[Zurück]

G. Hanappi, E. Hanappi-Egger:
"Middle Class or in the middle of a Class?";
Vortrag: Joint Conference AHE/IIPPE, FAPE, Paris; 05.07.2012 - 08.07.2012; in: "Paris AHE Conference Proceedings", (2012), S. *?.

The widely held claim that a so-called middle class is the most representative group in the US as well as in most EU societies has to be challenged. In particular it is crucial to develop a deeper theoretical understanding of the characteristics, which distinguish workers from members of a presumed new middle class.
Therefore, this paper will offer a proposal for operationalizing the concept of middle class in terms of status in the work process, income, education, and consumption behaviour; the latter will be related to the work of Thorstein Veblen. An adequate treatment of the political construction of the middle class idea necessitates also pointing to the important distinction between actual class status according the role in (global) production and consciousness of an individual agent of this role. This allows integrating a fuller picture of the historically grown social structures and social hierarchies.