The social scientific analysis of social class is attracting renewed interest given the accentuation of economic and social inequalities throughout the world. The most widely validated measure of social class, the Nuffield class schema, developed in the 1970s, was codified in the UK’s National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC) and places people in one of seven main classes according to their occupation and employment status. This principally distinguishes between people working in routine or semi-routine occupations employed on a ‘labour contract’ on the one hand, and those working in professional or managerial occupations employed on a ‘service contract’ on the other. However, this occupationally based class schema does not effectively capture the role of social and cultural processes in generating class divisions. We analyse the largest survey of social class ever conducted in the UK, the BBC’s 2011 Great British Class Survey, with 161,400 web respondents, as well as a nationally representative sample survey, which includes unusually detailed questions asked on social, cultural and economic capital. Using latent class analysis on these variables, we derive seven classes. We demonstrate the existence of an ‘elite’, whose wealth separates them from an established middle class, as well as a class of technical experts and a class of ‘new affluent’ workers. We also show that at the lower levels of the class structure, alongside an ageing traditional working class, there is a ‘precariat’ characterised by very low levels of capital, and a group of emergent service workers. We think that this new seven class model recognises both social polarisation in British society and class fragmentation in its middle layers, and will attract enormous interest from a wide social scientific community in offering an up-to-date multi-dimensional model of social class.

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A new model of social class : findings from the BBC's Great British Class Survey Experiment.

Inclusion: The Politics of Difference in Medical Research

https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/231797/9F2E9B43-193C-49D4-B73B-441B331F2BD3.pdf

Welfare state regimes and differences in self-perceived health in Europe: a multilevel analysis.

Decomposing ‘Social Origins’: The Effects of Parents’ Class, Status, and Education on the Educational Attainment of Their Children

The crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus has far-reaching effects in the field of education, as schools were closed in March 2020 in many countries around the world. In this article, we present and discuss the School Barometer, a fast survey (in terms of reaction time, time to answer and dissemination time) that was conducted in Germany, Austria and Switzerland during the early weeks of the school lockdown to assess and evaluate the current school situation caused by COVID-19. Later, the School Barometer was extended to an international survey, and some countries conducted the survey in their own languages. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, 7116 persons participated in the German language version: 2222 parents, 2152 students, 1949 school staff, 655 school leaders, 58 school authority and 80 members of the school support system. The aim was to gather, analyse and present data in an exploratory way to inform policy, practice and further research. In this article, we present some exemplary first results and possible implications for policy, practice and research. Furthermore, we reflect on the strengths and limitations of the School Barometer and fast surveys as well as the methodological options for data collection and analysis when using a short monitoring survey approach. Specifically, we discuss the methodological challenges associated with survey data of this kind, including challenges related to hypothesis testing, the testing of causal effects and approaches to ensure reliability and validity. By doing this, we reflect on issues of assessment, evaluation and accountability in times of crisis.

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COVID-19 and schooling: evaluation, assessment and accountability in times of crises-reacting quickly to explore key issues for policy, practice and research with the school barometer.

As a result of an initiative by the European Statistical Office as part of its Statistical Harmonisation Programme, a prototype of a common European Socio-economic Classification (ESeC) has been created. ESeC is a categorical social class schema based on the concept of employment relations. The paper explains the conceptual basis of ESeC, describes the categories of the classification and how they may be collapsed for analytic purposes, as well as indicating how it is operationalised. The operational variants of ESeC, depending on the data available for its construction, are also discussed. In the second part of the paper some key findings of comparative analyses which use ESeC to examine issues relating to unemployment, education, poverty, deprivation and health across the EU are summarised. These analyses demonstrate the potential of ESeC as a major advance for an improved understanding of the patterns of European social inequalities. As such, this new classification should be of vital importan...

The european socio-economic classification: a new social class schema for comparative european research

Part 1: Introducing the ESeC 1. The European Socio-economic Classification: A Prolegomenon, David Rose, Eric Harrison and David Pevalin 2. From Derivation to Validation: Evidence from the UK and beyond, David Rose and Eric Harrison 3. The Application of ESeC to Three Sources of Comparative European Data, Rhys Davis and Peter Elias Part 2: Measuring Social Class 4. Social Class and Employment Relations: Comparisons between the ESeC and EGP Class Schemas using European Data, Eric Bihagen, Magnus Nermo and Robert Erikson 5. Measuring Social Class: The case of Germany Heike Worth, Cornelia Gresch, Walter Muller, Reinhard Pollak and Felix Weiss 6. The Comparative Measurement of Supervisory Status, Reinhard Pollak, Gerrit Bauer, Walter Muller, Felix Weiss and Heike Wirth 7. Stable and Consistent with the Employment Relations' Theoretical Background? Does the Prototype ESeC show these qualities with French Data? Cecile Brousse, Oliver Monso and Loup Wolff Part 3: Using ESeC in Comparative Research on Social Class 8. The Effectiveness of ESeC and EGP in Clustering Occupations: A Study of Occupational Wage growth in Sweden, Eric Bihagen and Magnus Nermo 9. Class and Poverty: Cross-sectional and Dynamic Analysis of Income Poverty and Lifestyle Deprivation, Dorothy Watson, Christopher T. Whelan and Bertrand Maitre 10. Using the ESeC to Describe Socio-economic Inequalities in Health in Europe, Anton E Kunst and Albert-Jan Roskam 11. Unemployment Risks in Four EU Countries: A validation study of the ESeC, Mario Lucchini and Antonio Schizzerotto 12. Class of Origin and Educational Inequalities in Contemporary Italy: A Validation Analysis of the ESeC, Carlo Barone, Antonio Schizzerotto and Roberta Barone Part 4: Conclusions 13. ESeC in Retrospect and Prospect: An Epilogue, David Rose and Eric Harrison

Social Class in Europe : An introduction to the European Socio-economic Classification

Objectives . The paper investigates differences in engagement with medical research between White British and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups in the UK, using data from the Wellcome Trust Monitor (WTM).Design. The study used two waves of the WTM (n = 2575) to examine associations between ethnic group and participation in medical research, and willingness to participate (WP) in medical research. Logistic regression models controlled for socio-economic and demographic factors, and relevant outlooks and experiences that are assumed to be markers of engagement.Results. Respondents from the BAME group were less likely to have participated in medical research compared to those from the White British group, but there was only patchy evidence of small ethnic group differences in WP. Influences on engagement with medical research varied somewhat between the White British and BAME groups, in particular in relation to occupation, education, health, attitudes to medical science and belief.Concl...

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The under-representation of minority ethnic groups in UK medical research

In 1999, as part of its Statistical Harmonization Programme, Eurostat (the
Statistical Office of the European Com munities) commissioned an Expert
Group to make recommendations for the development of a new statistical
tool for understanding differences in social structures and socio-economic
inequalities across the European Union (EU) In its subsequent report to
Eurostat (Rose et al 2001) the group recommended the development of a
common socio-economic classification for all EU Member States based on
the concept of employment relations (see below) and outlined a work
programme to achieve this objective

The European Socio-economic Classification: a prolegomenon

No two surveys are ever exactly the same (even when they are intended to be) They vary along so many dimensions (the identity and location of the target group, the way the data is gathered, the type of information sought, how frequently it is done and by whom) that it is not a simple task to classify them This chapter offers an overarching definition of what a survey is, and moves on to differentiate surveys according to seven criteria: (a) the type of target population and the way it is sampled; (b) the topic of interest; (c) the sponsor and agency respectively funding and executing the survey; (d) the mode through which the survey is administered; (e) how frequently the respondents are surveyed; (f) the geographical scale and scope of the survey and (g) the reason why, and purpose for which, the data is being collected

Eric Harrison

Papers

The european socio-economic classification: a new social class schema for comparative european research

Social Class in Europe : An introduction to the European Socio-economic Classification

The under-representation of minority ethnic groups in UK medical research

The European Socio-economic Classification: a prolegomenon

Classification of Surveys