Sources of Working Class Consciousness

Abstract

This study, intended largely as a replication of the research reported by John C. Leggett in his Class, Race, and Labor, is a methodological contribution to the measurement of class consciousness among American workers, and an analysis of the independent variables that explain variation in the class consciousness measure. The data for this research were collected during 1974 in a statewide Wisconsin sample. A conceptual analysis of class consciousness suggests four major levels of that consciousness: class identification, class action, militant egalitarianism, and capitalist change orientation. Attitudinal measures of these levels or stages of class consciousness are discussed and then combined into a Likert scale for purposes of empirical analysis. We then examine the gross and net effects of a variety of variables assumed to be causally related to working class consciousness: union membership, generation, skill level, family income, and size of place of residence. Methodological caveats regarding the applicability of cross-sectional investigations of the dynamic, dialectical process of the formation of working class consciousness are offered. Finally, the implications of these results for the literature on working class consciousness are discussed.

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