Bernice Neugarten - Social Status in the City

Richard P. Coleman and Bernice L. Neugarten

Originally published in 1971 by Jossey-Bass Inc.

Published 2011 by Transaction Publishers

Published 2017 by Routledge
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Copyright 1971 by Richard P. Coleman and Bernice L. Neugarten.

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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2010038245

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Coleman, Richard Patrick.

Social status in the city / Richard P. Coleman and Bernice L. Neugarten.

p. cm.

Originally published: San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1971, in series:

The Jossey-Bass behavioral science series.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4128-1870-4 (alk. paper)

1. Social classes--Missouri--Kansas City. I. Neugarten, Bernice

Levin, 1916- II. Title.

HN80.K2C63 2011
305.50978139--dc22

2010038245

ISBN 13: 978-1-4128-1870-4 (pbk)

T he basic purpose of Social Status in the City is to present a method for measuring social status in large urban settings, the Index of Urban Status (IUS). By describing the procedures used in studying the social structure of a particular midwestern city some fifteen years ago, we show how the index was originally derived and the concepts of status on which it is based. The IUS has been modified several times by the senior author as he has employed it in commercial research studies of social class phenomena in many American cities. The current version of the IUS is presented here in some detail, together with guidelines for its use by other investigators. In this connection, the book should be seen in the context of the sociologists concerns with problems of urban stratification, the characteristics of various social class groups, and the ways these groups change over time. In this context, the book is intended to make a contribution to method.

Another purpose is to present sufficient data regarding Kansas City, Missouri, so that the substantive findings will provide a benchmark description of the status hierarchy of a large American city in the mid-1950s. Here we have followed in the tradition of W. Lloyd Warner and others who have attempted to understand the status structures of whole communities. In this second context, the novelty of Social Status in the City lies in the fact that we have focused upon a single community that is larger in size and more complex in organization than any previously described.

The analysis of the social structure of a large city was originally undertaken in connection with the Kansas City Studies of Adult Life, two interrelated sets of studies carried out under the auspices of the Committee on Human Development of the University of Chicago in the period from 1952 to 1962. The first set of those investigations was focused on middle age and the variations that occur in life styles and in social-psychological patterns of behavior with age, sex, and social status. The studies were financed by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation and were conducted by a research team of which Robert J. Havighurst was chairman. The second group of those investigations focused on changes that occurred over time in a panel of middle-aged and older persons followed over a six-year period. They were financed by a grant from the Professional Services Branch, National Institute of Mental Health (#M9082), and were under the direction of William E. Henry, Robert J. Havighurst, and Bernice L. Neugarten. A large number of publications based on the Kansas City Studies have appeared within the past several years, dealing with various topics: social role performance of middle-aged persons, leisure patterns, age status, personality changes, adaptational patterns, the disengagement theory of aging, and the subsequent modifications of that theory. Publication of the data regarding the social structure of Kansas City has, however, been delayed until now.

Kansas City was chosen as the site for those investigations of adult life for a number of reasons. Varieties of behavior were to be viewed in an urban setting, and, to understand that setting, studies of the community itselfespecially its social structurewere planned from the outset. Thus a site was needed which would be urban in character yet not so large or complex as to preclude completing a study of the community as a first phase of the research. Another important factor was that a cooperative arrangement had been made with Community Studies, Inc., of Kansas City, a local social science research organization which had already gathered much of the basic data needed for a project of this scope. The staff of Community Studies offered to act as hosts to the University of Chicago investigators.

The study of the social structure of Kansas City was motivated, however, by more than the need to understand the community setting as the context for viewing middle age and aging. Members of the research teamnotably W. Lloyd Warner, Robert J. Havighurst, and wewere interested in adapting the methods used earlier in studying small communities to the problems of studying the large city and in evaluating the extent to which a large city could be accurately described as a hierarchical status structure. Warner and his associates had previously studied small towns in New England and in the Midwest with populations less than twenty thousand, then a Midwest community of 95,000. They wished next to consider a large city, in this instance, one of some 850,000. As an outgrowth of those research interests in the status structures of American communities, we hope that our findings regarding Kansas City in the 1950s will have implications for the American urban scene beyond the borders of Kansas City and beyond the 1950s.

Methods and findings are always intertwined. To pick but one examplespecial attention was given to the role played by wives in influencing the social status of their families, a phenomenon often overlooked in previous studies. One of our findings in Kansas City was that a womans educational background correlated more highly than did her husbands with family income and with the familys social class position. Education of wife was thereafter included as one dimension in the multidimensional Index of Urban Status.

Because of the intricate relationship between methods and findings, the exposition to follow must, at least to some extent, deal simultaneously with both. For the reader who is interested in one more than the other, a brief overview of Social Status in the City may be helpful. The first three chapters describe how we studied Kansas City, adapting the methods used in small communities to the problems of studying the large community; how we identified the dimensions of status perceived by Kansas Citians; and how we weighed the importance of neighborhood, housing, occupation, education, ethnic identity, religious affiliation, and community participation in assessing the status of Kansas City families.