European classification project : an assessment of national variations in the perception of social space
Résumé
This article examines the categorization of social space in five European countries,
Germany, Belgium, Spain, France and Poland. It draws on analysis of reactions to the
European Socio-economic Classification (ESeC) prototype designed by social science
researchers for Eurostat. Looking beyond the logic underpinning the prototype, our
work investigates how “ordinary” people understand the structuring of social space
in different national contexts. By studying how respondents react to ESeC categories,
we were able to address how they develop their own categories that guide them in
social space. Through an experimental survey based on a list of occupations, classified
according to the ESeC categories, we tested the self-consistency of the prototype by
submitting it to ordinary individuals. Our results demonstrate that the respondents
found it difficult to understand the main organizational principles of ESeC. We con-
clude by questioning the ability of the European classification system in question to
take into account the diverse national socio-economic realities that still characterize
the European Union.