The author of this volume examines how a group of people goes about constructing and defending its social identity. Through the study of residents living on a recently constructed housing estate, The Heath, which contains its own private leisure and sports facilities, he considers the extent to which social identity within the new middle class can be considered to relate more to experience associated with leisure and cultural consumption than to experiences related to productive activity.

In this valuable study, conducted within the theoretical context associated with the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Derek Wynne looks at how the 'new middle class' of the late twentieth century goes about constructing and defending its social identity.