So what class are you in?

[alwaysmoody]

I see a lot of comments about social class "la di daaa"

So I'm curious to which class you would all place yourselves?

Honestly?

I'm from a LC background but I'm wealthy now from my own hard work and live in a MN area from what I've gathered (Chiswick) but I definitely don't fit in with these "mums" I still prefer having my friends from council estates in hounslow over

So what social classes are you from? And please be naice

You have a job. You work. You are working class. You might perceive yourself as different from those who earn less

Historically the middle classes always had jobs. Just different types of jobs.

Working class/middle class combo here.I do/eat/drink things that are associated with both.

troublesome families on sink estates where generations have been on the dole. It's been pretty well demonstrated that these people, as a sizeable group, are a figment of the imagination. It has been extremely difficult to find a family where 3 generations have been on the dole.

In the olden days, if you were born into a working class family , you stayed working class generally. Now, that's not really the case. Really?? Social mobility is lower than it was in the 60s and 70s and is generally going backwards.

*Senua - I do see your point but lack of job doesn't make you a different class. That would encompass people on benefits as well as business owners, shareholders and landed gentry- as well as the retired. You don't get an elite badge on retirement and owning your own business doesn't make you a millionaire.

We’re doing this again? If you’re working class then you’re working class, money has nothing to do with it.

The idea that you can’t shift social class is ridiculous.

Educated

I was in the M's in primary school and the S's in secondary. That was the last time I was in a class.

YABU for 'LC'.

I'm working-class. My dad was a builder and my mother was on benefits after they divorced. I left school at 16 and worked for minimum wage.

Class to me is cultural. It's about where you feel comfortable and what you consider normal. I'm happy in a pub but would feel utterly out-of-place in an expensive restaurant, even if I suddenly became fabulously rich.

I've been told that I'm middle-class now because of some of my political beliefs, and because I have degrees from good universities - but I got those in my thirties. They didn't change the way I saw myself. Further, an actual middle-class person would never perceive me as middle-class. If MN is anything to go by, they'd be horrified by my th-fronting and glottal stops, for a start.

The worst ones are those who label themselves 'middle class' like it's a mindset or personality trait. Most of them wouldn't be actually classed as MC when evaluating their economic or sociological situation. The definitions have changed. 50 years ago MC was about "mindset", or the way you lived your life - "white collar" job with autonomy (so clerk, PA etc didn't count), education, saving and denying yourself in order to have a better life in the future. WC was associated with less autonomy at work, and enjoying your money now, because you didn't know what was around the corner, and no amount of saving would give you enough to make an appreciable difference to your future. And it was the "mindset" bit of it that said you could be very well off but still not be MC

That definition is still around in some contexts, but increasingly MC is being defined in purely economic terms - in order to be MC your earnings need to be in the top 10%.

I’m foreign so don’t fit in the Brit class system, but find it fascinating to observe.

Me too! The obsession with the class in UK is quite interesting. Everyone must be some and it somehow must make their character.

"It's been pretty well demonstrated that these people, as a sizeable group, are a figment of the imagination. It has been extremely difficult to find a family where 3 generations have been on the dole."

I'm sure a lot of social workers would disagree. A few years ago my local council was working with 16 such families.

I wouldn't even say owning your own home made you a certain class these days due to the 'right to buy' scheme. A relative of mine worked for the local council answering phones for maybe 10 years since leaving school. She bought her council flat through the right to buy scheme (in Scotland, in the early 90s so got it cheap as chips, maybe like 6 grand). She doesn't work but gets a fair whack of money via disability benefits for her kid along with a council pension that she got for early retirement, when she was about 30 due to her childs medical condition. She then used the equity on the bought council flat plus the benefits/council pension money to upgrade to a bigger house. She did this again and now owns a house that she would not have been able to afford had she just kept working in her same council job throughout her working life.

Again my grandmother. Working class her entire life, worked in the jute mills all her life along with a cleaning job. Bought her council flat for 4k in the early 90s. Upgraded to a nicer house maybe 10 years later using the equity from the bought council flat.

Both of them are working class at best. So I definitely wouldn't say home ownership is an indicator or class.

Underclass and proud

"Really?? Social mobility is lower than it was in the 60s and 70s and is generally going backwards."
Wrong again. Every child has opportunity of education at least up to 16/17. In my Mums era, most girls left school at 14 and went to work in a factory up till they married. These days, most do gcse's, which gives them opportunity to go for jobs, and most go on to further education. In my childs year group only a handful finished after GCSE's.

Anyway, the old class demarcations don’t make much sense now. The traditional working class doesn’t really exist anymore. Many middle class jobs have been devalued in terms of wealth and status.

Exactly. OP, if you're interested, the BBC social class quiz is as blunt or sharp an instrument as anything else for the current state of the class system, and considers leisure pursuits, the jobs of people you socialise with etc as well as income, property ownership etc.

www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22000973

(I come out as 'elite' on it, incidentally, despite being the daughter of a bin man and a cleaner. It prioritises now, rather than upbringing, parental income etc.)

And as this thread has already demonstrated a number of times, a lot of people have no understanding whatsoever of the social class system, and brightly twitter 'Well, if you have to talk about class, you aren't classy!' and 'If you work for a living, you're working class!'

So I don't think you are necessarily going to be particularly enlightened by anything people say on here.

Wrong again. Every child has opportunity of education at least up to 16/17. In my Mums era, most girls left school at 14 and went to work in a factory up till they married.

And if those girls had made it to a grammar and stayed in education until they were 17 or 18, they would have had the opportunity for considerably better jobs and social mobility -- in 2020, children who stay in education till 18, have few 'extra' opportunities in terms of social mobility.

Wrong again. Every child has opportunity of education at least up to 16/17. In my Mums era, most girls left school at 14 and went to work in a factory up till they married. These days, most do gcse's, which gives them opportunity to go for jobs, and most go on to further education. In my childs year group only a handful finished after GCSE's.

This is true, but you're not accounting for growing credentialism. I've seen jobs for street cleaners advertised as requiring 5 GCSEs. When plenty of young people left school at 14, this wouldn't have been the case. So many jobs now ask for a degree that isn't really necessary - you can tell because they don't require a specific degree, but will accept one in anything. Plenty of university graduates are working in low-paid jobs.

Young people are better educated now than they used to be, in general. This isn't a bad thing, by any means - but it isn't, in itself, an indicator of social mobility.

Material accumulation has nothing to do with class. You don’t change class just because you have made money during your life or not.
And being from a ‘higher’ class is not necessarily better or something to aspire to anyway.
There are plenty of dreadful people in every class. Plenty of good ones too.
Success is being happy with yourself whatever class you are in.

Well I was working class as a child ,but now appear MIddle Class according to my DS uni application anyway ! This whole "Class" issue is a bit of a joke now anyway .Used to be Doctors ,Solicitors and so on and private education that made someone MC .Now fewer parents can afford PE, and what about newer jobs Blogging and so on ,well paid but not academically challenging in the least!

Underclass

I'm in Jennifer Yellow Hat according to my primary school

Working class family, did loads of odd jobs to buy 11+ practice papers, went to grammar school, straight As throughout inc 4 at A-Level, RG degree and now own my own business.

Yet I'm conscious I still have a massive chip on my shoulder and can't seem to bear people not knowing I'm working class and have worked for what I've got. I cringe at myself having those thoughts because there's no need for people to know - they wouldn't care! It's just me and my hang ups.

So I've entered a middle class world, one that I was desperate to enter, and now feel disloyal to my roots.

It's ridiculous and I can't explain it other than a combination of guilt and inherent feeling of 'otherness' to people who weren't brought up on an estate etc.

So to summarise, I chose this life yet now I feel disloyal to my upbringing, it's so stupid and totally down to my personal hang ups.

senua

You are mistaken.

Definition of middle class: a social group that consists of well-educated people, such as doctors, lawyers, and teachers, who have good jobs and are not poor, but are not very rich:

Definition of upper middle class: tend to go into business or the professions, becoming, for example, lawyers, doctors, or accountants.

Working class: a social group that consists of people who earn little money, often being paid only for the hours or days that they work, and who usually do physical work:

Lower-class people belong to the social class that has the lowest position in society and the least money.

ShesCurly I sympathise. That's exactly how I felt at university.

I remember during my MA we were discussing 'at-risk young people' and someone made a statement about how we in the room were 'all middle-class professionals, but...'

All I could think was how I had far more in common with the teenager in the case study than with the people surrounding me. I had grown up just like that. I found myself providing what felt like a token working-class perspective more than once. It was odd.

What class am I?
I grew up on a council estate, DF a painter and decorator, DM an accounts clerk, passed my 11 plus, went to a good school, went to university. I am currently not working, married to a guy who earns 170k, big house, DC at university

I honestly don’t know and wouldn’t have a clue how to figure it out.