Social Stratification of Cultural Consumption Across Three Domains: Music, Theatre, Dance and Cinema, and the Visual Arts∗

In chapter 1 of this volume, we have outlined three widely discussed arguments concerning the social stratification of cultural consumption: that is, what we have labelled as the ‘homology’, the ‘individualisation’ and the ‘omnivore–univore’ arguments. In our own previous work (Chan and Goldthorpe, 2005, 2007b,c) we have examined the validity of these arguments in the light of analyses of cultural consumption in England in three different domains: that is, in music, in theatre, dance and cinema, and in the visual arts. Through this work we have sought to make some advance on previous research in two main ways. First, we have recognised that insofar as the focus of interest is on cultural consumption, then this must be studied as directly as possible, and that