Social Class and Omnivorous Culture Consumption in the early 1940s

• In Event: Sociology of Culture Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 16. Education, Habitus, & Cultural Capital

Abstract

Peterson and Kern (1996) found that cultural consumption among high occupational status persons, “cultural snobs,” varied between 1982 and 1992. Inclusion of pop culture along with highbrow elements increased in that period. However, they argued that five factors that facilitated the emergence of the high-status omnivore came earlier, mostly in the years following Findings in the present paper for American soldiers in the early 1940s show a clear pattern of omnivorous cultural consumption as education increases. This pattern is consistent with studies showing high-status omnivores in the 1980s and 1990s, but it undermines arguments that elite omnivore emerged as a result of socio-cultural changes in the post-war period. Findings also show the strongest associations of education, size of place, and region with music choices are among soldiers who have spent the least amount of time away from their homes, families, friends, and communities. In essence they brought these patterns with them, strongly suggesting that we are observing cultural choices not just of soldiers, but of men in their 20s and 30s who grew up in 1920s and 1930s America. Whatever the impact of the five sociocultural changes hypothesized by Peterson and Kern (1996) in the post-war period, they were not required to explain high-status omnivorousness. It had already emerged some 20 and more years previously, independent of those factors. Findings also suggest that social background and experience have a strong impact on cultural choices, and these may be more important than the cultural toolkit and distinction in producing and sustaining patterns of cultural involvement. World War II.

Authors

• Michael Hughes

• David L. Brunsma, Virginia Tech