Tag social class

Satisfied? Student Surveys, Social Position, and the Limits of Experience Data

Editorial illustration in muted blue-grey tones of a large ticked survey form, with one confident student at a desk and another uncertain student standing apart, set against a university building.

The National Student Survey ranks institutions, shapes league tables, and features in marketing materials as evidence of teaching excellence. But satisfaction is not the same as learning, and the social position of the student completing the survey shapes what they report in ways the instrument cannot detect. This article applies a Bourdieusian lens to the NSS — and finds that the data is telling us something rather different from what it is used to claim.

Trading Places and the Myth of Meritocracy: A Sociological Analysis of Class, Race, and Capital

Trading Places Meritocracy

Watching Trading Places as a Christmas comfort film, it is hard not to see a ready-made sociological case study. The Dukes’ “experiment” looks like a simple nature-versus-nurture wager, but the life swap really turns on class, race and access to capital. This article uses Bourdieu’s framework to show how the film exposes—and then neatly smooths over—the myth of meritocracy.

Is Marx Still Relevant? Marxism, Class and the Gig Economy

Marx and the Gig Economy

Marx wrote about factories and nineteenth-century class conflict, not delivery apps or algorithmic ratings. So how far can his ideas take us today? This article introduces Marx’s core concepts and tests them against platform capitalism and the gig economy, showing what still works, what does not, and where later theorists extend his framework.