ABSTRACT
The data so far presented have described the family, its life in the home, its material culture, its house and its location, and emphasises the relationship between these variables and social status. This chapter will attempt to define social status and will offer a tool for discriminating between the status of different families. One of the aims of the research has been to produce a measure with the following characteristics:
It will express in numerical terms those differences between families by which they regulate and discriminate in their social relationships. This will make possible a classification of social groups which corresponds to their behaviour in real life and is not simply a statistical construct. 1
It will be a measure which will give the same results in the hands of different observers and will be independent of time, season and place in England.
It will be simple to administer and to analyse, and require no special experience, training or equipment for its use.
It will be applicable in the normal course of social investigation and make no exceptional demands upon the subject or the field worker.
