Officially, I'm upper middle according to the British definitions.. despite attempts to stay in education til I retired, which would have made me officially "transient".

You probably should have invited only British responses to the poll, to make the poll effective. The British class system is a bit unique to Britain, being a bit monarchical in hierarchy, and poll votes from people from other countries really will result in faulty results, and at best a poll on which you can base no conclusions at all. Sorry and all that

Quote from SamH :

Officially, I'm upper middle according to the British definitions.. despite attempts to stay in education til I retired, which would have made me officially "transient".

You probably should have invited only British responses to the poll, to make the poll effective. The British class system is a bit unique to Britain, being a bit monarchical in hierarchy, and poll votes from people from other countries really will result in faulty results, and at best a poll on which you can base no conclusions at all. Sorry and all that

I think to be upper middle you need to have not only some wealth, but also education and to be in a certain line of work. (not saying you are not ) But alot class them selves over, say a working class person can think they own a house and have a job, and think there into middle class when they are still very much lower working class! It takes alot more then people think to get into middle class, for example a teacher is just in middle class due to the education they recieve! a doctor is inbertween lower and upper middle class! and they are normally weathy and very intelligent!

Quote from jamesrowe :

I think to be upper middle you need to have not only some wealth, but also education and to be in a certain line of work.

Well, I was strictly keeping my definitions within the official definitions here in the UK, where wealth has absolutely no bearing on the matter at all, and class is determined specifically by education, family linearage and occupation

Many officially upper class people I know are far more poor than I am, financially.. not that I'm well off in the slightest.

Quote from Captain Slow :

basically, at 6th form im looking at social class in my general studies class, and i was curious as to what percentage of people think that they are x class . so please could you answer the poll honestly. no1 will see what you put.

I'm whatever class people percieve me to be. To one person I may be middle class but to another I may be working class.

How is class defined? Is it:

money;
education;
job;
hereditary;
geographic location;
accent;

What else goes to make up class?

Quote from Gentlefoot :

I'm whatever class people percieve me to be. To one person I may be middle class but to another I may be working class.

How is class defined? Is it:

money;
education;
job;
hereditary;

What else goes to make up class?

Good point , is your class what other people percieve you to be or is it what you think you are your self
ps: I'm a lord because BlakjeKaas said so

In the UK, your class is defined officially, and isn't actually what you decide it is, or what other people decide you are. But the question Captain Slow asked was what do people PERCEIVE of their own class

Since I studied British Politics for a bit, I know where I slot in the official definition.. but do I FEEL like I'm that class? Not particularly, much of the time. Depends who I'm talking to, because my perception of my own "social standing" is as much based on where I perceive that I stand amid the people around me

Quote from SamH :

In the UK, your class is defined officially, and isn't actually what you decide it is, or what other people decide you are. But the question Captain Slow asked was what do people PERCEIVE of their own class

Since I studied British Politics for a bit, I know where I slot in the official definition.. but do I FEEL like I'm that class? Not particularly, much of the time. Depends who I'm talking to, because my perception of my own "social standing" is as much based on where I perceive that I stand amid the people around me

Please tell me what these official definitions of class are then Sam. Never come across such a thing and as my work exposes me to Life insurance actuarial and underwriting practices I'm a bit surprised I haven't.

Something like http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/pubs/workpaps/pdf/2001-04.pdf ?

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Please tell me what these official definitions of class are then Sam. Never come across such a thing and as my work exposes me to Life insurance actuarial and underwriting practices I'm a bit surprised I haven't.

I'm very surprised you haven't, although I suspect you've probably encountered it under a different heading. The "list of definitions" is compiled by the Registrar General. You probably use the ABC1 scale, which is in essence the same thing but in all likelihood it's more oriented towards many factors that aren't necessarily related to social standing. I'll keep shopping.

[edit] Good link, NAI! I think that one will bag everything I'm talking about! LOL

[edit 2] and it looks like my classification has been changed since I studied it. Now I'm having an identity crisis!

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

Something like http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/pubs/workpaps/pdf/2001-04.pdf ?

I'm very familier with soceo-economic grouping. This is what we use in the insurance industry as a predicter for mortality.

However, this tells you which soceo-ecomomic group people in different occupations are in i.e. group I, II, III, IV etc. But the original posters question is which class are you in i.e. upper, middle, lower.

The soceo-economic groups make no attempt to map occupational classes to social classes.

I think there is a bit of diverse understanding of the original question, what social class is and what occupational class is.

Now, we in the insurance industry use soceo-geographic factors to predict MORTALITY but not SOCIAL CLASS. We make no attempt to use occupational information to predict a persons class.

This is why my original post asked the question what is class based on. I agree with you and Sam 100% if I make the assumption that social class relates directly to occupation, however I do not make that assumption.

I think from Sam's post, there's no official social classification in the way the original poster means it, then.

Right.. finally, I found some background on the social definitions I was referring to, in specific reference to those definitions laid out in Captain Slow's poll...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art ... ts/2006/09/17/bomain.html

Wherein: "By the time of Peterloo in 1819, the gulf between the middle and working classes had become far wider, and there was a notable reduction in deference. This became even more marked by the time of the Chartist agitation in the 1840s. Also, by then, a subset of the middle class – the lower-middles – was growing, and making the overall definition of the class, and movement in and out of it, more fluid.
The criteria for membership by this stage were quite clear: those who worked using their minds rather than their hands. The professions expanded and were added to: bankers, accountants, lawyers, teachers and, by the 19th century, architects. Also by the 19th century, the middle classes had found other ways of defining themselves. They formed clubs and societies for both intellectual and sporting recreation. They dressed in a fashion distinct from their inferiors, aping their superiors. Above all, they had manners, learnt at the many public schools founded in the 18th and 19th centuries to pass on the upper- and upper-middle-class way."

It's a bit protracted from this clip, but class was about how/who you were, even in the earlier days of the now-former definitions. I guess really, failing memory and old age have set in.. there's a lot to this that I'd forgotten since first learning it. I still remember my lecturer, Graeme Coates though.. his passion for the subject got me really fired up. Best teacher/lecturer I ever had, not least because we had half our lessons in the pub..

Lol, guess the examples I gave only work in the U.S. and Canada, here the classes are much more loosely defined, there are no set classes. I remember from my 12th grade economics class that something like 95% of Americans say they're middle class, hehe.

Nice definition
@ Captain Slow I apologise for the way I may have messed around a bit in your thread and hope you get the results you are looking for here.
Maybe it would be a good idea to take SamH's definition and place
it in post no.1 so people reading through this thread might have a better idea
of what x class is...once again soz capt.Slow

I think there's always been a strong sense of class in the UK, whether its a bad thing or not. According to some non-UK friends, the British are far more obsessed with, and conscious of class than other european nations.
Rather than there being any particular 'official' markers of class recognised in any document anywhere, it seems to be something down to one's one general interpretations, but generally accepted by most people.

If I might be cheeky and tell you your job I would have thought you'd be dealing with matters related more to demographics than sociology/politics.

The question of takes no account of the fact that our somewhat quaint and pointless notion of class can be a transient matter. Take me for instance, My Father's parents were farm labourers, my mother's were a Royal Marine sergeant and a factory worker.
That might suggest I come from a working class background. However my father was an architect and my mother was a P.R/Marketing executive and they defined themselves as firmly in the middle.
I am a self employed professional with a public school / university education, and yet I have a part time job working on Tesco's nightshift to help makes ends meet, so where exactly do I fit?

I appreciate statistics only work if people can be squeezed into one category or another, but essentially you've been stiffed with a "silly" question, since not only have I arguably moved up and down the social scale, but many of my friends have as well, by becoming better educated/getting better jobs or indeed by losing their jobs. I'm sure me and my friends are not unusual when compared against the population as a whole.

Lmao"my mother's were a Royal Marine sergeant and a factory worker".
so where do U fit?
lmao I would say ur a freak because you have more than one mother...

Mind the apostrophe.

Comprehension is such a wonderful thing. Open your mouth a little wider, you might be able to fit both feet in

:doh: I feel so bloody silly sorry
Their jobs yes I know

Quote from Smax :

If I might be cheeky and tell you your job I would have thought you'd be dealing with matters related more to demographics than sociology/politics.

The question of takes no account of the fact that our somewhat quaint and pointless notion of class can be a transient matter. Take me for instance, My Father's parents were farm labourers, my mother's were a Royal Marine sergeant and a factory worker.
That might suggest I come from a working class background. However my father was an architect and my mother was a P.R/Marketing executive and they defined themselves as firmly in the middle.
I am a self employed professional with a public school / university education, and yet I have a part time job working on Tesco's nightshift to help makes ends meet, so where exactly do I fit?

I appreciate statistics only work if people can be squeezed into one category or another, but essentially you've been stiffed with a "silly" question, since not only have I arguably moved up and down the social scale, but many of my friends have as well, by becoming better educated/getting better jobs or indeed by losing their jobs. I'm sure me and my friends are not unusual when compared against the population as a whole.

Again, though, that is if you base class purely on occupation. But surely social class as the original poster meant it is not the same as occupational class.

Looks like LFS is a game of the higher classes.

Or just people, that class themselves higher, as they are.

I'd say the latter being the most likely

CSU and Zeug...it is entirely possible that LFS is a game of ...well, let us say "Educated People"

My reasoning behind this statement is that the less educated gamer is more likely to purchase something "off the shelf" in a nice shiny box that has been advertised on prime time TV, or in the various monthly magazines; whereas in the case of LFS a lot is done by 'word of mouth', and people in one particular class/SEG are most likely to have friends/acquantainces from the same group. (ie: I doubt if many of the so-called 'lower' classes interact on a social basis with doctors or lawyers. I know I am mixing class and SEG a bit here, but let us admit, most doctors/lawyers do come from, or end up in, the higher classes )
Also, in a lot of cases, to find LFS in the first place, one must first have an interest, and then have the knowledge of where to look! Furthermore, 'Joe Sprogg' is unlikely to risk 24 beer tokens on an 'alpha' release of a game..a case maybe of "duh...24 quid an' it ain't even finished yet! I'm gonna get Need for Speed instead, at least its got a pretty box!"

I personally would consider myself classless, I was bought up in a 'lower middle class' background, went to a grammer school, went through college, got qualifications etc etc, but now I am more than happy driving a bus and living in a council house! Why? because I put my own peace of mind and happiness above that which society thinks is the 'proper' thing to do!

I suppose you could catergorize me as and 'antisnob' inasmuch as I have shunned my background for the sake of happiness.

A favourite saying of mine is: "IF I win the lottery I can absolutely swear that the large amount of money will not change me, because I will STILL be a selfish b*st*rd!"


end of diatribe

[edit] Then again, I must be upper class because I live in Oxford! [/edit]

w00t i have studied politics too sam for abit