To find the term 'underclass' offensive and to think teachers shouldn't be teaching students about it?

[Opalite]

I was talking to DD and she was saying how her teacher told the class about 'underclass, working class, middle class and upper class' we were watching TV and it mentioned middle class, DD said that we're underclass and her teacher had told her about it yesterday
Is it outdated? I find it offensive and I don't think it's right for her teacher to be telling them these things as if they're facts or as if they matter

I know there are people who never work Orange.

I just see the differently to the way you clearly do.

Why do you see it as an insult to the working classes?

the = them

The definition of lumpenproletariat that custardo linked to earlier does cut to the chase, I think:

Roughly translated as slum workers or the mob, this term identifies the class of outcast, degenerated and submerged elements that make up a section of the population of industrial centers. It includes beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements. In times of prolonged crisis (depression), innumerable young people also, who cannot find an opportunity to enter into the social organism as producers, are pushed into this limbo of the outcast. Here demagogues and fascists of various stripes find some area of the mass base in time of struggle and social breakdown, when the ranks of the Lumpenproletariat are enormously swelled by ruined and declassed elements from all layers of a society in decay.

I is genius

Orange Juice you seriously need to educate yourself and work out where you got that set of ideas from and who you're serving holding them!

No work history? Really? Or do you mean a work history you don't approve of, or count? Half the reason the lowerclass are undereducated is to do with having to bring in money as soon and often as possible.
I grew up in a slum getting by and can promise you we worked. One way or another pretty much everyone worked, formally, informally, legally or illegally, usually a mix of whatever could be found, often as trickle down work, and that included kids.

To this day plenty of people are living the same way.

They aren't working class because they're not from WC roots and aren't stable enough or have enough rights to work up to it, not because they don't have work!

There's plenty of unemployed workingclass (and middleclass) and plenty of working lowerclass.

You is Custardo, but not sure I like lumpenproletariat any better.
What's wrong with good old fashioned lowerclass? One of the first things I learned was LC and aristocracy got on well despite everything because neither had a problem with who they where.

im not lower than anyone else

I don’t think I’m lower than someone else either, it’s just a word.
Do people really think upper class people are above them?

it depends what you mean by above and below, in for it to make sense you need to ask in what respect are people above or below you.

Of course there are people who are above and below me in terms of socio economic status.
That doesnt make them morally better or worse but it means they have more or less ability to get on on life compared to me.

Higher socio economic status generally means a more comfortable life with better physical and mental health, more choices, more autonomy, more resources to cope when things go wrong.

I dont think rich people are better than me but I'd far rather be rich than poor

I don't have any more or less value as a human being than anyone else either, but I'd be kidding myself if I believed I have the same social standing as either a homeless criminal or Prince William.

I can see what your saying and yes I'd rather be rich but having money doesn't change which class you are any more than having work does. Both can help with changing class though, but I don't see better mental health in the middle and upper classes, just different problems that affect people and famillies in different ways, but maybe that's just my perceptions?
I've certainly never come across anyone from my background with anorexia or bulimia and would have thought it much more painful and awful to have MH problems if you have lots of choices and resources but still aren't doing well.
To my mind each group has its own pro's and cons.

yes they do think that upper or middle class people are above them hence 'aspiring MC' why many people who work and have a house if asked think they are middle class. there is absolutely an irrevocable hierarchical element to it.

words are very powerful

To be MC, IMO, you need a higher level of education

Really? so the child of a duke and duchess or some billionaire would be lower class until they passed some exams and if they didn't do terribly well in school and then spent all their time at parties instead of having a career would be .. what? underclass

most people realize that social class isnt defined by just one criteria, it's a mixture of income, education, culture, attitudes, etc, neither are the categories rigid or universally agreed upon

The Underclass is something that exists alongside, not below, a society that has little to offer them and doesn't really want them anyway. It is extremely diverse and not without aspiration, morals, work ethic, intelligence and money.

It is easily demonized because included in it's ranks exist criminals, some lazy people and some seemingly feckless people. There will always be people that society doesn't want. And they are the Underclass.

They are useful to politicians who try to blame them for this country's ills. They like to use them as a whipping boy when times are tough. Fortunately we're all too intelligent to believe the politicians. We know who runs the country. And the idea that our problems are due to the disenfranchised rather than their political policies is, quite frankly, ridiculous. And I'm glad we all know that.

But the Underclass really comes into its own when The Shit Hits The Fan. In times of war and tyranny you want to be friends with the Underclass.

A huge part of the problem in Britain is the Class system.

IMO People who've grown up under this system fail to see the irony, which is that the labels/words themselves 'lower, middle, under, upper' carry a lot of judgement and connotation.

Based on the meaning of the words, the classification system is intrinsically judgemental, and therefore perpetuates the problem.

Perhaps using neutral words for classification purposes would be better?

Lazysuzanne, if you were replying to me then yeah I do realise that it's not just one factor. I was partly hinting that class is inherited not earned by any particular action.

We are born into a class and while it is possible to move upward it's not easy. If you are born upper class it is correspondingly hard to move down. If you lose all your money you are still not the same as the riff raff at the Job Center.

Tenacity, neutral words is probably a good idea in the long run.

Mind you I don't think the upper classes would allow the change :)

BackOnly, I was replying in support of you :)

I'd say it's because we are born into a certain cultural millieux, so even if income levels are not in sync we still feel middle class or whatever because we have a certain set of social norms.

Neutral terms may help initially but would tend not to stay neutral.

If we start calling the upper classes the checked class and the underclass the striped class those terms would soon take on the connotations of the original ones.

Because social classes are not just different but equal, they are inherently unequal by dint of being an hierarchical system!

Lazysuzanne, phew I thought that you thought I didn't understand :)