British class system

How is this 'British' family defined by the class system?

One spouse university professional, the other in working class employment?
Own home (mortgage)
Child in state school.

Does the family move up to middle class, if only one part of the marriage has professional career?
Or
Stay as working class as the other one is a blue collar worker?

Is it the Male profession or job that will define the family class type?
Eg husband (university) professional career
Wife in blue collar employment = middle class

Wife (university) professional career ,
Husband blue collar worker
= working class

Do we look to the parents of the couple?
Do we wait and see which path the child chooses?

My own definition
If you need to work for a living , then 'you' are working class, no matter how much brass is in your pocket or how many degrees are pinned to the wall.

Yes there is a class system strongly in play in the UK. The old labels may be more blurred around the edges but there is no way people e.g. who do certain jobs are considered 'equal' to those who do other types of work.
Level of education/ type of education is often a great divider.
A lot of people like to claim working class roots but are not at all empathetic to those who still are " "working class" ie low wage earners or struggling to work or unemployed. There is a much bigger band in the middle class range.
Was Margaret Thatcher working/ middle or upper class? it bugged her !

Peasblossom

What they had was land but it was all tied up in trusts and they always seemed to be incredibly hard up and in debt, whilst having jewels they couldn’t sell.

It was very weird.

I agree Peasblossom. The aristo family I worked for ate exactly the same way I ate as a child with my family. For the same reasons. They went shooting to get their pheasant / grouse etc, as my father did. Some of THEIR shooting was as a shooting party of course, quite different to my dad with a mate and their shotguns.

Education was treated almost equally in both their family and mine at a young/preteen age, although there was a lot more parental attention to things like reading. In the posh family, the nanny (me!) did the bedtime stories, listening to the children read.

Of course, university wasn't possible for my brother and me, for financial reasons. Although we both studied as adults. In the aristo family, only the boy was sent to private school. The girl was intended to just marry well. Ironic really. The lad was a bit of a duffer and although he went to uni, works as a presenter at sporting events, whereas the state school educated girl is now a doctor.

The only real difference I could see was the size of the houses they lived in. Otherwise, life was very similar.

I definitely agree with your point, PECS, A lot of people like to claim working class roots but are not at all empathetic to those who still are " "working class" ie low wage earners or struggling to work or unemployed.

I am VERY grateful for having been able to lift myself out of poverty through education (paid for by working 3 jobs while studying). But I have never lost sight of the fact that I was lucky to be able to do this. My politics are that I want a government who supports those who are low paid / unable to work.

ww, I get that but as I think educational attainment is used much more, as you said.

Class is a really stupid classification system.

I’ve always considered myself middle class. But didn’t what’s his name say that we are all middle class now?

It is of course an anachronism and needs to be replaced where relevant e.g. for sociological or economic purposes by “Socio-economic group”.
Advertising , among other things is targeted at different groups and I can see the logic of that, but to assume inherited status (which is what class or caste is) is hopelessly outdated. The innate feeling of superiority of one end of the spectrum and inverse snobbery or chip on the shoulder of the other allows no recognition of the achievement or worth of the individual.
I think Shaw was right when he wrote this and it is as true today as it ever was that
"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.”
During the century since, this country has perennially tried to kid itself that it has shaken off its old fixation with caste, but even having this discussion reaffirms that for many people it is still seen as meaningful.

I agree wholeheartedly MawBe

(very eloquently post, thank you)

I find the expression ‘working class’ ridiculous. My father used to say that anyone who works for a living, regardless at what, is working class. That just leaves the few privileged people of ‘independent means’ and even they have to do something to keep their wealth intact.

I don’t recognise any class (if the class system truly still exists) but what I do recognise is decency and if a person is decent they will be top of my class system.
I can’t actually believe that we are still having discussions like this in 2021?

BlueSky

I’ve always considered myself middle class. But didn’t what’s his name say that we are all middle class now?

Yes, he did and that was the first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread, Bluesky
As well as the sketch with the Two Ronnies and John Cleese.

I think that the lines have become blurred in this country, unlike many countries where there is still a definite caste system.

As part of my English teaching, I have to teach students to identify the audience of any text they read. So for example, the audience for Shakespeare would be quite different to the audience for the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy. The use of the terms, working / middle / upper class are easy for students to use. I have also taught them the socioeconomic groups as an alternative way to describe people (there are other categories such as this-I don't pretend to be an expert in which is best).

AB-Higher & intermediate managerial, administrative, professional occupations
C1-Supervisory, clerical & junior managerial, administrative, professional occupations
C2-Skilled manual occupations
DE-Semi-skilled & unskilled manual occupations, Unemployed and lowest grade occupations

It IS interesting to see how they classify audiences though. In addition to class they can consider age, ethnicity, nationality etc.

Callistemon, I LOVE the Two Ronnies sketch. I will have to use it in class. I had forgotten about it.

I have to teach students to identify the audience of any text they read. So for example, the audience for Shakespeare would be quite different to the audience for the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy.

Is that part of the National Curriculum? If so, surely whoever thought of that is perpetuating or even inventing a class system based on intellectual snobbery?

Liking Shakespeare and appreciating texts that are still relevant today does not preclude one from enjoying the work of Carol Ann Duffy.
Or Pam Ayres

Surely an eclectic appreciation of literature should be encouraged and not one based on contrived class divisions?

GagaJo

Callistemon, I LOVE the Two Ronnies sketch. I will have to use it in class. I had forgotten about it.

It was made on the 1960s but still very funny.

However - how relevant is it today?
Worthy of debate.

In not on

Good post MawBe. We also have to factor in the status of being Royal. Is that a class on its own? I tend to think it is.

I think the class system is very much alive in British society today, but is much more subtle now. I don’t think income has much to do with it.

It’s a matter of birth and more importantly the culture in which you were brought up, which in its turn still opens doors to better education and some professions.

I don’t mean that many working class children haven’t achieved a better standard of living and education than their parents did, because work and opportunity has changed, and they may appear “middle class” now.

However, roots and culture run deep, and it is very obvious to those like me from a working class background when mixing with those who have been born “with a sense of entitlement” from upper class families. I don’t have a chip either

Yes, of course an eclectic love of literature should be encouraged.

However, literature has a target market, in the same way that TV programmes, newspapers, products, have target markets.

With literature. students need to classify readerships into primary and secondary audiences. And yes, it is part of the curriculum I teach. They have to be able to identify text type, genre, register, purpose etc. Audience is just part of that list of requirements.

NOT national curriculum. I teach International Baccalaureate now. But it WAS also part of A Level English last time I taught it.

We may all thing these class definitions (or socioeconomic groupings) are irrelevant, but a grouping of some sort will be used by product manufacterers or advertisers. Publishing houses will also classify books and will advertise them depending on the group they are perceived to appeal to. Chick lit for example. Or adventure books.

Callistemon

^I have to teach students to identify the audience of any text they read. So for example, the audience for Shakespeare would be quite different to the audience for the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy.^

Is that part of the National Curriculum? If so, surely whoever thought of that is perpetuating or even inventing a class system based on intellectual snobbery?

Liking Shakespeare and appreciating texts that are still relevant today does not preclude one from enjoying the work of Carol Ann Duffy.
Or Pam Ayres

Surely an eclectic appreciation of literature should be encouraged and not one based on contrived class divisions?

Callistemon you beat me to it! Totally agree. When I've been to performances at The Globe, the audiences were a complete mix of people....all ages, all nationalities and I'd expect at least some of them to enjoy other types of literature.

GagaJo. I am genuinely interested into which category I fall as I left a very ‘lower class’ dysfunctional home at 16 worked in Insurance whilst training as a Social Worker I then left that profession to work as a Social Worker for 20 years, I left that and worked for my Husband part time as a packer and cleaner in his factory, a factory that we own and run and I am now a Company Secretary of that Company. I have recently been working in a care role to reignite my love of Social Work, a role I left a few months ago as I was doing too much and I burnt out. Surely none of those roles change the person I am and always will be.❤️

Not really ‘class’, but my daughter worked as a nanny for a woman who was very definitely ‘posh’.

I suppose she was ‘upper class’, but if she had fallen on hard times, lost her lovely home, income, social status, she would never have been anything but ‘posh’.

I have no idea Scentia. I am an English teacher with an interest in sociology certainly no kind of expert.

Growing up was very confusing, as my posh father married 'beneath himself' to my working class mum. Childhood involved visiting one set of grandparents in their large detached house with servants in leafy Middlesex, or my mum's parents in slum London. I still somehow fall between the two.

After all, Callistemon & Rose51, Shakespeare himself wrote his plays with an eye to several different audiences. The aristocracy with his political plays, his upper class audience who were in the stalls and also a bit of slapstick for the groundlings.

Only a worksmith as incredible as the bard could achieve all of that.