archives@tulane.edu / This dissertation examines Colombia’s socioeconomic stratification system (SES), an official scheme to classify the country’s housing stock into six strata in order to crosssubsidize utility rates. Established in law in 1994, the SES assigns strata to residential buildings based on their physical characteristics and the amenities available in the surrounding neighborhood. In the popular imagination and among researchers, the SES has come to be understood as more than a system that classifies housing: strata are a part of Colombians’ personal identities, listed on dating profiles and instrumentalized in studies as a demographic category alongside sex and race. This dissertation is guided by two research questions. First, how has the significance of the SES changed such that the system, intended originally to classify dwellings, is now also understood to categorize individuals into distinct social classes? Second, do the categories of the SES function as symbolic boundaries that reinforce patterns of hierarchy and exclusion? To answer these questions, I consider two bodies of evidence. I begin with a comprehensive review of published academic articles that make reference to the SES. Examining a corpus of 52 articles and reports published in English and Spanish, I find that 17 articles misconstrue strata as based on personal characteristics such as income or educational attainment. I argue that the prevalence of this error demonstrates that Colombians have attached meanings and implications to the SES beyond its original intent, and that these reinterpretations are held firmly and uncritically, even by experts. To elucidate how the SES is understood by Colombians of diverse perspectives, I also analyze 31 semistructured interviews conducted with residents of Medellín. The set of interview participants includes residents of housing classified across all six strata, the most comprehensive cross-section of Colombian society yet represented in a project of this type. With evidence from these interviews, I show how narratives that rely on the strata system have interplayed with other conceptual repertoires that Colombians draw on to make sense of socioeconomic class, focusing especially on repertoires rooted in the specific economic history and regional identity of Antioquia. I argue that the strata system has compounded the symbolic boundaries that exist in Colombian society, and that it has been assimilated into racist and classist ideologies. I conclude with an argument for the moral necessity of advancing equity and centering the voices of the oppressed in policymaking and academic research. / 1 / Ana María López Caldwell

Thesis (M. P. H.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Also available in print.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-159).

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Economics)--University of California, Berkeley, May 1925. / Originally issued by K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. without thesis note. This edition is identical except for the addition of the thesis t.p. "Programme of the final public examination ... of Margaret Trabue Hodgen" (4 p.) laid in. Approval sheet (typewritten copy) inserted. Bibliography: p. 283-312.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Hamburg, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 468-491).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Hamburg, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 468-491).

The primary goal of this dissertation is to lay the groundwork for the eventual combination of micro and macro levels of class analysis into a unified theory. The first steps of this process require the creation of a micro level theory of class identity formation, a slight reconceptualization of the class map upon which the macro level theory is based, and an elaboration of the partial macro level theory provided by Wright (1997). At the micro level, I find the factors which contribute to class identity formation depend on which class identities are being distinguished. This result echoes the findings of Centers [1949] 1961, but moves beyond his analysis by quantifying the contribution of each of the factors to the predicted probability of selecting a class identity. At the macro level, I find that including partial ownership in Wright's class map uncovers important hidden variation among Wright's non-owning class locations. Separating partial owners from non-owners illustrates an important source of division in class consciousness not possible using Wright's class map. Finally, I further elaborate Wright's partial theory of class consciousness by demonstrating that McPherson's concept of socio-structural space can be usefully applied to the class structure, which provides a set of hypotheses to explain how class formation affects class consciousness. The solidarity hypothesis is supported, suggesting class based homogeneous friendship relations strengthen class consciousness in the polar class locations. Increasing class based social distance between friends, decreases the strength of an individual's class consciousness. While just the first steps, these advancements in theory and empirical results help further the cause of creating a unified theory of class by strengthening our understanding of both the micro and macro levels of class analysis. With these improvements in place, further work at both levels of analysis can continue the process of integrating the two levels of analysis.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Tübingen, 1900.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, 2005. / Title from pdf title page (viewed Apr. 17, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 294-308).