This document discusses social class and the changing nature of class structures globally and in Western societies over the past 30 years. It notes that economic class polarization has increased, with the richest 10% seeing a 62% rise in disposable income while the poorest 10% saw a 10% decrease. It examines how class relations are constructed through patterns of consumption and media discourse, and how certain groups like lone mothers have been positioned as an "underclass." The document also discusses the emphasis on individualism in new conceptualizations of class and the need to recognize class in a broader social and interactive context beyond just economic factors.

1. Social Class
A presentation by Bethanie Roughley and Namra Amer

2. GLOBAL SHIFTS
• Class continues to be important part of social
identity
• Growing polarization in economic class structure
over the past 30 years (westguard 1996)
• polarization (or polarisation) refers to the
divergence of political attitudes to ideological
extremes.
• Since 1980 the disposable income of the richest
10% had increased 62% whereas the poorest 10%
has decreased 10%.

3. Contemporary discourses of
classlessness

4. Class relation construction
• Class relations are constructed through patterns of
.
• Consumption is no less than production is aclassed and classifying
process.
• One of the most divisive exclusionary mechanisms of the 1990s is
the of some of the working classes, predominantly
lone mothers and children as underclass.
• The working class rarely chose the discourses within which they
position themselves
• Produced by more powerful in society

5. Triumph of individualism

6. New ways of envisioning class.
• Class is part of micro politics of peoples lives
• Q. Extent to which collective class-consciousness ever existed class
– always been a social a;ter
• View class as powerfully initialized and continually played out
in interaction with others across social fields.
• Understanding of class needs to be much broader than the
economic scope.

7. Recognizing class in individual
lives
We must “classify the classifiers”
• Academic texts are always middle class texts as academics are
a privilege group.
Working class- failing to achieve the power to contribute to
dominant discourses/ even marginal ones
• Lack public forums which to give their own accounts

8. Mothers making sense
We all now share the problems of living in a world risk society. The
world is constantly under assault.
Media brought events and crisis happening almost everywhere in
our living rooms.
• A reason for sharing concerns is that certain global problems require
global solutions.
• Acting alone, governments cannot protect their borders,
territories or the lives and well-being of their citizens from a
number of situations. = Only collaboration between
governments and regulations at the global level can provide
genuine solutions.
• The impact of global industrialization on the planet's biosphere
explains shared, global nature of many problems.
• Rich and poor have driven to abuse their own environments.
'the world's growing environmental problems are connecting the lives
of people in very different societies ... it is ultimately impossible to
hide oneself away from these phenomena altogether'.