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In my last blog, I’ve told you all about the inequalities between ages and political engagement, and even though it’s currently seen as the most dividing factor in politics…There is more!  In today’s blog, I have the pleasure of exploring some inequalities between socio-economic status and political engagement!

So, in the context of this blog, by socio-economic status (SES), I basically mean social class, and the rank you are on the social class hierarchy which as you can see is defined by different occupations (NRS, 2016).

Figure 1: – Social class defined by different types of occupation and percentage of the population belonging to each occupation (NRS, 2016).

We now know what social class is. I can now tell you how depending on whether you’re from working class or middle class, we can have completely different experiences with politics, which can then obviously have an effect on our political engagement!

Evans and Tilley said that working class people once formed the heart of class structure, but now they lack political representation (Evans & Tilly, 2017). But, is it true that working classes are still underrepresented in politics? Well, looking at figure 2 below, we can see all the social classes who voted in the 2017 general election, and we can also see which parties they have voted for (YouGov, 2017) We can clearly see that the conservatives and labour are still two of the leading parties BUT, it has been argued that traditional class-party loyalties have been challenged (Holder, et al., 2017).

 

Figure 2: – Vote turnout in the 2017 general election, based on socio-economic grade (YouGov, 2017)

But how have they been challenged, you ask? Well, as we can see from Figure 2, Labour increased its vote share by 12 points amongst group ABC1s, which could be put down to the fact that they have not only appealed the younger generations but also addressed relevant issues such as inequalities within the society and living standards, which is clearly something that the middle classes are worried about. However, the Conservatives also increased their vote by 12 points amongst groups C2DEs, and again, they’ve addressed lower income voters during the Brexit campaigns, promising more money for the NHS and the education sector, which again, is something the working class wants (Ipsos, Mori, 2017). But, both parties achieved their best scores amongst these groups since the general election in 1979. So maybe, our social status doesn’t really matter much anymore when it comes to voting?

Yet, consistently, and getting worse is the fact that those who are unemployed or in lower skilled jobs (especially young people) are less likely to engage politically than the middle classes are. To have some understanding of why that is the case, I’ve looked at two institutions which play a key role in socialising us into the society.

Family. With each generation, each family passes down certain traditions and knowledge to the younger generation. Those families who aren’t as wealthy, with a low social status and lack of political engagement pass their attitudes to the younger generations. The same thing happens to those from wealthier families. But they also have the advantage of not only passing on their political knowledge but also powerful connections they may have to give their children a hand in life. This might be why young people from disadvantaged backgrounds may feel alienated and distrustful of politicians, because most of them got to the position of power through those powerful connections, which the working class might not have access to (Beeghley, 1986). I think the cartoon below describes these inequalities perfectly, so I’ll just leave it with you to reflect on.

School. In every society people are ‘informally’ (family + friends) and ‘formally’ (school) educated (Buford, 1999). Working class children, from schools with lower social status, haven’t got the access to the useful resources we can see in private schools, from school councils to class debates and mock elections. This is sadly a real issue. Disadvantaged pupils receive fewer political learning opportunities, meaning they often end up missing out on their voice being heard, by not going to vote, as they simply don’t know how important their input is. But this also means that it benefits the middle class more, with their connections and knowledge they’re more likely to get those politician jobs and go and vote, as they have been encouraged to do it from a young age. And it all does seem to be true, politics “[…] continue to be dominated by privately educated Oxbridge graduates” (BBC, 2016). All I know, is that I went to a state school and politics have not been mentioned once, until I was in college and I had to learn about politics for my subject of modern politics. And I do think if that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t engage with politics, as much as I do today.

The divide between the different classes when it comes to voting, seems to be disappearing. But, there are still inequalities within schools, which do have an effect on young people’s political engagement. So, what could the solution be to these issues? Well, open classroom climate and political activities in schools are effective for enhancing political engagement, so maybe, including political education to the national curriculum could be a start in the right direction?

 

 

Bibliography

Beeghley, L., 1986. Social class and political participation: A review and an explanation. Sociological Forum, 1(3), pp. 496 – 513.

Buford, T., 1999. Primary Institutions. The Personalist Forum, 15(2), pp. 205-214.

Evans, G. & Tilley, J., 2017. The New Politics of Class: The Political Exclusion of the British Working Class. Oxford: OUP Oxford.

Holder, J., Barr, C. & Kommenda, N., 2017. Young voters, class and turnout: how Britain voted in 2017. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/datablog/ng-interactive/2017/jun/20/young-voters-class-and-turnout-how-britain-voted-in-2017
[Accessed 03 03 2019].

Ipsos, M., 2017. How Britain voted in the 2017 general election. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2017-election
[Accessed 03 03 2019].

News, B., 2016. Privately educated ‘still dominate professions’. [Online]
Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35641061
[Accessed 03 03 2019].

Survey, N. R., 2016. NRS. [Online]
Available at: http://www.nrs.co.uk/nrs-print/lifestyle-and-classification-data/social-grade/
[Accessed 27 02 2019].

YouGov, 2017. How Britain Voted at the 2017 general election. [Online]
Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election
[Accessed 02 03 2019].

Cartoon – https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/31243791136000858/?autologin=true