TY - JOUR
T1 - Varieties of White Working-Class Identity
AU - Knowles, Eric D.
AU - McDermott, Monica
AU - Richeson, Jennifer A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Social Science Foundation Project of Hebei Province, China (HB21JY024), and the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province, China (C2019205282).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - The present work demonstrates that, contrary to popular political narratives, working-class White Americans are far from monolithic in their class identities, social attitudes, and political preferences. Latent profile analysis is used to distinguish three types of identity in a nationally representative sample of working-class Whites: Working Class Patriots, who valorize responsibility, embrace national identity, and disparage the poor; Class Conflict Aware, who regard social class as a structural phenomenon and ascribe elitist attitudes to higher classes; and Working Class Connected, who embrace working-class identity, sympathize with the poor, and feel disrespected because of the work they do. This identity typology appears unique to working-class Whites and is associated with distinct patterns of attitudes regarding immigration, race, and politics, such that Class Conflict Aware and Working Class Connected Whites are considerably more progressive than are Working Class Patriots. Implications for electoral politics and race relations are discussed.
AB - The present work demonstrates that, contrary to popular political narratives, working-class White Americans are far from monolithic in their class identities, social attitudes, and political preferences. Latent profile analysis is used to distinguish three types of identity in a nationally representative sample of working-class Whites: Working Class Patriots, who valorize responsibility, embrace national identity, and disparage the poor; Class Conflict Aware, who regard social class as a structural phenomenon and ascribe elitist attitudes to higher classes; and Working Class Connected, who embrace working-class identity, sympathize with the poor, and feel disrespected because of the work they do. This identity typology appears unique to working-class Whites and is associated with distinct patterns of attitudes regarding immigration, race, and politics, such that Class Conflict Aware and Working Class Connected Whites are considerably more progressive than are Working Class Patriots. Implications for electoral politics and race relations are discussed.
KW - identity
KW - immigration
KW - latent profile analysis
KW - politics
KW - race
KW - social class
KW - Whites
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U2 - 10.1177/13684302221144735
DO - 10.1177/13684302221144735
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85147692889
SN - 1368-4302
JO - Group Processes and Intergroup Relations
JF - Group Processes and Intergroup Relations
ER -