Two Faces of Class: Patterns of Self-Identification & Core Attitude Structures

• In Event: New Frameworks for the Study of Groups and Political Opinion

Abstract

Social class is a fundamental category in analyzing group attitudes and behavior, yet there is no agreed-upon definition of class-related concepts and disparate measures are used to assess class affiliation. This conceptual and empirical diversity creates analytic confusion, contributing to inconsistent use of class-related terms by social scientists, and as deployed by political leaders and media in political discourse, even as class serves as a potent political symbol and social identity.

This analysis explores how class terms are defined and measured, the impact of using different measures of class identification and membership, and changes over time in the political attitudes of class identifiers. Two dimensions of class identification are contrasted, self-definitions and ascriptive measures, including two self-definition measures based on affect and affiliation. The resulting three identification measures are then analyzed for their relationships to core political attitudes, specifically party and ideological identifications and policy measures that demarcate class distinctions. Analyzing ANES and GSS time-series data since 1972, I track trends in the relationships among the meanings of class identities and in the structure of class identification and political attitudes as they evolve in the context of U.S. politics.

The analysis seeks to clarify both definitional problems confronting research on class and to evaluate claims about class, specifically those of political actors that ascribe opinions and characteristics to members of different social classes, the claim that cultural values have supplanted economic concerns as the driving force in class politics in the U.S., and the stereotypes of working-class people as newly-minted cultural and economic populists.

Author

• Christopher Muste, University of Montana