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The purpose of this paper is to enhance understanding of social reproduction by investigating the financial management practices carried out by the consumers. Using depth interviews, a theoretical model is developed to describe how financial management practices are carried out to facilitate the attainment of class‐specific life goals and discuss how these practices are related to social reproduction.

In total, 22 adults aged 22‐79 were interviewed face‐to‐face. They were asked to describe their financial management practices and their perception and feelings towards their financial situation. They were also asked about the life goals and their perception of progress towards achieving the stated goals.

Different sets of financial management practices and their corresponding structural implications are identified in this study. The coping practices are the ones the working class carry out to meet mundane financial obligations, leaving little for long‐term strategizing. The balancing practices are the ones the middle class carry out to juggle hectic family lives and promising careers. With a low level of slack resources, the middle class need to make monetary trade‐off in their practices. The achieving practices are the ones that are practiced by the upper‐middle class who settle in their class position and focus on furthering the growth of self and family. The structural implications of financial management practices make the attainment of occupational status via education least accessible for the working class, but within easy reach for the upper‐middle class.

The paper studies a convenient sample of adults in a mid‐Western city in the USA, which has a high level of racial homogeneity (i.e. White) compared with the metropolitans in the USA. Nevertheless, this study communicates the social embeddedness and structural ramifications of individual/household financial management practices.

This is the first study to examine how class situation, with its various resource levels and differences in time horizon, influences the enactment of financial management practices, and how these micro‐processes give rise to social reproduction.

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.

This paper aims to propose a dynamic multidimensional approach to identify the middle class and then to reliably study the structural changes that have marked it in terms of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and aspirations.

This study uses Moroccan data from the 2007 and 2014 household expenditure surveys. The method consists in applying a factor analysis of mixed data on a set of variables inspired by Bourdieu’s concepts of social space and forms of capital, then performing a hierarchical ascending classification consolidated by the k-means clustering, along with adopting the same indicators and weighting for both years studied to ensure reliable comparison.

The classification results identified three social classes whose changing size reveals a decline of the lower class and an expansion of the upper and middle classes. Some characteristics of the middle class are becoming close to those of the upper class, like fertility behavior, while a significant gap remains between the two classes in other characteristics, like education. Moreover, middle-class perceptions reflect their downgrading, confirming that the so-called decline of the middle class is more related to feelings than to objective realities.

Middle class studies are generally based on a single criterion (income or consumption) with somewhat arbitrary boundaries that are often ill-suited to developing countries. This paper proposes a new dynamic multidimensional approach to overcome these problems while adopting a new technique for reliable intertemporal comparisons.

The past decade has witnessed increased commercial use of data obtained unobtrusively from large‐scale geodemographic (GD) systems. However, consumer researchers have paid little attention to the potential of geodemography. Capitalizes on the fact that geodemography and Warnerian social class are underpinned by the same idea, i.e. that individuals resemble their neighbors, sharing many demographic and social‐status characteristics. Uses data from 675,615 households in 34 leisure and recreation categories to replicate, update, and extend findings in the social class literature. Results indicate that social class shapes lifestyle and recreational choices, and media habits; they also support Coleman’s (1983) income use hypotheses, and Levy’s (1966; 1978) media habit conjectures. Results suggest that a threefold classification of social classes (upper, middle and lower) may be more appropriate for predicting recreational choices than the traditional fivefold classification. Supplementing substantive findings, the study exemplifies how large‐scale, secondary databases can be applied in consumer research and offers suggestions to further refine social class measurement techniques.

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.

This paper aims to investigate the behaviour determinants towards cash waqf for productive purposes between two different classes of Muslims: the upper-middle class and the lower-middle class.

Under the Theory of Planned Behavior framework, this study modified previous literature to investigate the determinants of two Muslim classes’ behaviour towards cash waqf for productive purposes. A structural equation model was applied to test the hypothesis, and an in-depth interview was conducted to explain the findings further.

The behaviour of participating in cash waqf for productive purposes differs between the two Muslim segments. Upper-middle-class Muslims’ intentions will not necessarily consider subjective norms, even though they will consider religiosity as their deciding factor. Meanwhile, this study found different results on the influence of attitude, religiosity and subjective norms to intention in the lower-middle-income group. Other attributes such as perceived behaviour control, knowledge, trust and perceived benefits show positive and significant effects on the intention for both income classes of Muslims.

The current findings may not accurately reflect ideal conditions due to the low level of waqf literacy and actual participation of Muslims in cash waqf for productive purposes. Researchers can conduct further studies based on other criteria, such as gender, age, education level or area of residence, using experimental or simulation methods to complement the research.

This study’s findings can support policymakers and related waqf stakeholders to set strategies for cash waqf literacy and participation by providing more detailed information about the differences in Muslims characteristics based on the income classes.

This study specifically modifies the behavioural framework to investigate differences in the behaviour of two classes of Muslims towards their participation in cash waqf for productive purposes in Indonesia.

The purpose of this study is to explore the perception of luxury from the perspectives of Chinese upper-class consumers.

Four focus groups, each consisting of six upper-class and experienced luxury consumers, are formed in four cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, which are among the most affluent, populated and developed in the luxury market.

The findings suggest that Chinese upper-class luxury consumers, indeed, hold different perceptions for luxury in several aspects: price premium is a prestige in contrast to general Chinese consumers’ “value-consciousness”; exclusivity is more valued by the upper-class and experienced consumers; more attention of the upper-class consumers has shifted to individual values from social values; brand value is of high importance; and there exist differences among consumers in different regions.

The study suggests that luxury brands should recognize the differences between the upper-class customers who are still the core consumers for luxury goods and the middle-class customers who are growing rapidly while designing their marketing strategies.

The study focuses, unprecedentedly, on the upper-class and experienced Chinese luxury consumers who represent the most valuable group of customers of the luxury brands in the Chinese market. Given the peculiarity of customer behavior in the luxury market, such focus provides a brand new perspective without the noises from the inclusion of consumers with insufficient purchasing power and ineligible experience in luxury consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to study class awareness in Iceland in the wake of a national economic collapse.

This comparatively oriented case study uses new survey data, secondary data on Iceland and 2005 World Values Survey data. The data are analyzed using a synthesis of Weber's theory of class and reference group theory.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Icelanders are class‐aware. Most recognize and understand class terms, and are willing to assign themselves to a class. Consistent with Weber, Icelanders have fairly strong awareness of their class position, evidenced by a strong relationship between subjective class and economic class, on the one hand, and subjective class and class indicators, on the other. Consistent with reference group theory, a subjective “middle class” tendency is revealed across the class structure. Icelanders also have more of a “middle class” view of their class position and see it, on average, as higher than people in most other countries.

No systematic study of class awareness in Iceland has been carried out since the 1970s. What is more, cross‐national studies have never fielded subjective class questions in Iceland. This paper begins to rectify this omission. Lastly, a linkage of individualization and reference group processes is proposed to broaden the theoretical basis of studies of class awareness.

This chapter has two central goals: (1) to present a foundational argument for status dissonance theory and (2) to apply its central propositions to understanding why some White Americans perceive anti-White bias. Building upon status construction theory, status dissonance theory generally posits that one’s overall status value determined by their combined status characteristics influences the degree they internalize normative referential structures. The salience of normative referential structures frames one’s justice perceptions, which creates status dissonance that manifests as a positional lens through which individuals perceive and interact with the social world. In an application of this framework, it is hypothesized that among Whites, one’s gender and class will impact one’s perceptions of resource reallocation (i.e., racial equality), which in turn impacts the likelihood one perceives anti-White bias generally and personally.

Using the Pew Research Center’s Racial Attitudes in America III Survey, this study employs logistic and ordered probit regressions on a nationally representative sample of White Americans to assess the above propositions.

Among Whites, males, those whom self-identified as lower class, and the least educated have the highest odds of perceiving resource re-allocation, and in turn all of these factors increased the odds of perceiving anti-White bias generally in society as well as perceiving personal encounters of “reverse” discrimination.

The findings and theoretical propositions provide a foundation for additional investigations into understanding the causes and consequences of within and between group variation in perceptions and responses to social inequality as well as mechanisms to counter status hierarchies.

The authors teach a three‐credit, upper‐division, information literacy (IL) course to students in various majors. The purpose of this paper is to share the various philosophies and activities the authors use to engage their students and create a cohesive interdisciplinary course and to describe the various assessment tools utilized.

In this case study, the authors give specific examples of engaging assignments and methods for evaluating student work in a credit‐bearing IL course.

It is found that if students are engaged, and effective assessment tools are employed, library credit instruction in a face‐to‐face setting with upper‐classmen from diverse majors is an impactful way to teach IL.

This article provides ideas on how to use a topical theme in teaching an interdisciplinary IL credit course; concrete approaches on engaging students in an IL course; and new strategies for assessing an IL credit‐bearing course. Many of the engagement and assessment methods the authors share may also be applied to one‐shot instruction sessions.

The paper provides a practical case study of the authors' experiences engaging students and assessing their work in an upper level, three‐credit, face‐to‐face class, a type of course not well represented in the information literacy literature at this point in time.