Upper Middle Class Social Reproduction

Wealth, Schooling, and Residential Choice in Chile

María Luisa Méndez, Modesto Gayo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319896946
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319896953
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: International Business
• Index: Social Sciences

In the contemporary context of increasing inequality and various forms of segregation, this volume analyzes the transition to neoliberal politics in Santiago de Chile. Using an innovative methodological approach that combines georeferenced data and multi-stage cluster analysis, Méndez and Gayo study the old and new mechanisms of social reproduction among the upper middle class. In so doing, they not only capture the interconnections between macro- and microsocial dimensions such as urban dynamics, schooling demands, cultural repertoires and socio-spatial trajectories, but also offer a detailed account of elite formation, intergenerational accumulation, and economic, cultural, and social inheritance dynamics.

© The Author(s) 2019

María Luisa Méndez and Modesto GayoUpper Middle Class Social Reproductionhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89695-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

María Luisa Méndez¹ and Modesto Gayo¹

(1)

Diego Portales University, Santiago, Chile

Abstract

This chapter presents a detailed account of the literature on class reproduction, particularly for the upper middle class. We also engage in current debates on new forms of accumulation, boundary work between the most privileged groups in society and the rest of the population, processes of reproduction of inequality and their relationship to school and residential choices, and parenting and the development of cultural practices along with particular cultural repertoires, among others. We contend that this class cannot be properly understood without understanding more deeply the ways in which these families articulate, mobilize, and accumulate various resources in the long run and in everyday life.

Keywords

Upper middle classSocial reproductionSocial trajectoriesUpward mobility

End Abstract

This book aims to engage with debates about the social and cultural practices involved in the reproduction of the upper middle classes in contemporary societies (Bacqué et al. 2015; Andreotti et al. 2015; Mau 2015; Chauvel and Hartung 2016; Savage et al. 2015, among others). Recently, it has been argued that social classes are being remade (Savage et al. 2015) due to unprecedented levels of inequality and accumulation of wealth by the top 1% (Piketty 2014). This book enters into dialogue with these arguments by analyzing old and new mechanisms of social reproduction among the upper middle class, that is, those who occupy the “next best” and “next most privileged” positions in the social structure. Given the increasing attention to inequality driven by “to end” dynamics (Nichols and Savage 2017), we contend that this is an important moment of opportunity for renewing analysis of elites, and of the upper middle classes, across the globe. We focus on families and individuals who accumulate considerable resources, capital, and assets, and normally possess high levels of education. Their occupations place them in the higher echelons of the private and public sectors, as managers, professionals, or white-collar workers.

We do not limit upper middle class reproduction to the accumulation of economic resources: our work also considers other key resources, such as education, choice of residence, and social capital. We contend that this class cannot be properly understood without understanding more deeply the ways in which these families articulate, mobilize, and accumulate various resources, in the long run and in everyday life. Although we will refer to the upper middle class indistinctly as a class or as a group, we are aware of the internal heterogeneity and the difficulties of using those sociological concepts. There is no intention to overemphasize any internal coherence, shared values, or lifestyles. On the contrary, we will argue that, while there is a common pattern of social reproduction in terms of schooling and residential choice, there are other key domains in which they display differences and, more specifically, fragmentation. These include trajectories of social and spatial mobility across the lifespan, and political and cultural orientations. Consideration of these dimensions of differences allows us to avoid the difficulties encountered by recent studies of elites, in which internal divisions and conflicts are at complete odds with any notion of internal homogeneity. At the same time, some elements of our findings echo the ideas of Nichols and Savage (2017), when they conceive of elites as constellations, that is, as social positions, which possess an aura—a distinctiveness, that the rest of the population acknowledges. Thus, elites can be at one and the same time agents who share common interests, but who are not necessarily cohesive.

1.1 Middle Class and Upper Middle Class Subjectivity in the Literature

This book is influenced by “cultural class analysis”, which takes issue with many traditional occupational schemas, attempting to offer a more complex perspective on the ways in which class relations are being reconfigured in regard to levels of production, cultural practices, sense of place, and so on. This approach, notably influenced by Bourdieu’s work, helps in illuminating how processes of reproduction of inequality and cultural differentiation are intertwined in everyday life. Bourdieu’s concept of social space also appears as a nuanced understanding of social class. Bourdieu’s work, taken together with the reframing of the question of class identity, provides key new points of reference to amplify the spectrum of class subjectivities that are involved in symbolic violence. Bourdieu’s perspective is also useful in accounting for the heterogeneity of the middle classes, which is a segment of society that has grown in size and diversity over the past two decades, with varied social trajectories. Cultural class analysis also provides us with the best available lens for examining processes of economic, spatial, and cultural distancing of the wealthiest groups in Chile from the rest. This distinction dynamic is specifically Bourdieusian (Savage et al. 1992; Butler 2001; Skeggs 2004; Ruppert 2006), in the sense that internally the dominant group has different expectations and attitudes; in other words, there is a schism within it. The resultant divide portrait by the Bourdieusian tradition gives rise to a struggle between those members with the highest level of economic capital and those who have mainly accumulated cultural capital. However, our study will show rather differently that those in the highest positions have accumulated various kinds of capital, thus they also possess a high level of cultural capital.

The literature on social reproduction of the upper middle classes reveals two main lines of argument, underpinning a range of perspectives that have been offered in the field since the 1980s. One strand divides positions according to the degree of agency attributed to individuals in the reproduction of their class position. Do the upper middle classes only need to reproduce their predilections in order to prevail? In other words, is the power of class dispositions sufficient to secure a similar social position between parents and their kin? This line of thought has been notably influenced by Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, and more broadly by his work on the dynamics of reproduction and distinction.

According to Kaufman (2005), however, the assertion of an apparent lack of agency comes about because it is assumed that the habitus of upper middle class students is attuned with that of academics and teachers at school, which would give them an advantage in relation to their peers who come from different backgrounds. For this reason, upper middle class students and families would not have to act otherwise, in the sense that there is a rather stable coherence between their habitus and the field (most notably, the educational field).

An alternative perspective on the same question of agency would place emphasis on the active conditions under which upper middle class individuals reproduce their position through negotiation and rejection (Kaufman 2005) or the activation of capital (Lareau 2011; Weis 2008). Studies which take this line tend to also consider other dimensions of the reproduction of class position. Thus, for example, they pay attention to formative practices in the home and neighborhood alongside those occurring in the formal educational setting. Most of these studies have treated reproduction as a dynamic involving differentiation from less privileged groups (Savage et al. 1992; Butler 2001; Skeggs 2004; Ruppert 2006; Reay et al. 2011a, b, c, to name a few). In this book, we claim that the contemporary upper middle classes are compelled to combine reflexively inherited dispositions, derived from habitus, with an active agency which is capable of diversifying its strategies and practices.

Authors writing in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Ehrenreich (1989) and Newman (1993), emphasized the obstacles and internalized fears that the upper middle classes per se confront (“fear of falling”, “declining fortunes”, or the “age of anxiety”). These authors stressed the fact that a “virtuous circle” of reproduction of privilege is not the rule, nor necessarily perhaps the norm. In her 1989 book Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, Barbara Ehrenreich shows that the fears, anxieties, and insecurities of the US middle class have historically been centered on two phenomena. One is the fear of social descent to a working class position. The other, almost the polar opposite, is the fear of “losing discipline” and becoming a slave to consumerism, idleness, and compromise. Ehrenreich’s work shows how, historically, the upper middle class has needed to establish symbolic boundaries in order to distinguish itself from its social inferiors. It also demonstrates how this behavior constitutes a risk, inasmuch as it proceeds from a particular vulnerability: in order to construct difference, the upper middle class must reproduce or place under negotiation its own class position and unequal (higher) status with regard to less privileged positions. In the process of constructing self-protective barriers, the upper middle classes may inadvertently have made the process of reproduction of their class position more complex, as well as more economically, socially, and psychologically costly. If so—the argument goes—this is because the cultural capital historically accumulated by the upper middle class is difficult to mobilize ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Social Mobility over Time and in Space: Ascending Residential and Social Trajectories
• 3. Common Ground: On the Centrality of Residential and School Choice
• 4. Frantic Lives and Practices of Socio-Cultural Differentiation
• 5. Neither Conservatives nor Progressives: Fragmentation in the Cultural Repertoires of the Upper Middle Class
• 6. Inheritors, Achievers, and Incomers: Wrapping Up a Multidimensional Approach to Social Reproduction
• Back Matter