7.5.1: Social Stratification in Great Britain

 7.5.1: Social Stratification in Great Britain 

Great Britain is often called England by Americans, but England is only one of the countries that make up the island of Great Britain. The others are Scotland and Wales. In addition, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Like other industrialized countries, Great Britain has a class system that can be divided into lower, middle, and upper classes. Great Britain’s population is about evenly divided between the middle class and the lower (or working) class. A tiny upper class—wealthy, powerful, and highly educated—makes up perhaps 1 percent of the population. Like Americans, the British make class distinctions on the basis of the cars they drive or the stores they patronize. But the most striking characteristics of the British class system are language and education. Because social class background and education create distinctive speech, accent has a powerful impact on British life. As soon as someone speaks, the listener is aware of that person’s social class—and treats him or her accordingly. Education is the primary way by which the British perpetuate their class system from one generation to the next (Reichelt et al. 2019). Almost all children go to neighborhood schools. Great Britain’s richest 5 percent, however—who own half the nation’s wealth—send their children to exclusive private boarding schools. There the children of the elite are trained in subjects that are considered “proper” for members of the ruling class. An astounding 50 percent of the students at Oxford and Cambridge, the country’s most elite universities, come from this 5 percent of the population. So do half of the prime minister’s cabinet (Powell 2019).