Social divisions: class, gender, ethnicity – and more

Abstract

This chapter shows how social divisions gradually emerged as a key concern in the social sciences. Focusing on early studies that looked at class, race, gender and sexuality, the chapter shows how early controversies anticipated later ones. Class was studied in four ways: through poverty research, community studies, education and culture, and finally through class measurement and mobility studies (The Affluent Worker). Gender for the first time became a very prominent issue in research and many of our pioneers were engaged in building the new feminist stance in social science feminist research (e.g., Ann Oakley, Judith Okely, Pat Caplan, Meg Stacey, Maxine Molyneux and Leonore Davidoff). The Original BSA meeting on Sexual Divisions in 1974 was formative and is discussed along with a series of problems facing women at this time. Ethnicity was also growing — largely through new migration and culture studies in the 1950s and 1960s. Key pioneers here are Robert Moore (who worked with John Rex and the breakthrough book Race, Community and Conflict; and the Jamaican born Harry Golbourne. There is a short comment on sexuality, disability and age to close. The chapter shows how many of the contemporary debates are pre-figured in some of this early work.