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Social Status, Lifestyle and Cultural Consumption
This research project is a macro-sociological study of cultural consumption in seven countries: Britain, Chile, France, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands and the US. We brought together an international team of scholars to study the social bases of cultural consumption. Based on analyses of existing survey data, we have investigated how cultural consumption is related to social status – a hierarchy of perceived and often accepted social superiority, equality and inferiority. We also examined how the status–consumption link might be modified by social class, education, income, age and gender.
This project ran from October 2004 to March 2007
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Project team
Tak Wing Chan award holder
John H. Goldthorpe
Contact
Dr Tak Wing Chan
Department of Sociology
University of Oxford
Manor Road
Oxford OX1 3UQ
(01865) 286176
tw.chan@sociology.ox.ac.uk
Publications
Chan T. W. and Goldthorpe J. H. ‘Is There a Status Order in Contemporary British Society? Evidence from the Occupational Structure of Friendship’, European Sociological Review, 20 (5) (2004), pp.383–401.
Chan T. W. and Goldthorpe J. H. ‘The Social Stratification of Theatre, Dance and Cinema Attendance’, Cultural Trends, 14(3) (2005), pp.193–212.
Chan T. W. and Goldthorpe J. H. ‘Class and Status: The Conceptual Distinction and its Empirical Relevance’, American Sociological Review (forthcoming, 2007).
Chan T. W. and Goldthorpe J. H. ‘Social Status and Newspaper Readership’, American Journal of Sociology, 112(4) (2007), pp.1095–1134.
Chan T. W. and Goldthorpe J. H. ‘Social Stratification and Cultural Consumption: Music in England’, European Sociological Review, 23(1) (2007), pp.1–19.
Chan T. W. and Goldthorpe J. H. ‘Social Stratification and Cultural Consumption: The Visual Arts in England’, Poetics (forthcoming, 2007).
Project outline
The following is the text of the project's original proposal
SUMMARY
This research project is a macro-sociological study of cultural consumption in Britain, France, the Netherlands and the US. We bring together an international team of scholars to study the social bases of consumption and lifestyle in these countries. We shall investigate how cultural consumption might be related to social status a hierarchy of perceived and often accepted social superiority, equality and inferiority. We shall also investigate how the status-consumption link might be modified by social class, education, income, age, gender and ethnicity.
OUTLINE OF PROJECT
There is a variety of theories purporting to explain how cultural assumption is, or is not, related to social structure. The empirical validity of many of these theories is open to serious challenge. We argue that the theoretical and empirical difficulties concerning the social bases of cultural consumption is, to a large extent, due to a disregard of Max Weber's distinction between social
status and social class. While class is known to have important consequences for individuals' life chances, such as economic security and prospects, it is social status that is more directly related to cultural consumption. We shall compare and evaluate three main theses on the social bases of
cultural consumption, namely Bourdieu's class-culture homology thesis, the postmodern individualisation thesis, and the cultural omnivore thesis. We will develop an alternative theory based on Max Weber's distinction between social class and social status, and will evaluate this new theory using a wide range of empirical data on cultural consumption.
KEY QUESTIONS
1. Does a status order still exist in contemporary societies?
2. If so, what is its general form, how does it map onto the class structure, and what are the main discrepancies that exist between the two?
3. Is there a common status order for both men and women, and for different ethnic groups, or are there gender specific or ethnic group-specific status orders?
4. What is the relationship between the positions individuals hold in the status order and their patterns of cultural consumption and what are the implications in this regard of class{status discrepancies? To what extent, and in what ways, do income, age, education, gender and ethnicity
modify the relationship between status and cultural consumption?
5. To what extent are status orders and the relationship between status and cultural consumption common across national societies and to what extent and in what ways do they differ?
APPROACH
The project will be based on the secondary, and primarily quantitative analysis of large-scale and nationally representative data-sets collected in recent years. The surveys that we have identified cover a wide range of both `high' and `popular' cultural activities, thus allowing us to consider the social bases of, for example, reading tabloids as well as broadsheets, going to the cinema
as well as the opera, listening to pop as well as classical music.
OUTCOMES
Our project should provide information of direct relevance to current debate on British (as well as French, Dutch and American) cultural life, turning on such issues as the relation between `high' and `popular' culture, elitism and inclusiveness, commercialism, and `dumbing down'. We believe this projects will have long terms impacts in three ways. First, it will advance understanding of the social bases of cultural consumption in modern societies. Secondly, such understanding will inform policy of organisations concerned with the promotion and provision of cultural activities in both
public and private sectors. Thirdly, it will inform debates on current issues of public concern regarding the maintenance and diversification of cultural standards, levels of participation of different social groups.
