Leisure, lifestyle and status: a pluralist framework for analysis
In contrast to the Marxist view of society and leisure, with its basis of class division and conflict, analyses of leisure based on the pluralist defence of the liberal democratic market system seem to lack both a satisfactory classificatory system of society and an adequate sociological explanation of the dynamic forces shaping leisure and society. This leads in turn to an inadequate agenda for the study of leisure in its wider social context. This paper suggests that Weber's concepts of status, status groups and lifestyle offer a way forward for pluralist analysis. It examines how research on ‘status politics’, or the ‘politics of lifestyle concern’, and existing research on lifestyle might be incorporated into such an approach.