Social Mobility

Question 1

Social Mobility - Primary Literature

Tony Harrison, V

Answer 1

• Backdrop of the Miners’ Strike, the Troubles in Ireland, conflict in the Gulf and a second term for Thatcher.
• Tony Harrison, by this point, recognised as (Peter Firchow would later on review of V describe Harrison as “working-class plus Ancient Greek”)
• The 1987 broadcast of ’V’ on Channel 4 received a wave of criticism, the Daily Mail branded the piece a “torrent of filth” in which “the crudest, most offensive word is used 17 times”. The Observer stated it “was the most sexually explicit language ever heard on television” and a Conservative MP (Sir Gerald Howarth) attempted to ban the broadcast. The criticism was mainly driven by concern that Harrison’s work legitimised the fact that profanities were increasingly common currency.
• More distanced opinion has been positive – Bernard Levin – “”one of the most powerful, profound and haunting long poems of modern times … a meticulously controlled yell of rage and hope combined, a poisoned dart aimed with deadly precision at the waste of human potential.”
• Growing emphasis on North/South divide – industrial north was increasingly falling behind the economic potential of the South (especially with the forthcoming Big Bang), hence the metaphor “catching the London train” which acted as a byword for attaining success and fulfilling ambitions, which was no longer the case for Leeds.

Question 2

Social Mobility - Primary Literature

Jackson and Marsden, 1962

Answer 2

• Jackson - Cambridge English student, under Leavis
• Marsden - NatSci
• Book had significant influence on the campaign for comprehensive schools.
• Named as key source for the later book, the ‘History Boys’
• Focused on Huddersfield, where Marsden grew up.
• Marsden was influenced by Hoggart
• Pioneered qualitative research (arguably something missing from Goldthorpe/Nuffield’s study of social mobility)
• ‘Discursive interview process’, typically quite intense, upon grammar school students from Huddersfield
• Mention the lag of experience between 1962 and pre-1944 - when they went to school.
• “It was hugely important in its day and a bestseller that sold over 100,000 copies during the 1960s.
• “It had a massive impact on wider debates about comprehensive education and the grammar school system.

Question 3

Social Mobility - Primary Literature

Seabrook, 1971

Answer 3

Provenance

Author and journalist specialising in social, environmental and development issues.

Begun as a contributor to New Society in 1963 – a journal dedicated to analysing the changes in British society which began after World War Two and which were in effect completed by the Thatcher era. Additionally, New Statesman, The Guardian, The Times and The Independent.

City Close Up

Tape recorded, summer 1969.

500 recordings; 200 individuals

Originally to have no author input, but felt was not neutral anyway.

Source Legacy

Dennis Marsden -> Book fails because of the author’s particular view of the working class and because of a sort of Whorfian preoccupation he seems to have with the way thought may become petrified in out-of-date language

Reminds Marsden of the optimist and the pessimist looking at the glass of water. Hoggart says, ‘Look, in spite of everything, how full their lives are’; Seabrook despairs, ‘Look, how empty’.

Quotes: “Received phrases (“If it were for the migrants the Health Service would collapse”) were formative of popular opinion. Phraseology as all encapsulating”

“Immigrants served vital function to plug the gap left by indigenous population who had greater aspirations to do things other than undesirable jobs”

“If we do come to sell our property we’re offered a quarter of what it’s worth by view of the fact that it’s coloured people, that there no one else to come into them”

“I’ve only ever seen one Indian or Pakistan with a handkerchief. I’ve watched them low their nose between their thumb and their finger on the pavement, regularly.”

“Now this business about colour is all wrong. I had some Italians live next door to me, and nicer people you couldn’t wish to meet. If they came here and behaved themselves, nobody would bother a dicky bird. They make me sick when they say it’s on the grounds of colour. It’s not the colour at all”

Question 4

Social Mobility - Secondary Literature

Summarise the findings of Emily Robinson, Camilla Schofield, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, Nathalie Thomlinson - Telling Stories about Post-War Britain: Popular Individualism and the ‘Crisis’ of the 1970s

Answer 4

• People were individualistic before Thatcher. 1970s offered a marketplace of ideas through which aspirational individualism took seed. Agents like Goldthorpe, Addison have compounded the role of the post-war settlement which has obfuscated studies. Re-racialisation of Britain was a break in the post-war settlement.

Question 5

Social Mobility - Secondary Literature

Summarise the findings of Sam Friedman - The Price of the Ticket

Answer 5

• Suggests Goldthorpe and Nuffield studies on class have had a distorting effect on literature. Focused on objective rates of mobility which marginalise cultural and experiential matters which arguably have a greater impact on identity formation. Suggests subsequent models have been built in the image of Goldthorpe and require an overhaul.

Question 6

Social Mobility - Secondary Literature

Summarise the findings of Mike Savage et al. - Ordinary, Ambivalent and Defensive: Class Identities in North West England

Answer 6

• 1990s saw conflict on the existence of class. With Pahl contesting Goldthorpe on inapplicability and residual respectively. Savage suggested a modified class.
• Looking towards sociological data, evident that people tended to use class with ambivalence, but still as important in crafting identity. People preferred to see themselves as ordinary individuals, whereas class was ‘out there’. Desire to not appear snobbish was a strong factor. Self-identification therefore has fallen; but class is still important as a device.