著者

難波 功士

出版者

関西学院大学

雑誌

関西学院大学社会学部紀要 (ISSN:04529456)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.95, pp.217-225, 2003-10-28

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In British society, class culture still has not lost its significance, whereas matters of gender, ethnicity and generation are becoming relatively more important. In particular, working class culture has maintained its vitality and many people are proud of their sense of belonging to the culture, though heavy or mining industries have declined. In this note, I survey recent studies concerning working class culture and derive three points as follows. Firstly, now class is not only an issue of production but also one of consumption or taste. As a result, many people construct themselves at will as members of the working class, though in some cases they are white collars workers or students. Although some manual workers earn more money than office workers or teachers, they recognize themselves as working class. Secondly, the representations of working class cultures in films or TV dramas revitalize and reconstruct them. Lastly, now the barrier of gender becomes lower, even in working class culture, so lasses or 'laddette' culture has emerged as the counterpart of lads culture, which means masculine working-class men's culture. In conclusion, whereas the aspect of 'class in itself is decreasing now, the aspect of 'class for itself is increasing. So, in British society class cultures will be alive for a while.