- 18 Mar, 2021
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- 2 Mins Read
you will illustrate some of the differences between social classes as they exist in Britain today,
• Your cover sheet should provide your name and the title of your paper only;
• Your title should be a creative one that you come up with yourself – allowing you
to establish the tone for the paper that follows;
• Provide citations for all quotes you take from the Kate Fox book (including page
numbers), from the films, or from the sitcoms, and for all references you make to
events or incidents in the Fox book, films, and sitcoms;
• If using an e-version of Fox’s book, you should provide the chapter number and
section title from which a quote comes instead of page numbers;
• Citations can be footnotes (see example at the foot of this page), endnotes, or intext references, whichever format you’re most familiar and comfortable with;
• Your text should be double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font, with oneinch page margins; insert page numbers bottom right;
• Your thesis statement should be in bold or italicized.
Assignment:
In this assignment (worth 20% of your course grade) you will illustrate some of the
differences between social classes as they exist in Britain today, providing multiple
examples, using Fox as your starting point, supported by course films and sitcoms.
You should use the Kate Fox book to establish differences between the classes on a
given topic (including language use – terminology and pronunciation), then support
your explanation with examples drawn from the course films and sitcoms.
No internet material or other book sources can be used!
In the US, the basis for social class is essentially money – the wealth and income a family
or individual has. It’s a simple equation: more money = higher class, less money = lower
class. By contrast, Kate Fox notes: “What is distinctive about the English class system is
the fact that class is not judged at all on wealth, and very little on occupation, but purely
on non-economic indicators such as speech, manner, taste and lifestyle choices”. Nor is social class in Britain today still grounded in the old, pre-World War II idea of
three ‘fixed’ social classes – upper, middle, and lower (or working) class. As a result, the
automatic deference (towards those above you) and condescension (to those below you)
these differences in class status demanded (as seen most bluntly in the film Gosford
Park), is no longer relevant or expected. Today, the boundaries between social classes are
far more blurred and permeable, and social class is more a continuum than a set of fixed
categories, leading to far greater social mobility.
N.B. – The ‘sitcoms’ are the shows listed as sitcoms on the Course Schedule. This does
not include the Grumpy Guide to Class documentary (which should NOT be used).
Failure to include material from the Fox book, the films, and the sitcoms in a
balanced manner will result in the loss of your grade associated with that category of
material (i.e. a third of your grade for each of the three categories). Plagiarism (i.e. the
unacknowledged use of information you found on the internet, in non-course books, or in
the Grumpy Guide to Class documentary), will also be penalized.
In short, you need to draw on the full range of materials presented in this course to give
as rounded a picture of the differences between social classes in Britain today as possible.