The Great British Class Calculator

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the research behind this, but the BBC today posted a fascinating piece saying that ‘people in the UK now fit into seven social classes’.

‘Class has traditionally been defined by occupation, wealth and education. But this research argues that this is too simplistic, suggesting that class has three dimensions – economic, social and cultural.’

This being the case, the new classes are defined as:

• Elite – the most privileged group in the UK, distinct from the other six classes through its wealth. This group has the highest levels of all three capitals.

• Established middle class – the second wealthiest, scoring highly on all three capitals. The largest and most gregarious group, scoring second highest for cultural capital.

• Technical middle class – a small, distinctive new class group which is prosperous but scores low for social and cultural capital. Distinguished by its social isolation and cultural apathy.

• New affluent workers – a young class group which is socially and culturally active, with middling levels of economic capital.

• Traditional working class – scores low on all forms of capital, but is not completely deprived. Its members have reasonably high house values, explained by this group having the oldest average age at 66.

• Emergent service workers – a new, young, urban group which is relatively poor but has high social and cultural capital.

• Precariat, or precarious proletariat – the poorest, most deprived class, scoring low for social and cultural capital.

A link to a ‘calculator’ allows readers to see where they might fit.

Vern S. Poythress (Again) on Redeeming Sociology

Having earlier posted a link to Vern Poythress’ new book on a ‘God-centered’ approach to sociology, I thought I’d link to an interview with him about the book.

Among other matters, he underscores the significance of relationships at the heart of his treatment, describes what happens when we leave God out of the discipline of sociology, and says a few things about the relationship between sociology and theology

Vern S. Poythress on Redeeming Sociology

Vern S. Poythress, Redeeming Sociology: A God-Centered Approach (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 352pp., ISBN 9781433521294.

I don’t know they manage to do it, but this brand new book is freely available in its entirety as a 3.4 MB pdf here.

It’s along the same lines as Poythress’ earlier Redeeming Science: A God-Centered Approach (2006) and In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach (2009).

This one is centred around social relationships:

‘God is the Creator of the whole world in all its dimensions. He has established his own wise order for our relationships. His order and his presence are essential to life and to relationships. We need to learn how to praise God for the world of relationships that he has given us’ (11).

Alongside Scripture, he names Abraham Kuyper as a source for his thinking; but as he nicely notes:

‘In the generations after Kuyper a number of people took up Kuyper’s challenge. They worked at transformation of thought. Advances took place. But along with the advances came some misjudgments, in my opinion. So work still needs to be done. And that is why I am writing. Reflection needs to continue in the natural sciences and in linguistics and sociology. So I have produced the books in these three areas. Others, I hope, will build on what I have done and will correct what I still have left amiss’ (14).

Britain in 2011

Britain in 2011, published by the Economic & Social Research Council, 122pp., £5.50.

This magazine published by the Economic & Social Research Council (which bills itself as ‘the UK's leading agency for research funding and training in economic and social sciences’) looks at eight significant areas of life in the UK today:

• Environment

• Public Services

• Money and Business

• Politics

• Recession and Recovery

• Science and Innovation

• Society

• Media and Entertainment

They also publish Society Now three times a year which is freely downloadable from their website.

Sherif Girgis et al. on Marriage

Sherif Girgis, Robert George, and Ryan T. Anderson, ‘What is Marriage?’, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 34, (Winter 2010), 245-87.

Trevin Wax links to what looks like an interesting, and likely controversial piece on marriage in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

The abstract reads as follows:

‘In the article, we argue that as a moral reality, marriage is the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together, and renewed by acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction. We further argue that there are decisive principled as well as prudential reasons for the state to enshrine this understanding of marriage in its positive law, and to resist the call to recognize as marriages the sexual unions of same-sex partners. Besides making this positive argument for our position and raising several objections to the view that same-sex unions should be recognized, we address what we consider the strongest philosophical objections to our view of the nature of marriage, as well as more pragmatic concerns about the point or consequences of implementing it as a policy.’

More on James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World

James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 368pp., ISBN 9780199730803.

I posted on this as ‘forthcoming’ here and here. I deliberately held back from purchasing a copy until it was available in the UK, but it’s been available in the USA long enough to generate a significant amount of initial responses.

Interestingly, the gist of some of Hunter’s ideas were presented in a 2002 Briefing from the Trinity Forum, available as a pdf here.

More recently – on 6 April 2009 – Hunter presented the Stan Kimmitt Lecture on Public Service at the University of Montana on ‘Public Service and the Idea of a Changing World’ (with an audio file of the lecture available here).

Christianity Today carries an interview with Hunter, under the title ‘Faithful Presence’, with the interviewer (Christopher Benson) asking him a number of challenging questions.

Christianity Today also includes responses from Chuck Colson (‘More than Faithful Presence’) and Andy Crouch (‘Hunter and I Agree on Culture Making (He Just Seems Not to Know It)’), who have also made significant contributions to the broader debate.

It will be interesting for those of us outside the US context to reflect on the significance of Hunter’s work – and the responses it is generating – to our own place.

Anna Minton on the Twenty-First Century City

Anna Minton, Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City (London: Penguin, 2009), xi + 240pp., ISBN 9780141033914.

A well-researched but readable account of the modern built environment looking at the city, the home, and civil society. Minton argues that the creation of cities within cities, stripped of local history and culture, complete with up-market housing, gated communities and private security forces has generated a culture of authoritarianism and control, the effect of which is to make the city a more fearful place where the pursuit of profit threatens to undermine the quality of urban life.

Joe Moran on Queuing for Beginners

Joe Moran, Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime (London: Profile Books, 2007), x + 276pp., ISBN 9781861978417, £8.99.

Ostensibly a study in ‘social history’, this is an intriguing and engaging exploration of the ‘ordinary’ daily life: eating breakfast, commuting to work, gossiping at the water cooler, sitting on the sofa, watching TV (the weather forecast, in particular), sleeping in a bedroom which increasingly doubles up as a home office. Moran shows the fascinating nature of much that is taken for granted, recognising what disciples of Christ also know, that ‘meaning lies buried in the most unlikely places’.