Catherine Marsh

Education and Social Class: Revisiting the 1944 Education Act with Fixed Marginals

Trends in class inequality in attendance at selective schools are hard to interpret, since the number of places at these schools and the distribution of children by class also change over time. Reanalysing data from the Nuffield Mobility Study, it is shown that interpretation of the trends depends on which measure of association is used. By viewing stratification as a continuous hierarchy which is then sliced up into « classes » of differing sizes, some interpretative problems can be overcome; greatest clarity is achieved by defining a top class equal in size to the number of selective school places. Reanalysing the data using this « fixed marginals » approach, a clear pattern emerges : growing inequality before 1944, movement towards equality in the first decade after, but sharply increased inequality thereafter. An explanation is proposed to explain this pattern

Consumption and class : divisions and change

List of Tables and Figures - Preface - Notes on the Contributors - Consumption, Class and Contemporary Sociology R.Burrows & C.Marsh - Notes on the Relationship Between Production and Consumption A.Warde - Constructing Consumers and Consumer Protection: The Case of the Life Insurance Industry in the United Kingdom G.Morgan & D.Knights - Social Class, Consumption Divisions and Housing Mobility M.Savage, P.Watt & S.Arber - Medicine and Markets: Power, Choice and the Consumption of Private Medical Care J.Busfield - Principles and Practice: the Case of Private Health Insurance M.Calnan & S.Cant - Managed Markets: Consumers and Producers in the National Health Service R.Flynn - Patterns of Social Consciousness amongst the Middle Classes R.Crompton - Thirtysomething and Contemporary Consumer Culture: Distinctiveness and Distinction F.Bonner & P.Du Gay - Class Differences in Access to Higher Education C.Marsh & R.M.Blackburn - Competing Views of Contemporary Social Mobility and Social Divisions G.Payne - Index

Class Differences in Access to Higher Education in Britain

Access to higher education in Britain is still confined to a relatively small proportion of the population, and the existence of social inequalities is unmistakable. There have, nevertheless, been important changes in the last 30 years. There has been a considerable expansion of provision, with changes in the method of financing students. This has been accompanied by a marked reduction in gender inequality as women have taken up a larger proportion of available places. However, the changes in class inequalities are more problematic and more difficult to assess. It is this question that we address here.

Research on Families and Households in Modern Britain: An Introductory Essay

Each generation imbues family life with myths about the golden era of the past and the breakdown of norms in the present. The explanation for this continued sense of social decay is probably a very basic confusion between processes of history and those of personal biography. But whatever the cause, this strong sense that people have of the changes that are taking place to the family, irrespective of any social reality, makes it especially hard for researchers to assemble and interpret the facts about social change in family composition and structure, and in values and attitudes towards the family. The ease with which explanations can slip into ‘common sense knowledge’ makes it particularly important to support statements about change with empirical evidence collected across time rather than with data collected in the present and contrasted with an assumption about the past.

Consumption, Class and Contemporary Sociology

It is fair to say that until recently most sociologists tended to treat consumption in a reductionist manner as a distributive aspect of social class. However, of late some very strong claims have been made for the conceptual and political importance of consumption per se, and this has resulted in various challenges to the hegemony of those sociological perspectives which prioritise labour and production (see Warde, this volume).