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M'lords, ladies, gentlemen and serfs - what class are you? do you care?

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16:26 / 19.08.02

It’s like that Billy Connolly sketch about upper class people in Scotland all having first names that sound like second names. [posh Scottish voice] “Oh Campbell, have you seen Findlay, I thought he was with Fraser”
“IT’S NOT A FUCKING FIRST NAME!!!”
I suppose the signifiers do vary even in different areas of countries like the UK and US. People often raise their eyebrows when you concede to being middle class but coming from somewhere like Manchester or Glasgow, for example.
My own profile is as mixed-up, on the class signifier front, as many in this thread sound. Teacher parents, foreign holidays abroad, went to rough school and most of my friends wouldn’t sound out of place in Trainspotting, although I’ve been described as having a ‘posh Glasgow accent’, which seems funny.

One other signifier that I’ve come across is the tendency for university students from more working class backgrounds to study subjects like science and engineering, rather than the arts. I’m pretty sure this is backed up by profiling of comprehensive vs private school entrants to UK colleges and unis.
Mathematical/problem-solving intelligence is more innate and its nurturing less contingent on an upbringing rich in books and attentive parental chat, so the theory goes. On the other hand, such a background will bring even people who are less naturally bright up to scratch with languages and that kind of thing, to a passable level. This, at least, is a way I’ve heard this phenomenon described, contentious assumptions about the nature of intelligence aside.

18:19 / 19.08.02

I think part of that move into science/engineering courses would be that they will get you a good job, that being what University is for, or at least many parents would see it that way. There's no point in supporting a son or daughter through Uni if they're not going to get a better job than otherwise, is the theory. So an arts course, which leads nowhere obvious, would be less attractive.

18:31 / 19.08.02

The arts/science thing: I would theorise that, whilst actual talent in an arts field isn't dependent on schooling, an expensive school is likely to let you fake it better, and get in. From the arts students that I knew, real ability was very evenly balanced across "class" and background. I know talented architects from privileged and non-privileged backgrounds. But there's a layer on top of people who've had schooling that gives them enough froth to be able to fake their way in, which is harder in, say, physics (you can either do it or you can't, there's little stylistic element).

More a criticism of arts education really.

18:41 / 19.08.02

I instinctively agree with fridge and meme about the class and education divide feeding into the arts and science divide. But I am uneasy about this as I am not sure if my own experience is skewed. The fact that you guys said this first means that there are either some fairly common experiences or misconceptions between us.

19:06 / 19.08.02

I think a lot might depend on how you important you see the stylistic element as being. It's possible that it might honestly be seen as as or more important than content, in which case in intensive schooling would make you better at it, and said people are there justifiably.

However I doubt there will be many people here that agree with that.

From a perspective of interviewers, it would be difficult to differentiate real talent from learned stylistic flair, so more people would enter that particular course from well-trained backgrounds. Similarly from the perspective of A-level markers, usually overworked anyway, which is the other guide to university entrance.

20:26 / 19.08.02

Zocher: Is being online at all any kind of class signifier?

I'd say yes, although less than it used to be. Cellphones used to be, but now they're ubiquitous.

I'm also really wondering - is being "mixed up" over class simply a signifier for the upper middle class? Rich kids in denial?

Saveloy: right on with the status vs. class thing. I'm not even sure what "class" means anymore. You can buy titles, buy real estate, hire day laborers now a days, and still not speak any foreign languages or know the difference between a fish fork and a salad fork. What *is* a class signifier?
Anyone got a list handy?

Haus: Bill, Plums - one of the things, certainly for me, that growing up with a scouse-born/Birmingham educated mother, and Welsh-born/London-raised/Oxbridge Academy educated father in the East Midlands meant that my accent has been pretty much bleached - it takes on certain properties either from those around me or from the expectations of those around me, without really having a "centre". I suspect this may be an increasingly common feature of mobile populations, and possibly another way to erode easy class identifiers.

When I was in grad school, one of my classmates did a video piece on neuralgia, nostalgia and place-less-ness. One of the things he discussed was the unusually (if not uniquely) Floridian ability to be southern and not-southern at the same time. The accent that clicks on and off. I wonder if the dream of accentlessness might be the same as that 60s chestnut about us all having light brown skin in the future....

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