes of cultural and economic capital demarcate themselves symbolically from the lifestyles of those above and below them in social space. In downward boundary drawing, a range of types of people are regarded as inferior because of perceived moral and aesthetic deficiencies. In upward boundary drawing, anti-elitist sentiments are strong: people practising resource-demanding lifestyles are viewed as harbouring 'snobbish' and 'elitist' attitudes. However, our analysis suggests that contemporary forms of anti-elitism are far from absolute, as symbolic expressions of privilege are markedly less challenged if they are parcelled in a 'down-to-earth' attitude. Previous studies have shown attempts by the privileged to downplay differences in cross-class encounters, accompanied by displays of openness and down-to-earthness. Our findings suggest that there is in fact a symbolic 'market' for such performances in the lower region of social space. This cross-class sympathy, we argue, helps naturalize, and thereby legitimize, class inequalities. The implications of this finding are outlined with reference to current scholarly debates about politics and populism, status and recognition and intersections between class and gender in the structuring of social inequalities. The article also contributes key methodological insights into the mapping of symbolic boundaries. Challenging Lamont's influential framework, we demonstrate that there is a need for a more complex analytical strategy rather than simply measuring the 'relative salience' of various boundaries in terms of their occurrence in qualitative interview data. In distinguishing analytically between usurpationary and exclusionary boundary strategies, we show that moral boundaries in particular can take on qualitatively different forms and that subtypes of boundaries are sometimes so tightly intertwined that separating them to measure their relative salience would neglect the complex ways in which they combine to engender both aversion to and sympathies for others.

This article seeks to identify the internal divisions within the ‘upper class’ of Norway, defined as comprising different types of property owners, top executives and business managers. Bourdieu’s concepts of social space and forms of capital are applied to construct a social space of the Norwegian economic upper class by subjecting 12 indicators of capital to Multiple Correspondence Analysis. Central issues in the sociology of elites and upper classes are addressed, including the role of educational credentials in upper class reproduction, and the salience of divisions by social origin. The article reveals a maintained division between owners and employees (managers, executives, business professionals) in an age of ‘financialisation’. Furthermore, the divisions established are related to the segmentation of the upper class by occupation and industry.