# Social Class and Work: A Review and Organizing Framework

*Kish-Gephart et al. · Power & Equity, Culture & Context · Journal of Management · 2023 · Paywalled*

Kish-Gephart, Moergen, Tilton and Gray review over 400 quantitative, qualitative and conceptual articles on social class and work, research they describe as fragmented across disciplinary and paradigmatic lines. They searched titles and abstracts in 79 journals, mainly top outlets in organisation studies, psychology and sociology, without time limits up to June 2021. Of 2,958 hits, 414 remained after excluding child samples, work unrelated to organisations or organising, and studies where class was inconsequential. Each was coded by type, paradigm and topic, and the framework built inductively. The set is 54% functionalist, 15% interpretivist and 31% critical.

Of the three paradigms, functionalist work treats reality as objective and seeks cause and effect; interpretivist work treats it as socially constructed and asks why and how class differences occur; critical work seeks to reveal deep structures of power and to promote emancipation.

'Getting In' finds a clear impact of class on entry: Rivera found elite professional service firms using hiring screens highly correlated with class, and some elite organisations, perhaps inadvertently, set barriers based on expected economic, social or cultural capital. 'Getting Along', over 215 articles or chapters and mostly functionalist, covers daily work. Reviewed research finds lower class members better able to infer others' emotions. In a qualitative study of upwardly mobile white men employees, over 70% reported concealing their class background at work, largely for fear of being judged or misunderstood. Employees are often rewarded for middle-class norms of independence. It covers classist microaggressions and 'class work', the processes and rituals by which people manage the anxiety of cross-class encounters. 'Getting Up and Dropping Down', over 75 articles and chapters, shows how hard upward mobility can be for lower class members and suggests disadvantage stems from inconsistent fit with organisational norms or lack of access to elite networks, not individual ineffectiveness; mentoring relationships benefit higher class employees more. 'Institutionalization and Societal Discourse', largely critical, suggests institutions instantiate class distinctions and individuals help maintain them, as in theorised 'class firewalls', with myths such as meritocracy supplying a mostly unquestioned rationale.

Getting In has had the least attention; intrapersonal work in Getting Along leans on early studies, nonwork settings or mixed findings; job performance has had minimal attention, downward mobility research is rare beside work on upward mobility, and pathways to emancipation are largely unaddressed. The agenda asks what changes once lower class entrants begin work, how to counteract ostensibly merit-based practices, and how power operates surreptitiously to weaken 'the voices of the disadvantaged'; it calls for cross-paradigm work. Its stated caveats: given space, it aims to be representative, not exhaustive, directly citing over half the relevant articles, and paradigm borders are fuzzy.

The review does not address psychological safety; the bridge is ours. We read it as an account of how class can make interpersonal risk at work unequal: in who conceals their background, and whose norms an organisation rewards.

- **This page:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/kish-gephart-et-al-2023/
- **View the source paper:** https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063221076822
- **Interactive map:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/?mode=papers&node=kish-gephart-et-al-2023

## Neighbours (9)

- [Men and Women of the Corporation](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/kanter-1977.md) (paper)
- [The Forms of Capital](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/bourdieu-1986.md) (paper)
- [Who Gets to Decide if PS Matters?](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/who-gets-to-decide-if-psychological-safety-matters.md)
- [Silenced by Fear: The Nature, Sources, and Consequences of Fear at Work](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/kish-gephart-detert-trevino-edmondson-2009.md) (paper)
- [An Uncertainty Management Perspective on Long-Run Impacts of Adversity: The Influence of Childhood Socioeconomic Status on Risk, Time, and Social Preferences](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/amir-jordan-rand-2018.md) (paper)
- [Childhood SES & PS](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/childhood-ses-workplace-risks.md)
- [Not Same for Everyone](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/psychological-safety-isnt-the-same-for-everyone.md)
- [Accent Bias and Perceptions of Professional Competence in England](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/levon-et-al-2021.md) (paper)
- [SES & Interpersonal Risk](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/socioeconomic-background-affects-our-appetite-to-take-interpersonal-risks-at-work.md)