Social stratification and cultural consumption: The visual arts in England

In this paper, we use recent survey data on the visual arts in order to test three arguments concerning the relationship between social stratification and cultural consumption: i.e. what we label as the ‘homology’, the ‘individualisation’ and the ‘omnivore–univore’ arguments. Through latent class analysis, we identify three types of consumer in the visual arts—‘omnivores’, ‘paucivores’ and non-consumers or ‘inactives’. We then examine the social character of these types through a regression analysis that includes a range of demographic and stratification variables. As would be expected from a Weberian standpoint, the types are more strongly differentiated by status than by class—or income. Education is still more important than status, although how far it should be interpreted as a stratification variable can be questioned. Our findings reinforce those we have previously reported on cultural consumption in the domains of music and of theatre, dance and cinema in indicating that the homology and individualisation arguments lack empirical support. Further, though, the omnivore–univore argument seems less applicable in the visual arts than in other domains. Univores are not apparent and it is inactives that represent the numerically most important type. Moreover, it is in the distinction between inactives, on the one hand, and omnivores and paucivores together, on the other, that social stratification is most obviously expressed. # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.