ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the meaning of class in contemporary societies. It begins by defending the class concept against claims that recent social change has led to the ‘death’ of class. Debates on the meaning and relevance of class analysis are then discussed, together with the conceptual basis of class and its relationship with the foundational theories of Karl Marx and Max Weber, both of whom are critical to an understanding of debates concerning class and education. Marxist class theory underpins many of the concepts used to understand the production and reproduction of educational disadvantage as well as influencing more or less directly the work of authors such as Louis Althusser, Basil Bernstein and Paul Willis. Weber’s theory of class has been taken in two quite different directions in contemporary research, both of which have an important bearing on educational inequality. Its emphasis on market relations in employment provides a basis for the influential classification schemes developed by John Goldthorpe and his colleagues, whilst Pierre Bourdieu describes the development of his distinctive approach to class as based on a rethinking of Weber’s opposition between class and Stand [status group]. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ‘measurement’ of social class.
