MSPs have questioned an expert's report into social class at Holyrood after it concluded there is only one politician in the Scottish Parliament with a working-class background.
The study by Shevaun Smith, a PhD researcher at the University of Strathclyde, found that the SNP's Karen Adam was the only working-class MSP.
The analysis was based on the prior occupations of MSPs, or the main job a candidate held before entering politics.
Adam, the Banffshire and Buchan Coast MSP, had jobs in hairdressing and retail while raising six children before she became a councillor.
But she herself has questioned the study, putting out a statement on Instagram saying that she considered there to be other working class MSPs.
She said: "I am and always will be proud of my working class roots. In the article [in the Scotsman], it states I worked in a hairdresser and in retail. But, many of the jobs I used to do were mainly domestic jobs to pull in extra cash when we were struggling a bit.
"I would clean workmen’s porta cabin loos on work sites, from 5am to 8am, then get back home for my then husband to get to work, then I would tend to all my housework and mothering duties through the day, then go back to clean from 7pm to 10pm after I had bathed and got the little ones to bed.
"To me this is normal person stuff and honestly I don’t know why it’s a story. It really shouldn’t be, but I do think there are other working class MSP’s?"
Aberdeen Donside MSP Jackie Dunbar also appeared to criticise the study when she pointed out she had worked in petrol stations before going into politics.
She posted on Twitter/X: "I worked in a petrol station on King Street, then after my daughter was born I moved to Tesco Danestone for 14 years until I was elected to @AberdeenCC in 2007.
"I never realised working in Tesco and petrol stations were middle-class jobs."
Dr Ewan Gibbs, a historian and lecturer at the University of Glasgow, said Holyrood is dominated by people "from professional and managerial backgrounds".
“Obviously, those sorts of people make up a far higher proportion of Scottish society than they would have done in, say, the middle of the 20th century, but they are still considerably overrepresented," he went on.
He said the vehicles that used to take working-class people into politics, such as trade unions, “have become much weaker".
James Mitchell, professor of public policy at the University of Edinburgh, has also described Holyrood as a “middle-class parliament for a middle-class electorate”.
Christopher Carman, the Stevenson Professor of Citizenship at the University of Glasgow, pointed out, however, that more people identify as working-class than you might find if you purely just look at past employment.
“There’s all sorts of ways that people identify themselves and think about themselves, and social class is one of the ones that tends to be overlooked a little bit when we’re talking about representation,” he said.
Glasgow councillor Christina Cannon posted on Twitter/X: "Has anyone done any other investigation into social class of the 129 MSPs, preferably one that doesn’t allocate a class based solely on previous employment?
"WC [working-class] representation is important, but at present the discussion is based on an assumption that is quite frankly ridiculous."
