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This image represents the different stereotypes of the different classes, for example, the guy from the elite class is wearing a suit. A survey was carried out to distinguish different classes, and 7 different classes appeared from the survey, each having a different description. The class divisions were based on economic capital, social capital and cultural capital. The elite class has the highest amount of all three capitals.

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This article describes how social mobility is declining because middle class families often have advantages that the working class do not have, for example they have different contacts and many are privately educated, In turn this enables them to have better jobs.These are priviledges that the working class do not have and can leave them disadvantaged.

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Social mobility has been declining in Britain since the 1950s. So what can the brightest young people from less privileged backgrounds do to break into the professions?

Baharak Zargarei is a girl with ambition. She is a hairdresser's daughter from east London but she wants more.

Her exam results are great and so are her plans.

"Getting these grades means that I have a better option of getting to a good university, and with that comes a good career."

Baharak's two best subjects are maths and economics. At 17 years old, she is a perfect candidate for a career in finance. But that means breaking into the City - and that is a whole new world.

It is claimed that three out of four city finance directors were privately educated. Baharak went to a state school. She has no contacts in the City and no role models.

This is where social mobility, the opportunity for children to do better in life than their parents, grinds to a halt, says David Johnstone from the Social Mobility Foundation. Ambition gets working-class children only so far.

"You haven't had work experience, you haven't had mentoring - you come out and you're trying to compete with children from middle-class families and it's very difficult for you," he says.

Soft skills

Middle-class parents can provide the key to contacts in the professional world and the chance of work experience. The foundation is behind a scheme designed to unlock a few doors for them. Baharak and 11 other teenagers spent a week at the Barclays Global HQ in the heart of the City. Each student was given a mentor for a week and the chance to learn about what the company expects from its recruits.

Which class are you?

The class test takes about 25 minutes

Covers wealth and job type, as well as interests and social circle

Aims to find out if traditional divisions of working, middle and upper still apply

Take the Great British Class Survey More tests from BBC Lab UK
"The demands today of jobs require skills much broader than pure academic excellence," says Cathy Turner, head of HR for Barclays. "For example, tenacity, creativity, communication skills, many of what people sometimes term the softer skills."

Barclays is trying to improve access. By the end of her week, Baharak looked at home in her new world, but there are currently only 12 places on the scheme compared with an overall workforce of 55,000 people.

When you look at the UK's top jobs, the statistics are grim. Only 7% of children are privately educated but more than half the top doctors went to private school. Seven in 10 judges and six in 10 barristers went to independent schools.

The former Labour cabinet minister, Alan Milburn, wrote a ground-breaking report on social mobility for the last government, and now advises the current government on the same issue.

"Birth, not worth, has become more and more a key determinant of people's life chances," says Mr Milburn. "That trend is getting worse."

He sees it as a lost resource, saying we can ill afford to rule out huge slices of the population, particularly at a time of economic hardship.

"Labour is king in the modern world. If you're not using everybody's labour to the maximum of their ability, that is bad for them, but it's also holding the country back."
Boot camp
Among those trying to increase social mobility is Liverpool University. It is offering a crash course in the soft skills that a private education provides.

In a row of small booths, students are paired with tutors to learn the hidden rules of networking. At the end of fake interviews, they are given their feedback - no matter how brutal.

We don't want to have a single gene pool of people from only one particular background
David Morley, Law firm Allen & Overy

"Your answers were a little long and rambling in places," one is told. "Thirty five per cent of the interview is about how you come across."

The man behind the soft-skills boot camp is Paul Redmond. "It's knowing how to dress, knowing how to behave, knowing how to talk, the kind of small talk that you might have in an employers selection centre can all play a part in graduate recruitment."

So how did we end up in a position where social mobility is poor and worsening? Well, it hasn't always been like this. The middle of the last century was the golden age of social mobility. Grammar schools were the engines of change. It was a ruthless system - three children rejected for every one that got through, but once you were in, you were encouraged to aim high.

From there, things slipped. If you were born to an average family in 1958, you were more likely to get a job in the professions when you grew up than someone arriving just 12 years later, in 1970.

But the economic decline of the 80s provided the key moment - the fork in the road. In that decade, the gap between rich and poor widened by 60%. Those with good jobs could provide for their families, those without fell behind.

Different world

David Morley has seen what is possible. Thirty years after he left his state school, he is a senior partner at a City law firm.

"When I discovered that it actually got harder for people from average or below-average-income families to get into the professions than it was when I entered the law 30 years ago, I was just astonished and appalled by that," he says.

So he has designed a scheme that gets 20 young people into the company, teaches them the art of networking and raises their sights.

There is roleplay, challenges and a chance to spend time with lawyers. David says this is not charity - everyone wins if we broaden the range of people entering the professions.

"We don't want to have a single gene pool of people from only one particular background. If every major firm had a structured work experience scheme then I think that could have a really dramatic impact on the problem."

Solutions are hard, and harder still to spot. It will take the progress of a generation to see what differences changes like greater university access have made. For Alan Milburn the test is simple - to stop young people ruling themselves out.

"What makes me, I suppose, sad and angry in equal measure is what I call a 'not for the likes of me' syndrome - where I talk to groups of kids and they say, 'Well, you know, maybe I could become a doctor, a lawyer or a journalist, but that's not really for the likes of me'."

Richard Bilton investigates Who gets the best jobs? on BBC Two at 2100 GMT on Wednesday 2 February.

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The hidden rules of professional Britain

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Social mobility has been declining in Britain since the 1950s. So what can the brightest young people from less privileged backgrounds do to break into the professions? Baharak Zargarei is a girl with ambition. She is a hairdresser's daughter from east London but she wants more.

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This clip explains how middle class and working class families raise their children differently, especially with the way they use language, and that this installs different values in the child. This in turn leads to those children growing up to be different from another, with a clear division of middle and working class between them.

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Working Class Home Or Middle Class Home: Some Root Differences

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http://www.mslaw.edu In this excerpt from the Massachusetts School of Law's Program Books Of Our Time, author Alfred Lubrano discusses what is learned from growing up in a working class environment as opposed to a middle class one. Mr Lubrano's book is entitled Limbo - Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams. The host of Books of Our Time is Lawrence R.

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This article talks about white collar crime, and describes how often, when people with high status do crime, they get away with it, and their punishment is usually less severe than it would be if it was blue collar crime. Therefore, perhaps it is not so clear if blue collar crime indeed is more prominent, or if white collar crime just gets away with it more.

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This clip demonstrates the use of racism in comedy which is still present in America today. Hobbes 'superiority theory' is presented here as togetherness is expressed by mocking minority groups

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In this clip of wife swap, we see the differences between the working class families and the middle class families, especially when it comes to education and culture values, for example the middle class family placed much more importance on these issues than the working class family

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This clip describes the general stereotypes of the Chav Culture. When people are asked to describe what a chav is, they often refer to their clothes and sense of fashion. They are described as 'wanting to attract attention to themselves' and as 'creepy' and being 'classless'. Overall only negative stereotypes were mentioned.

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Are you a "hipster" or a "CHAV?" StereoTypes host Ryan Hall goes to London to talk style with the Brits, who all think Ryan is a "gay hipster" based on the way he dresses.

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Grayson Perry argues that a person's taste is the result of their social class. The way we like to dress, the quality of our clothes, the programs we like to watch on TV are all influenced by our class background. This is linked to the lecture in week 3 as we discussed that class influences our culture and taste.

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This Article draws on a study which found that the upper class is more likely to lie, cheat, and act selfishly. The study also suggests that social status, which is one of Weber’s attributes of the upper class, leads to greed. In addition, it is argued that having economic stability and power might lead to people not perceiving the risks of their behaviour.

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This article describes the stereotypes surrounding class and taste.

In relates to the lecture as it supports the idea that class is increasingly

revolves around taste and consumption as opposed to work.

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This article describes the middle class. It relates to the tutorial we had as it describes

how class influences our taste and lifestyle choices. At the same time the article says that the

term class seems to be ‘out of date’ and these days it is harder to differentiate between the classes as John Prescott argues ‘we are all middle class now’.