In this post, I will be discussing the differences in political engagement between various social class groups, with focus on voter turnout over the past three years. This subject is significant in importance as the unequal levels of voting questions the legitimacy of “democracy” and understanding why there is such a difference will ensure that all class voices and interests are fairly represented. I will be discussing possible explanations behind the current differences as well as providing solutions that could possibly help to close the current gap.
Firstly, it is important for us to establish what is meant by the term social class. It is a form of social stratification that refers to groups of people that have similar status, commonly sharing comparable levels of power and wealth (Chegg Study). Over the years, the past decade especially, our understanding of what social class is and its indicators have become more complex. The BBC (2013) suggested that the traditional categories of working, middle and upper class are outdated; in addition to this, many writers have argued that factors such as educational attainment, housing conditions and forms of leisure participation becoming more significant (e.g. Bennett et al., 2008; Dorling, 2011). If we look at the table below (Fig.1), we can see that there are now six ‘social grades’ that people fit into, each with their own unique characteristics (Ipsos MORI, 2009).
There has been plenty of evidence to suggest that those within the social grades C2 and DE are less likely to vote that those in grades AB and C1 (Ipsos MORI, 2017) and the graph below highlights this. It shows that the higher your social grade, the more likely you were to vote in the 2017 general election than those in the lower social grades, with a 17% difference between the highest grade (AB) and the lowest (DE) (Ipsos MORI, 2017)
The evidence of voting disparity is clear to see, so the question that needs to be asked is: Why does social class have such a bearing on whether someone participates in voting? One of the dominant arguments of political participation differences argued, is that people who belong to the C2 and DE social grades have by Verba, Scholzman and Brady (1995 quite simply don’t want to participate in the voting process as many believe that their votes will not make a difference. They also argued that people from these social grades lack the necessary knowledge/education about the system due to unequal access to learning about politics and the processes around it (Andrews and Mycock, 2007) all of which are probable causes of such an apathetic outlook on voting from these social grades.
According to Laurison (2016), those belonging to lower social grades tend to have lower academic attainment levels compared to those in the AB and C1 social grades. This echoed the work of Verba et al (2003) who conducted a piece of research looking into the relationship between people’s political activity and their reports on the political environment of their home when they were growing up. They found that those who grew up in a more politically active household were: A) more likely to be of a higher educational level and B) more likely to be politically engaged in the political sphere than those who reported lower levels of political activity in the household growing up.
In addition to these ideas, many have argued that the education system inadvertently was another cause of the unequal levels of political participation. Although in England we have compulsory political learning in the form of citizenship education, Andrews and Mycock (2007) argued that due to the ambiguity and ad hoc nature regarding the implementation of citizenship education in schools many students are unable to get access to this learning opportunity – many of these affected students are likely to be those from lower social grades (Laurison, 2016)
Now that we understand some of the reasons behind voting disparities amongst social grades, we can now ask the question of how we can encourage more people from grades C1 and DE to engage politically. One of the most important factors in political engagement is education; Hoskins et al (2017) suggest that compulsory citizenship education could be targeted at disadvantaged students, similar to the way in which vocational education and training’s policies aim to support young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds.
Social class remains a major barrier in the lives of British people and political engagement seems to be something highly affected in a way that isn’t being seen in many other democratic nations (Hoskins et al, 2017). People from the social grades C2 and DE are being marginalised and there needs to be more emphasis in trying to engage them through education or political campaigns to ensure everyone’s voice in society is heard; without this, we will always be questioning the legitimacy of British democracy.
Reference list:
Bennett T, Savage M, Silva EB, Warde A, Gayo-Cal M and Wright D (2008) Culture, Class, Distinction. London: Routledge
Dorling, D (2011) Inequality. Cambridge: Polity Press
Hoskins, B., Janmaat, J.G. and Villalba, E., (2012). Learning citizenship through social participation outside and inside school: an international, multilevel study of young people’s learning of citizenship. British educational research journal, 38(3), pp.419-446. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X16304458?via%3Dihub#bib51 Accessed: 3rd March 2018
Ipsos MORI. (2009). Social Grade: A Classification Tool. Available at: https://www.ipsos-mori.com/DownloadPublication/1285_MediaCT_thoughtpiece_Social_Grade_July09_V3_WEB.pdf. Accessed: 3rd March 2018
Ipsos MORI. (2017 ). How Britain Voted in 2017 election. Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2017-election. Accessed: 3rd March 2018
Laurison, D. (2015). The Willingness to State an Opinion: Inequality, Don’t Know Responses, and Political Participation. Sociological Forum. 30 (4), 925-949. Available: https://capitadiscovery.co.uk/roehampton/items/eds/aph/111472108?query=class+inequalities+in+political+engagement&resultsUri=items%3Fquery%3Dclass%2Binequalities%2Bin%2Bpolitical%2Bengagement%26target%3Deds%26facet%255B0%255D%3Dfulltext%253Ayes&facet%5B0%5D=fulltext%3Ayes&target=eds. Last accessed 3rd March 2018.
Laurison, D. (2016). Social Class and Political Engagement in the United States. Sociology Compass. 10 (8), 684-69. Available from: https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=e66ce2dd-abd7-4bb7-883a-80980648f7d0%40sessionmgr120&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLGF0aGVucyZzaXRlPWVkcy1saXZl#db=edswss&AN=000380899700004 Accessed: 3rd March 2018
Andrews, A. Mycock (2007) Citizenship education in the UK: divergence within a multi-national state. Citizenship Teaching and Learning, 3 (1): 73-88. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/67b6/73e20fe7a007cf01a084f6ffd4756f8cc9ea.pdf?_ga=2.73438295.497629499.1520372513-242889953.1520372513 Accessed: 3rd March 2018
Verba, S. Scholzman, K.L. Brady, H.E. (1996) Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. London: Harvard University Press