ABSTRACT
Much recent sociology has argued that there has been a radical diminution in the impact of class on other aspects of social behaviour both in the United Kingdom and in the rest of Europe. The basis for such an argument has often been reflection on cultural practice and consumer behaviour. Most forcible has been the frequent assertion of the prevailing wisdom among new cultural intermediaries, such as advertisers and market researchers, that lifestyle has become autonomous from the constraints of class because individual taste has become the primary basis of any sense of group attachment. The most influential riposte to the argument about the decline of class has been the article by Goldthorpe & Marshall (1992). They argued that there was little reliable evidence to support the argument that class has become less determinant of important social outcomes (such as social mobility and voting) in recent decades. They therefore outlined a research programme in class analysis, the “modest programme”, to encourage empirical investigation of the association between occupational class positions and social practice.
