| Social class is a cultural variable that has garnered varying attention in the counseling psychology literature. Although lauded as an essential organizing component of individuals' life experiences, definitional ambiguity and operational unreliability has resulted in inconsistent conceptualizations of the impact of social class on people's daily lives. The purpose of the current study, therefore, was to better understand the impact of social class by exploring how White women who subjectively identify as falling in the middle of the social class distribution both in their childhood and currently understand and negotiate their social class identity.;Using phenomenological methods, twelve White women who work in financially related occupations were interviewed three times each to try and understand not only what they view as the factors that determine their social class belonging but also what that the effect of that belonging is on their life experiences. In contrast to existing literatures that suggest that women who fall in the middle of the social class hierarchy would not view social class as an organizing aspect of their lives, results suggest that, indeed, social class is an important variable in the women's lives, impacting how they structure their lives and contributing to some of the pressures that they experience. Implications for research and practice are suggested. |
