embourgeoisement

The process of adopting or the condition of adopting the characteristics of the bourgeoisie; bourgeoisification; the process of becoming affluent.

The proliferation in a society of values perceived as characteristic of the middle class, especially of materialism.

Although these reforms were, in some cases, ineffective even when implemented, and, in other instances, impossible to implement because they met with strong resistance from powerful interests unwilling to relinquish the authority they held, the reforms nonetheless focussed attention on and began the process of dealing with the problem of miswielded authority as a cause of embourgeoisement.

A shift to bourgeois values and practices.

Yet, in a fashion similar to the “Affluent Worker”, MacKenzie constructs a theory of embourgeoisement that is far too narrow historically and consequently, sociologically unsatisfactory.

Goldthorpe’s arguments and the ‘embourgeoisement thesis’ have spawned many research studies. Russell Lansbury investigated differences blue- and white-collar workers in social outlook.