The self-control ethos and the ‘chav’: Unpacking cultural representations of the white working class

Abstract

This paper applies Joffe and Staerklé’s self-control ethos to cultural representations of the white working class. We initially follow their identification of three aspects of the self-control ethos — mind, body, and destiny — to show the explanatory value of the concept, before considering four possible avenues through which the self-control ethos may be developed: the extent to which it is the interrelationship between the separate aspects of the self-control ethos which lends them their visceral, emotional, and symbolic power; that gender differentiation is an important element in the specific content of stereotypes; that some stereotype content relates to issues of containment; and that a tighter contextualization is afforded to the self-control ethos by considering self and other relations in the terms of a consumer culture. These are offered as possible directions for the future development of a social representational approach sensitive to the contemporary cultural context.