ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the images of social structure among the working class and the intelligentsia. It discusses the existence of significant such differences: the preference of the working class for economic egalitarianism and self-management was much stronger than that of the intelligentsia. The chapter explains that both "individual" and "group" factors promote the adoption of a dichotomous class image. The individual factors were conceived in terms of deprivation and the experience of frustration connected with downward mobility. The importance of group factors lies in the "roots" of the individual in a working-class community: a working-class identity, the inheritance of class affiliation from one's father, and a pattern of social interaction contributing to the sense of relative deprivation. The chapter concludes that a dichotomous image of social structure has such consequences as shaping attitudes toward the prevailing social order, and a belief in the desirability of social change.
