Embourgeoisement

Embourgeoisement is the process by which the values, ideas and lifestyles of the bourgeoisie or middle class are adopted by non-bourgeois groups, primarily the working class and the rural population. The opposite process is proletarianization. Sociologist John Goldthorpe disputed the embourgeoisement thesis in 1967.

A suggested example resulting from their own efforts or collective action is that taken by unions in the United States and elsewhere in the 1930s to the 1960s that established middle class-status for factory workers and others that would not have been considered middle class by their employments. This process allowed increasing numbers of what might traditionally be classified as working-class people to assume the lifestyle and individualistic values of the so-called middle classes and hence reject commitment to collective social and economic goals.