The British Journal of Sociology
Volume 58 No 1 March 2007
pages 87-104
Abstract
In this essay I take seriously Max Weber's astonishingly neglected claim that class situation may be defined, not in categorial terms, but probabilistically. I then apply this idea to another equally neglected claim made by Weber that the boundaries of social classes may be determined by the degree of social mobility within such classes. Taking these two ideas together I develop the idea of a non-categorial boundary'surface' between classes and of a social class'corridor' made up of all those people who are still to be found within the boundaries of the social class into which they were born. I call social mobility within a social class'intra-class social mobility' and social mobility between classes'inter-class social mobility'. I also claim that this distinction resolves the dispute between those sociologists who claim that late industrial societies are still highly class bound and those who think that this is no longer the case. Both schools are right I think, but one is referring to a high degree of intra-class social mobility and the other to an equally high degree of inter-class mobility. Finally I claim that this essay provides sociology with only one example among many other possible applications of how probability theory might usefully be used to overcome boundary problems generally in sociology.
Keywords: Weber, social class, social mobility, probability, boundary surface, social class corridor
Ken Smith
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College