Class: A Guide Through the American Status System (an excerpt)

Fussell, Paul

doi:10.17323/1726-3247-2019-3-90-98

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…For these authors, “new” middle classes seek to emulate more elite traditional middle classes but have low social capital, rely on credit for consumption, and worry little about democratic institutions (Souza and Lamounier ). Their conclusions echo a long‐standing characterization of middle classes as seeking both status and to emulate higher classes (Fussell ; Mills [] 2002). This apparent chasm between traditional and new middle‐class individuals is supported by our survey data, as respondents agreed that “the rich think they are better than the poor” ( M = 4.13 on a 5‐point Likert scale ranging from 1 [ strongly disagree ] to 5 [ strongly agree ]) and “rich people are bothered by the rise of the poor” ( M = 3.67).…”

Section: What Is a Middle Class?supporting

confidence: 58%

Naming Brazil's previously poor: “New middle class” as an economic, political, and experiential category

Klein

Mitchell

Junge

2018

Economic Anthropology

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The early years of the twenty-first century were historic for socioeconomic relations in Brazil. While long known for stark socioeconomic inequality, the nation became internationally celebrated for its economic growth and successful poverty-reduction initiatives, which together propelled some 35 million "previously poor" Brazilians into what became called a "new middle class." The apparent rise of this "new" class has generated contentious debate and a range of social science studies in Brazil; yet this literature is little known in the Anglophone academic world. While some have interpreted this demographic transformation as an expansion of the existing middle class, others have questioned the utility of income-or consumption-based criteria for the category "middle class." Drawing from ongoing research in working-class neighborhoods in three Brazilian cities (Recife, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo), this article reviews and engages these important debates, examines the extent to which Brazil's class structure has changed, and presents a conceptual framework for understanding experiences of socioeconomic mobility and class subjectivities among Brazil's "previously poor."Keywords Middle Class; Class Structure; Socioeconomic Mobility; BrazilThe middle class is necessarily an ill-defined entity. This does not reflect a lack of theoretical penetration but rather the character of reality.- Wacquant (1991, 57) In 2008, as Brazilians were becoming aware of their country's rising international profile and decreasing poverty, economist Marcelo Neri (2008, 43) announced the arrival of a "new middle class," with millions of once-poor people joining its ranks each year. Neri argued that with these shifts, Brazil had become a middle-class nation. Brazil is, of course, renowned for brutal inequality-so much so that "Brazilification" is often used as shorthand for widening inequality elsewhere. So the idea of a middle-class nation arrived as both a revelation and a controversy. Politicians and marketers took up the catchphrase "new middle class" even as critics assailed its validity. This debate continues today, even in the changed context of a severe economic downturn that began in 2013, the impeachment of Workers' Party (PT) president Dilma Rousseff in 2016, and the subsequent rollback of many of the PT social policies that supported poverty reduction during the party's years in office . The current crisis stands in contrast to the optimistic years preceding it, when Brazil's economic rise and the "new middle class"-dominated headlines. Our historical distance from those brighter times gives us, perhaps, enough remove to consider the implications of Brazilian debates on the "new middle class" and to evaluate their significance for anthropological theory and ethnography.We begin with an account of the profound socioeconomic transformations that took place in Brazil during the first decade of the twenty-first century. We then review how Marx, Weber, and Bourdieu have influenced the

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Section: What Is a Middle Class?supporting

confidence: 58%

Naming Brazil's previously poor: “New middle class” as an economic, political, and experiential category

Klein

Mitchell

Junge

2018

Economic Anthropology

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“…Although social class cues are communicated across a broad variety of behaviors (9)(10)(11), speech patterns are among the most powerful means of social class perception (12). Speech is significantly socialized at home, in schools, and in society (e.g., formal and informal elocution instruction).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech

Kraus

Torrez

Park

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Economic inequality is at its highest point on record and is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries. The forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and here we examine how a person’s position within the economic hierarchy, their social class, is accurately perceived and reproduced by mundane patterns embedded in brief speech. Studies 1 through 4 examined the extent that people accurately perceive social class based on brief speech patterns. We find that brief speech spoken out of context is sufficient to allow respondents to discern the social class of speakers at levels above chance accuracy, that adherence to both digital and subjective standards for English is associated with higher perceived and actual social class of speakers, and that pronunciation cues in speech communicate social class over and above speech content. In study 5, we find that people with prior hiring experience use speech patterns in preinterview conversations to judge the fit, competence, starting salary, and signing bonus of prospective job candidates in ways that bias the process in favor of applicants of higher social class. Overall, this research provides evidence for the stratification of common speech and its role in both shaping perceiver judgments and perpetuating inequality during the briefest interactions.

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“…It seems that families who rose from a lower-class to middle-class status are eventually less prone to fulfilling traditional gender roles, particularly when it comes to female family members who wish to become an entrepreneur. Arguably one reason for this is that middle-class status provides income security, but also what Fussel (1983) in his widely used book Class calls "psychic insecurity." Women use this class anxiety to break away from patriarchal family roles, adopting various tactics in realizing their strategy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Being a Woman Entrepreneur in Turkey: Life Role Expectations and Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy

2019

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Two major competing life roles, work and family, are reported to dominate people's efforts in constructing a life. Here, we aim to explore whether and how attributed life roles and related coping strategies of current and aspiring women entrepreneurs meaningfully differentiate and whether the existence of entrepreneurs in their families affects the formation of these different clusters. In our empirical, two-part exploratory study conducted in the emerging economy setting of Turkey, first, we utilize the survey results of 234 women entrepreneurs to explore the issue, and then in the second part of the study, we administer face-to-face interviews to draw out some critical insights. We end up with three different clusters differentiating in their responses to challenges and effect of these on their entrepreneurial self-efficacy beliefs. We believe our study may shed some light on understanding nonhomogeneous women response to roles and challenges in the society and women's entrepreneurial journey.

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Class: A Guide Through the American Status System (an excerpt)

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

Naming Brazil's previously poor: “New middle class” as an economic, political, and experiential category

Naming Brazil's previously poor: “New middle class” as an economic, political, and experiential category

Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech

Being a Woman Entrepreneur in Turkey: Life Role Expectations and Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy

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