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Working class or Middle class
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What is considered to differentiate between Working class and Middle class.
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Two British sociologists, D. Goldthorpe and J. Lockwood claimed that there are definite specific "working class" and "middle class" perspectives e.g. "working class" people live in a world of "us" and "them", that money is to be spent and enjoyed, schooling is of limited importance etc., whilst "middle class" people see society as a wider grouping of opportunity, they think that money should be saved, they value schooling highly etc.
Goldthorpe and Lockwood also argue that Britain is not becoming "middle class" i.e. that we are all becoming "the same". They studied a Luton car factory and found that the manual (i.e. "working class") workers still ate in a separate canteen, drank in public bars, went to Spanish resorts for their holidays, tended to read tabloid newspapers, and their children left school at 16. The office (i.e. "middle class") workers ate their lunch in the waitress canteen at work, drank in Saloon bars, holidayed in rather more "up-market" resorts, read "quality" newspapers, and urged their children to continue education after 16. Also the manual workers tended to vote Labour, and the white-collar workers tended to vote Conservative.
Clearly, in most modern industrial societies, including Britain, our system of social stratification is much more fluid - that is, we experience a good deal of "social mobility" - people, through generations or perhaps in their own life time, moving up or down the social scale.
Goldthorpe and Lockwood also argue that Britain is not becoming "middle class" i.e. that we are all becoming "the same". They studied a Luton car factory and found that the manual (i.e. "working class") workers still ate in a separate canteen, drank in public bars, went to Spanish resorts for their holidays, tended to read tabloid newspapers, and their children left school at 16. The office (i.e. "middle class") workers ate their lunch in the waitress canteen at work, drank in Saloon bars, holidayed in rather more "up-market" resorts, read "quality" newspapers, and urged their children to continue education after 16. Also the manual workers tended to vote Labour, and the white-collar workers tended to vote Conservative.
Clearly, in most modern industrial societies, including Britain, our system of social stratification is much more fluid - that is, we experience a good deal of "social mobility" - people, through generations or perhaps in their own life time, moving up or down the social scale.
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After studying a number of 1950s war films I can reveal that working class people say "wotcha" and "cor blimey" a lot. They are usually batmen or drivers and are happy with their lot. They speak in implausible cockney or northern accents and are a bit comedy. They look odd and smell of chips.
The middle classes say "I say" all the time. They are usually pilots and are very brave. They speak in implausible posh accents and are a bit comedy. They look like Kenneth Moore and sometimes give their dogs racially offensive names.
I hope that clears everything up.