The BBC recently launched their Class Calculator, an intriguing web based app that used the latest social data and research to determine the positions of different people within a revised class system.According to sociologists, the standard system of working, middle and upper classes is simply not applicable to the modern world. Instead, we are left with an exploded and dynamic version of this system, which is said to more accurately describe an individuals place in society.Although, not, according to BBC journalist Damon Rose, if you are disabled or mobility impaired.Writing on the BBCsOuch!†disability blog, Rose described how many disabled people who took the test were left scratching their heads upon receiving their results.Rose cites a tweet from disability campaigner Kailya Franklin in which she describes her confusion after her own experience with the BBC Class Calculator Survey;“Middle class by upbringing and education,†she said,but underclass due to benefit receipt.â€Rose also described how the Calculator inserted many people into the lowest strata of the system, regardless of their background, simply because they were housebound; something that makes the app somewhat redundant in regard to mobility impaired or elderly respondents.In my own opinion, I feel that the incompatibility of thisnew and improved†class system to real-life gives us an insight into how we should truly view modern class systems of any type. Fifty years ago, we were born into a rigid and inflexible class system. The die was cast on our first day on this planet and we were destined to return to the ether from the class we were born into. If the new system, devised by sociologists, is dynamic, permeable and allows free movement between strata, can it be viewed as aclass system†at all?The fact that this ‘system is so heavily weighted against disabled and mobility impaired individuals who, few would argue, make up a significant and hugely valuable proportion of our society shows just how arbitrary and irrelevant such denigrations have become.Does the Calculator accurately reflect class in the UK? Should it be re-aligned to take into account the contributions of disabled people, or does it not matter at all? Let us know on
By Help Mobility Team