Social classes and values in Europe

Exploiting the analytical potential of the European Social Survey data, this text presents a set of theoretical assumptions and empirical findings concerning class structures, patterns of values and attitudes and the relationship between them. In the first section, a model of analysis is outlined, which relates social dimensions (in this case, classes) with cultural dimensions (in this case, values), both at the individual level and structural level. The second section compares the class composition of the various participating countries and pinpoints common trends and regional specificities. In the third and largest section, several indicators of ideological and political attitudes and electoral practices, as well as Shalom Schwartz’s scale of human values, are analyzed in their relationship with the class position of the interviewees. Introduction In the sociological analysis of the values and attitude patterns of various populations, it is essential to consider the structural context in which these preferences and orientations are shaped and interiorized by individuals (as dispositions of a generally enduring, though not unchangeable, nature) in the course of their experience of life in society. These dispositions are, in turn, called into being and action by the social actors in the production of symbolic representations and social practices in successive episodes in life and different situations of interaction. With all their variability and fortuity, the latter are, for this reason, also included in the structural context and suffer their corresponding constraints.1 It is known, of course, that other parameters besides structural ones are highly important in the shaping of these values and attitudes patterns, e.g., generation, gender, religious or national identity, personal trajectories and the relational frameworks. But this does not invalidate the relevance of investigating the cultural effects of the social structure. The importance of such an analysis is directly proportional to how far it allows values and attitude patterns to be related with processes of societal change, as these are revealed in particular in the socio–occupational and socio–educational re-composition of populations, or, in broader conceptual terms, in the recomposition of social class structures.