Conference Agenda

Does class structures influences well-being? And do these influences of class structures are expanded if we also consider inequality factors over well-being? The long-standing scientific work pointing to the relevance of class and inequalities in modernity, is now looking to well-being, to better understand contemporary societies. The sociology of class, deeply developed in Portugal, mainly through the work performed by João Ferreira de Almeida, António Firmino da Costa and several other colleagues, have understood the structural, cultural, interactional and agential manifestations of class positions, the consequences of the structure of capital envisioned by Bourdieu, also with Lahire the dispositional incorporation of class, and the way that subjective and perceptional well-being build bridges to objective/collective well-being (Mauritti, Nunes, Botelho and Silva). Taking as a starting point the theories of social classes and inequalities, which are highly explanatory of the main dynamics in contemporary societies, but also incorporating the theories and problematics of well-being, quality of life and sustainable development, the protagonists of the most vibrant international scientific debates we are currently witnessing around the world, in this communication we will present results that help us understand how class structures and social inequalities influence the well-being of Europeans, with a more focused attention to Portuguese society. These influences are observable within countries, but the transnationality of these influences is also visible, in addition to the analytical fruitfulness provided by comparisons between countries. We used the TIWELL analytical model (Mauritti et al., 2022), which aims to understand how, multidimensionally, several types of inequality influence various dimensions of well-being. Methodologically, we opted for a quantitative approach that have put in practice a set of multivariate methods, using data from the European Social Survey databases (cumulative one from 2016-2018-2020), referring to countries covering Northern, Central, Southern and Eastern Europe. Some conclusion points what will be shared: 1) Well-being in Portugal is constrained by a less modernized class structure and reduced economic and educational capital; 2) In Portugal, more sociality, does not imply more bridging social capital, political capabilities and collective action problem-solving; 3) Well-being of industrial workers is the lowest in Portugal and the rest of Europe, and the more advantageous classes are the ones that have more well-being in their lives; 4) Class positioning, inside national class structures and transnationally, together with the distribution of economic, educational and social capital, are main factors that explain differences of well-being, inside European countries, comparing them and in Europe as a whole.

The relation between education and inequalities is a key issue in modern societies. On the one hand, during the last decades, schooling pathways were notably enlarged, under the promise to provide opportunities of social mobility and prosperity for younger generations. On the other hand, many scholars and opinion-makers have often proclaimed the role of the education systems in social and cultural reproduction, as a mean to maintain and to legitimate class inequalities (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1970; Calarco, 2014). More recently, the hypothesis of a “broken social elevator” was inclusively stated by entities as OECD.

Supported by ESS data (1st and 9th editions), this paper sketches links between social backgrounds, education pathways and class locations. João Ferreira de Almeida’s work is recovered, regarding the class structure, in Portugal and Europe, and its relationship with educational institutions and dynamics (e. g. Costa, Machado & Almeida, 2007). His contribution was paramount to understand how class remains a central concept to interpret social inequalities, in education as in many other dimensions, but at the same time how educational systems expansion has transformed class relations.

As our data analysis has shown, the reproductive role of education was especially strong for some generations and countries, as those raised in Portugal and Spain, in the 1950s and 1960s, under conservative and authoritarian regimes. ESS data suggests that “the social elevator”, meaning the social mobility through education, is not broken for the younger generation in Europe. The access to the dominant classes is increasingly dependent on higher education, especially a Master’s Degree or a PhD, while the class background influence on education achievement remained stable throughout the last decades. Still, some variations arise between countries, while gender inequality prevails: although more educated, women is notably under-represented in privileged class locations (Abrantes & Abrantes, 2014).

Finally, this paper retrieves other key contribution of Ferreira de Almeida’s legacy, regarding value orientations, exploring the role of education on individual (and class) meanings of life and society (e. g. Almeida, 2013). According to ESS data, education pathways hold a significant correlation with individualist orientations (both materialist and hedonist), a negative correlation with traditional values and a weak relation with collectivist-environmental-cosmopolitan values. Variations between countries and generations are explored. The main argument is that schools became a central place to forge new class distinctions and affinities, even when the influence of social backgrounds is limited. Implications for education policies are discussed.

References

Abrantes, P., & Abrantes, M. (2014). Gendering social mobility: a comparative perspective on the nexus of education and class across Europe. Gender and Education, 26(4), 377-396.

Almeida, J. F. (2013). Desigualdades e Perspetivas dos Cidadãos. Mundos Sociais.

Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. C. (1970). La reproduction éléments pour une théorie du système d'enseignement. Minuit.

Calarco, J. M. (2014). Coached for the Classroom: Parents’ Cultural Transmission and Children’s Reproduction of Educational Inequalities. American Sociological Review, 79(5), 1015-1037.

Costa, AF, Machado, FL, & Almeida, JF (2007). Social Classes and educational assets: a transnational analysis. In Knowledge and Society (pp. 5-20). Celta.

The last two decades marked important and deep changes in the social and economic panorama in Europe. In this presentation we will discuss how attitudes towards immigration have been changing and what correlates may help us to understand the different trends that can be observed in different countries.

Previous literature relating the social context and attitudes towards immigrants deliver a complex variety of findings: a strong correlation between perceptions of threat associated to immigrants and opposition towards their presence in the country (e.g. Vala, Pereira & Ramos 2006); the impact of country economic climate on economic threat perceptions (e.g. Isaksen 2019); no impact of GDP or immigrant fluxes on opposition to immigration (e.g. Sides & Citrin 2007). Based on these results, we want to go a step further and test two hypotheses. The first one states that social disaffection at the individual level and economic climate at the contextual level are associated with openness/opposition to immigration. The second hypothesis states that these associations are mediated by threat perceptions, that serve as justifications for peoples’ negative attitudes (e.g. Pereira, Vala & Lopes 2010). Economic climate is measured by the GDP fluctuation between 2002 and 2022, and social disaffection represents an articulated set of perceptions and feelings (e.g. dissatisfaction with life, perception of lack of control, distrust in nuclear institutions of the social system) that are transversal to different sectors of society and encompass the functioning of society (Katz et al., 1977).

There is a growing global-scale polarization that manifests at different levels, affecting and transforming individual lives and broader social structures. This presentation discuss how changes in gender arrangements and hierarchies can provide a hypothesis for understanding shifts in the political positioning of women and men in Europe.

On one level, global polarization affects gender as a social structure, the construction of its hierarchies, and the delineation of the boundary between subordination and domination. In recent decades, a gender order based on the subordination of women has been surpassed by the expansion of rights, the advances in gender equality, and the mobilization and influence of various activism, highlighting the recruitment capacity of feminist and LGBTQIA+ movements, the mainstreaming of their claims, or the global impact of the #MeToo movement. At the same time, polarization deepens the symbolic and objective gap that separates forms of masculinity on the margins from the dominant pattern. In a global scenario, successful men and masculinities gain visibility, occupying the position of the dominant, where a narrow, highly privileged minority has access to vast amounts of economic resources, power, prestige, and visibility. However, it also becomes evident that outcasted men face situations of deprivation (Donaldson and Poynting, 2007; Connell, 2011), feeling a loss (relative to women and other men) and living in resentment due to the deprivation of resources and powers they considered rights.

On another level, the context of global polarization also reveals an extremization of political positions, especially among younger people, and the a modern gender gap: women leaning more to the left and men leaning more to the right (Lobo et al, 2023). We cannot ignore the possibility that these phenomena are partially rooted in the transformations of gender arrangements and hierarchies, especially when men’s resentment is a central element in the resurgence of neofascisms or the emergence of a new authoritarian politics with global contours (Auger, 2020; Vandiver, 2018), bringing together political movements that violently reject feminism, equality, immigrants, and LGBTQIA+ individuals (Love, 2017; Kimmel, 2017; Kutner, 2020).

Analyzing different rounds of the ESS for a broad set of countries allows us to evaluate (I) changes in what people consider appropriate for themselves as men or women - placing them on a scale of conservatism/equality; (II) mutations in how they feel they can control their lives; as well as how these aspects relate to or help explain (III) transformations in political positioning and the emergence of a modern gender gap, (IV) or their views on migrants or LGBTQIA+ individuals.