Description

Class inequality in contemporary societies: criterion and construct validation of class schema

Based on a systematic review of articles published in leading sociology journals, we find that EGP is largely the dominant social class schema and increasingly so. However, we find also sociologists are increasingly replacing the use of class schemas with income measures. This trend is worrisome because there is a close link between measurement and conceptualization of stratification and our ability to capture social inequalities. Our project aims at a comparative description and validation of different social position measures and evaluation of their relationship to typical outcomes in stratification research. In a first paper, we argue that EGP is a too aggregated schema displaying a hypertrophic service class and we show that disaggregating managerial and professional fractions of this class is a promising solution. In a second paper we compare the construct validity of EGP with that of several other class schemas: Wright, Esping-Andersen, Oesch, IPICS, ESEGrev and the microclasses. We thus assess the explanatory power of different macro-, meso- and micro-level approaches to class analysis considering a variety of outcomes (e.g. educational attainment, voting, values). In a third paper, we contrast class approaches to income and socio-economic measures to assess whether an integrative approach combining these approaches improves the explanatory power of measures of social position. The talk will give an overview over our project, each study and the most significant outcomes for class analysts.

Speaker

Carlo Barone is full professor of Sociology at Sciences Po, Paris. His research focuses on educational inequality, returns to education and social mobility in longitudinal and comparative perspective. His research makes use of field experiments to analyze the role of parental involvement and information gaps in the generation of socioeconomic inequality in educational attainment.

Florian R. Hertel is a post-doctoral researcher and research group leader at Universtität Hamburg, Germany. His research seeks to understand the causes of inequality, describe class stratification and social mobility and study the political and social ramifications of inequality in Germany and other countries.

Oscar Smallenbroekis a post-doctoral researcher at Sciences Po, Paris. His research focuses on the relationship between social stratification and personal values. In the past he has studied the effects of occupations, social class and gender on personal values and the effects of personal values on demographic behavior and the household division of labour.

Practical information

Languages: English
Organisers: Joint Research Centre