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When the Coalition Government came to power in 2010 it claimed it would deliver not just austerity, as necessary as that apparently was, but also fairness. This volume subjects this pledge to critical interrogation by exposing the interests behind the policy programme pursued and its damaging exacerbation of class inequalities. Situated within a recognition of the longer-term rise of neoliberal politics, reflections on the status of sociology as a source of critique and current debates over the relationship between the cultural and economic dimensions of social class, the contributors cover an impressively wide range of relevant topics, from education, family policy and community to crime and consumption, shedding new light on the experience of class domination in the early 21st Century.
List of Figures and Tables vii
List of Contributors viii
1 Introduction: A Critical Sociology of the Age of Austerity Will Atkinson Steven Roberts Mike Savage 1
2 Economic Crisis and Classed Everyday Life: Hysteresis, Positional Suffering and Symbolic Violence Will Atkinson 13
3 'We never get a fair chance': Working-Class Experiences of Education in the Twenty-First Century Diane Reay 33
4 Banking on the Future: Choices, Aspirations and Economic Hardship in Working-Class Student Experience Harriet Bradley Nicola Ingram 51
5 'Aspirations' and Imagined Futures: The Im/possibilities for Britain's Young Working Class Steven Roberts Sarah Evans 70
6 Personalising Poverty: Parental Determinism and the Big Society Agenda Val Gillies 90
7 The Urban Outcasts of the British City Matt Clement 111
8 The Stigmatised and De-valued Working Class: The State of a Council Estate Lisa McKenzie 128
9 Broken Communities? Mike Savage 145
10 Facing the Challenge of the Return of the Rich Andrew Sayer 163
11 Conclusion: Three Challenges to the Exportation of Sociological Knowledge Will Atkinson Steven Roberts Mike Savage 180
Select Bibliography 188
Index 193
Overview
When the Coalition Government came to power in 2010 it claimed it would deliver not just austerity, as necessary as that apparently was, but also fairness. This volume subjects this pledge to critical interrogation by exposing the interests behind the policy programme pursued and its damaging exacerbation of class inequalities. Situated within a recognition of the longer-term rise of neoliberal politics, reflections on the status of sociology as a source of critique and current debates over the relationship ...