''Class Structure in Australian History'' is a work of Australian social history, written by Terry Irving and

Raewyn Connell Raewyn Connell (born 3 January 1944), usually cited as R. W. Connell, is an Australian sociologist. She gained prominence as an intellectual of the Australian New Left. She was appointed University Professor at the University of Sydney in 2004, ...

. Published in 1979 by Longman Cheshire, It is considered a definitive work of the Australian

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, ...

. It studies the development of

social classes A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, income ...

, periodising the

political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

of capitalism in Australia.

Overview

Terry Irving and

collaborated in the Radical Free University project in Sydney, and shared a concern with class methodology and the portrayal of resistance in social history. The aim of the project was the pursuit of socialist strategy, as they remarked: "Our intention is political —to help people gain a clear understanding of the patterns of class relations they live in and have to act on here and now".Irving, T & Connell, R 1979, Class Structure in Australian History, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, p.x Furthermore, taking inspiration from E.P. Thompson, they rejected a moralisation of the working class:

References

{{reflist Australian non-fiction books Social class in Australia