Class analysis and the reorientation of class theory: the case of persisting differentials in educational attainment1

Abstract

In class analysis the main regularities that have been established by empirical research are not ones of long-term class formation or decomposition, as envisaged in Marxist or liberal theory, but rather ones that exhibit the powerful resistance to change of class relations and associated life-chances and patterns of social action. If these regularities are to be explained, theory needs to be correspondingly reoriented, and must abandon functionalist and teleological assumptions in favour of providing more secure micro-foundations. This argument is developed and illustrated in the course of an attempt to apply rational action theory to the explanation of persisting class differentials in educational attainment.

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