Vol. 69 No. 4 (2025): Symbolic Boundaries in Social Communication
Articles and essays
Objective and Symbolic Class Distances in Poland
Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAS
Abstract
There can be no doubt that the class structure has transformed, and is still transforming, since class divisions started to emerge. The author intends to show that “objective” class inequalities are supplemented in an important way by symbolic class distances derived from the values that people apply to assess themselves and representatives of other classes. The data come from a qualitative study carried out in 2021 in Poland. The findings show that whereas “objective” aspects of class structure are more visible and do not change over longer time periods (because their task is to stabilize social relations), symbolic class distances are less pronounced, even though “old” attributes are increasingly being replaced by “new” ones.
Key words: social class, culture, lifestyle
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