Social class can bedefined as the existence of unequal relationships relatedto wealth, high culture, employment hierarchies and opportunities (Abercrombie & Warde et al. 2000; Bradley1996; Rampton 2010). In spite of the continuing existence of such relationsalso in the West, social class is all but absent in currentdebates about academicunderachievement, integration and youth in Denmark and elsewhere, where publicdiscourse about minority youth emphasises ethnic, cultural and religiousdifferences to explain social inequalities (Eide and Simonsen 2007; Pedersen2007). This shift away from class is in tune with poststructuralist thinking and ‘the cultural turn’ insocial and political theory, in which social class is seen as irrelevant andvague in relation to contemporary rapidly changing, multicultural societies (Abercrombieand Warde et al. 2000: 148; Halldén et al. 2008: 1). Also language research suggeststhat class relations may be losing significance as an explanation forlinguistic differences (Coggle 1993; Maegaard 2007), and some propose thatthere is a decline in class awareness in particular among young people (Bradley1996: 77). Recent research within linguistic ethnography, however, consistentlyshows that “systematic inequalities […] do not disappear just because people stoptalking about them in the ways that they used to” (Rampton 2006: 223) and that languageuse in everyday interaction among urban youth, even if on thesurface it seems linked to gender and ethnicity, is highly sensitive to traditionalclass positioning (Rampton 2010, 2011; Madsen 2013a) and institutionalinequality (Jaspers 2011a, 2011b; Madsen 2013b). While ethnicity and gender arenot irrelevant, it is important to explore their interconnection with thearticulation of social class interests in order to understand practicalactivity at school, and the way in which this activity links up with theinherently stratifying processes of schooling, before we can knowledgeablyaddress current educational challenges (Rampton 2010).

As a tool for daily communication, language and linguistic styles throughrepeated use come to be associated with particular people, places and purposes(Agha 2007; Coupland 2007). This makes language use a prime heuristic fortracing the experience and construction of personal and social identities,cultural interpretations, social differentation and alignments. Our plannedresearch project will approachsocial class in talk by investigatingeveryday language use and its secondary representations in different schoolcontexts in Copenhagen and compare these to schools in Brussels and London todetermine what identifications and social roles are involved, and how theseresonate with wider dynamics of social stratification and inequality. We do not disregard the realityof significant material differences in the social world, but we turn toinvestigate the effects ofindividuals’ experiences of social differences and inequality as it is expressed through action, not the leastlinguistic. This means that our analyses do not rely on the assumption thatbounded groups reflecting biological, place-related or socio-economic facts exist,but instead focus on how social categories emerge as socio-cultural (andpolitical) interpretations through complex, situated, semiotic practices(Rampton 2006, 2011, Brubaker 2004, Ortner 1998Madsen 2013a; Jaspers 2011b). The project asks: 

• To what extent are youth in situated activities at school sensitive to social class difference?
• How is linguistic variation (styles, registers) relevant for displaying a sensitivity to social class?
• How does the local recruitment of linguistic variation for displaying social class experiences relate to current educational ideologies and societal inequalities?

 In the workshop we would like to discussthese research ideas and our approach. We initiate the discussions with AndreasStæhr who presents some of his recent research indicating a class-sensitivityamong Copenhagen youth in their social media communication, but in combinationwith an understanding of ethnic differences. Thepresentation illustrates how young people from a linguistically and culturallydiverse area of Copenhagen use linguistic features indexical of certain speechstyles in their practices on Facebook. The use of these linguistic resourcespoints towards stereotypes associated with a particular kind of Danishness thatmay bear resemblance to stereotypical perceptions of traditional Copenhagen workingclass speech and behavior. This leads to a discussion of how spoken language practices and practices associated withwriting co-contribute to similar processes of enregisterment and illustratesthe challenges of approaching class-related linguistic practices incontemporary Copenhagen.

After this empiricalpresentation Lian Malai Madsen will introduce the research project ‘TalkingClass’, before we open the floor for discussion.