Search results

Since ethnographers tend to study poor, urban black communities most often, it is not surprise that the methodological literature contains a wealth of information designed to help scholars do this kind of work. Far less is known about the challenges ethnographers face when “studying up,” that is exploring middle and upper-middle-class communities. Less is know too about the challenges of working in a suburb versus an urban community. This chapter helps to fill that void. By chronicling the challenges I faced in the field while collecting the data for Blue-Chip Black, my book about the identity options of middle and upper-middle-class suburban blacks, I show that the strategies ethnographers of the urban poor employ in their work are not necessarily transferable to studies of the upper classes. I identify a set of methodological tools appropriate for analysis of the upper classes. I then turn to the theoretical contributions of my study as a way of showing the kinds of insights that can be gleaned from a study of those near the top of the class ladder.

In this chapter we argue that South Africa's premier city, Johannesburg, has undergone a massive reconfiguration of its social geography since the demise of formal apartheid. Using census data and geographic information systems (GIS), we present evidence that this spatial transformation has been driven by a process of residential deracialization but one that has taken place within narrow class bands. Indeed, we show that change has been marked by a new process of middle-class formation that has specifically taken the form of what we call middle-class enclavization. We show moreover that this process of enclavization is marked by internal fragmentation with the increasing spatial compartmentalization of different fractions of the middle class. These findings in turn support broader arguments in the literature that emphasize the strategic practices, including the centrality of residential location, through which upper middle-class privilege is preserved.

Davis's tentative postulation about the subjecthood of the new middle class is appropriate, as there is a wide variety of definitions given to this group across different national and local contexts. She underlines the importance of rejecting “essentialist arguments about so-called middle class culture and its role in economic development, seeking instead to identify differences among the middle classes (emphasis in original),” further asserting that there is not “some essential cultural or political disposition about class politics or class discourses associated with middle ‘classness.’” But beyond attempting to enumerate exactly who counts as middle class in each setting, and determining whether they are best described as “old” or “new” in their character as political subjects, we must recognize that there are indeed social and cultural attributes ascribed to the middle class that are also a matter of contention, and that there is no single proprietor of these features. In other words, middleclassness is a contested ensemble of characteristics, endowed with variable political valences, that different groups seek to own, manipulate, and deploy to a range of ends.

This ethnographic study of school food service employees at an elementary, middle, and high school in the Midwest introduces “feeding labor,” a concept to signify a form of gendered labor that entails emotional and bodily feeding activities.

This chapter is based on 18 months of participant-observation and 25 in-depth interviews.

I illustrate three characteristics of feeding labor: (1) the physical labor of attending to the feeding needs of customers, (2) the emotional labor of managing feelings to create and respond to customers, and (3) variations in the gendered performance of feeding labor as explained through the intersection of race, class, and age. These dimensions vary across different field sites and emerge as three distinct patterns of feeding labor: (1) motherly feeding labor involves physical and emotional attentiveness and nurturing with mostly middle- and upper-class young white customers, (2) tough-love feeding labor involves a mix of tough, but caring respect and discipline when serving mostly working- and lower-middle class racially mixed young teens, and (3) efficient feeding labor involves fast, courteous service when serving mostly working- and middle-class predominantly white teenagers.

These findings show that a caring and nurturing style of emotional and physical labor is central in schools with white, middle-class, young students, but that other forms of gendered feeding labor are performed in schools composed of students with different race, class, and age cohorts that emphasize displaying tough-love and efficiency while serving students food. Examining this form of labor allows us to see how social inequalities are maintained and sustained in the school cafeteria.

Strengthening the middle class has become a major policy goal in both developed and developing economies due to its social, economic, cultural and political importance. Keeping in view the importance of middle class, the purpose of this paper is to measure the size of the middle class in the province of Punjab (the biggest province of Pakistan by population).

The study calculates a weighted composite index to measure the size of the middle class in the province of Punjab using the microcosmic data set, and the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement 2010-2011 survey data set. The index is composed of five major socioeconomic dimensions, that is, income, occupation, education, lifestyle and housing. The above-mentioned dimensions are weighted through “principal component analysis”.

The results show that 46 percent of the population of Punjab falls in the middle class. Furthermore, the findings explain that middle class is generally an urban phenomenon in Punjab with relatively high level of education and non-manual occupations.

Only a limited research is available for measuring the middle class in Pakistan. The current research is an attempt to fill this gap by providing some important insight to the research in this area.

As the Australian working class continues its decline, sociological and historical scholarship has begun to focus more on the middle class. The purpose of this paper is to explore the historiography and social theory concerning the middle class, and argues that the ways in which middle class families use schools have been a powerful force in the formation of that class.

This paper reviews the author’s own work on this topic, the work of other scholars, and suggests a number of social practices that middle class families employ as they school their children.

The ways that many families operate in relation to the schooling of their children constitute a significant set of social class practices, that in turn assist in the continuing formation of the middle class itself. The social and policy history of schooling can expose the origins of these practices.

This paper originated as an invited key-note address. It retains characteristics associated with that genre, in this case putting less emphasis on new research and more on a survey of the field.

In the early twenty-first century, the relevance of social class analysis for understanding a great range of social and historical phenomena is in retreat. This paper argues the continuing importance of that kind of analysis.

This article suggests an explanation for the complex history of the relationship between the government high school and the Australian middle class. The main elements in the constructing of a framework necessarily include the following inter‐related effects: the historic alienation of the Roman Catholic population from the Australian public school system, federal government interventions into school policy and funding, demographic pressures, the rise of neoliberalism, and the development of distinctive and multiple ethnic populations in the cities. The final section of the article takes as its case study, the history of middle class schooling in the city of Sydney, especially from the mid 1970s to the end of the century. Sydney is an atypical Australian city in many respects, and the study of its middle class and schooling does not stand as representative of the Australian experience. Nevertheless, its great population and significance in the national economy makes its story a crucial story in the national context. Because much of the evidence for this last section derives from the Australian census, it is introduced by a brief discussion of census‐making. Preceding that section of the article is a summary discussion of the significance of social classes in the history of Australian schooling.

Using official and household survey data, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the size of middle class in rural China, its trend and geographical distribution. Determinants or drivers of changes in the size of middle class are explored.

An absolute definition of middle class, adjusted by rural purchasing power parity (PPP) and spatial price index, is employed to measure the size and geographic distribution of rural middle class in 1988, 1995, 2002, and 2007. Biprobit models and OLS models are estimated to investigate the determinants and consumption behavior of middle class in rural China.

Major findings include: in 2007, as many as 398 million rural residents or almost 54 percent of China's rural population belonged to the middle class; the size estimate of China's rural middle class based on income is broadly consistent with that based on assets; factors enhancing the probability of a household entering the middle class include human capital, political capital and non‐farming employment while industrialization, urbanization and development of TVEs also play significant roles; and the middle class not only consume more, but also consume more durables.

A limitation of the paper is the use of 2002 data. However, more recent data are not available.

The size of the middle‐class is crucial for the stability of China, and the growth of the middle class in rural China is crucial for rebalancing the Chinese and global economy. Thus, the measurement results, the identified drivers, and the consumption behavior of rural middle class revealed in this paper can help shed light on nurturing middle class and adjusting development strategy for China to achieve a more sustainable and balanced economic growth.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that influence the growing African middle class (middle of pyramid; MOP) consumers' purchase decision making.

A mixed qualitative research method approach comprising in-depth interviews was used to collect data from middle of pyramid consumers in four countries. Secondary data analysis was used to complement the interviews.

Key findings include the identification of three key intertwined influencers of branding, peer and social networks and aesthetics and product performance. Other influencers include technology and new products, distribution channels and family.

The focus on four countries has the potential to minimize the generalizability of findings from the study although the four countries used have a significant amount of middle class consumers in Africa. However, this does not detract from the findings of the study but actually provides a basis for further research into other emerging markets.

Findings from the study provide practical insights for marketing managers who intend to serve this market, key of which are branding, use of social networks, online distribution and maximising technology.

The paper expands the research agenda of the relatively new area of the MOP. By focusing on the MOP in Africa, the research expands existing knowledge beyond previous areas of focus of middle class studies that focus on China and India.