Whether you’re a fanatic for country music or a devout fan of the opera, the music you listen to represents more than just your personal tastes.
According to a new UBC study, social class continues to influence our cultural attitudes, as well as the way we listen to music.
“Breadth of taste is not linked to class. But class filters into specific likes and dislikes,” said Gerry Veenstra, study author and professor at UBC’s Department of Sociology.
The study found that under-educated, less economically secure individuals typically listen to country, disco, easy listening, golden oldies, heavy metal, and rap.
In comparison, wealthier, substantially educated individuals prefer the musical soundings of classical, blues, jazz, opera, choral, pop, reggae, rock, world, and musical theatre.
This research delves into the much debated topic of cultural sociology: weather one’s class is accompanied by specific cultural tastes, or whether “elites” are defined by a broad palette of preferences that distinguishes them.
The study found that wealth and education do not influence a person’s breadth of musical tastes, albeit it did find that social factors such as age, gender, immigrant status, and ethnicity shape our musical tastes in very complex ways.
“What upper class people like is disliked by the lower class, and vice versa,” said Veenstra.
For example, the least-educated people in the study were over eight times more likely to dislike classical music compared to the best-educated respondents. Meanwhile, lowbrow genres such as country, easy listening and golden oldies were disliked by higher-class listeners.
The study involved nearly 1,600 telephone interviews with adults in Vancouver and Toronto. Participants were asked about their likes and dislikes of 21 genres.
The study was recently published in the Canadian Review of Sociology.
