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Life Styles and Social Stratification : France and Norway compared. An Explorative Study

Séminaire du Groupe d'étude des méthodes de l'analyse sociologique de la Sorbonne

Gunn Birkelund

Professor, Department of Sociology and Human Geography

University of Oslo

GEMASS Visiting Fellow

Yannick Lemel

Honorary member of the INSEE Inspectorate General

GEMASS Associate member

Life Styles and Social Stratification : France and Norway compared. An Explorative Study. Sociological research on life styles have usually correlated life style patterns with social stratification, measured as social class or status.  Bourdieu’s homology-thesis correlates distinctions based on life styles and cultural consumption with economic and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1979). Recent Weberian inspired research across several countries have found more differentiated life style patterns, supporting the omnivore thesis, as advocated by Petersen (1992) (e.g. Chan (ed.) 2009).Whereas patterns of life styles in these studies are explored  empirically, these approaches rely on theoretical definitions of social stratification, be it social class or status.We will empirically explore the latent patterns of life styles and social stratification, and thereafter the correlations between these latent patterns. Our research design allows us to explore empirically, for France and Norway separately, if social stratification is best measured by one, two or more dimensions. We would expect our findings to differ somewhat between the two countries, but given that social stratification is a pervasive element of all modern societies, we would also expect to find common empirical patterns that may be of relevance to the way we could theoretically conceptualize social stratification.