Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Applied Science in Food and Nutrition, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2017. / Introduction: The nutrition transition is a global phenomenon affected by developing economic prosperity. ‘Nutrition transition’ may be defined as changes in dietary patterns and nutrient intakes occurring in individuals, families, groups of people or whole populations when the food environment and other circumstances change. Post-1994 democratic elections in South Africa, economic laws called for the de-racialization of the economy. As a result of the annulment of the apartheid laws in the 1990s entrepreneurial opportunities became available for black people. Based on the 2011 Census, the middle class constituted 8.3 million (17%) out of the 51 million population in South Africa. Blacks made up 51%, whites 34%, coloureds 9% and Indians 6%. This is a vast difference from two decades prior to this when blacks made up only 3.3% of the population, with coloureds making up 9.1% and Indians 18.5%. In a number of Sub-Saharan African studies obesity has been shown to have a significant link to socio-economic status determined by access to water and electricity, smaller numbers of members residing in one household and increased amounts of money spent on food among other factors, which all promote a tendency to leading a more Westernised lifestyle. The main objective of the study was to determine the anthropometric status and analyse the food consumption of a community of emerging middle income status in Umlazi Township (Ward 84) outside Durban in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Methods: This study had a sample size of n=250 adult men (n=56) and women (n=194) who were heads of households or primary caregivers above the age of 19 years old with households receiving a total household income of more than R100 000.00 per annum/ more than R8000.00 per month. The study was quantitative and descriptive in nature with different tools used to measure the sample population. These included waist circumference and height and weight measurement to determine BMI and WHtR. A socio-demographic questionnaire was completed where the multi-dimensional poverty index (MPI) was established; a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and three 24-hour food recall were also administered to all participants; one weekend day recall and two weekday recalls. Data were analysed on SPSS and nutrient analysis done through Food Finder Version 3 Software and compared to the World Health Organisation standards recommendations for optimal health. Results: The mean age of the group was 52 years old. Slightly more than half (51.6%; n=129) of the population was unemployed. Retired participants made up 27.2% (n=68) of the population. The majority (80%) of the households indicated that between one to three members contributed to the total household income. The MPI of the Ward 84 community amounted to 9.09. The prevalence of obesity was 37.59% (n=21) among men and 76.80% (n=149) for women. Women had a higher prevalence of risk factors linked to non-communicable diseases than men. Mineral and fat soluble vitamin intake was deficient; however protein and carbohydrates were consumed in excess with means of 187.70% and 111.43% respectively. Top 20 foods consumed lists indicated that little fruit or vegetables were consumed. The average food variety score was medium indicating the consumption of between >30 but <60 different foods across the total population. A positive relationship of statistical significance was found between food variety score and income (p=0.007). Conclusion: The Ward 84 community consisted of an ageing population with households mostly supported by another member’s income from within or outside the household. The adults had sufficient education to have secured promotions in the employment arena and could afford a lifestyle similar to that of those who had always been more privileged. Although the Umlazi residents benefited from good housing and infrastructure and appeared to have averted poverty, the prevalence of overnutrition malnutrition was high and linked with an excessive intake of macronutrients. Majority (70%) of the community of Ward 84 is ‘food secure’ as indicated by the number of participants’ households indicating never having a shortage of money to buy food. This correlates negatively with the high prevalence of overweight and obesity (BMI) (p=-0.029). According to literature a persistent issue in black communities is the acceptance of an overweight body image being perceived as ‘healthy’ and an indicator of affluence. This community appears to be in the 4th stage/ pattern of the nutrition transition. It appears that a ‘westernised diet’ and lifestyle is more accessible and is embraced by this urban community as described in various literature and seen in the top 20 foods lists compiled from the 24 hour recalls. There is some oversight regarding the nutrient quality of a varied diet and achieving energy balance with macronutrient intake linked to informed nutritional choices. Suggested interventions could include the dissemination of information regarding nutrition and practical suggestions to achieve energy balance. In addition, future research could investigate the prospects of introducing participation in urban agriculture, investigate the issue of physical activity, and foster an environment for more physical activity and increase availability and access to micronutrient dense foods and investigate the development of a body mass index specifically for the black African population. / M

This thesis investigates discourses surrounding upper and middle class Afrikaner women living in Johannesburg during the years 1948, 1949 and 1958. It uses magazines aimed at upper and middle class women as primary sources and also makes use of interviews with upper and middle class women who lived in Johannesburg during 1948. 1949 and 1958. The thesis uses women's magazines. educational magazines and church magazines, as well as the Vrou en Moeder magazine, mouthpiece of the Suid Afrikaanse Vrouefederasie. Conclusions are drawn about the status and role of Afrikaner middle class women in society, as well as the value systems operating at the time. Differences in discourse and changes over time are accounted for. The thesis also draws attention to the importance of using gender as an historical category, and attempts to broaden the method of history by utilising discourse analysis. / History

This urban ethnography examines the everyday lives of young adults participating in middle-class culture in Ho Chi Minh City. My analysis illuminates the motivations and processes by which middle-class people create a social and moral middleness. Middleness refers both to the experiences of this group and to the cultural space wherein individuals perform their gender-specific, consumption-driven roles and negotiate identities as modern Vietnamese people. In attempting to understand precisely how social class functions and is experienced, my analysis focuses on how it relates to other processes of identity formation (i.e. gender and consumerism). Doing so also requires that I call attention to the uneven, unstable impacts of globalizing processes and the importance of performativity. By arguing that class is best understood as a socio-cultural process and by confronting the myth of global cultural homogenization, I reveal important insights about what it means to be middle-class in Ho Chi Minh City. Individual and group responses to the city's ever-changing consumer society show people carrying out their lives in social and cultural systems that are fundamentally unfinished.

Economic globalisation is enabling India to reinvent itself as a development crucible, providing previously unrealised opportunities for economic transformation. One crucial transformation of economic success is the rapidly growing middle class. Whilst the growth in the middle classes indicates improvement in the quality of life of many, the rate of consumption has also been increasing exponentially. If they, the middle classes consume resources at the same rate as the British and Americans, India will become the world’s number one producer of carbon emissions. The attitudes and aspirations of the growing middle classes are a major factor in the increased, and perhaps impulsive consumption patterns. It is therefore the aim of this research to consider the bottom-up approach, which validates this thesis by examining middle class homeowners’ preferences in Mysore, a south Indian city. Mysore used to be recognised as having socially cohesive and inclusive housing typologies that were climate responsive and calibrated to local, social and economic needs. Changes in social conditions, cultural practices and lifestyle can be seen in the way homeowners use their homes to demonstrate affluence and status. A key challenge is to research ways in which sustainable housing in an Indian context can both mitigate carbon emissions and at the same time address the material aspirations and desires of a fast-growing middle class. Baseline characteristics and homeowners’ attitudes are established by means of literature research and fieldwork. The output of this stage is triangulated with further research to narrow the focus towards boundary conditions and transition spaces for an in-depth study of relevant factors contributing towards consumption, aspiration and sustainability. The second stage points to the importance of the external boundary of the site and the edge of buildings in terms of aligning meaningful, sustainable design strategies with the concerns and aspirations of the emergent middle-class. This thesis argues that, in the domain of sustainable housing, both a qualitative approach and quantitative strategies are essential to the understanding of social and cultural dynamics as well as to measure and benchmark performance. Because of the nature of this multi-threaded approach, mixed method research practices have been followed using triangulation methodologies and grounded theory. This has resulted in the revisiting and refining of the research focus and objectives throughout the research. During the research process, spatial scenarios for housing were developed to harmonise preferences and different sustainability agendas. The research focused on identifying and testing the critical building characteristics of the boundary location. Homeowners’ preferences were qualified by a multi-sorting task analysis and study model performance tested by sophisticated environmental simulation. This was triangulated with fieldwork studies to help propose sustainable housing strategies. The methodology adopted has been critical to supporting the architectural response to the cultural and economic condition on one hand (social methods) and the climate responsive, traditional design and simulation models (environmental design methods) on the other. Different sets of fieldwork were conducted at two stages that involved archival searches and detailed interaction with architects, builders, users, academics and government agencies. In total, 240 respondents answered a questionnaire survey and 146 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The outcome of this research demonstrates how, in the absence of any counterbalancing regulations, social perception and economic aspirations limit the acceptability of sustainable design and construction strategies. In India, middle class demographics and value systems are complex; where safety and security, and display of wealth have to go hand in hand. In this context, this research provides new insight into the way sustainability can be understood in the Indian context with qualitative values that are complemented by quantitative measurements. Finally, this research suggests ways of introducing sustainable practices through a negotiated understanding that balances aspirations with more responsive design. India has identified housing as one of the eight national missions to reduce carbon emissions as part of its commitment to reduce people’s vulnerability to the impact of climate change. In a geo-climatically, regionally and culturally diverse country like India, the top-down national policy can only be successfully implemented with an understanding of the local context. A bottom-up approach to identify sustainable strategies that acknowledge homeowners needs and aspirations should be a useful contribution to achieving carbon reduction and sustainable housing in Mysore. With minor adjustments, the methodology and research process could be adopted in other Indian cities.

This dissertation is a cultural history of the making of a Mozambican middle class in the capital city of Maputo. It focuses on multigenerational debates, anxieties, and struggles among men and women over the meanings of, and aspirations for, economic and social inclusion in the modern world. The study spans the colonial-capitalist, socialist, and post-socialist eras in Mozambique’s modern history, and is set in the young city that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century as the Portuguese colonial capital of Lourenço Marques, later renamed Maputo in 1976 after independence. The rise of urban African middle classes as the key to modernizing Africa has come to the fore in recent scholarly and popular analyses of the continent’s economic and political future. Debates over how to define the middle class have revitalized the relevance of class analysis for understanding inequality and social change in urban Africa. However, little work has thoroughly examined the central role of changing gender relations in processes of middle-class formation. This dissertation begins to remedy this gap by examining the gendered relationship between class and culture that yields new insights into the lives and experiences that have occupied spaces in between wealth and poverty in an African city. Based on interviews, archival collections, newspapers and other print sources, I argue that Mozambican middle-class culture is the product of stitching together old and new ideas about what it means to live a better life, fueled by gendered debates over the role of “tradition,” and the position of women, in modern urban society. Focusing on debates surrounding assimilation, marriage, public life, and managing the home, I contend that men and women have negotiated, shifted, and redefined possibilities for upward social mobility in pursuit of education, meaningful work, loving relationships, and desires for greater comforts of urban life. The process of middle-class formation in Maputo has reflected shared aspirations among upwardly mobile women and men as stakeholders in colonial and postcolonial promises of “progress” and “development,” and been conditioned by periods of possibility and constraint under Portuguese colonial-capitalist, postcolonial socialist, and post-socialist Frelimo state rule. Ultimately, my research shows that the middle class has been unified over time by ambitions to modernize Mozambique, but fractured by deeply gendered debates over how to modernize.

In order to meet the problems of inequalities between students in swedish school, the governmentissues thepolicy "Jämlik skola" that aims to increase knowledge resultsand reduce inequalities in schools. The policy is based on the fact that the state must take greater responsibility for the distribution of resources to schools in order to strengthen the conditions for these to supply all studentswith equivalent education. The aim of thisessay is to conduct a policy analysis of "Jämlik skola" where the policyinstruments are identified and categorized to get an idea of how policies are supposed to address the problem of inequality in school. In addition, this essay aimsto carry out an evaluation based on the ”theory of the middle-class”that partially treats the concept of cultural capital and create an understanding of whether the policy compensates for different cultural capital among students. The conclusion indicates that the policy shows some signs of compensating for cultural capital, but several measures in the policy are far too vague, or focus on areas that lacks support regarding working against inequalities.

In this thesis, I ask 'Do racism and anti-racism affect black middle-class cultural lives?' I answer this question through interviews with thirty-two black Brits in professional occupations, and ethnographic work across middle-class spaces in London. I argue there are three black middle-class identity modes - strategic assimilation, ethnoracial autonomous, and class-minded - that each show a different relationship between racism, anti-racism, and cultural lives. Each of these identity modes are characterised by specific cultural repertoires. Individuals towards strategic assimilation draw on cultural repertoires of code-switching and cultural equity. Through the repertoire of code-switching, individuals towards strategic assimilation 'switch' identities when around the white middle-class. This identity-switching is based on the premise that one must become palatable to the white middle-class in order to attain legitimate middle-class cultural membership. Racism thus affects such individuals' cultural identities as they show racialised (white) barriers to middle-class cultural membership. Nevertheless, such individuals draw on the anti-racist repertoire of cultural equity, meaning they strive to be equal to the white middle-class in terms of cultural capital. Such individuals therefore often 'decode' traditional middle-class culture as white, but consume such culture to maintain an equal standing to the white middle-class in terms of cultural capital. Those towards the ethnoracial autonomous identity mode draw on cultural repertoires of 'browning' and Afro-centrism. Through their anti-racist repertoire of browning, they stress that people ought to be proud of being black. They therefore resist 'code-switching' and challenge the view that one must assimilate with white norms to prove their middle-class status. Such individuals also use the anti-racist repertoire of Afro-centrism to argue that they have a moral duty to positively uphold black diasporic histories, identities, and culture. They therefore prioritise consuming cultural forms which give positive, authentic representations of the black diaspora, consequently challenging the devaluation of blackness in British society. Lastly, those towards the class-minded identity mode draw on cultural repertoires of post-racialism and de-racialisation. Such individuals believe British society is 'beyond' racism, and they define as 'middle-class' rather than 'black', often reproducing negative stereotypes of other black people. Such individuals use their consumption of middle-class cultural forms to symbolically separate themselves from other black people. Racism affects their cultural lives, therefore, as they often reproduce negative ideologies of other black people as being culturally myopic, uncultivated, or 'playing the race card'. My thesis develops the 'two streams' of research on Britain's black middle-class. Firstly, studies of black British middle-class identity have been unidimensional, focusing predominantly on strategic assimilation. My research shows that strategic assimilation is only one identity mode. Secondly, the literature on black middle-class cultural consumption is also unidimensional, making it appear as though all black middle-class people seek to consume 'middle-class' cultural forms that have a 'black' focus (for example, literature exploring black identity). My research shows that certain black middle-class people (those towards the class-minded identity mode) have no affinity towards 'black' cultural forms, while others (those towards strategic assimilation) make sure to consume 'traditional' middle-class culture to maintain an equal standing with the white middle-class.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Sociology)--Vanderbilt University, May 2007. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Objective: To explore the changes in the accessibility of dental services among middle-class Canadians in response to recent changes in the labour market and the increasing costs of dental plans. Methods: Secondary analyses of all Canadian surveys that collected information on dental insurance, utilization and out-of-pocket expenditures were conducted. Descriptive analyses were used to identify and compare trends among middle-class against the Canadian average. Results: Since 1996, the number of insured middle-class grew from 43% to 48%, with the number perceiving cost-barriers to dental care increasing by 2.7 times. In 2009, 30% of middle-class visited a dentist only when emergency happened. Since 1978, fewer middle-income households spent out-of-pocket on dental care, while per capita costs per household spending increased. Compared to national average, middle-class trends implied to poorer access. Conclusions: Access to dental care issues might be ascending from lower income sectors to involve middle-income earners as well.

Objective: To explore the changes in the accessibility of dental services among middle-class Canadians in response to recent changes in the labour market and the increasing costs of dental plans. Methods: Secondary analyses of all Canadian surveys that collected information on dental insurance, utilization and out-of-pocket expenditures were conducted. Descriptive analyses were used to identify and compare trends among middle-class against the Canadian average. Results: Since 1996, the number of insured middle-class grew from 43% to 48%, with the number perceiving cost-barriers to dental care increasing by 2.7 times. In 2009, 30% of middle-class visited a dentist only when emergency happened. Since 1978, fewer middle-income households spent out-of-pocket on dental care, while per capita costs per household spending increased. Compared to national average, middle-class trends implied to poorer access. Conclusions: Access to dental care issues might be ascending from lower income sectors to involve middle-income earners as well.