How does culture articulate, frame, organise and produce stories about social class and class difference? What do these stories tell us about contemporary models of success, failure, struggle and aspiration? How have class-based labels been revived or newly-minted to categorise the insiders and outsiders of the new 'age of austerity'? Drawing on examples from the 1980s to the present day this book investigates the changing landscape of class and reveals how it has become populated by a host of classed figures including Essex Man and Essex Girl, the 'squeezed middle', the 'sharp-elbowed middle class', the 'feral underclass', the 'white working class', the 'undeserving poor', 'selfish baby boomers' and others. Overall, the book argues that social class, although complicated and highly contested, remains a valid and fruitful route into understanding how contemporary British culture articulates social distinction and social difference and the significant costs and investments at stake for all involved.
PART I: INTRODUCTION: BEGINNING THE WORK OF CLASS AND CULTURE
1. Class-work: Social Change and Class Critique after the 1980s
2. Class-work after 'the Death of Class'
3. Class and Contemporary British Culture: Outline
PART II: ESSEX: CLASS, ASPIRATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY
1. Essex, Conservatism and 'the New Sociology of Aspirations'
2. The Discovery of Essex Man
3. I've got loadsamoney!
4. Class, Taste and the Essex Girl
PART III: THE REVOLTING 'UNDERCLASS': 'YOU KNOW THEM WHEN YOU SEE THEM'
1. The 2011 English Riots and the 'Feral Underclass'
2. The 1980s: 'The Underclass, so Long Prophesied, is Now Emerging'
3. The 1990s: from the 'Underclass' to the Socially Excluded
4. The 'Underclass' Returns: Lifestyle, Consumerism, Precariousness
PART IV: TOP OF THE CLASS: EDUCATION, CAPITAL AND CHOICE
1. Inspiring the Uninspired
2. Sharp Elbows and the Competition for Resources
3. The Choice-directive or Choosing to Choose
4. The Parent-citizen and the Deployment of Capital
5. More Dream Schools
6. Poor Choices
PART V: THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY: CELEBRITY LIFE STORIES OF UPWARD SOCIAL MOBILITY
1. Celebrity Biography: Production and Consumption
2. Celebrities Working to Keep it Real
3. I Dreamed a Dream: Celebrity Origins
4. 'How did I get here from there?': Celebrity Endings
PART VI: THE UPPER CLASSES: VISIBILITY, ADAPTABILITY AND CHANGE
1. The Business of Aristocracy
2. The Royal Family at Work
3. Upper Class Life-stylists: the Knowledge, the Gift and the Rules
PART VII: 'ARE YOU THINKING WHAT WE'RE THINKING?' : CLASS, IMMIGRATION AND BELONGING
1. Borders, Belonging and 'Saloon bar' Britons
2. Hylton-Potts and the Cabbies' Manifesto
3. The 'Good Woman' from Rochdale
4. All White in Barking
PART VIII: AUSTERITY BRITAIN: BACK TO THE FUTURE
1. In Times of Strife: the Myth of the 1970s Now
2. The Embattled Citizen: Keeping Calm and Carrying On
3. Past Times, Present Politics
4. 'The isle is full of noises': History Answers Back
Afterword: 'We are all in this together'
