David Lockwood (sociologist)

Lockwood was born in Holmfirth, England and was the youngest child in his working-class family. His father, Herbert, was a dyer and then retrained as a cobbler after being wounded during World War I and he died when Lockwood was 10. His mother, Edith, was a cleaner. He served in the Army Intelligence Corps from 1947-49.[1]

His book, The Blackcoated Worker, (1958 & 1989) seeks to analyse the changes in the stratification position of the clerical worker by using a framework based on Max Weber's distinction between market and work situations.[3] Lockwood argued that the class position of any occupation can be most successfully located by distinguishing between the material rewards gained from the market and work situations, and those symbolic rewards deriving from its status situation.[4] His work became a very important contribution to the 'proletarianisation' debate which argued that many white-collar workers were beginning to identify with manual workers by identifying their work situation as having much in common with the proletariat.

Other published work included The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (1969) and Solidarity and Schism (1992).[1]

Lockwood was married to gender studies pioneer Leonore Davidoff, who he met while studying at LSE. They had three son, Matthew, Ben and Harold.[1]

• David Lockwood at "Pioneers of Qualitative Research" from the Economic and Social Data Service