Critical Social Psychology of Social Class Katy Day Full Chapter PDF

Critical Social Psychology of Social
Class Katy Day

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/critical-social-psychology-of-social-class-katy-day/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Social Psychology 1st Edition – Ebook PDF Version
https://ebookmass.com/product/social-psychology-1st-edition-
ebook-pdf-version/
Social Psychology 9th Edition, (Ebook PDF)
https://ebookmass.com/product/social-psychology-9th-edition-
ebook-pdf/
Social Psychology 14th Edition, (Ebook PDF)
ebook-pdf/
Social Psychology Of Protest 1st Edition Jacquelien Van

Stekelenburg Bert Klandermans
https://ebookmass.com/product/social-psychology-of-protest-1st-
edition-jacquelien-van-stekelenburg-bert-klandermans/
Social Beings: Core Motives in Social Psychology, 3rd
Edition 3rd Edition, (Ebook PDF)
https://ebookmass.com/product/social-beings-core-motives-in-
social-psychology-3rd-edition-3rd-edition-ebook-pdf/
Exploring Social Psychology 9th Edition David Myers
https://ebookmass.com/product/exploring-social-psychology-9th-
edition-david-myers/
Social Psychology 12th Edition David G. Myers
david-g-myers/
Social Psychology 8th Edition David G. Myers
david-g-myers/
Social Psychology of Helping Relations: solidarity and

hierarchy Nadler
https://ebookmass.com/product/social-psychology-of-helping-
relations-solidarity-and-hierarchy-nadler/
Critical Social
Psychology of
Social Class
Katy Day · Bridgette Rickett ·
Maxine Woolhouse
Critical Social Psychology of Social Class
Katy Day · Bridgette Rickett ·
Maxine Woolhouse
Critical Social
Psychology of Social
Class
Katy Day Bridgette Rickett
Department of Psychology Department of Psychology
Leeds Beckett University Leeds Beckett University
Leeds, UK Leeds, UK
Maxine Woolhouse
Department of Psychology
Leeds Beckett University
Leeds, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-55964-9 ISBN 978-3-030-55965-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55965-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting,
reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical
way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software,
or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: © Alex Linch_shutterstock.com
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland
AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
1 Social Class: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

(Katy Day) 1
2 Psychology and Social Class: The Working-Class

as ‘Other’ (Bridgette Rickett) 33
3 Conceptualising Social Class: Towards a Critical Social

Psychological Approach (Maxine Woolhouse) 67
4 Class Discourse and the Media (Katy Day) 101
5 Classed Identities: Submergence, Authenticity

and Resistance (Bridgette Rickett) 137
6 Critical Analyses: ‘Real-World’ Applications (Maxine

Woolhouse) 173
v
vi Contents
7 Debates, Issues and Future Directions (Katy Day) 203
References 237
Index 281
1
Social Class: What Is It and Why Does
It Matter? (Katy Day)
Introduction
The central aims of this first chapter are to establish a rationale for
this book and to ‘set the scene’ for the chapters that follow. In this
chapter, we will examine and unpick social class as a complex, situated
and multifaceted phenomenon. We will argue that social class divi-
sion and inequalities based upon social and economic conditions are
alive and thriving in contemporary societies across the world. However,
further than this, we will also demonstrate that social class has important
psychological and discursive dimensions that underscore its relevance
for psychology as a discipline and for critical social psychology as a
sub-discipline. Despite this having being recognised for decades, social
class has and continues to be neglected by psychologists in comparison
with other systems of categorisation and difference such as gender, race,
ethnicity and sexuality. There are a number of reasons why we and other
class commentators believe that this has been/is the case, which we will
extrapolate and examine here. In short, we hope to convince the reader
in this chapter that class is still relevant and important and that this is
something that psychologists should be concerned with. The chapter will
© The Author(s) 2020 1

K. Day et al., Critical Social Psychology of Social Class,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55965-6_1
2 K. Day et al.
introduce some key themes and arguments that will be picked up and
explored further in the forthcoming chapters; it is intended as a road
map to signal where we are going next and to flag, at the outset, some of
our key beliefs about social class.
Defining and Conceptualising Social Class:

How Do We ‘Determine’ Someone’s Class?
Social class is a rather complex and messy affair (e.g. Argyle, 1994),
and how we define and measure social class (indeed, whether or not
this actually exists at all in contemporary societies) is the subject of
ongoing debate in the social sciences (Bullock & Limbert, 2009). For
one, understandings and definitions of social class are not static; rather,
these are historically, socially and culturally located. These shift in line
with changing social, economic and political conditions and the agendas
of powerful groups and institutions in society. It is beyond the scope
of the current text to provide a complete and comprehensive histor-
ical overview of class systems across the globe; indeed, this would be a
book (or even a series of books) in itself. What we will do here is high-
light some of the major trends in theorising and researching class in the
social sciences, as well as some of the major shifts that have occurred in
recent decades in terms of how social class is conceptualised, defined and
measured. In doing so, we will attempt to situate these within broader
frameworks of meaning and historical events.
Key questions have been whether it is possible to identify distinc-
tive social classes and how to do so. According to the sociologist Savage
(2015), the first attempts to map the class system occurred in the early
decades of the nineteenth century and the first formal measures of
households according to class in Britain were developed by the Regis-
trar General’s Office in 1911. This system of classification was based
on occupation, with ‘professionals’ at the top and ‘unskilled manual
workers’ at the bottom. In the 1970s, the sociologist John Goldthorpe
described a new occupational class scheme known as the ‘Goldthorpe
Schema’ (Erikson & Goldthorpe, 1992; Goldthorpe, 1980/1987, 1997,
2007; cited in Savage, 2015) which became the basis of the system for
1 Social Class: What Is It and Why Does It Matter? (Katy Day) 3
class categorisation officially used today by the Office of National Statis-

tics: The National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC).
The NS-SEC describes a total of eight different social classes. These
are (1) higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations,
(2) lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations, (3)
intermediate occupations, (4) small employers and own account workers,
(5) lower supervisory and technical occupations, (6) semi-routine occu-
pations, (7) routine occupations and (8) never worked and long-term
unemployed. This system has been widely accepted and adopted across
the globe and as can be seen above, defines and measures class (or
socio-economic status—SES) according to occupation and employment
relations. Goldthorpe believed that, despite a number of different cate-
gories as described, the fundamental divide was between employers on
the one hand and employees on the other (Savage, 2015). It was believed
that there were key differences between these groups in terms of the
amount of control that they had (e.g. over the business or organisation)
and their income (profits versus salary or wage).
This distinction has also been a central one to Marxist theorists such as
Marx, Weber and Gramsci (Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies,
1978) who similarly conceive of class in terms of definable groups with
particular roles and positions in the economic system of production in
capitalist societies (Wagner & McLaughlin, 2015). Capitalist societies are
generally understood as having an economic and political system that is
characterised by the private or corporate ownership of goods and services
for profit, rather than being controlled by the state (Jenks, 1998). The
different groups located within these systems, according to Marxist theo-
rists, have fundamentally competing interests. Notably, a distinction was
made between the workers (‘proletariat’) and the owners of the means
of production (their bosses), whereby the former are exploited for profit
by the latter. Class relations then for Marxist theorists are characterised
by domination and exploitation. In addition, dominant cultural ideolo-
gies uphold this system of domination and exploitation by making this
appear a natural and inevitable way of organising societies (Gramsci,
1971), a ‘functionalism’ that is critiqued and challenged by Marxists.
It is believed that increased ‘class consciousness’ (an awareness of this
exploitation) will eventually result in social revolution and the downfall
of capitalism.
4 K. Day et al.
The Office for National Statistics (2016) reports that the NS-SEC
has been reasonably well validated as a predictor of health, educational
and other outcomes related to social class or socio-economic status.
Indeed, social scientific research utilising objective measures of SES has
allowed important comparisons to be made between different groups
in society. For example, research on health inequalities has shown that
poorer health profiles and higher mortality rates plague those belonging
to ‘lower socio-economic groups’ (e.g. Businelle et al., 2010; Richter,
Leppin, & Gabhainn, 2006). Similarly, research on educational experi-
ences and achievement has documented a range of barriers that those
lower down the socio-economic hierarchy face. For instance, Rubin,
Denson, Kilpatrick, Matthews, Stehlik, and Zyngier (2014) point out
that studies have demonstrated how differences in income between
students in higher education (or the income of their parents) impact
on their participation, academic performance and retention. Such differ-
ences determine, amongst other things, the amount of time that they are
able to devote to studying as opposed to part-time employment, as well
as the study resources that they have available (e.g. owning a laptop or
PC).
Before moving on, it is important to stress that position within the
labour market and access to material resources are, undeniably, impor-
tant components of social class. Further, there is a wealth of evidence
to suggest that income disparities and social inequalities have increased
dramatically over the last few decades in Britain (see Dorling et al.,
2007). The top 10% of income earners in Britain are reported to earn
almost 17 times more than the lowest 10% (Office for Economic Coop-
eration and Development [OECD], 2015), and in modern-day Britain,
21% of the population are said to be living in poverty (Duffy, 2013).
Similarly in the United States, there has been a pronounced rise in wage
inequality from the 1980s onwards (Autor, Katz, & Kearney, 2008).
On a global scale, there has been a near-universal trend towards greater
inequality based on income (The Economist, 2007), and in 2014, the
World Economic Forum highlighted income disparity as one of the main
risks to economic and political security in recent times (e.g. Savage,
2015). This suggests that the detrimental impact of wealth inequality on
health, wellbeing, performance and so forth (as highlighted by a wealth
of research studies) is likely to become more rather than less pronounced

if such trends continue.
However, there are problems associated with categorising and
measuring class according to occupation, income and level of educational
attainment. For one, in the UK, such measures have traditionally been
based on the ‘head of household’ (usually male), a practice which is prob-
lematic because such resources and status are not necessarily shared by all
family members (e.g. Argyle, 1994). Further, these three things do not all
map neatly onto one another. As an example, 3% of the ‘higher manage-
rial, administrative and professional class’ are among the bottom 20%
of earners (Savage, 2015) and high amounts of wealth are not always
associated with high incomes as this can include accumulated wealth
from previous generations of the individual’s family (Picketty, 2014).
Similarly, those with the most economic capital are only slightly more
likely to have received a university education than those lower down
the socio-economic hierarchy (Hecht, 2014). As such, in contemporary
Western societies, a person’s social class cannot always be easily read from
their position in the labour market or education system (Holt & Griffin,
2005).
Further, systems of classification are inevitably tied to particular socio-
cultural and historical contexts and so are in danger of becoming out of
date (Rubin et al., 2014). For example, despite the enormous impact of
Marxist theory on disciplines such as sociology, it has been argued that
this is largely a historically-located account in that Marx’s analysis of class
relations is located in the period leading up to and following the Indus-
trial Revolution, a period of modern capitalism (Holt & Griffin, 2005),
although it is worth noting that even before the Industrial Revolution,
there were wage earners in agriculture (see Savage, 2015). A key feature
of the industrial era was the division of ‘blue-collar’ factory workers, coal
miners, dockers and labourers versus factory and mill owners, profes-
sionals and managers (see Kynaston as cited in Jones, 2011). Within
this context, Marxist analyses make sense and still have much to offer
our understandings of class exploitation and class conflict. However,
there have since been considerable changes in the social and economic
landscapes of modern societies such as the transition from industrial to
post-industrial societies in many parts of the world. Recent decades have
6 K. Day et al.
witnessed the decline (or decimation) of the manufacturing industries

in Britain and the United States which has resulted in a serious reduc-
tion (in some cases virtual disappearance) of ‘blue-collar’ workforces. For
example, in 1979, almost 7 million people worked in factories in Britain
but by 2011, this was just over 2.5 million (Jones, 2011). In parallel to
this, entire working-class communities based around a particular factory,
steelworks or coal mine also broke down (Jones, 2011). This led those
such as Gorz to declare ‘the death of the working-class’ (Gorz, 1982).
Due to such changes, theorists such as Lazzarato (2015) have departed
from an orthodox Marxist analysis of class to focus on the role of
consumption rather than production in modern societies. In his book
Governing by Debt, Lazzarato (2015) argues that in contemporary capi-
talist societies, debt is increasingly being used as a means of enslavement
and subjection, especially given that debt has become infinite and
increasingly difficult to pay back. According to Lazzarato, class division is
no longer structured around capitalists on the one hand and wage earners
on the other; rather, the important division today is between debtors and
creditors. The author argues that consumption and debt have become a
contemporary means of controlling populations and that the rise of tech-
nology has played a pivotal role in this by increasingly intruding into
our everyday lives to promote products, services and lifestyles to us as
‘essential’. Today’s working or oppressed class for Lazzarato is no longer
comprised of coal miners, dockers and factory workers (amongst others),
but rather can be found in:
A multiplicity of situations of employment, non-employment, occa-

sional employment, and greater or lesser poverty. It [the working-class]
is dispersed, fragmented, and precarious, far from finding the means
to constitute a political ‘class’ even if it represents the majority of the
population. (2013, p. 13)
Here, we can see a shift away from the notion of a ‘proletariat’ or

‘working-class’ that can be clearly delineated according to their position
in the labour market and material wealth, towards the notion of people
subjugated and oppressed by debt who are ‘dispersed’, ‘fragmented’ and
occupy a fairly diverse range of employment situations. Lazzarato is not
arguing that poverty, inequality and economic subjugation are a thing

of the past, but rather that the form and nature of class oppression have
changed in line with changing sociocultural and economic conditions.
Indeed, organisations such as Gingerbread (2018)—a UK-based
charity set up to support single-parent families—have highlighted how
one of the consequences of contemporary austerity has been increased
borrowing, plunging many lone-parent households into serious debt.
Fiscal austerity was introduced in the UK in 2010 by the then coali-
tion government as a response to the fallout from the global financial
crash. This constituted an attempt to reduce the state budget, debt and
deficits by reducing public spending (Blythe, 2013) and so involved cuts
to state-run public services (e.g. those for children and young people),
extensive welfare reforms and the widening of non-state or private provi-
sion (Lupton, Thomson, & Vizard, 2015; Mattheys, 2015). Austerity has
resulted in many lone-parent families struggling to cover essential bills
(e.g. rent/mortgage and utilities bills) due to high living costs. As a result,
according to Gingerbread (2018), many lone parents have had to borrow
money in order to make ends meet, despite the majority having an
income from paid employment outside the home (an estimated 67.1%).
Another major critique of traditional Marxist analyses is the view-
point that capitalist oppression supersedes other forms of oppression on
the basis of, for instance, gender or race and subsequently, their neglect
of intersections between class and other systems of social categorisation
(Griffin, 1993). ‘Intersectionality’ is the notion that different social cate-
gories and identities ‘intersect’ with one another, such as those based on
(as well as class) gender, race, ethnicity, sexual identity, able-bodiedness
and so forth. Likewise, different axes of oppression intersect or inter-
lock (e.g. class oppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, etc.)
(Day & Wray, 2018). Although currently popular within sections of
critical theorising in the social sciences, perhaps most notably within
feminist work (Munro, 2013), intersectionality has a considerable history
which will be discussed in further detail in Chapter 3. An examina-
tion of the impact of austerity in modern-day Britain underscores the
importance of intersectional analysis. For example, a number of char-
ities, non-government organisations (NGOs) and campaigning groups
have highlighted evidence that austerity has impacted some groups in
8 K. Day et al.
society more than others. Those groups that have suffered the most have
included women (Fawcett Society, 2013), people with disabilities, people
of colour (poverty disproportionately affects black, Asian and minority
ethnic families—Belle & Doucet, 2003), as well as those on a low income
(Reed & Portes, 2014). As outlined previously, lone-parent families have
been hit particularly hard by austerity. Gingerbread (2018) estimates
that there are around 2 million such families in the UK (accounting
for around a quarter of all families with dependent children), 90% of
which are headed by women (Gingerbread, 2018). In addition, it has
been pointed out that women are expected to ‘plug the gap’ when public
services are cut or when the services available are unaffordable such as
assistance with childcare, as such caring responsibilities are more likely to
fall to women (Fawcett Society, 2012). In such instances, class intersects
with patriarchal expectations in ways that often doubly disadvantage
poor and working-class women. Despite the above, those employing an
orthodox Marxist framework to understand class oppression and class
consciousness have often focussed on White men (e.g. Centers, 1949)
and the proletariat has, in the traditional imagination, being largely
comprised of male workers such as (in Kynaston’s terms) coal miners,
dockers and car workers. Finally, it has been pointed out that the income
of a family may be considered ‘low’ in relation to the population average,
yet may be considered relatively ‘high’ within that family’s surrounding
community or relative to other members of their social group, especially
if the family belong to a minority or less powerful group in society
(e.g. Adler & Stewart, 2007). As such, the status of that family may
be relatively high, something that cannot be captured by universal and
decontextualised systems of classification.
A final problem with more materialist and objective measures and
accounts of social class, as hinted above, is that these often screen out
or neglect the important discursive, social, cultural, political and psycho-
logical dimensions of this. In everyday discourse, class is often referred to
as something more elusive that cannot simply be ‘pinned down’ to wealth
and income, such as people being referred to as ‘classy’ or ‘common’
regardless of wealth or occupation. For example, a senior member of one
of the author’s (Katy Day’s) family is often described as a ‘classy lady’,
despite living in poverty for most of her life. Conversely, celebrities from
working-class backgrounds are sometimes derided in the British media

for being ‘common’ or ‘chavs’, despite having accrued large amounts
of wealth. The work of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu is
of particular note here, who believed that class could not simply be
reduced to the division of labour and notions of exploitation (as in
Marxist analyses). For example, Bourdieu believed that ‘class privilege’
wasn’t simply material or economic and that economic capital in itself
did not define class. Rather, Bourdieu discusses the notion of ‘cultural
capital’ which refers to people’s tastes and preferences and the ways in
which these are highly class coded. The consumption of certain kinds of
‘legitimate’ or ‘highbrow’ culture (e.g. visiting art galleries or going to the
theatre) generates social advantages for the consumer because of the rela-
tive cultural status attached to these versus, for example, watching soap
operas on television. Such advantages may include being able to converse
with those who have more social and economic power and who may
be able to ‘open doors’ for that individual. Or, having a greater famil-
iarity and being more comfortable with the curriculum being taught in
educational settings and therefore more likely to succeed in tests and
exams, particularly as it has been pointed out that such assessments are
often class as well as gender-biased (e.g. Shibley Hyde, 2007), privileging
some forms of knowledge over others. Similarly, Bourdieu discussed the
concept of ‘social capital’ which refers to the social networks that people
are part of and able to draw upon in order to advance in life and secure
benefits. An example would be an individual exploiting contacts with
family members, family friends, colleagues, etc., in order to succeed in
the education system or secure employment opportunities (exemplified
by the saying ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’). Perhaps the
most important contacts here are those who have access to opportunities
and resources that the individual does not, such as a friend who works
for the same organisation or is a member of the same sports club, but
who has more wealth and social power. The fact that cultural capital and
social capital are more opaque and subtle than economic capital often
makes these forms of advantage and privilege more insidious.
Of course, cultural capital and social capital are not entirely detached
from economic capital. Bourdieu (1979) himself acknowledged this by
describing a ‘homology’ between the three. For example, those activities
10 K. Day et al.
that are deemed more ‘highbrow’ or ‘legitimate’ are also ones that cost
more money and we are more likely to have access to networks of people
with social and economic power if we have such power ourselves. This
is particularly true of ‘elite’ groups (e.g. aristocrats and chief executives)
which have been found to be more socially exclusive while at the same
time, the poorest in society with no educational qualifications are the
most socially isolated in that they know fewer people from other social
groups (Savage, 2015). In short, social capital and cultural capital, at least
to some degree, have an exclusive character/are not equally accessible to
all, and these do seem to be related to occupation and level of educational
attainment in important ways. However, Bourdieu did maintain that this
was by no means a perfect or neat fit and that a fuller understanding of
social class necessitated taking all of these different elements in account.
As with other accounts of class and systems of classification, Bour-
dieu’s work is located in time and space, as his writings were based on
his observations conducted in France in the 1960s. This was a world
without the proliferation of technology and media that plays such a
central role in many people’s lives today and which makes the avoid-
ance of popular culture increasingly difficult; indeed, at the time of his
research, only half of French households had television sets (Savage,
2015). In addition, again, class will intersect in important ways here
with other systems of categorisation. Many of the cultural activities that
are deemed ‘highbrow’ or ‘legitimate’ are associated with older genera-
tions, whereas those considered more popularist or ‘vulgar’ (e.g. watching
reality television shows or listening to pop music) with younger audi-
ences. Further, activities such as going to the opera or listening to classical
music are coded as ‘white’. Relatedly, Savage (2015) argues that we are
witnessing new, ‘emerging’ forms of cultural capital that are tied to the
interests of younger generations. Of note, ‘hipster culture’ in the Western
world is arguably replacing opera and classical music as an indicator of
more refined tastes and lifestyles. Nonetheless, Bourdieu’s work has been
extremely important in highlighting the multidimensional and often
elusive nature of social class, transcending simplistic structural and mate-
rialist approaches by drawing attention to the relational and symbolic
dimensions of ‘class-making’ (e.g. Bourdieu, 1987, p. 7).
Drawing upon Bourdieu’s work, Skeggs (2004) argues that powerful
groups often exercise power and domination via symbolic means, for
example, in terms of the ways in which they represent those from whom
they wish to claim a (moral) distance, such as the poor and working-
class. According to Skeggs, one way in which this is done is to ascribe
fixed and essential characteristics to those lower down the social hierarchy
(e.g. dirty, dangerous, unintelligent, uncouth). In the following chapter,
we examine a tradition of scholarship in psychology which has done
just that, thus positioning working-class people as inferior and justifying
their lower position in the socio-economic hierarchy. Such work might
therefore be read as an example of the exercising of symbolic power that
Skeggs is referring to. Similarly, Skeggs (2004) points out that class is not
a simple subject variable or objective societal demographic, but rather is
something that is constantly happening/constantly in production. This
is exemplified by, for instance, some of the changing discourses around
class and struggles over meaning that have occurred. For example, refer-
ring back to the notion of ‘the death of the working-class’ (Gorz, 1982),
Lawler (2004) observes that ‘now that the proletariat is held not to exist’,
its place has been taken by the notion of ‘a feckless underclass’ (119).
Similarly, Owen Jones (2011) argues in his book Chavs: The Demonisa-
tion of the Working Class that the notion of a British working-class with
a proud history, collective identity and strong communities has been
eroded and replaced instead with the notion of a ‘feckless underclass’:
those who exist on the margins of society and who are a nuisance and
a drain on public resources (see also Jensen, 2014). The making of such
meaning can be understood once again in the context of modern-day
austerity, with the emphasis on ‘scarce resources’, whereby the ‘unde-
serving’ are justly penalised by restricting and controlling their access
to welfare. Such ‘anti-welfare common-sense’ (e.g. Jensen, 2014; Jensen
& Tyler, 2015)—which could be read as a contemporary incarnation of
Gramsci’s (1971) ‘dominant bourgeois ideology’—shall be explored more
fully in Chapter 4 which examines media discourse around class, poverty
and welfare dependence. Further, referring back to Lazzarato’s (2015)
notion of how consumption has become a core feature of economic
oppression in contemporary societies, Tyler (2008) points out how the
meanings attached to some forms of consumption have shifted whereby,
for instance, access to branded goods such as designer labels (traditionally
taken as a sign of wealth and ‘good taste’) has been recoded as ‘vulgar’.
12 K. Day et al.
She argues that as such goods have become more affordable and acces-
sible, this represents an attempt by the middle and upper-classes (who
often have greater power over ‘meaning-making’) to distance themselves
from the poor and working-class.
To summarise this section of the chapter, we have hopefully demon-
strated four things. First, understandings and definitions of social class
are not fixed or static, but rather shift in line with changing social,
cultural, political and economic conditions. These also shift in line with
the agendas of powerful groups and institutions who largely define the
‘truth’ (e.g. the recoding of certain forms of consumption as ‘vulgar’).
This underscores Skeggs’ point that class is constantly in production.
Second, such changes do not mean that social and economic inequalities,
oppression and poverty have become things of the past or are no longer
meaningful. Rather, as discussed here, such inequalities have increased
across the globe. This, we would argue, makes scholarship on social
class more and not less important. The third point is that class is not
a discrete category or simple ‘subject variable’ that can be separated from
other systems of difference and social identities, nor does class oppression
necessarily supersede other forms of oppression on the basis of gender,
race or able-bodiedness (amongst others). Rather, we contend here that
contemporary analyses of social class are ones that must be intersectional
and this is a thread that can be detected throughout the entire book.
The final point is that class is multifaceted and encompasses more than
just income, occupation and level of educational achievement. Bourdieu’s
concepts of ‘cultural’ and ‘social’ capital, as discussed in the chapter, are
particularly useful and illuminating here.
In this section of the chapter, we have hinted at some more psycho-
logical components of social class. In the following section, we now turn
to examine these in closer detail.
Psychology and Social Class

Social class has often gone under-theorised and under-researched in
psychology, viewed as the province of other disciplines such as soci-
ology, politics and history (Holt & Griffin, 2005). By contrast, categories
such as gender, race and ethnicity are argued to have received much
more comprehensive treatment (Reimers, 2007). For example, in 2003,
Ostrove and Cole made the following remarks:
At a time when psychology as a discipline has increasingly defined itself as

interested in the ways race, class, and gender critically shape our psycho-
logical experiences, it seems that class is the least explored of these three.
(679)
There are a number of reasons, it would seem, why this has been the case.
First, as outlined above, social class has been regarded as the ‘business’ of
other social scientific disciplines. Class and poverty as topics are perhaps
‘too political’ for a discipline that has been keen to flag its status as an
objective science of the individual (e.g. Teo, 2009). Likewise, although
some high-profile psychologists have been influenced by Marxist ideas
such as Lev Vygotsky (Parker & Spears, 1996), in general, Marxism has
not had the same impact on psychology that this has had on its ‘cousin’
disciplines such as sociology, meaning that class relations and oppression
have largely escaped critical scrutiny. Gender and race may have received
greater attention in Western psychology (as contended by Ostrove and
Cole) because these are regarded as more fundamental or stable prop-
erties of an individual that are biologically-rooted (although this is the
subject of serious dispute); therefore, it is easier to categorise individuals
in research studies according to such ‘participant variables’. In contrast,
class or socio-economic status is regarded as more ‘fuzzy’, more difficult
to pin-down, and is arguably more fluctuating due to social mobility.
All of this has been bolstered by an increasing trend (described by those
such as Tyler, 2008) to regard academic scholarship on class and class
inequalities as unfashionable and out of date. This has occurred along-
side the waning popularity of Marxism in the social sciences (Holt &
Griffin, 2005) and a cultural ideal of ‘classlessness’ which has come to
prevail in the Western world (Bradley, 1996). The upshot, according
to Skeggs (2005), has been an ‘abdication from acknowledging class
relations’ (p. 54).
14 K. Day et al.
Yet at the same time, class is everywhere in psychological work.

For instance, the use of convenience samples of college and univer-
sity students from middle-class backgrounds in psychological research is
commonplace and is a sampling ‘bias’ that is frequently acknowledged.
Yet, it is rarely acknowledged that this results in the over-representation
of middle-class participants, their viewpoints, practices and lifestyles.
This is because in the same way that men have traditionally been treated
in psychology as ‘generic human’ (Wetherell & Griffin, 1991, p. 361)
rather than as gendered, and only people of colour are regarded as
‘raced’ (Ahmed, 2004); such convenience samples are not treated as
‘classed’. As well as reproducing the ‘normalness’ of being middle-class,
this renders class invisible in these studies. Further, the individualism
that characterises traditional and mainstream psychology (i.e. a focus on
the individual as the key unit of analysis and principle site for change)
reflects cultural and class biases (e.g. Bulhan, 1985), which is ironic for a
discipline that prides itself on being an objective, value-free science. For
instance, this not only reflects Western values, but also middle-class ones
that emphasise individual autonomy, choice and agency over community
and collective action. Finally, as Bullock and Limbert (2009) argue, class
shapes just about every aspect of human life, so class will impact on the
phenomena studied by psychologists even if this is not acknowledged.
Despite the relative invisibility of social class within psychology, there
are psychologists, typically employing more critical perspectives in their
work, who have addressed the psychological components of social class
more directly. For example, writing within the framework of libera-
tion psychology, Moane (2011) argues that the forms of oppression
and marginalisation associated with social and economic disadvan-
tage have a profound impact on personal and psychological life. For
example, numerous studies have demonstrated that working-class and
poor people—including many who have ‘climbed’ the socio-economic
ladder later on in life—often have negative experiences that are at least
in part connected to class in a variety of everyday contexts. This, in
turn, can have a detrimental impact on the person’s psychological well-
being, sense of self and belonging, performance and success within those
contexts (e.g. Ostrove & Long, 2007). Chapters 5 and 6 in particular
examine such research evidence.
Furthermore, there is a well-documented link between social and

economic inequalities and psychological distress or difficulties (e.g.
Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). Those who live in poverty are said to be
more likely to receive a diagnosis for mental health difficulties than
those who are better-off or higher up the socio-economic scale (e.g.
Belle & Doucet, 2003; Liu, 2011). Conversely, equality, social justice
and social cohesion have been argued to bolster psychological wellness
(Moane, 2011). As argued previously, class also intersects with other
dimensions such as gender, race and ethnicity. For example, poverty
is more likely to affect families with minority ethnic status and single
mothers are more likely to live in poverty than any other demographic
group (e.g. Belle & Doucet, 2003). In more recent years, Psychologists for
Social Change (previously Psychologists Against Austerity) have appeared
in the UK. Psychologists for Social Change are a group of psychologists
actively campaigning against austerity policies (described in the previous
section of the chapter), citing evidence of the psychological damage that
austerity measures have caused and continue to cause. For example, they
have publicised the documented link between austerity policies and the
nation’s worsening mental health (Psychologists Against Austerity, 2015;
van Hal, 2015; Wahlbeck & McDaid, 2012). Mental health difficul-
ties, anti-depressant use and suicide have all increased post-recession
(Barr, Kinderman, & Whitehead, 2015; Frasquilho et al., 2015; van Hal,
2015). These effects, however, have been shown to be softened in coun-
tries that have retained strong social safety nets such as Austria, Belgium,
Switzerland and Finland (van Hal, 2015; Wahlbeck & McDaid, 2012).
In reviewing and synthesising a wealth of evidence, Psychologists for Social
Change described five ‘austerity ailments’ which include humiliation and
shame, fear and mistrust, instability and insecurity, isolation and loneli-
ness, and feeling trapped and powerless. In the United States, researchers
have similarly lobbied for policy changes that address economic injustice
and the resulting psychological difficulties (e.g. Lott & Bullock, 2007).
Here, we have provided some stark examples of psychological dimen-
sions of social class. By returning to a discussion of how class might be
conceptualised and ‘determined’, we can see an important psychological
component of class here also. As argued in the previous section of the
chapter, while socio-economic status and position in the labour market
16 K. Day et al.
are important indicators of a person’s social and economic status and

power, social class is arguably broader. For example, we discussed Bour-
dieu’s work on the systems of signs, values and practices that contribute
to ‘class-making’. Similarly, class is argued to encompass a complex inter-
play of things such as a person’s life experiences, their family background,
where they grew up, the social networks that they are part of, their
lifestyle, their language and speech style, mode of appearance and so on
(e.g. Kraus & Stephens, 2012). People are evaluated and treated differ-
ently according to such ‘class markers’ in a context in which middle-class
culture is typically privileged over working-class culture (see Wagner &
McLaughlin, 2015). These arguments come into clearer view when we
examine scholarship that has focussed on class transitions (this body of
work will be discussed more fully in forthcoming chapters). In short,
research on class transitions has shown that people from working-class
backgrounds who move up the social and economic scale often experi-
ence prejudice, isolation and ‘imposter syndrome’ which in turn impacts
on their identification with the class group to which they supposedly now
belong (e.g. Reay, 2002). As such, occupation and wealth or income are
not always sufficient to claim authentic membership of the middle or
more unusually, upper-classes, which opens up the possibility that class
cannot be completely captured by measures of these things. Such schol-
arship also underlines the importance of people’s backgrounds, stories or
histories rather than simply taking a ‘static shot’ of an individual’s current
socio-economic status. For example, in addition to the important work
on class transitions (as outlined above), Savage (2015) argues that people
often compare their present economic position with their past lives when
thinking about and discussing class and that this often impacts on how
they make sense of their present situation. To draw upon the work of
narrative psychologists, we make sense of ourselves and who we are, not
simply by referring to the present, but by drawing upon the past also
(e.g. Singer & Salovey, 1993).
Such observations have led some class scholars to question the useful-
ness of objective measures of class and systems of classification (e.g.
Skeggs, 2014). One response to this within psychological and socio-
logical research has been to focus on perceived class status as an alter-
native (e.g. Walkerdine, 1996) or to consider subjective self-definition
of social class alongside more traditional, objective measures (see Kraus

& Stephens, 2012, for a review of research taking this approach).
For example, some social and health psychologists have employed the
MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status (e.g. Adler & Stewart, 2007).
The scale represents a ‘social ladder’ with 10 rungs on which the top rung
represents people with the most money, highest levels of education and
high-status jobs, and the lowest rung represents those who are the worst
off. Participants are then asked to position themselves on the ladder.
There are two versions of the scale: one requires participants to posi-
tion themselves relative to other people in their country and the second,
to position themselves relative to other people in their community, as
defined by the participant rather than the researcher (Rubin et al., 2014).
There are a number of advantages associated with the utilisation of self-
definitions of social class. For one, these are better-equipped to tap into
the subjective and interpretational elements of social class than objec-
tive measures. Second, unlike objective measures, these allow context to
be taken into account and acknowledge the ways in which social class
may intersect with other social categories such as gender, race, ethnicity,
age and regionality, amongst others (e.g. Ostrove & Cole, 2003), thus
avoiding some of the problems highlighted previously with taking decon-
textualised measurements of social class or SES. Finally, there is evidence
that subjective self-rankings are meaningful in that they correlate reliably,
for instance, with mental and physical health (Schnittker & McLeod,
2005).
Despite this, there are some important problems associated with
relying on subjective or perceived social status. Rubin et al. (2014)
describe how the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Task Force
on SES has responded to the recent increase in the use of subjec-
tive measures of social class by recommending that researchers employ
both subjective and objective measures in their research (Saegert et al.,
2006). The problems associated with relying on self-definitions become
apparent when there is a discrepancy between these and the economic
and material ‘realities’ of people’s lives, raising questions around which
measure or method of categorisation should be privileged and the rela-
tive implications of privileging each one. For example, research has found
that respondents, regardless of wealth and occupation, tend to pitch
18 K. Day et al.
themselves in the middle of the socio-economic scale (see Savage, 2015)

and that White Westerners in particular tend to identify as ‘middle-class’
even when they have a low socio-economic status objectively-speaking
(Bullock & Limbert, 2009). Similarly, in his book The Psychology of Social
Class, Argyle reported that: ‘About a third of lower-class [sic] people
accept the class system as just and legitimate, have no desire to change it
and vote Conservative’ (1994, p. 226). It is possible that the individuals
being described by Argyle were not critical of the class system because
they did not identify themselves as the ‘losers’ within this system. Simi-
larly, often, people simply don’t know which social class they belong
to or are unwilling/reluctant to say. For example, sociologists Savage,
Bagnall, and Longhurst (2001) conducted interviews with 200 residents
of Manchester in the UK and found that the majority (two-thirds) were
reluctant to identify themselves as belonging to any social class.
Rubin et al. (2014) argue that these types of problems can be avoided
if researchers employ meaningful response categories in their research
studies. However, we would argue that such responses are meaningful
beyond participants simply struggling because they were not presented
with objective, easy-to-understand categories. Rather, we would argue,
such participants are ‘doing class’ (or not doing class) in ways that can be
understood, in part, by referring to the discursive and ideological land-
scapes within which they are located. We have addressed some of these
already, such as the stigma attached to being a member of the ’feck-
less underclass’, a position that is arguably now more readily available
than ‘being a member of a proud and strong working class commu-
nity’ via a proliferation of cultural messages (see Jones, 2011). A related
historical trend that may shed some light here is what is described
as ‘embourgeoisement’ (becoming middle-class or ‘bourgeois’). Jones
(2011) describes how this has been promoted in Britain in recent decades
via social discourse and the various policies implemented by successive
British governments. For example, in the 1990s, the then British Prime
Minister Tony Blair is reported to have publicly announced that ‘we’re
all middle-class’ (referring to British society in general), a claim that was
endorsed and promoted by sections of the British national press (Jones,
2011, p. 139). Such ‘embourgeoisement’ is also argued to be a key feature
of government policies such as the promotion of home ownership in
the 1980s as opposed to ‘dependency’ on public housing, regardless of

whether home ownership was within people’s financial means or not
(Jones, 2011). So what we have witnessed here is a (probably intentional)
broadening of the definition of what it means to be ‘middle-class’ (e.g.
owning your home) in ways that encompass more of the population, this
‘normalness’ of middle-classness being juxtaposed with an undeserving
‘feckless underclass’. It is therefore unsurprising that many individuals
struggle to identify as ‘working-class’ in any positive sense, and so the
participants in studies such as that conducted by Savage et al. (2001)
may have been actively attempting to dis-identify with a group to which
they can be read as belonging. In addition to this, those such as Bradley
(1996) have argued that an ideal of ‘classlessness’ currently prevails in
British society. Although this may seem, on the surface, to contradict the
notion of ‘embourgeoisement’, we would argue that the two dovetail. For
example, if we are all middle-class, then class inequalities and indeed, the
notion of class itself, begin to dissolve as meaningful concepts. This ideal
makes the articulation of class identity and people’s willingness to openly
discuss this, more difficult and remote. Indeed, social psychologists have
found that class is considered taboo as a topic of conversation in contem-
porary British culture and that research participants often refer to and
discuss this in highly coded ways (e.g. Holt & Griffin, 2005). This is
explored in more detail in Chapter 5.
At present, perhaps predictably, many social psychologists argue that
social class encompasses both subjective and material components.
For example, Kraus, Piff, and Keltner (2009) argue that ‘social class
comprises both an individual’s material resources and an individual’s
perceived rank within the social hierarchy’ (p. 922). There is a poten-
tial tension here between, as psychologists, listening to people’s voices
and respecting their experiences and perspectives, and producing critical
analyses of the class system and of social and economic inequality. For
example, if social transformation is dependent upon ‘class consciousness’
as Marxist and other radical theorists suggest (see Gramsci, 1971), then
findings which indicate that people struggle or are reluctant to identify as
working-class suggest that the outlook for such transformation is a bleak
one at present. We are not concerned here with determining whether
or not people are ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ in their subjective assessments
20 K. Day et al.
of their class. Rather, we are interested in how the sociocultural milieu

and local communities within which the individual is situated and the
social discourses available to them inform their understandings and iden-
tities. As argued by Nelson and Prilleltensky (2004), the choices and
options that are available to people in terms of how they can act, be, what
they can do and generally how they can live their lives will be severely
restricted by their position within hierarchies of power and the social and
economic resources that are available to them. We argue in this book that
by adopting a critical social psychological approach to social class which
considers the individual in context, we can hopefully listen to people’s
voices and produce critical accounts of the class system.
To summarise here, we have hopefully demonstrated in this section
of the chapter that, despite social class traditionally been viewed as the
province of other social scientific disciplines such as sociology, class is
deeply psychological. It should be the ‘business’ of psychologists. We
have presented worrying evidence here that the increase in social and
economic inequalities described in the previous section of the chapter
is having a profound, negative impact on people’s mental health. We
have also demonstrated how social class is a complex and multifaceted
phenomenon which includes psychological and discursive, as well as
material and structural, dimensions. Due to this, those such as Valerie
Walkerdine (1996) have called for more holistic analyses of social class
which avoid reducing this down to objective measurements of socio-
economic status or treating it as a simple subject variable in psychological
research. In both this and the previous section of the chapter, we have
highlighted problems associated with understandings of class that define
this in purely economic and materialist terms which conceive of people
as belonging to fixed categories within a social hierarchy or as belonging
to fixed social groups which may or may not reflect how they see them-
selves and their social status. However, at the same time, those that rely
solely on subjective and phenomenological elements of social class (e.g.
subjective assessments of class) are potentially problematic also, as these
threaten to blunt critical analysis of class inequalities and oppression. We
argue in this book that a critical social psychological approach to social
class offers the potential to avoid both problems by locating psycho-
logical phenomena within more ‘macro’ social, cultural, economic and
political conditions and structures of power (Moane, 2011). Transformed

social conditions such as greater social equality and justice are necessary
if personal changes (e.g. developing a positive sense of self ) are to be
meaningful and enduring (Moane, 2011).
Scope and Aims of the Book

The following chapter will provide a historical overview of the relation-
ship between psychology and class. As argued in the current chapter,
mainstream psychologists have often ignored class, regarding this as ‘too
political’ and the province of other disciplines. Yet alongside this, the
chapter will explore arguments presented by those such as Blackman
(1996) that the ‘psy’ disciplines have a history of governmentality, regu-
lation and pathologisation where the working-class are concerned. We
will provide examples of research, theorising and practice that illus-
trate this. For example, this chapter will review and critique traditional
and mainstream psychological research that has examined the relation-
ship between class (or socio-economic status) and intellectual capacities,
impulse control, attitudes, cognitions, motivations, behaviours and rela-
tionships. In doing so, we will highlight a number of trends that are
notable within this work, such as the portrayal of working-class people
as possessing inherent deficiencies (e.g. inherited lack of intelligence)
which render them in need of paternalistic care and guidance at best
and control and regulation at worst. We argue that such accounts have
not just obscured social and economic inequalities by leaving these
unexamined, but have actually served to rationalise and justify such
inequalities by suggesting that these are the natural and inevitable conse-
quence of individual differences in intelligence, motivation, hard work,
rational decision-making and so on. Based on the evidence presented,
we challenge the idea that empirical, mainstream work in psychology is
politically-neutral and objective by examining the ways in which such
accounts are saturated with politically-conservative ideologies such as
meritocracy.
Yet despite this ‘troubled history’, the chapter also reviews psycholog-
ical work which while being located within the ‘mainstream’ (e.g. based
22 K. Day et al.
on a positivist conception of science and utilising experimental method-

ologies) has offered up greater potential in terms of questioning practices
and social conditions that contribute to class-related problems. This
includes mainstream social-cognitive work on stereotype threat, class and
intelligence testing (e.g. Spencer & Castano, 2007) and research that
shifts attention towards social and economic inequalities as the cause of
cognitions and feelings (e.g. low feelings of personal control and mastery)
believed by cognitive psychologists to underpin ‘poor decision-making’
on the part of working-class people (e.g. Manstead, 2018).
Having reviewed the worst and best of traditional psychological
research and theorising around social class (or socio-economic status),
in the third chapter, we turn to critical social psychology. While we
acknowledge that there is no one single ‘critical approach’ that is readily
definable and employed by everyone working within the field of critical
psychology (e.g. Chamberlain & Murray, 2009), we attempt to high-
light and outline some of the key characteristics and aims of critical
psychological approaches. In doing so, we examine key theoretical and
political influences on critical psychology, including feminism, Marxism
and poststructuralist theory. We discuss what a ‘turn to language’ in
poststructuralist-informed approaches such as social constructionism
might mean for the study of social class and review (in juxtaposition to
much of the research literature discussed in the previous chapter) work
on social class that has been informed by the philosophical, theoret-
ical and political undercurrents of critical psychology. Examples include
research conducted by feminist psychologists on the place of social class
in women’s lives and work that has highlighted important intersections
between class and other systems of difference. In short, an overarching
aim of this chapter is to ‘sketch out’ what a critical social psychology of
social class might look like.
Having established some of the key characteristics of and themes
within a critical social psychology of class, the next two chapters are then
focussed on research that has attempted to employ this type of approach.
The first of these (Chapter 4) discusses vibrant and informative work
from a range of disciplines (e.g. social psychology, sociology, cultural
studies) focussing on the media as a powerful institution where problem-
atic discourses around social class and classed subjects are reproduced.
Focussing in particular upon the contemporary genres of ‘reality’ and

‘lifestyle’ programmes on British television, we demonstrate how such
popular programming reproduces meritocracy discourse and ‘psycholo-
gises’ issues such as worklessness as being the result of individual deficits
and failures (therefore, there are clear parallels between this chapter
and Chapter 2). We also discuss work that has drawn attention to
more explicitly hostile depictions of poor and working-class people in
the media which invite judgement, ridicule and revulsion (e.g. Tyler,
2008). Once again in this chapter, we develop our arguments around
the importance of intersectional analysis by, for example, highlighting
how the focal object of disgust and desperately needed transforma-
tion is often a working-class woman (Ringrose & Walkerdine, 2008;
Tyler, 2008), and arguments that the poor and working-class are often
depicted in racialised ways via suggestions of ‘contaminated whiteness’
(Tyler, 2008). It is argued in this chapter that such media depictions,
far from being innocuous or mere entertainment, inform people’s under-
standings of class differences and social and economic policies in ways
that obscure exploitation and injustice, bolster class discrimination and
discourage positive social transformation (Gramsci, 1971). In addition,
media discourse also informs the subject positions or forms of identity
on offer to working-class people themselves. This is then taken up in the
following chapter.
The focus of Chapter 5 is placed on class identities and class relations.
We examine qualitative research on people’s everyday ‘sense-making’ in
relation to class, the construction and negotiation of classed identities
and subjectivities, and the impact that the discursive landscape (mapped
out in previous chapters) has on these processes. In doing so, we high-
light a number of key trends that are evident in the existing research. For
example, we examine how the kinds of cultural tropes described in the
previous chapter often infiltrate people’s everyday accounts of working-
class people and how stigmatising as well as vague and ‘muddy’ discourses
around class have resulted in ‘submerged identities’ (Bradley, 1996). For
example, it is argued that identification with a particular class group
(especially the working-class) has become difficult and in some cases
embarrassing or anxiety-provoking and so may be avoided altogether
(e.g. Holt & Griffin, 2005). The chapter also considers how discourses
24 K. Day et al.
around social mobility and meritocracy have led to notions of ‘fluid class
selves’ which ‘fly in the face’ of evidence that parts of the world such as
the UK have deep social mobility problems. Finally, the chapter considers
evidence of working-class people negotiating more positive identity posi-
tions in a variety of everyday contexts and settings (e.g. educational,
occupational and leisure) and in relation to a number of issues such
as food consumption and work. For example, the chapter considers
recent research which has shown how working-class fathers often resist
discourses that interpellate them as absent and emotionally-detached.
Such processes of negotiation and resistance are important in elucidating
and demonstrating how, as discussed in the previous chapter, people are
not simply ‘written’ by dominant cultural narratives around class. Yet
while the discursive activity highlighted challenges class ‘stereotypes’ (e.g.
working-class women as conformist and passive—Walkerdine, 1996),
others are reproduced. We argue in this chapter that a critical discur-
sive social psychological framework can accommodate such complexities
where more traditional and mainstream approaches (e.g. Social Identity
Theory—Tajfel, 1978, 1981) struggle.
Having reviewed and discussed important social psychological and
sociological research literature (as well as that from other related disci-
plines) in the previous two chapters, Chapter 6 then moves on to focus
on how critical perspectives on social class can move beyond the ‘ivory
tower’ of academia to be applied in ‘real-world’ settings. We argue that
it is important to challenge practices in a variety of settings which rein-
force class boundaries and which do a disservice to working-class and
poor people in particular. The chapter will consider recommendations
from critical psychologists and examine a number of interesting case
studies and examples of ‘good practice’. In doing so, the chapter will
focus on three areas in particular that are acutely impacted by social
and economic inequalities: education, mental health and wellbeing, and
physical health and illness. For example, we consider recommendations
for policy and structural reforms to the education system which attempt
to address practices that reinforce institutionalised classism as well as
racism and the ways in which the two often intersect (e.g. Langhout &
Mitchell, 2008; Langhout, Drake, & Rosselli, 2009). We also consider
critiques of current dominant therapeutic models and practices as
inadequate in tackling class-related problems and meeting the needs of

poor and working-class service users (Liu, Ali, Soleck, Hopps, Dunston,
& Pickett Jr, 2004; Melluish & Bulmer, 1999), as well as recommen-
dations for addressing such shortcomings. These include multicultural
competency training that fully integrates social class, class privilege and
classism in order to understand the impact of these on individual well-
being (Bullock & Limbert, 2009) and the exploration of the client’s
psychological suffering through a ‘class lens’ (Liu et al., 2004). Finally,
the chapter critiques current health-risk reduction and health promotion
interventions that are based largely upon mainstream social-cognitive
understandings of the causes of ill-health and ‘risky’ health practices,
and which often target the poor and working-class. We argue that such
approaches, amongst other things, can result in class-biased healthcare
delivery (e.g. Poulton et al., 2002) and often fail to take the social and
cultural aspects of health and illness into account (e.g. Chamberlain &
Murray, 2009).
The aim of the final chapter is to scrutinise a number of key, ongoing
issues and debates in relation to analyses of class and class politics. For
example, the popularity of poststructuralist and intersectional approaches
in the social sciences has been critiqued by commentators as resulting
in the ‘death’ of class analysis (e.g. Fisher, 2013). We also consider argu-
ments presented by those such as Parker (1992) that a relativist approach
can lead to political immobilisation. In addition, concerns have been
raised about the ability of critical, discursive approaches to adequately
capture the ‘extra-discursive’ components of social class, including the
material realities of social class and poverty and the role of emotions and
desires or ‘affect’. We attempt to respond to some of these critiques by,
for example, considering the important role of values in critical discursive
work and an analysis of affect as discursive practice. Finally, we consider
some future directions for critical research on social class focussing on
three areas: the accounting practices of the privileged; the usefulness of
critical community psychology and participatory action research (PAR)
for scholar-activists; and finally, the urgent need to understand and
address the impact of coronavirus on working-class people, families and
communities.
26 K. Day et al.
References
Adler, N., & Stewart, J. (2007). The MacArthur scale of subjective social status.
MacArthur Research Network on SES & Health. Retrieved from https://
macses.ucsf.edu/research/psychosocial/subjective.php.
Ahmed, S. (2004). Declarations of ‘whiteness’: The non-performativity of anti-
racism. Borderlands, 3, 1–15. http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2
004/ahmed_declarations.htm.
Argyle, M. (1994). The Social Psychology of Class. London: Routledge.
Autor, D. H., Katz, L. F., & Kearney, M. S. (2008). Trends in US wage
inequality: Revising the revisionists. The Review of Economics and Statistics,
90 (2), 300–323. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest.90.2.300.
Barr, B., Kinderman, P., & Whitehead, M. (2015). Trends in mental health
inequalities in England during a period of recession, austerity and welfare
reform 2004 to 2013. Social Science & Medicine, 147, 324–331. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.11.009.
Belle, D., & Doucet, J. (2003). Poverty, inequality and discrimination as
sources of depression amongst US women. Psychology of Women Quarterly,
27, 101–113. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00090.
Blackman, L. M. (1996). The dangerous classes: Retelling the psychiatric story.
Feminism & Psychology, 6 (3), 361–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/095935359
6063002.
Blythe, M. (2013). Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1979). Symbolic power. Critique of Anthropology, 4 (13–14), 77–
85.
Bourdieu, P. (1987). What makes a social class? On the theoretical and practical
existence of groups. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 32, 1–17. https://www.
jstor.org/stable/4103535.
Bradley, H. (1996). Fractured Identities: Changing Patterns of Inequality.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bulhan, H. A. (1985). Black Americans and psychopathology: An overview
of research and theory. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training,
22(2S), 370. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0085517.
Bullock, H. E., & Limbert, W. M. (2009). Class. In D. Fox, I. Prilleltensky, &
S. Austin (Eds.), Critical Psychology: An Introduction (2nd ed., pp. 215–231).
Los Angeles: Sage.
Businelle, M. S., Kendzor, D. E., Reitzel, L. R., Costello, T. J., Cofta-Woerpel,

L., Li, Y., … & Wetter, D. W. (2010). Mechanisms linking socioeconomic
status to smoking cessation: A structural equation modeling approach.
Health Psychology, 29 (3), 262. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019285.
Centers, R. (1949). The Psychology of Social Classes. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Eds.). (1978). On Ideology.
London: Hutchinson & Co.
Chamberlain, K., & Murray, M. (2009). Critical health psychology. In D.
Fox, I. Prilleltensky, & S. Austin (Eds.), Critical Psychology: An Introduction
(pp. 144–158). London: Sage.
Day, K., & Wray, R. (2018). Fourth-wave feminism and postfeminism:
Successes and failures. Transform: A Journal of the Radical Left, 4, 113–137.
Dorling, D., Rigby, J., Wheeler, B., Ballas, D., Thomas, B., Fahmy, E., …
Lupton, R. (2007). Poverty, Wealth and Place in Britain, 1968 to 2005.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation. http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/poverty-
and-wealth-across-britain-1968-2005.
Duffy, S. (2013). A fair society? How the cuts target disabled people.
Retrieved from http://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/uploads/attachment/
354/a-fair-society.pdf.
Erikson, R., & Goldthorpe, J. H. (1992). The Constant Flux: A Study of Class
Mobility in Industrial Societies. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fawcett Society. (2012). The impact of austerity on women. Fawcett Society
Policy Briefing. Retrieved from http://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/wp-con
tent/uploads/2013/02/The-Impact-of-Austerity-on-Women-19th-March2
012.pd.
Fawcett Society. (2013). Budget 2013—Helping or hurting women. Fawcett
Society Policy Briefing. Retrieved from https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/
budget-2013-helping-or-hurting-women.
Fisher, M. (2013, November 24). Exiting the vampire castle. Open Democracy:
Free Thinking for the World. Retrieved from https://www.opendemocracy.
net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/.
Frasquilho, D., Matos, M. G., Salonna, F., Guerreiro, D., Storti, C. C., Gaspar,
T., & Caldasde-Almeida, J. M. (2015). Mental health outcomes in times
of economic recession: A systematic literature review. BMC Public Health,
16 (1), 115. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-016-2720-y.
Gingerbread. (2018). One in four: A profile of single parents in the UK .
Retrieved from https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/
02/One-in-four-a-profile-of-single-parents-in-the-UK.compressed.pdf.
28 K. Day et al.
Goldthorpe, J. (in collaboration with C. Llewellyn & C. Payne). (1980). Social

Mobility and the Class Structure in Modern Britain. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gorz, A. (1982). Farewell to the Working Class. London: Pluto.
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence
and Wishart.
Griffin, C. (1993). Representations of Youth: The Study of Youth and Adolescence
in Britain and America. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hecht, K. (2014). A sociological analysis of socioeconomic inequality at the top
end of the income distribution. Ph.D. thesis, London School of Economics.
Holt, M., & Griffin, C. (2005). Students versus locals: Young adults’ construc-
tions of the working-class Other. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44,
241–267. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466604X17614.
Hyde, J. S. (2007). New directions in the study of gender similarities and
differences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16 (5), 259–263.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00516.x.
Jenks, C. (1998). Core Sociological Dichotomies. London: Sage.
Jensen, T. (2014). Welfare commonsense, poverty porn and doxosophy. Socio-
logical Research Online, 19 (3), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.3441.
Jensen, T., & Tyler, I. (2015). ‘Benefits broods’: The cultural and political
crafting of anti-welfare commonsense. Critical Social Policy, 35 (4), 470–491.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018315600835.
Jones, O. (2011). Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. London:
Verso.
Kraus, M. W., & Stephens, N. W. (2012). A road map for an emerging
psychology of social class. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 (9),
642–656. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00453.x.
Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2009). Social class, sense of control,
and social explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97 (6),
992. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016357.
Langhout, R. D., & Mitchell, C. A. (2008). Engaging contexts: Drawing the
link between student and teacher experiences of the hidden curriculum.
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 18, 593–614. https://
doi.org/10.1002/casp.974.
Langhout, R. D., Drake, P., & Rosselli, F. (2009). Classism in the university
setting: Examining antecedents and outcomes. Journal of Diversity in Higher
Education, 2(3), 166–181. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016209.
Lawler, S. (2004). Rules of engagement: Habitus, power and resistance. In L.
Adkins & B. Skeggs (Eds.), Feminism After Bourdieu (pp. 110–129). Oxford:
Blackwell.
Lazzarato, M. (2013). Governing by Debt. London: MIT Press.

Lazzarato, M. (2015). Governing by Debt. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Liu, W. M. (2011). Social Class and Classism in the Helping Professions: Research,
Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Liu, W. M., Ali, S. R., Soleck, G., Hopps, J., Dunston, K., & Pickett Jr,
T. (2004). Using social class in counseling psychology research. Journal of
Counseling Psychology, 51, 3–18.
Lott, B. E., & Bullock, H. E. (2007). Psychology and Economic Injus-
tice: Personal, Professional, and Political Intersections. Washington: American
Psychological Association.
Lupton, R., Thomson, R. T., & Vizard, P. (2015). The coalition’s social policy
record: Policy, spending and outcomes 2010–2015. Social Policy in a Cold
Climate. Retrieved from https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/coa
lition%E2%80%99s-social-policy-record-policy-spending-and-outcomes-
2010-2015.
Manstead, A. S. (2018). The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic
status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour. British Journal of Social
Psychology, 57 (2), 267–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12251.
Mattheys, K. (2015). The coalition, austerity and mental health. Disability &
Society, 30 (3), 475–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2014.1000513.
Melluish, S., & Bulmer, D. (1999). Rebuilding solidarity: An account of
a men’s health action project. Journal of Community & Applied Social
Psychology, 9 (2), 93–100.
Moane, G. (2011). Gender and Colonialism: A Psychological Analysis of Oppres-
sion and Liberation (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Munro, E. (2013). Feminism: A fourth-wave? Political Insight, 4 (2), 22–25.
https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-9066.12021.
Nelson, G., & Prilleltensky, I. (2004). Community Psychology: In Pursuit of
Wellbeing and Liberation. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Office for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2015). In it together:
Why less inequality benefits all: Overview of inequality trends, key findings and
policy directions. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECD2015-
In-It-Together-Chapter1-Overview-Inequality.pdf.
Office for National Statistics. (2016). The National Statistics Socio-economic
classification (NS-SEC). Retrieved from https://www.ons.gov.uk/method
ology/classificationsandstandards/otherclassifications/thenationalstatistics
socioeconomicclassificationnssecrebasedonsoc2010#:~:text=It%20has%
20also%20been%20reasonably,of%20its%20more%20thorough%20vali
dation.
30 K. Day et al.
Ostrove, J. M., & Cole, E. R. (2003). Privileging class: Towards a critical

psychology of social class in the context of education. Journal of Social Issues,
59, 677–692. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0022-4537.2003.00084.x.
Ostrove, J. M., & Long, S. M. (2007). Social class and belonging: Implications
for college adjustment. Review of Higher Education, 30, 363–389.
Parker, I. (1992). Discourse Dynamics: Critical Analysis for Social and Individual
Psychology. London: Routledge.
Parker, I., & Spears, R. (1996). Psychology and Society: Radical Theory and
Practice. London: Pluto Press.
Picketty, T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Poulton, R., Caspi, A., Milne, B. J., Thomson, W. M., Taylor, A., Sears,
M. R., & Moffitt, T. E. (2002). Association between children’s experi-
ence of socioeconomic disadvantage and adult health: A life-course study.
The Lancet, 360 (9346), 1640–1645. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-673
6(02)11602-3.
Psychologists Against Austerity. (2015). The psychological impact of austerity: A
briefing paper. Retrieved from https://psychagainstausterity.files.wordpress.
com/2015/03/paa-briefing-paper.pdf.
Reay, D. (2002). Class, authenticity and the transition to higher education for
mature students. The Sociological Review, 50, 398–418. https://doi.org/10.
1111/1467-954X.00389.
Reed, H., & Portes, M. (2014). Cumulative impact assessment: A research
report by Landman Economics and the National Institute of Economic and
Social Research (NIESR) for the Equality and Human Rights Commis-
sion (Equality and Human Rights Commission Research Report).
Retrieved from www.equalityhumanrights.com/commission-welcomes-rep
ort-financial-policy-making-and-modelling-cumulative-equality-impacts.
Reimers, F. A. (2007). Putting it all together: A content analysis and methodolog-
ical review of intersections of class, race and gender in the counselling literature.
Doctoral dissertation, Texas Woman’s University. Dissertation Abstracts, 68,
1B.
Richter, M., Leppin, A., & Gabhainn, S. N. (2006). The relationship between
parental socio-economic status and episodes of drunkenness among adoles-
cents: Findings from a cross-national survey. BMC Public Health, 6,
289–298. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-6-289.
Ringrose, J., & Walkerdine, V. (2008). Regulating the abject: The TV make-
over as a site of neo-liberal reinvention towards bourgeois femininity.
Feminist Media Studies, 8, 227–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/146807708
02217279.
Rubin, M., Denson, N., Kilpatrick, S., Matthews, K. E., Stehlik, T., &
Zyngier, D. (2014). “I am working-class”: Subjective self-definition as a
missing measure of social class and socioeconomic status in higher education
research. Educational Researcher, 43(4), 196–200. https://doi.org/10.3102/
0013189X14528373.
Saegert, S. C., Adler, N. E., Bullock, H. E., Cauce, A. M., Liu, W. M., &
Wyche, K. F. (2006). APA Task Force on socioeconomic status (SES). Available
at the American Psychological Association website. http://www.apa.org/pi/
ses/resources/publications/task-force-2006.pdf.
Savage, M. (2015). Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Random House.
Savage, M., Bagnall, G., & Longhurst, B. (2001). Ordinary, ambivalent and
defensive: Class identities in the Northwest of England. Sociology, 34 (5),
875–892. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/42856346?seq=1.
Schnittker, J., & McLeod, J. D. (2005). The social psychology of health dispar-
ities. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 75–103. Available at https://www.ann
ualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110622.
Singer, J. A., & Salovey, P. (1993). The Remembered Self: Emotion and Memory
in Personality. New York: Free Press.
Skeggs, B. (2004). Class, Culture, Self . London: Routledge.
Skeggs, B. (2005). The making of class and gender through visualising moral
subject formation. Sociology, 39 (5), 965–982. https://doi.org/10.1177/003
8038505058381.
Skeggs, B. (2014). Values beyond value? Is anything beyond the logic of capital?
The British Journal of Sociology, 65 (1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-
4446.12072.
Spencer, B., & Castano, E. (2007). Social class is dead. Long live social class!
Stereotype threat among low socioeconomic status individuals. Social Justice
Research, 20 (4), 418–432.
Tajfel, H. (1978). Differentiation Between Social Groups. London: Academic
Press.
Tajfel, H. (1981). Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social
Psychology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Teo, T. (2009). Philosophical concerns in critical psychology. In D. Fox, I.
Prilleltensky, & S. Austin (Eds.), Critical Psychology: An Introduction (2nd
ed., pp. 36–53). London: Sage.
The Economist. (2007, August 11). For whosoever hath, to him shall be given,
and he shall have more, 384(8541), 36 https://www.economist.com/asia/
2007/08/09/for-whosoever-hath-to-him-shall-be-given-and-he-shall-have-
more.
32 K. Day et al.
Tyler, I. (2008). ‘Chav mum chav scum’: Class disgust in contemporary Britain.
Feminist Media Studies, 8(1), 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/146807707
01824779.
van Hal, G. (2015). The true cost of the economic crisis on psychological well-
being: A review. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 8, 17–25.
https://dx.doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S44732.
Wagner, B., & McLaughlin, K. (2015). Politicizing the psychology of social
class: The relevance of Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus for psychological research.
Theory & Psychology, 25 (2), 202–221. https://doi.org/10.1177/095935431
5580606.
Wahlbeck, K., & McDaid, D. (2012). Actions to alleviate the mental health
impact of the economic crisis. World Psychiatry, 11(3), 139–145. https://dx.
doi.org/10.1002/j.2051-5545.2012.tb00114.x.
Walkerdine, V. (1996). Subjectivity and social class: New directions for feminist
psychology. Feminism & Psychology, 6, 355–360. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0959353596063001.
Wetherell, M., & Griffin, C. (1991). Feminist psychology and the study of
men and masculinity part I: Assumptions and perspectives. Feminism &
Psychology, 1(3), 361–391. https://doi.org/10.1177/095935359222002.
Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2009). The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies
Almost Always Do Better. London: Allen Lane.
2
Psychology and Social Class: The
Working-Class as ‘Other’ (Bridgette Rickett)
Introduction
This chapter aims, first, to focus on the themes central to contemporary
research and theory within mainstream psychology around social class
and, second, analyse the interrelationship with this present psychology
and the history of the psychology of social class. By doing this, we
will tease out a selection of ways in which the discipline of psychology
has researched, theorised and practiced social class and how these ways
have accounted for where we are now. Using this approach, we will
consider arguments presented by those such as Blackman (1996) that
the ‘psy’ disciplines have a history of individualism which shores up
governmentality, regulation and pathologisation where the working-class
are concerned and we will provide examples to illustrate this. We will
also argue that these psychological accounts have enabled notions of class
oppression, poverty and inequality to be an ‘absent present’ within this
murky history. Last, despite this, we are able to review and highlight
some examples of mainstream psychological work examining social class
which have offered us an opportunity to, first, question social condi-
tions and practices and, second, explore how these may contribute to
class-related psychologies.
© The Author(s) 2020 33
K. Day et al., Critical Social Psychology of Social Class,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55965-6_2
34 K. Day et al.
Social Class and the ‘Psy’ Disciplines:

A Troubled History
Mainstream psychology and associated disciplines have historically
pursued a scientific study of the human mind following a paradigm
of positivism. This has been guided by the principles of objectivity,
knowability and deductive logic which have mainly operated from the
assumption that our minds and our practices can and should be studied
scientifically, in a value-free manner, to pursue an objective, empirical
and knowable truth (see Teo, 2018). Through this individualist philo-
sophical lens, our practices are considered to result from the materiality
or ‘workings’ of the human mind. However, rather than an objec-
tive value-free science, the discipline of psychology has been guilty of
assuming, reproducing and arguably, constructing particular standards of
personhood that serve to give value to one category of personhood while
positioning others as left wanting. This produces disciplinary benefit
for certain, standardised groups in our society. For example, feminists
have long argued that psychology has assumed a male standard which
locates men as a reference point which women are regarded unfavourably
against or simply ignored (Gilligan, 1982). While Black psychologists
and critical race theorists have similarly argued that White has histori-
cally been constructed and thereby treated as the standard and a ‘default’
(Richards, 2012) while people of colour are silenced as ‘non-white’
or derogated ‘other’ and in the process raced. Unsurprisingly perhaps,
given this history, ‘class’ has often been a euphemism for ‘working-
class’, therefore the ‘other’ to the middle-class (Blackman, 1996). In
turn, working-class people have had their selfhood, lives, relationships
and day-to-day practices either habitually neglected in a manner that
suggests voluntary inattention, or othered to signify pathology. Taking
Foucault’s notions of genealogy (Foucault, 1971) or as Blackman argues
as ‘history of the present’ (p. 364, 1996—see Chapter 3), the rest of
this chapter aims to demonstrate that this present pathological other has
been often constructed as naturally occurring, biologically determined
and outside of normative selfhood. We will argue that this classed
production of normal and abnormal personhood has been sustained
through dominant discourse in regimes of truth within psychology that
2 Psychology and Social Class: The Working-Class … 35
shape the way certain groups have been and continue to be treated. For
example, Walkerdine (1990) argues that while a concept of freedom and
full autonomy may be central to the normative modern bourgeoisie,
‘abnormal’, and inferior others are argued to require restrictions on such
freedoms as a result of such ‘abnormalities’. Therefore, it follows that for
those that deviate from the normal and ‘natural’ middle-class subject,
state level interventions are required to regularise (Foucault, 1976) and
massify so as to target them for: enforced medical procedures (e.g.
forced sterilisation, Stern, 2016); regular quantification (e.g. IQ testing),
behaviour modification (e.g. to make ‘healthier choices’); and social
exclusion and containment (e.g. from asylums to modern penal spaces).
Much of the justification of these ideas in psychology derive from
early ‘psy’ disciplines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
where scholars of ‘old’ Social Darwinism heavily relied on individu-
alism, essentialism and biological determinism (inordinate attention on
the biological, particularly genetic, factors) to argue that the poor were
genetically determined to have reduced mental capacities leading to
‘abnormal’ minds (e.g. Morton, 1849) which drove ‘abnormal’ practices.
Later ‘new’ theory revised old theory to add on additional biological
components to Social Darwinism to posit the necessary existence of
social class division. For the recently discredited (see Marks, 2019),
yet ever prominent theorist Eysenck (1973), a pursuit of a social egali-
tarian society would be unable to override this predetermined association
between genetics and social class. Indeed, authors such as Belkhir (1994)
have strongly asserted that a late twentieth-century revival of Social
Darwinism in psychology has produced a discursive device to convince
us there is no hope for a classless society since classed differences are
natural, biologically determined and evolutionary strategic to the success
of humans.
Drawing on these discourses of inevitable and ‘natural’ class division,
modern social psychologists have also argued that similarity with hier-
archical systems in animals means social hierarchies in humans formed
around class difference are ‘an inevitable feature of human society’
(Argyle, 1994, p. 63). In the only previous attempt to produce an
analysis of Psychology of Class research across the history of the disci-
pline, Argyle presents ‘fact’-based chapters that present evidence for
36 K. Day et al.
class differences in our relationships, work and leisure, intelligence,

sex, crime, religion, health and happiness. Here we are delivered a
relentless narrative of a deficient working-class and a psychologically
superior middle-class. While, on the one hand, these differences are
repeatedly presented as inevitable, Argyle does suggest that problem-
atic social segregation resulting from such hierarchies, euphemised into
a social-cognitive construct of ‘social distance’, could be reduced via
class modification. In sum, if ‘subordinate’ working-class people could
be educated into the correct ways of the world, this would improve ‘rela-
tions between the classes’ (p. 63). As Ussher (1996) sagely argues in her
incisive review of the text: ‘it implicitly rejects as inadequate or second
rate everything that stands as ‘working-class’ culture’ (p. 465).
Later developments of social-cognitive models have also reproduced
such discourse. Here, as Argyle argued, working-class people’s thinking
is characterised as problematic and therefore in need of attitude change
intervention to change behaviour, with the failure of such interven-
tions being blamed on the targets who, it has been claimed, are more
resistant (presumably than middle-class people) to behaviour change
(Lynch, Kaplan, & Salonen, 1997), therefore in need of more effortful
and focussed attention by researchers. For example, this area of research
draws on cognitive processes to understand how people construct their
own social world (Greifeneder, Bless, & Fiedler, 2017; Fiske & Taylor,
1991) and applies theories and methods from cognitive psychology
(e.g. memory, attention, inference and concept formation) to under-
stand how we form perceptions of others to draw differences between
working-class (in this case represented by low SES) and middle-class
thinking and practice. As Hepburn and Jackson (2009) have noted, ‘this
internalized or “cognitivist” focus has become one of the unquestioned
premises for most forms of psychology’ (p. 176) where a focus on people’s
inner features and processes reduces social class to individualised person-
hood, and therefore causes of problematic behaviour are inside people.
This model of thinking can be considered a discourse that shapes and
constructs who groups of people are. For example, according to Day
(2012) it positions working-class thinking and therefore behaviour as
problematic (e.g. ‘Why do poor people behave poorly?’; Lynch et al.,
1997) and as with Social-Darwinist derived research, under theorises the
social/cultural aspects of life outcomes, shores up the notion of a middle-

class standard of thinking and practice and justifies interventions and
governance of working-class communities.
Last, much of this research suffers from the fundamental problem that
rather than enlightening us about social class and psychology, it relies
on data from mostly men as participants, either as fathers (e.g. through
measures of fathers’ education level, occupations, mean income, etc.)
or as young men (e.g. the predominance of using boys/young men in
school as participants), thereby invisiblising working-class women and
implicitly assuming a male standard, and arguably a White standard.
We will now review the three main themes in the psychology of social
class; inherent deficiencies, the (ir)rational mind(set) and ‘poor’ practices.
Inherent Deficiencies: Essentialising Social

Class
We will now review some examples of the traditional ‘mainstream’
psychological accounts which view social class in terms of inherent defi-
ciencies or sufficiencies. In doing so, we aim to convince the reader that,
despite the value-free and objective science this research derives from, this
literature deviates from positivist science in four main ways. First, there
is an implicit and uncritical deployment of ideology such as ‘meritocracy’
and the ‘rational mind’ used to reason for inherent deficit in working-
class personhood. Second, these assumptions failing to be reproduced
in later research and/or found to be established by unrepresentative
sampling. Third, some assumptions have been highly contested and, in
some extreme examples, found to arise from fraudulent research prac-
tices. Last, despite these three problems clearly flouting strict adherence
to empirical methods of verification associated with positivist science,
this knowledge has not been the death knell we should expect. Instead
this research theme within mainstream psychology is having somewhat of
a heyday. In addition, we argue that this unrelenting, ideologically-driven
research programme has had a clear, damaging impact on how societies
see and treat working-class people, their families and their communities.
38 K. Day et al.
A first theme from this body of research is around the notion of a

genetically conferred link between intelligence and social class. Early
Social Darwinists within psy disciplines were very much influenced by
Paul Broca (1824–1880), the renowned French neurologist who made
major contributions to refining early techniques for estimating brain
size. He concluded that variation in brain size was related to intellec-
tual achievement, understood to be underpinned by an ability to think
and behave ‘rationally’. Indeed, findings were said to evidence the fact
that very eminent individuals had larger brains than those less eminent;
men had larger brains than did women; Europeans had larger brains than
Africans and the working-class (here measured through those categorised
as being unskilled workers) had smaller brains than skilled workers. Such
conclusions were widely accepted in the nineteenth century (e.g. Broca,
1873; Darwin, 1871; Morton, 1849; Topinard, 1878). Following the
Second World War (1939–1945) and the revulsion towards Hitler’s racial
policies, craniometry became associated with extreme racist atrocities
and virtually ceased while the early research was scrutinised, critiqued
and fell into disrepute. For example, Gould reanalysed Morton’s (1849)
work and alleged ‘unconscious … finagling’ and ‘juggling’ (1978, p. 503)
suggesting biases influenced the data.
However, in the last three decades, as argued earlier, the purported
link between brain size and intellectual capacity has been having some-
what of a renaissance in the guise of a new Social Darwinism within
cognitive neuroscience. Current researchers, such as Platek, Keenan, and
Shackelford (2007), have called for a renewed respect for this early
nineteenth-century research. In addition, Rushton and Ankney (2009)
have argued that Morton (1849) may not have doctored his results to
show class and racial superiority while Michael (1988, p. 353) concluded
that Morton’s research ‘was conducted with integrity’ and that it is down
to ‘politically correct’ and ‘egalitarian’ conclusions to state otherwise.
Along with craniometry, an additional tool to test social class differ-
ences in intellectual capacity has been via the devising and imple-
menting of intelligence measures in formalised tests. Intelligence tests
have been under attack since their inception with critics (see Eckberg,
1979) claiming that, first, they measure nothing more than test-taking
skills, second, are devised and conceptualised around White middle-class
norms and therefore biased against certain raced and classed groups, and
finally, are used as tools to ‘other’ low scorers and justify class (and race)
division.
Despite these criticisms, shored up by the resurgence in the brain
size and intelligence theoretical work, other researchers have focussed
on socio-economic hierarchies of modern societies in Europe, North
America and Japan. They have argued that social class (measured via SES)
is significantly correlated with scores on standard IQ tests (Gottfredson,
1986; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Jensen, 1998) such as the Wechsler-
Bellevue Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1958) which encompassed ‘the
global capacity of a person to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to
deal effectively with his [sic] environment’ (Wechsler, 1958, p. 7). The
often-repeated finding is that there is a difference of nearly three stan-
dard deviations between average members of professional and unskilled
social classes.
Researchers argue that differences in cognitive abilities are also corre-
lated with differences in brain size, and both brain size and intellectual
ability are correlated with age, gender, race and social class. Despite
no such supporting empirical evidence, it is contended that, ‘the brain-
size/cognitive-ability correlations that we have reported are, in fact, due
to cause and effect. This is because we are unaware of any variable, other
than the brain, that can directly mediate cognitive ability’ (Rushton &
Ankney, 2009, p. 151).
Belkhir and Ball (1993) considered at length why such ideas, which
they consider illogical, not only persist but are having a renaissance. They
argue that what is troubling in this research is that class differences are
said to remain fixed. But, this is impossible under laws of genetics; indeed
for anyone intending to reproduce social class hierarchies in intelligence
capacities, genetics would be ‘a real foe’ (p. 76) and only social, economic
and political policy practices which define a child as intelligent or not as
a result of their class could preserve the status quo of social class. Belkhir
and Ball maintain that current mainstream work on the intelligence and
social class correlation by psychologists is best understood as a rise of
scientific classism, akin to scientific racism with obvious intersections
with race and class subjects. That psychological work on intelligence is
value-free is a ‘grandiloquent claim’ (p. 53), because it originates in a
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
sequestri levati, l’invio d’un arciduca benevolo, il proposito ostentato
di volere il bene del paese e il debito rispetto a una nazionalità
permalosa e ad un paese incastonato fra la Svizzera e il Piemonte,
ravviarono gli spiriti all’operosità.
Ma nè lealtà e giustizia nè intelligente proposito del meglio
riparavano all’irreconciliabile rancore contro la dominazione tedesca.
Fatto rilevantissimo fu il concordato che, dopo lunghissime trattative,
l’Austria conchiuse colla santa Sede nel 1855. La Chiesa avea
prevalso nello Stato finchè vi stette unita; lo Stato invigoritosi volle
sottrarsene; ma errò nel credere di potersela ridurre dipendente. Fu
il grande sbaglio de’ rivoluzionarj, e la causa di ingiustizie e di
un’anarchia, che durerà finchè l’esperienza non abbia condotto
l’equilibrio fra due potestà di natura differente. Nell’Austria
specialmente, da Giuseppe II in poi, la Chiesa era tenuta in un
assoggettamento, che le dava l’odiosità di dominante e i mali di
oppressa. Parve indecoroso a Francesco Giuseppe, il quale
solennemente riconobbe la supremazia papale nelle cose
ecclesiastiche, e concordò (a tacere gli oggetti che poco a noi
riguardano) che la Chiesa resterebbe libera in tutti i suoi atti interni, e
di pubblicare scritti, eleggere vescovi e parroci, erigere o restringere
ordini monastici, comunicare col capo supremo e coi fedeli, statuire
di tutto ciò che concerne i sacramenti, la sua disciplina, i suoi
possessi. Non per questo si torrebbe quell’eguaglianza de’ cittadini
in faccia alla legge, ch’è considerata il migliore acquisto del secolo;
pei delitti, anche l’ecclesiastico rimarrebbe passibile de’ tribunali
ordinarj; se non che, nei casi d’esecuzione capitale, dovrebbe ai
vescovi comunicarsi il processo. Ai vescovi pure lasciasi l’ispezione
sopra le cose stampate, e libertà di proibire ciò che offenda il
costume e il dogma.
Di tal modo era stabilito, non il segregamento, ma la distinzione delle
due potestà, non l’antagonismo ma l’armonia: e ne derivò esultanza
a quei pochi che sono capaci di ravvisare come si connettano tutte le
libertà fra loro, e di conoscere quanto valutabili sieno le
ecclesiastiche; ne fecero elegie ed epigrammi quei che hanno paura
dei preti. E la paura parve giustificata allorchè qualche vescovo
voleva che verun’opera si stampasse senza l’approvazione curiale.
Questa da un secolo era disusata qui; dopo il 1850 era tolta anche la
censura politica preventiva: sicchè coloro che, invece di lasciarsi
ammusolare celiando, vigilano seriamente all’acquisto e alla
conservazione delle giuste franchigie, donde che esse vengano,
opposero la legalità a quella pretensione, la quale in fatti restò ridotta
entro limiti ragionevoli e legittimi.
In Toscana rimase abolita la Costituzione e occupato per sei anni il

paese da Tedeschi, che nel 1855 si restrinsero alla guarnigione in
Livorno. Quanto minori v’erano i ribaldi feroci, più apparivano quelle
dimostrazioni, che, se possono aver un senso preparativo, sono futili
dopo il fatto. Gli anniversarj dei disastri e delle vittorie celebravansi;
gli avvocati cercavano occasioni di dicerie; nessuno voleva le
cariche municipali, e si bersagliavano quei che le tenessero. Vuolsi
celebrare l’anniversario della battaglia di Curtatone, supponendo
intrigare il Ministero col costringerlo ad opporsi. Questo nol fa, ma
crede doverne avvertire il comandante austriaco, perchè non se ne
tenga offeso; e questo invece risponde, onorar il valore, e andrebbe
egli stesso ai funerali se non sapesse che a molti spiacerebbe; onde
allora si grida che il Ministero è più tedesco dei Tedeschi.
Domandavasi sempre la Costituzione, e intanto si dice impossibile
l’attuarla, presenti i Tedeschi.
Il sistema comunale fu rimesso qual prima della rivoluzione, cioè
all’elezione surrogando ancora l’estrazione a sorte delle borse. Il
Codice penale fu modificato, crescendo i rigori; nel Codice penale
militare s’introdussero la fustigazione e la bastonatura.
In un paese dove le libertà ecclesiastiche fanno paura più che le
principesche tirannie, e dove gran parte del liberalismo consistette
sempre nell’osteggiare la Curia romana, si temeva sempre che un
concordato infirmasse le leggi leopoldine «fondamento e palladio
della civiltà e della prosperità toscana», e lentasse i rigori contro il
clero e le manimorte. Neppur nell’entusiasmo per Pio IX eransi voluti
mitigare: ma nel 1849 fu annunziato dal ministro Mazzei che stavasi
per conchiudere un concordato. I vescovi esultanti si raccolsero per
consigliarne i modi; l’opinione si sgomentò a segno, che il ministro
dovè cedere il portafoglio; Baldasseroni (1795-1876) assicurò che
nella convenzione conchiusa in fatto con Roma il 25 aprile 1851, le
prerogative sovrane non sarebbero toccate, che le spiegazioni
tranquillanti fatte circolare non erano un sotterfugio del Ministero, ma
veramente concertate con Roma, e che le leggi del 1751 e 1769
contro i nuovi acquisti di manomorta non sarebbero toccate, nè
accettata la bolla Auctorem Fidei. Ciò importava ai pensatori toscani.
Gli spaventi rinacquero allorchè, nel 1857, Pio IX visitò Firenze: e i
vescovi gli sottoposero un indirizzo perchè impetrasse l’abolizione
delle restrizioni leopoldine; e di nuovo il Monitore officiale dovette
uscire a rassicurare i sudditi che di nulla sarebbe rallentata la tutela
dello Stato sopra la persona e i beni della Chiesa [139]: paventandosi
non assorbito tutto il territorio dall’ingordigia clericale.
Quando poi importava sopire gli scandali e le ire, e in quattro anni
(1852) si erano dimenticate le ingiurie e mutato scopo agli odj, si
volle condurre a termine il processo del dittatore Guerrazzi e di
quarantasette correi, di cui trentuno erano fuggiaschi. Ben diceva il
regio procuratore «che causa più solenne mai era stata sottoposta a’
tribunali toscani, e che offrisse maggior copia di documenti e di
testimonj, d’avvenimenti strepitosi, di commozioni di popoli, di
passioni anco individuali poste in azione e in contrasto, di nomi
d’accusati, alcuni già noti per dottrina ed abbondanza di quel dono
superiore, che, come bene adoperato dà modo di più meritare, così
espone, quando s’isterilisca o si abusi, a maggior responsalità».
Doveva inevitabilmente esservi implicato il principe; ragione di più ad
evitare quel processo: il quale invece, tratto in lunghissimo, fu poi
esposto al pubblico sia ne’ dibattimenti, sia negli atti di accusa e
nelle apologie stampate, nelle difese, nelle discussioni de’ giornali;
dove piena la libertà della difesa; dove molti testimonj, dopo sì lungo
tempo, si riducevano, o per paura della pubblica opinione
adombravano il vero; infine il Guerrazzi fu condannato ai ferri, che il
principe commutò, a lui come agli altri, in esiglio. Questo famoso,
che avea sminuita la propria grandezza col mostrare nella Apologia
come fosse zimbello de’ più audaci o delle grida plebee, nel lungo
carcere condensò l’antico suo livore contro la società, della quale e
dell’umanità vendicossi sputandole in faccia la Beatrice Cenci.
Giusta il conto reso da una Giunta al ristaurato Governo, le entrate
della Toscana ammonterebbero a circa ventisette milioni: ma
spendendo in proporzione di quel che fece il Ministero democratico
dal 26 ottobre 1848 al 7 febbrajo seguente, in un anno si sarebbero
erogati quarantatre milioni; e cinquantacinque in proporzione di quel
che spese il Governo provvisorio dall’8 febbrajo all’11 aprile; ne’
quali due periodi la finanza fu deteriorata di nove milioni e mezzo.
Gravi sciagure crebbero i danni del paese. Il cholera, già micidiale
nel 1835 e ne’ due anni seguenti, infierì di nuovo nel 54 e 55,
colpendo sessantamila persone, uccidendone trentunmila
ottocensessanta. Poi cominciò la scarsezza dei cereali: i geli del
1847 e 49 guastarono gli ulivi; la raccolta delle patate fu perduta
dalla cancrena, dall’oidio l’uva, dall’atrofia i bachi da seta, benchè
meno d’altrove. I tremuoti del 46 aveano già sovvertito le colline
pisane e volterrane. Poi dopo nevi e pioggie stemperate, nel febbrajo
del 1855 tremò il val d’Arezzo: il poggio di Belmonte si scoscese
sopra Pieve Santo Stefano, arrestando il Tevere che la valle inondò
fino ventitrè braccia elevandosi. Altri guaj portarono le inondazioni
nel Casentino, e nel Valdarno inferiore.
In vista di tanti mali, nel 1854 il Governo perdonò un milione
sull’imposta, ma le penurie dello Stato non permisero di rinnovare la
largizione quando ne cresceva il bisogno. Aumentarono invece i
delitti contro la proprietà e in conseguenza i carcerati, il cui numero
giornaliero medio nel 1850 era di mille cinquecento, e nel 1856 di
duemila settecensettantaquattro. Nel mite paese non mancarono
però assassinj politici; si attentò alla vita del ministro Baldasseroni, e
bisognò ristabilire la pena di morte, da infliggersi però solo quando i
voti cadano unanimi. Al disagguaglio delle spese dovette sopperirsi
col ripristinar tasse sul macello, sulla pastorizia, sui contratti e la
successione; aggravare le dogane, a costo di diminuire con ciò
l’introduzione delle merci; la lega doganale tentata coll’Austria fu
avversata dalla pubblica opinione [140].
I lavori pel prosciugamento della Maremma grossetana, che dal
1829 al 1856 costarono venti milioni vennero rallentati, sicchè laghi e
paludi ristagnarono ove erano poco prima fecondate le campagne.
Nè meglio riuscì l’essiccamento della palude di Biéntina. Si provvide
di nuovo porto Livorno, ma il disegno datone dal francese Poirel
riuscì infelice, e la spesa di otto milioni, doppia della predestinata, è
ben lontana dal rendere frutto degno. Si estesero le strade ferrate,
ma finora servono solo alla circolazione interna non attaccandosi a
quelle di veruno Stato vicino. Si cercò il prosperamento
dell’agricoltura, sì da privati quali il Ridolfi, il Lambruschini, il
Ricasoli, Digny, Bichi Ruspoli, Cuppari, Ginori...; sì dalla società dei
Georgofili e dalla Agraria: il Governo pose scuole tecniche, e
accademie di arti e manifatture; istituì un archivio generale di Stato,
un uffizio di statistica generale.
Il ducato di Modena continuò nelle tradizioni patriarcali, in mano d’un

giovane principe, sul quale non posavano nè tradizioni tiranniche, nè
memorie di sangue, nè patti d’abjezione; e che sentivasi e talento e
forza più di quelli che lo circondavano.
Il ducato di Parma, che avea patteggiato coll’Austria alleanza

difensiva contro i nemici esterni ed interni, fu da questa restituita a
Carlo III Borbone, la cui gioventù disonestata non apparve corretta
dalla sventura e dal matrimonio colla virtuosa Luigia di Francia. Un
giorno ch’egli tornava dal passeggio pomeridiano, gli si accostò uno
e lo trafisse, e benchè fosse in mezzo al popolo, niuno volle
conoscerlo nè arrestarlo, nè tampoco soccorrere al ferito, che poco
dopo spirò (1854 26 marzo). Si trovarono trecento lire in cassa. La
duchessa, come reggente del fanciullo Roberto, ai ministri
impopolari surroga Lombardini, Pallavicino, Salati, Cattani, ritira
l’ordine del prestito forzato, supplendovi con uno spontaneo che ella
garantisce col pubblico patrimonio; l’esercito riduce da sei a duemila
uomini, la lista civile da due milioni a seicentomila lire; riordina i
tribunali che già erano a modo francese; affida cattedre anche a
professori compromessi nella rivoluzione.
Parvero pegni di riconciliamento, eppure i momentanei applausi
presto si conversero in disapprovazione; il paese non tardò a
divenire teatro di turbolenze ed assassinj, al punto che la duchessa
dovè chiamare capo della Polizia un suddito austriaco, e i processi
furono assunti dal conte di Crenneville comandante della
guarnigione tedesca, in forza dello stato d’assedio.
Per accordi derivanti fin dal trattato d’Aquisgrana, poi modificati in
quel di Vienna e nel segreto del 28 novembre 1844, se si
estinguesse la linea ducale quello Stato sarebbe riversibile
all’Austria, ed una piccola porzione al Piemonte. Il popolo sapendo
questo colla solita inesattezza, credeva il ducato dovesse ricadere
legittimamente a Casa di Savoja, e aspirava ad accelerarne l’istante:
l’Austria, come a sè riversibile, pretendeva esercitarvi un’alta
ispezione; altrettanto pretendeva il Piemonte per la vicinanza.
Da principio i Francesi restarono arbitri di Roma, e i soldati faceano

da soldati, quantunque senza ferocia; ed erano perseguitati a stiletti
e contumelie al pari dei preti, e questi e quelli ripudiati dalla
popolazione, mentre fra loro guardavansi in sinistro. L’ambasciatore
signor di Courcelles cercava che il pontefice largisse ordini liberali, e
si circondasse di buoni amministratori; ma quelli aveano fatto troppo
mala prova, questi sempre fu difficile trovare in Romagna,
difficilissimo allora che tanti erano resi inservibili pei fatti precedenti.
Luigi Buonaparte allora diventato presidente della Repubblica
francese, volendo cattivarsi gli animi od almeno i voti col mostrarsi
restauratore dell’ordine, eppure amico della libertà, diresse una
lettera (1850 18 agosto) al suo ajutante Ney, ove esprimeva che
l’esercito repubblicano non era ito a schiacciare la libertà italiana,
bensì a regolarla, preservandola dagli eccessi proprj; disapprovava i
comporti della Commissione riordinatrice, e diceva di compendiare il
Governo temporale del papa in questi atti, amnistia,
secolarizzamento dell’amministrazione, Codice Napoleone, Governo
liberale. La lettera levò gran rumore, eppure mancava di carattere
uffiziale: il papa ebbe assicurazione che trattavasi d’una mera
mostra, e mandò da Gaeta un motuproprio, pel quale istituiva un
Consiglio di Stato e uno di finanze, prometteva riforme
amministrative e giudiziali; di costituzione o di secolarizzamento non
più parola: e i Francesi si affrettarono a magnificare le concessioni,
le quali dicevano avere essi suggerite anzi imposte al papa, per
sodare la libertà d’Italia.
Abrogati gli ordini del Governo repubblicano, rimessi i tribunali colle
variatissime loro giurisdizioni, e persino il Sant’Uffizio, di nome
spaventoso, ma che si limita a preparare le decisioni ecclesiastiche
in fatto di matrimonj misti, digiuni, astinenze, e nelle cui carceri nel
1849 si era trovato un solo prete per falsificazione di carte private;
dall’amnistia faceansi esclusioni eccessive, che guastavano in
apparenza il benefizio, mentre nel fatto nessuno ne’ primi sei mesi fu
arrestato o punito per atti politici; nessuno de’ tanti amnistiati, che
aveano accettato incarichi rivoluzionarj, lasciando che l’autorità
francese li munisse di passaporti per andarsene. Pure la Polizia
molestava fino alcuni de’ liberali che più si erano opposti alle
trascendenze; spiaceva il veder ripristinati abusi, della cui
distruzione tutt’Europa aveva applaudito Pio IX; dacchè poi gli onesti
aveano gustate le attrattive del vivere libero, del licenzioso i ribaldi,
riusciva difficilissimo il rintegrare lo stato primitivo. La censura
impediva ogni manifestazione franca, eppure non potea togliere la
sovversiva stampa clandestina; processavasi, ma colla fiacchezza
che colpisce il subalterno mentre non osa il forte e subornatore;
disarmati tutti i cittadini, viepiù imbaldanzivano le orde, che
infestavano principalmente i paesi settentrionali, malgrado
l’inesorabile giustizia che ne faceano gli Austriaci. Gli assassinj
continuanti obbligarono a severe procedure sommarie, e ventiquattro
persone furono mandate al supplizio nella sola Sinigaglia. Si tessè il
processo dell’assassinio di Rossi, e, cosa nuova ne’ fasti giudiziarj, il
reo più aggravato non si osò indicare che col nome di un tale, quel
signore.
Solo quando si sentì sicuro che l’indipendenza del suo potere non
sarebbe menomata, Pio IX tornò a Roma fra l’ossequio dei Francesi
e dei diplomatici, e il silenzio della moltitudine. I provvedimenti
furono ancor meno delle promesse, e tutto rimase all’arbitrio del
segretario di Stato cardinale Antonelli (1806-76), divenuto scopo
all’odio comune, benchè dapprima fosse stato consigliatore degli
ordini più liberali, ed ora tenesse testa agli esagerati reazionarj. I
succedutisi Governi aveano cresciuto il debito pubblico a settanta
milioni; le sêtte fremeano; audace il contrabbando, spudorata la
corruzione, moda il cospirare, disimparato l’obbedire; rinterzata la
insulsaggine di compromettenti miracoli colla stizza di ripullulanti
insurrezioni e d’incessanti assassinj politici; liberalità l’avversare la
religione, involgendo l’autorità spirituale nell’aborrimento della
temporale: e alle piaghe gravissime trovandosi impossibili i palliativi,
rendeasi necessaria la forza, la forza!
Perciò i Tedeschi continuavano ad occupare le Legazioni [141], i
Francesi ad occupare Roma e Civitavecchia, intanto che si provvede
ad allestire reggimenti nazionali, e crescere la marina, che oggi
conta 1893 navi fra grandi e piccole, portanti 31,637 tonnellate, e su
di esse 9711 persone.
Più appropriato al gran sacerdote è l’avere ravviato le opere
pubbliche e la cura delle arti belle. Nel che notevole è lo sterro
dell’antica Via Appia, donde quantità sempre nuova di monumenti e
di anticaglie, di cui altre vengono in luce nei ripigliati scavi di Vulci e
di Canino. Fu ordinata una statistica generale, che dà a conoscere i
bisogni e gli spedienti; la riduzione de’ pesi e delle misure a decimali;
e il censimento, pel quale i Gesuiti rimisurarono per undicimila metri
la base della triangolazione fatta da Boscowich, di cui era perduto un
termine. Si compì ad Aricia un viadotto di trecentundici metri, a
triplice fila d’archi, elevantisi fino a sessanta metri per superare la
frapposta valle. Il Tevere è percorso da vaporiere, e tutti i fiumi
vigilati e provveduti [142]. A Viterbo si fabbricano il vitriolo tanto
cercato, e ferri agricoli: Spoleto è ricca di pastorizie, e di mandorle e
ghiande il paese alto: bellissime selve ha Frosinone, donde si trae
scorza per le concerie: agrumi, fichi, pistacchi, carrubi, castagni,
cristalli arricchiscono Ascoli: Fermo i cappelli e i crivelli da grano:
Forlì il ricino, Fabriano le cartiere, Gubbio il bestiame, Faenza le
majoliche: la pineta di Ravenna è delle migliori foreste: dal
Bolognese si hanno venticinque milioni di libbre di canape, e corami,
carta, aceto, acque odorose. Con ingenti opere ora si sanano le
paludi d’Ostia e Ferrara. Le strade ferrate pigliarono colà pure
incremento; e già si posero telegrafi elettrici, e con quelli s’istituì la
corrispondenza metereologica. Il 24 ottobre 1850 fu emanata la
legge comunale, abbastanza ampia e fondamento al resto del
Governo, ma non si vede eseguita.
Per instaurare l’autorità, Pio IX ricorse ai mezzi che s’adoprano per
abbatterla, e dai Gesuiti fece intraprendere un giornale, la Civiltà
Cattolica, «collo scopo di proclamare la riverenza del suddito
all’autorità, e del superiore ad ogni diritto dei sudditi, subordinazione
alla forza della legge morale, unità di morale sotto l’insegnamento
della Chiesa cattolica, unità della Chiesa sotto il Governo del vicario
di Cristo». Grandiosissimo esercizio sopra punti irrefragabili: ma se il
rissarsi intorno alle dispute di ciascun giorno profitti meglio che il
sodare cardinali verità, da cui si sillogizzino poi le applicazioni; se
l’esporre i supremi canoni della fede o dell’autorità al senso comune
e ai dibattimenti dei caffè e de’ circoli; se il pronunziare nelle opinioni
politiche coll’asseveranza e l’esclusività che solo è propria dei dogmi
religiosi; se il moltiplicarsi avversarj col ghermire corpo a corpo
scrittori e attori, e con ciò provocare ricolpi dove l’ingegno può
prestare aspetto di ragione, e la violenza di difesa incolpata; se
l’intolleranza de’ minimi dissensi, d’ogni minor precisione di
linguaggio, delle condiscendenze forse necessarie, spesso
opportune, del sussidio secolaresco nel trarre dalla pietra dell’altare
la favilla che sola può ridonare la luce e il calore; se l’accettare
l’ultima abjezione degli odierni giornali, le corrispondenze anonime,
donde un malvagio tira a sicurtà sopra l’onest’uomo, portino al
trionfo la causa del vero, ne appello alle migliaja d’associati di quel
giornale, redatto con un talento, un accordo, una costanza, che
nessuno degli avversi raggiunse mai.
Strepitoso rincalzo alla suprema potestà diede Pio IX, dichiarando il
dogma dell’Immacolata Concezione. Più volte dibattuto ne’ secoli
precedenti, era già vietato il metterlo in disputa. Esule a Gaeta, quasi
le tempeste politiche neppure scotessero la nave di Pietro, Pio IX
mandò un’enciclica a tutti i vescovi del mondo, interrogandoli
sull’opinione di essi e delle loro Chiese intorno a quell’asserto, e se
gioverebbe definirlo dogmaticamente. Nella credenza la cattolicità si
trovò d’accordo; ad alcuni sembrava inopportuno il rimescolare
questione antica, causa già d’interni dissidj. Pio IX convocò a Roma
alquanti vescovi per pronunziarne; e poichè quelli di Francia, quasi
ad espiazione delle antiche reluttanze gallicane, pei primi neppur
vollero discutere sui termini, riportandosi interamente al supremo
gerarca, egli definì come dogma la concezione di Maria senza
peccato originale. Se ne fecero feste in tutta la cristianità; e fu un
grande incremento all’autorità pontifizia quel bisogno d’una
sommessione figliale al papato, che definendo da solo un dogma,
veniva a stabilire l’infallibilità personale del pontefice: come fu
edificante quel riconoscere universalmente la fondamentale eppure
negletta fede del peccato originale.
Concordati fece colla Spagna, coll’Austria, colla Toscana, colla
Costarica, col Guatemala. Così non cessò di combattere la Chiesa
orientale, la russa, l’olandese, la gallicana, dalla quale
un’importantissima adesione ottenne, l’abbandono dei riti particolari
per adottare il romano.
Casa di Savoja precipitò i sudditi nel pericolo, ma lo divise con essi,
talchè viepiù se ne consolidò il legame che a questi la unisce.
Vittorio Emanuele II, re nuovo e che non s’era compromesso con
lusinghe, a capo d’un esercito disgustato d’innovamenti che tanto gli
erano costati, col paese occupato dagli Austriaci, con un Parlamento
screditato dalla ciarla, con Ministeri che si succedeano un all’altro
per attestare l’impotenza di tutti, potea facilmente cancellare le
istituzioni date da suo padre, e vedersene applaudito, quanto questo
nel concederle. Al contrario egli cominciò il regno (1849 3 luglio)
annunziando con mesta fermezza le sventure che anticipatamente lo
portavano al trono, assicurava che le franchigie del paese non
correano rischio; le traversie abbattono le vulgari anime, alle
generose possono tornare in profitto; gli ordini politici non li stabilisce
nè li acconcia a’ veri bisogni d’un popolo il decreto che li promulga,
bensì il senno che li corregge, e il tempo che li matura; e questo
lavoro, unico dal quale può sorgere la vigoria e la felicità d’uno Stato,
si conduce coll’azione calma e perseverante del raziocinio, non
coll’urto delle passioni; si conduce procedendo a gradi per le vie del
possibile, e non gettandosi a slanci inconsiderati per sentieri che da
secoli l’esperienza ha dimostrato impraticabili; i popoli, maturando
alle dure prove, imparano a distinguere il vero dall’illusorio, il
praticabile dall’ideale, e ad usare la migliore delle pubbliche virtù, la
perseveranza. Insieme rammentava la necessità della pace esterna
non meno che dell’interna, e del discuterne con senno e prudenza,
per procurare i tre supremi vantaggi di quiete civile, progresso
d’istituzioni, risparmio delle pubbliche fortune; e così d’accordo
conformando gli ordini che soli possono recare vera e durevole
libertà, si avrebbe la gloria di evitare le esorbitanze e de’ licenziosi e
de’ tiranneschi.
Ottenere questa temperanza era difficile tra lo sguinzagliamento de’
rifuggiti e la concitazione degli avvenimenti di Roma, con un
Parlamento che mettea gloria nell’osteggiare la Corona, e dignità nel
ricusare gli accordi inevitabili; tanto che, «per salvare la nazione
dalla tirannia de’ partiti», il re sciolse la Camera (1849 20 9bre) e ne
convocò un’altra, che senza discussione accettò il trattato
coll’Austria. D’allora Vittorio Emanuele non si affannò troppo negli
affari, come glielo permette la qualità di re costituzionale; mostrossi
sempre rispettoso dello Statuto.
Duro uffizio quel de’ ministri a fronte di passioni sopreccitate, e de’
partiti che colà andavano non a fondersi ma a cozzarsi! Massimo
D’Azeglio, un tempo disapprovato e perseguìto dagli stagnanti quale
attizzatore di rivoluzioni, come avea difesa la libertà contro i vanti
dell’ordine, così l’ordine sostenne dappoi contro i vanti della libertà,
capitanando l’opinione moderata, poi chiamato a capo del Ministero,
con integra fama, sostenuto da’ nobili fra cui era nato, da’ letterati e
artisti fra cui s’illustrava, dai popolani con cui era vissuto, persuaso
che nei trambusti si fa meno quanto più si ha apparenza di fare,
imitò il medico che confida nelle forze riparatrici della natura, poco
operando, poco discorrendo fra l’universale sproloquio,
guadagnando così il tempo che è tutto, rimettendo a galla lo Stato,
non esitando spiacere agli esorbitanti che si decorano col titolo di
democratici. Poi venuta l’ora degli uomini d’affari, a Cavour rinunziò
il potere prima di perdere la popolarità, e tornò agli studj e a ridere
della commedia umana.
Il Piemonte era l’unico paese d’Italia ove sopravvivesse una
rappresentanza. Dapprima non v’era stato bene che non
s’aspettasse dai Governi parlamentari, i quali suppongono una
convivenza da tutti acconsentita, avente per base l’eguaglianza dei
diritti e dei doveri, la cooperazione di tutti al vantaggio di tutti;
esonera il Governo da infinite minuzie e da tanta responsabilità; non
forza nessuno, e nessuno trascura; anche in mezzo alle emozioni
rapide e contagiose de’ popoli che da sè occupansi degli affari
proprj, fa valere di più chi più sa e più ha, lascia libera la
manifestazione de’ desiderj e delle proposte, e l’esercizio delle
facoltà tutte, coll’elemento del progresso avendo in sè quello della
conservazione. Ma la Francia dopochè se ne disfece, ripetè che in
siffatti Governi si surroga alla morale la sentimentalità, alla fede la
declamazione di oratori, simili a palloni areostatici che si elevano
perchè nulla li contrasta, attirano gli sguardi di tutti ma non arrivano
a nulla, e tornano alla terra dond’eransi alzati; intanto sviluppansi la
superbia umana, l’infatuazione della parola, e la persuasione che la
dottrina possa regolare il mondo; sicchè i talenti e i semitalenti
acquistano maggiore credito che non il carattere; per l’idolatria
dell’ingegno si abbandona il culto della verità; misurando la libertà
dal numero de’ giornali e dalla lunghezza dei dibattimenti, rimettonsi
in disputa tutti i principj; si toglie l’energia d’azione al Governo, quasi
non si desideri di meglio che l’inettitudine; e così si affievolisce
l’autorità qualunque sia; i ministri s’avventurano in una politica
declamatoria e imprevidente, che talora vuole i mezzi senza il fine,
talora il fine senza i mezzi; anzichè consolidarsi sulla giustizia e la
bontà, devono ondeggiare coll’opinione, e però rinnegare se stessi,
o cedere il posto ad altri, che effettuino ciò che in quel giorno è
voluto dalla pluralità.
Eppure quelle discussioni, quella responsabilità dei ministri, quella
pubblicità di tutti gli atti, quell’accontentamento della classe più
loquace e faccendiera recavano facilmente a considerare il
Piemonte qual simbolo della nazione e nucleo della futura Italia.
Queste aspirazioni, nelle quali si accentrava qualsiasi desiderio di
cambiamento, lo rendeano sospetto al potente vicino; e i partiti che
vi si dibatteano, lo esponeano alle diatribe de’ reazionarj di fuori.
È però vanto che, mentre ogni giorno una stampa sguinzagliata
diffondea sin nel villaggio e tra il popolo operoso il fomite dell’invidia
e dell’insubordinazione, colà men che altrove essa prorompeva e
soprattutto non si sfogava in quegli assassinj, che rimasero la più
orrenda coda della nostra rivoluzione. Le sorti d’un paese non si
regolano cogli epigrammi e i sarcasmi, nè la politica si attua con
articoli di giornali e con dispetti e puntigli. Molti Ministeri si
succedettero, ma sarebbe severità l’esigere che procedessero
regolari mentre sono combattuti da contrarj venti, e costretti a vivere
di ripieghi; lodevoli se non sagrificano l’utile sodo alla prurigine di
popolarità, se non transigono colla dignità per conservarsi, se non
riducono l’idea dello Stato e il fine della convivenza umana a mera
tutela degl’interessi materiali.
Gli oppositori a due punti principalmente si appigliavano; il dissesto
delle finanze, e gli affari religiosi. Mentre al rompere della rivoluzione
l’erario non era gravato che di quaranta milioni, allora di oltre
seicento: il bilancio delle spese annue, che nel 1847 si valutò a
ottantaquattro milioni, nel 56 giunse a cenquarantatre e mezzo: tutte
le imposte vennero esagerate e aggiuntene delle nuove, la cui
minutezza infastidiva ancora peggio che non impoverisse [143]. Ma
oltre il dover pagare i disastri di due campagne sfortunate e
settantacinque milioni all’Austria, in questo mezzo si spigrì
l’amministrazione, fu dotato il paese di tante istituzioni di cui
mancava, e singolarmente d’una rete di strade ferrate, che tutti i
punti congiunge col centro, e questo colla restante Italia e colla
Francia.
Poco prima della rivoluzione, Carlalberto avea conchiuso un
concordato col pontefice, il quale recedette da alcune pretensioni
antiche per assodarne altre. Dato lo Statuto, nel quale la prima
clausola e la più voluta dal re fu il dominio della religione cattolica, i
fragorosi, che non sanno mostrare libertà se non col perseguitare,
vollero si ponesse la mano sui beni clericali e si sopprimessero le
fraterie, incamerandone i possessi, togliendole l’istruzione; e levò un
rumore trascendente, anzi fu eternata con obelisco la proposta del
Siccardi, per la quale si stabilì quel che già gli Stati vicini godeano,
che anche gli ecclesiastici fossero sottoposti al fôro comune, nè
tampoco i vescovi eccettuati. Ciò ledeva il contratto stabilito col
papa; ma arguivasi che, cambiata la forma di governo, anche quello
dovesse cessare, benchè concernesse una Potenza forestiera.
Nuove commozioni cagionò dappoi la legge sul matrimonio civile.
Roma protestò di questo mancare ad accordi espressi, e assicurati
dallo Statuto; le replicate proposizioni di amichevole componimento,
portate anche da persone rispettabili, quali Cesare Balbo e Antonio
Rosmini, non sortirono effetto: intanto la lite si inasprì; qualche
vescovo, e nominatamente quel di Torino reluttarono, e furono
perseguitati e spinti in bando, donde ritraggono aria di vittime essi, e
di persecutore il Governo; restrizioni alla libertà ecclesiastica
attirarono nuove proteste del pontefice, e infine la scomunica a chi le
avesse sancite. Da qui strazj di coscienza; cercossi ipocritamente di
mettere in contrasto i preti coi vescovi; le popolazioni conservavano
devozione ai loro pastori benchè rimossi; sacerdoti ricusavano i
sacramenti a deputati o ministri incorsi nella censura; e di qua e di là
vantavansi di martirio atti che spesso erano di ostentazioni di amor
proprio.
Tale deplorabile conflitto, che forse è un sagrifizio di debolezza al
rombazzo della plebe letteraria, infuse baldanza a un partito, che si
propone di staccare l’Italia dalla fede popolare. Come nel 1847
l’apoteosi di Pio IX avea lusingato che tutta cristianità si ridurrebbe
cattolica, così, dacchè egli mancò alla causa italiana, con lui si
esecrò la religione di cui è capo, e per poco il Dio di cui tien vece in
terra. Fervè allora l’opera del nuovo vangelo; i liberi politici si
incapricciarono di mostrarsi anticattolici; il papato si considerò di
nuovo come peste d’Italia non solo, ma della fede; e a qualunque
miglioramento della patria si pose per fondamento la depressione
del cattolicismo. I Valdesi, che nel 1848 aveano ottenuto
l’eguaglianza civile, poterono erigere un tempio a Torino; stampare
secondo la loro credenza, e la Buona Novella annunciava (1855 12
8bre) che «tutti i giornali del Piemonte obbediscono ad una direzione
più o meno protestante, e non si stancano di proclamare che la
coscienza deve essere libera, e che nessuna Potenza sulla terra ha
il diritto di regolare le nostre attinenze con Dio». Vanti consueti a
tutte le sètte, ma che metteano i brividi ai buoni Cattolici. Intanto si
divulgavano libri di quel sentimento e Bibbie tradotte, di cui
ventitremila stamparonsi a Londra e diecimila Testamenti Nuovi,
destinati principalmente alla Toscana e Romagna: sette dispensieri
ne giravano in Piemonte, e quando l’esercito campeggiò in Crimea,
ben quindicimila copie se ne diffusero tra esso. Forse qualcheduno
passò alla confessione protestante: in Toscana si teneano circoli ove
leggere e commentare la Bibbia, e in esecuzione delle antiche
prammatiche fu punito chi lo fece, rinviandolo se forestiero,
mandandolo a viaggiare se nazionale. Ma il pericolo venne
esagerato, e tanto più pel Piemonte, chi veda quanto morale sia il
popolo, frequentate le chiese e i confessionali, riveriti i curati.
Ben più che i delirj della fede è a temersi la indifferenza in questa, la
scarsezza di cognizioni religiose, che rende possibile l’assurdo
apostolato di giornali, luridi quanto ignoranti e sfacciati. Come
protestantizzare gente che non crede nè conosce i proprj dogmi, nè
sa in che punto divergano da quei di Lutero e Calvino, e che, se al
papa negano obbedienza, tanto meno vorrebbero prestarla a un
ministro? Si confessi più francamente che l’orgoglio, la meno
filosofica delle passioni, dice «Come può essere la tal cosa mentre
io non la intendo?» Si confessi di volere piuttosto compiere l’opera
sociale della Riforma, quale fu di distruggere il carattere teocratico,
dileguare la sovrumana aureola dell’autorità, sottoponendo l’uomo
immediatamente alla propria coscienza; e che trovasi più acconcio
alla vulgarità l’insegnare unico Dio essere l’uomo, unica potenza il
numero, unica legge gl’istinti, unico intento il godere più che si può;
donde una smisurata superbia, un satollarsi all’albero della scienza,
un invidiare chiunque sa o può di più, riponendo il liberalismo nel
prostrare quanto è più alto, non nell’elevare quanto è più basso; un
invidiarsi a vicenda i godimenti, e l’oro che può comprarli; e
nell’accidia e nella voluttà stordirsi e godere finchè il corpo si
dissolva ne’ chimici componenti.
È da compiangere il re di Napoli d’avere dovuto colla forza e coi

processi reprimere la rivoluzione, e principalmente le cospirazioni
per la così detta Unità Italiana; onde grandissimo numero di
fuorusciti, gente d’opera, d’ingegno, di penna, che empirono l’Europa
di accuse contro di lui, le quali trovarono uno straniero (Gladstone),
che le accolse e ripetè in una lingua diffusissima, e dandovi l’autorità
del proprio nome e della libera sua nazione. Benchè smentita, si può
credere la miserrima condizione di quelle carceri: ma quello che
ancora più serra un cuore italiano, è la bassa turpitudine di non
pochi di coloro, che come testimonj o delatori o agenti provocatori
comparvero in que’ processi di Stato. I quali però vuolsi non
dimenticare che furono pubblici, con difesa, con stampa; e che,
risparmiando le vite, il re non volle togliersi la possibilità di ridonare
alla società qualunque de’ condannati all’istante che ciò gli sembri o
generosità non improvvida o giustizia. Carlo Poerio è come la
personificazione di quei martirj e di que’ lamenti; e più volte fu
promessa la grazia a lui e ad altri purchè la domandassero [144].
Nessun atto cassò la costituzione, e Ferdinando II poteva da oggi a
domani convocare il Parlamento, restituire la responsabilità ai
ministri. Ma coloro che, per giustificare il dissenso che
v’incontrarono, piacevansi a ricantare l’immoralità di quel popolo,
l’avidità delle classi medie, l’ignoranza superstiziosa delle infime,
non s’accorgeano che davano ragione al re del non volere affidar la
quiete e l’andamento dello Stato ai consigli e alle discussioni di così
fatti. L’esercito non ebbe bisogno di venire ricomposto: l’erario
continuò prospero, e quando negli altri Stati erano all’abisso, qui le
iscrizioni del gran libro eccedevano in valore il pari. Non furono
intermesse le opere pubbliche; estese le vie ferrate, aperta una da
Napoli a Bari traverso a due montagne; uniti al mare i laghi Lucrino e
Averno, così ridotti a porto. Eppure non venne meno il troppo solito
corredo delle pubbliche sciagure; e a tacere il cholera, spaventosi
tremuoti sconvolsero nel 1852 la Basilicata, propagandosi anche
nella Romagna.
Sanguina poi la piaga della Sicilia. Le entrate di questa erano state
regolate soltanto sopra donativi fino al 1810, quando si ordinò un
censimento, fondato sui riveli spontanei. Per correggere questi e
migliorare l’estimo si moltiplicarono disposizioni e prammatiche: i
lavori furono spesso interrotti dalle scosse pubbliche, infine compiti
nel 1853. La rivelata rendita dell’isola, sommante a ducati
10,872,063, fu rettificata in 16,658,634, de’ quali appartengono al
Demanio 41,339, a manimorte 1,261,974, ai Comuni 213,290, a
diversi 15,142,031: laonde al dieci per cento si avrebbe una
contribuzione di 1,665,863 ducati, e al dodici e mezzo di circa due
milioni. Tutta l’isola, uscente quell’anno, contava 2,231,000
abitanti [145].
La chiesa di Sicilia era una delle più ricche del mondo, non avendo
subito le perdite cagionate dalla Rivoluzione. Lo stato d’attività e
passività pubblicato dal clero nel 1852 gli attribuisce la rendita di tre
milioni di ducati, che indicano estesissimi possessi in paese tanto
male andato d’agricoltura e di comunicazioni. Dicemmo che la
rendita imponibile delle manimorte nell’isola fu estimata ducati
1,261,974: ma ignoriamo il rapporto di essa col possesso effettivo:
oltre che su queste cifre di possessi ecclesiastici v’è sempre
esagerazione.
Le rivoluzioni non distruggono il potere, ma ne alterano il carattere
scemandogli fermezza e maestà; non alleviano l’obbedienza, ma le
tolgono il decoro; lasciano in chi sofferse scontentezza e prurito di
vendetta; in chi trionfò, brama di rappresaglie inutili dopo le violenze
necessarie; pochi comprendendo che prima cura dev’essere il far
dimenticare, il calmare le diffidenze e i risentimenti, fondere gli
uomini e gl’interessi, riconciliare il soccombuto col rialzarlo, anzichè
punire colpe a cui un popolo intero ha preso parte in momenti, dove,
e principi e sudditi barcollando sopra una nave in tempesta, nè
questi nè quelli possono rendere conto ragionevole di quel che
fecero o dissero o promisero.
Nulla è più facile nè più triviale che il sistematicamente censurare
tutti questi Governi, i quali non seppero sinora far paghi i sudditi,
ricondurre la pace, tranquillare gli spiriti: ma suggerire i rimedj è più
arduo quando si veda disapprovare gli uni, appunto perchè fanno
quello che gli altri ricusano. Deploriamo i Governi cattivi, condannati
a diffidare e punire, quanto i deboli che non osano o non vagliono a
resistere; i ribaldi che si appoggiano sull’immoralità; quelli che non
comprendono come la libertà sia il cavallo che ci porta verso
l’avvenire, ma sfrenato precipita, troppo ritenuto ricalcitra e
s’impenna, procede sol quando è moderato da mano esperta; quelli
sprovvisti d’iniziativa di spirito e di volontà, che lasciano unico partito
l’assopirsi con dignità; quelli materiali, che riducono la scienza
statistica a speculazioni e gendarmi; e quelli che non si persuadono
il disordine poter essere vinto soltanto da chi lo rinnega, non da chi
ad esso ricorre per reggersi momentaneamente.
La classe colta smaniava di partecipare al Governo; i Governi
pretendeano intrigarsi della famiglia, dell’istruzione, della religione,
dell’industrie individuali: reciproca illegittimità d’ingerenze, da cui un
necessario scontento. Il popolo, che poco bada a ciò che non tocca
l’individuo, la famiglia, la città, non intendeva gran fatto di coteste
Costituzioni, versanti sull’esterno non sull’essenza della libertà, e
capiva che anche i re possono tutelare le persone, le case,
l’industria, il commercio. E davvero di tante Costituzioni nate e morte
in questo mezzo secolo, quale è che abbia distinto le attribuzioni
dello Stato da quelle della famiglia e dell’individuo? qual principe osò
di dare utile pascolo alla smania governativa della classe media
coll’abbandonarle i giudizj, l’istruzione, la sicurezza pubblica,
l’ispezione domestica, riservando pel Governo la sovranità, i pubblici
lavori, le finanze, l’esercito? Fra un medio ceto che non sapea bene
che cosa chiedesse, un vulgo che niun vantaggio scorgeva in
mutazioni che erano soltanto di persone; e principi che, vincolati da
un’autorità che gli umiliava, non sapeano bene che cosa concedere,
poteva egli trovarsi quella fede che ingagliardisce le opere, quella
sicurezza che va diritto a un fine ben determinato?
Da alcuni anni, ma più nei due ultimi, il parossismo del rumore avea
simulato l’attività della gloria, e sfogavasi colla sonora ciancia e con
quel vago di concetti che rende insulsi alla pratica. Fattisi alla
declamazione, costoro declamarono anche quando bisognava
operare; ridondanti in parole come chi manca di idee, cominciarono
litigi dove il vero vinto era il buon senso; e trascinando i migliori non
a giudizio ma a supplizio, nei caffè, sui fogli, e dovunque fosse da
adoperare la lingua non il braccio, volendo far qualche cosa e non
valendo ad altro, faceano strepito; e in giornali, caricature, affissi,
imponevano all’autorità, svilivano i magistrati, dettavano
provvedimenti sconsigliati, e inventavano mozioni. L’opinione di
questi parabolani si era modellata sopra i giornali di Francia, e come
quelli, riponeva il liberalismo nell’opposizione sistematica; l’aveano
fatta quando portava pericolo; vollero continuarla quando non era più
che gazzarra, quando l’arma proibita era divenuta arma d’onore.
Amatori antichi della libertà, la accolsero con austero culto; mentre
quelli che balzavano dall’idolatria dell’assolutismo all’idolatria
dell’individualità, la accostavano come una meretrice; per bisogno di
far dimenticare prische bassezze, affettavano altezzosa indignazione
nell’insolentire contro i valenti, e in una stampa spudorata dare sul
capo a tali che, mentr’essi genufletteano, ritti in piedi affrontavano i
martirj della persecuzione pubblica e privata quando nulla aveano da
sperare, neppure l’applauso, neppure d’essere riconosciuti dai proprj
partigiani; e col titolo d’uomini di talento indicandoli per teste false e
inetti alla pratica, li dichiaravano disacconci alle emergenze nuove; e
a rincalzo di frasi convincevano che, gran pezza meglio degli antichi
ed esperti, valeano quei neonati, che metteano la coccarda perchè
altra prova di patriotismo non potevano dare alla folla, solita a
scambiare l’emblema per l’idea.
Alcuni, sbigottiti dalle trascendenze, vedendo il guasto che le
commozioni politiche recano nei costumi e negli intelletti,
l’indifferenza de’ principj, l’assurdità degli odj e degli amori, il
bruciare oggi gli idoli di jeri, il credere segno di libertà l’arroganza e
la calunnia, affrettaronsi d’abjurare come errori anche le verità che
soccombeano; e vergognati d’avere troppo sperato di sè, e d’essersi
creduti degni della libertà, si sbracciarono in rimpedulare alla vecchia
i Governi e le opinioni; o in sussulto svegliati dai sogni d’una
coscienza connivente, e vedute le conseguenze inattese di principj
mal posati, buttaronsi all’intolleranza persecutrice, biascicando i
nomi d’ordine e di religione, la quale, dopo essersi da alcuni, come
fatto individuale, adoprata qual mezzo d’indipendenza fino alla
rivolta, da altri come fatto sociale, volevasi strumento di potere fino
all’assolutismo.
I tentativi temerarj fanno indietreggiare gli spiriti sgomentati: ma fra i
reazionarj, que’ che vantansi della forza è poi giusto che invochino la
ragione? Alcuni, non ravvisando la ricomposizione se non come
quiete, condannano fino le oneste libertà e le prudenti garanzie, a
foggia di chi bestemmiasse le macchine a vapore pel rumore che
fanno; pigliano paura della filosofia anche quando viene in appoggio
al senso comune; paura della storia anche quando non giustifica i
fatti, ma solo li sincera e li racconta; paura d’ogni aspirazione al
meglio, vedendovi un irrompere della demagogia; paura dei sapienti,
e perciò privilegiano l’istruzione a tali in cui ha fiducia il Governo, ma
non la gioventù, la quale rimane svogliata dallo studio, e discrede
fino alla verità perchè bandita da gente screditata; computano il
crescere dei delitti, delle carceri, dei trovatelli, quasi non vi fossero
ribaldi anche prima della stampa e delle Costituzioni.

Critical Social Psychology of Social Class Katy Day Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Critical Social Psychology of Social Class Katy Day Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Critical Social Psychology of Social Class Katy Day Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Critical Social Psychology of Social

Class Katy Day

Social Psychology 1st Edition – Ebook PDF Version

Social Psychology 9th Edition, (Ebook PDF)

Social Psychology 14th Edition, (Ebook PDF)

Social Psychology Of Protest 1st Edition Jacquelien Van

Exploring Social Psychology 9th Edition David Myers

Social Psychology 12th Edition David G. Myers

Social Psychology 8th Edition David G. Myers

Social Psychology of Helping Relations: solidarity and

ISBN 978-3-030-55964-9 ISBN 978-3-030-55965-6 (eBook)

Cover illustration: © Alex Linch_shutterstock.com

1 Social Class: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

2 Psychology and Social Class: The Working-Class

3 Conceptualising Social Class: Towards a Critical Social

4 Class Discourse and the Media (Katy Day) 101

5 Classed Identities: Submergence, Authenticity

6 Critical Analyses: ‘Real-World’ Applications (Maxine

7 Debates, Issues and Future Directions (Katy Day) 203

© The Author(s) 2020 1

Defining and Conceptualising Social Class:

class categorisation officially used today by the Office of National Statis-

of research studies) is likely to become more rather than less pronounced

witnessed the decline (or decimation) of the manufacturing industries

A multiplicity of situations of employment, non-employment, occa-

Here, we can see a shift away from the notion of a ‘proletariat’ or

arguing that poverty, inequality and economic subjugation are a thing

working-class backgrounds are sometimes derided in the British media

Psychology and Social Class

At a time when psychology as a discipline has increasingly defined itself as

Yet at the same time, class is everywhere in psychological work.

Furthermore, there is a well-documented link between social and

are important indicators of a person’s social and economic status and

of social class alongside more traditional, objective measures (see Kraus

themselves in the middle of the socio-economic scale (see Savage, 2015)

the 1980s as opposed to ‘dependency’ on public housing, regardless of

of their class. Rather, we are interested in how the sociocultural milieu

political conditions and structures of power (Moane, 2011). Transformed

Scope and Aims of the Book

on a positivist conception of science and utilising experimental method-

Focussing in particular upon the contemporary genres of ‘reality’ and

inadequate in tackling class-related problems and meeting the needs of

Businelle, M. S., Kendzor, D. E., Reitzel, L. R., Costello, T. J., Cofta-Woerpel,

Goldthorpe, J. (in collaboration with C. Llewellyn & C. Payne). (1980). Social

Lazzarato, M. (2013). Governing by Debt. London: MIT Press.

Ostrove, J. M., & Cole, E. R. (2003). Privileging class: Towards a critical

Social Class and the ‘Psy’ Disciplines:

class differences in our relationships, work and leisure, intelligence,

social/cultural aspects of life outcomes, shores up the notion of a middle-

Inherent Deficiencies: Essentialising Social

A first theme from this body of research is around the notion of a

In Toscana rimase abolita la Costituzione e occupato per sei anni il

Il ducato di Modena continuò nelle tradizioni patriarcali, in mano d’un

Il ducato di Parma, che avea patteggiato coll’Austria alleanza

Da principio i Francesi restarono arbitri di Roma, e i soldati faceano

È da compiangere il re di Napoli d’avere dovuto colla forza e coi

You might also like