Constructing Classes: Operationalizing Bourdieu's 'social Space'

Recent years have seen an increased interest in how the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu can be drawn upon to renew class and stratification analysis. The concept of multiple forms of capital and that of social space, a multidimensional vision of the class structure, are central in this respect. At this seminar we will discuss two new class schemes which attempt to model such a social space. Dr. Will Atkinson (University of Bristol) will present his ongoing work on a new Bourdieu inspired class scheme for the UK. A similar scheme developed at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography (UiO) for Norwegian register data - the ORDC scheme - will also be presented.