Question

What are some difficulties involved in measuring social class? What do you think is the best way to measure it and why

Answer 1

the measurement of social class in the social psychology of education research.
It was evident that social class experiences are conflated with the socioeconomic status (SES) indicators and the
subjective measure of the class context was underrepresented. However, this was discussed in Rubin et al (2014) about the intersectional nature of social class taking into account both objective and subjective indicators. The derivation of the social class experience from the objective and subjective measures were critically discussed. An effort was made to understand whether these translations are category mistake or not. Three trajectories will be utilized to address the
category mistake, that is, 1) subjectivity and objectivity debate in the measurement of social class in social psychology of
education, 2) debates encircling around the position of social psychology and its underutilized concept such as social class
as scientifically objective facets in social sciences and 3) operationalism of social class and category mistake.

Recently, the trend to explore the intersectional
nature of objective and subjective indicators are
observed pertaining to the critiques call for the subjective
understanding of social class (Rubin et al., 2014; see
also see also Day, Rickett &Woolhouse, 2014; Kraus &
Stephens, 2012). It is a matter of controversy whether the
assigned criteria to understand the subjective SES truly
captures the social class experiences or not. Though the
arguments for subjective SES were neither in minority
nor new and people in different disciplines were exploring
it (see Chapin, 1935). According to Wright (2015) the
approaches of understanding the social class were evident
in three sociological analyses, 1) stratification approaches to
class which define class in terms of individual attributes and
conditions, 2) Weberian approaches define class in terms
of a variety of mechanisms of opportunity hoarding, and
3) Marxist approach define class in terms of mechanism
of exploitation and domination (p. ix). The report of the
APA task force on SES (2007) acknowledged the need for
integrative and the state-of-the-art approach to conceptualize
and measure SES and social class

The measurement issues in social class and SES
The alignment between the social psychological
concepts and the actual reality is still an ongoing debate
(Haig & Borsboom, 2012; Schmittmann et al., 2013).
The case of SES to denote the corresponding objective
social and psychological condition of individual or
group is a simplistic and linear appropriation in the
social psychological research on education. For example,
the definition of SES is based on an integration of few
indicators which denotes one’s present living status.
In social psychological literature in India, it is made synonymous with the term social class (Agarwal, 2008;
Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010; Masthi, Gangaboraiah,
Kulkarni, 2013; see also Misra & Tripathi, 2004). The
objective status of the social classification scales and
the effort to connect it with the social psychological
facets has given an incomplete picture of the social
psychological experiences. For example, the observers’
perspective offered to understand the effect of SES on
students’ academic achievement was widely used in
the literature. However, the diminishing strength was
reported in the metaanalysis (see Sirin, 2005). Pronin,
Gilovich, and Ross (2004) discussed the blind spots in
the judgment of the reality of one’s self and the other,
and further added to the hypothesis that objectivity is in
the eye of the beholder. It was also discussed in details
about the dominance of economic paradigm of SES
which is prominent in psychological research. Economists
show that SES is a vector approach having both the
magnitude and directions. However, the psychological
aspects were rejected as subjective and directionless. This
questions the interdisciplinary approach to understanding
one’s psychology by placing one’s understanding in
the reductivist metatheory? (see Sinha, 2016). Thus,
the decreasing statistical relationship between SES and
academic achievement convince back to the problematic
status of SES and its measurement.
Extending further, the measurement paradigms for
understanding any psychological phenomenon utilizes the
series of abstraction taken as real. For example, a) in time
and space the meaning of attribute may change, b) there
is nothing like type-type identity between psychological
concept and the actual reality of the phenomenon, and
c) the psychological concepts cannot be understood in
vacuum but in networked environment (see Zachar, 2015;
See also Meehl, 1978). The formative theory about the
nature of SES as a latent construct, comprising various
indicators complementing one another to give the complete
picture is problematic, as the nature of the formative model
is also susceptible to change. From the Borsboom (2008)
work it can be inferred that the connections of indicators of
SES are in direct and possible relations with one another.
In this context, Schmittmann et al. (2013) stated that,
“a problem with formal theories of dynamical systems is
that almost all of the known mathematical results concern
deterministic systems” (p. 6).
This holds that the conjoint models available to
assess the SES claim through their individual observable
connections, about the true determinism and certainty.
However, the reduction of social class to the SES indicators
only and neglecting the broader concept of social class, or
taking it as same, ruptures the philosophical inquiry in the
rigid domain of mainstream social psychology and is an
overestimation of objectivity. As Schmittmann et al. (2013)
pointed that psychology deal with the probabilistic systems
and data characterized by high level of noise” (p. 6), it can
be scrutinized further to understand the meaning of noise
and whether is that an actual noise or important vector
having latent interconnected pathways.
The measurement of social class comprises the
frequency of categories associated with it. These categories
for example, low SES, are obtained from people’s response
in any social domain and have changing cut off points
depending upon the research questions, sample size,
participants’ identity, and methodology. As compared with
concepts in natural science which can be measured through
calibrated instruments, the possibility of measurement of
social class in a similar way is a complex task. According to
Rubin et al. (2014), ‘there are no international conventions
for measuring social class or SES’ (p. 5). The concepts in
natural science are reliable across the situations, at least
with the same tool, which is amenable to change with the
shift in scientific thinking. But the concepts in the social
sciences, where the same tool for measuring social class
was used sometimes is outdated and are acultural and
acontextual. However, the process of revision is available
for the tools of measurement, but the revised form does
not confirm whether the outcome is real measurement or
some epistemological positions (see also Borsboom, 2004).
Thus, the reliance on test for establishing the validity of
any concept may be due to the validation process and not
because of the actual ontological nature of the concept, at
least in the domain of social sciences.
The tendency to assign numerals to the subjectively
evolved construct in psychology is a criticized by the
relativists who conjure up the debates on the objectivity
issue adopted by the realists. Let us take one of the
indicators of SES that is, income, which relies on the
earning and its value measured in the comparative context
of income generation. However, it was hardly invoked
that income is itself a subjective perception when looked
through the lived experience of people. Income provides
the emotional and social standing of the individual in
a majority of cases where individual’s social capitals
nurture the accumulated psychological capital. The debates
encircling around the position of social psychology of
education and its underutilized concept such as social
class as a scientifically objective fact in social sciences
contests with the interdisciplinary perspective. Some of
the debates seem to nurture the epistemological styles of
understanding any phenomenon regarding its measurement
in psychological sciences (see Kievet et al., 2011; Michell,
2013). The issues of understanding the social psychological
concepts in education by assigning numerals and measuring
its relationship with other concepts were debated in many
forums. One of the arguments is the use of the idea of SES
in social psychology. Since SES is one of underutilized
concept in social psychological research in education, as it
was assumed to have the better role in sociological research
rather than in psychological sciences, its scope was limited
to its objective nature. SES as an active demographical
concept was utilized in research, to study group differences
where social psychological concepts were investigated,
but its role was more superficial and taken for granted.
However, some of the literature in sociology and political
sciences paved its way for active involvement in the social
psychological literature recently. The concept of SES was considered on the basis of consciousness of one’s present income, occupation, and educational status, together with its historical awareness regarding one’s identification
with the available social category. The knowledge of SES
gained from the memory of generations, which is the
social class, was very much neglected in psychological
sciences. Its measurement was assumed to be empirically
non-feasible epistemologically, where the whole gamut
of one’s experiences and collective memory because
of social class hierarchy formed the missing picture in
social psychological literature. The social psychological
research in education, by adopting SES as demographical
variable assumed its nature as an empirical construct
rather than the concept which has a hidden picture. The
decision to operationalize SES by observing the available
indicators believed to be portraying the reality of social
stratification.

An important determinant of the approach you will use to measure SES and SSS is the level at which you plan to assess its effects — the societal level, the community or neighborhood level, or the individual level. If you are examining how a new policy affected the number of individuals living in poverty, you may look into how many people are living below federal poverty thresholds before and after it takes effect. Researchers interested in how living in a particular neighborhood affects diagnoses of a particular illness may examine the median income of individuals living in that community. Others interested in how SES or SSS affects an individual's mental health may assess occupational prestige or educational attainment.

Education
Education can be measured using continuous variables (e.g., highest year of school completed) or categorical variables (e.g., 1-6 scale indicating the highest grade completed). Higher levels of education are often associated with better economic outcomes, as well as the expansion of social resources.

Income
Income can be measured in a variety of ways, including family income, assessments of wealth and subjective assessments of economic pressure. At the neighborhood and societal level, federal poverty thresholds, supplemental poverty measures and school and neighborhood level indicators of poverty can be assessed. Lack of income has been found to be related to poorer health, mainly due to reduced access to goods and services (such as health care) that can be beneficial to health .

Occupation
Occupation can be assessed by asking participants to note their current or most recent occupation or job title, or to indicate their occupational category from a list. Aside from financial benefits, employment can improve one's physical and mental health and expand social networks. However, the nature of lower SES positions can undermine these benefits, as the job itself may be hazardous or monotonous.

Recommended Measurements
The National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics has provided recommendations (PDF, 67KB) for measuring education, income, employment and family size/relationships. This provides researchers and policy makers with a consistent, standardized measurement and collection approach to SES across groups.

Education
Education should be measured in single years completed up to 5 or more years of college, and should also include collection of information on whether the individual obtained a high school diploma or equivalent. Surveys should also collect information on degree attainment.

Income
Income should be asked for the individual survey respondent and for the respondent's entire family, as well as household income. The collection of income should include the measurement of total income, earned or unearned, from specific sources (e.g., wages and salaries, dividends and interest, Social Security, unemployment insurance, disability income, etc.)

Occupation
Occupation should be measured at a minimum by a set of two standardized questions: one question to collect occupation and one question to collect industry. Additional information about work tasks and employer should also be considered.

Family size and relationships
Given that family size and household composition are required to calculate poverty, and survey measures should collect information on family size and household composition in compliance with official federal poverty guidelines as issued and published each year.

Other Recommendations for Conceptualizing and Measuring Social Class
For psychologists and other researchers who are interested in a more nuanced approach to measuring SES and SSS, an article by Diemer, Mistry, Wadsworth, Lopez and Reimers (2013) provides an in-depth look at best practices for conceptualizing and measuring social class. Specifically, the authors provide recommendations for the following areas:

SES: Measures of occupational prestige, which can be assessed at the individual or household level. These measures generally ask participants to indicate their most recent occupation, which is then classified into occupational categories.SES: Resource-based measures including measures of educational attainment, total family income, labor market earnings, wealth, and SES composite scores. These measures may ask participants to indicate the highest grade or year of school they completed, the combined total income of all members of their family in a given year, or their accumulated assets minus debts owed.SES: Absolute poverty measures including Federal Poverty Thresholds or Federal Poverty Levels, the Supplemental Poverty Measure, family budget measures and school or neighborhood level indicators of poverty.SES: Relative poverty measures including measures of material hardship and deprivation, food insecurity, economic pressure or an income-to-needs ratio. These measures may ask participants to indicate their unmet needs, whether they have insufficient food for all family members during a specific time period, or whether they endured any psychological distress due to financial difficulties.SSS: Subjective Social Status measures include perceptions of one's social standing using categories such as "working class" or "middle class," or perceptions of one's social position relative to others based on income, educational attainment and occupational prestige.

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