How Social Class Affects My Family Life And Education

Overall, my reaction to Gerstel/Sarkisian’s thesis statement is confusing at first but then it start to make sense when I can understand their main points of the article. At first I feel complicate when Gerstel and Sarkisian talk about the lack of education matters to the standard in American families because I thought they talk about social class is reason in family connections. However, as I go through the texts over again, I can see how the authors are trying to say. They want the readers as well I am, to understand that the aspect of education is matter, but social class has higher impact on the family involvement. It leads us to the point that we finally understand why

The concept of social class has been around for ages and is still a part of today’s society. Social class is not only based on the individual’s wealth but also on their social standing such as; monarchs, priests, nobles, merchants, and peasant class. The peasant class was practically ignored, which means that the higher classes would only pay attention to each other. This can be the case in society today, there are some people who feel that their career makes them higher than a janitor. Even though humans have been around for centuries, social class is still a big issue.

The axis of inequality that will be focused throughout this paper is the social class. Social class is defined as a group of individuals who are categorized according to class (i.e. poor, middle, and upper) due to their income, wealth, power, and occupation. Social class is socially constructed by the way we view how much income and wealth a person possess (Ore, 20011a, 10). In reality it is much more than that. According to the text, poverty is not only the shortage of income, but it is the rejection of opportunities and choices that leads a person to a standard way of living (Ore, 2011a, 10). Stereotyping also contributes to it being socially constructed. These stereotypes influence us by defining who is who based on their principles in each class category. This can cause some to feel worthless.

Social class describes the different "layers" that exist in society. These "layers," or classes in society, are a division that civilization has been running on ever since the beginning of mankind. In most modern societies, our system of social class division is one of opportunity. We experience a good deal of social mobility, where people through generations or in their own lifetime can move up or down the social scale. By examining the many different perceptions of social class along with S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, it is illustrated that social class has an impact on people while they are growing up, and will usually deny them from rising above adversity.

Looking at the article “Class Matters” by Peter Sacks, Social classes are divisions in society, which are based on social and economic status. People from a similar social class have a distinct level of power and wealth within a given community or country. The most common social groupings, based on status, are the upper, the middle, and the lower social classes. The precise considerations of determining these hierarchical social categories vary from time to time. Many researchers have come up with different perspectives as far as social stratification is concerned. According to Karl Marx, social stratification is a result of one's position in the hierarchy of factors of production. Therefore, social stratification is a manifestation of financial muscle within society further creating the divide within social groupings as seen through educational divides and inequalities that lie in many aspects of life.

USA is a very big country with a lot of people and the social classes are very important. We can see that social class plays big part of people’s life. Everyday people are working, studying, trying to be better. Even though right now it’s time when everyone has many opportunities in his life, anyway there is a gap between classes and groups of people with same features. And your background probably will build your future. And we need to find what kind of class we have right now and look into these classes. The main idea is that Social Classes still exist and it’s most general part of U.S.A society. There are three reasons why gap between groups still exist.

Each of these groups is stratified into its own class; the group of people ranked most closely to them in property, power, and prestige. A person’s position in the stratification system affects everything about their life, from what they think and expect in life to how they see the world, as well as what opportunities they will have access to. Although, your status is still assigned at birth, but you have the chance at upward social mobility based on material possessions that you acquire, or things that you achieve. Or you may be on the other end of the spectrum and experience downward social

Race and class can play powerful roles in people’s family experiences. Race is defined as a socially constructed category of individuals who share common inborn biological traits (Newman 2009). Class is defined as groups of people who share a similar position in society based on their wealth and income (Newman 2009). Social class and race shape family lives in many ways, which in return reproduces class and race inequalities. In Annette Lareau’s study of families, she uses real stories of real families to show important social patterns.

The social ladder affected not only the nation’s sense of equality, but also the individual characteristics of a person. Social status can affect a person’s total being since it has the power to mold his character and disposition. One’s beliefs can also be based on the class where he belongs. It is so influential that it can control one’s way of thinking. Moreover, it can also be the very reason for an individual’s action. The decisions that a person make can be affected by the concept of social ladder. Everything that happens in the society can be traced to the existence of this unjust system.

Social class is defined as a system of stratification based on access to such resources as wealth, property, power and prestige (186). The social class system is typically passed down from the parent to the child. Our textbook quotes, “Although children tend to “inherit” the social class of their parents, during the course of a lifetime they can move up or down levels in the strata” (186). Therefore, this system is not affected by race, ethnicity, gender or age. However, social class may overlap depending on specific variables. Personally, my family’s social class status would be classified as the middle class. The middle class is composed of primarily “white collar” workers with a broad range of education and income; and make up about 30 percent of the U.S. population (188). Throughout this essay, I will distinguish how my social class has impacted my childhood, deviance and education.

Also since I learned about social class from Marx and neo-Marx theories, I understand some social reasons why there are inequalities, and the relationship between class inequalities and other aspects such as social institution. I would say this class is one of the reasons why I got interested in social class and eventually I wrote about class differences for my senior thesis. Especially we had many opportunities to study social class it gives me he idea, “each person doesn’t have own thoughts or idea to be rich or improve their social status because of pressures from people around or society”, “even thought people don’t feel they have personal right by the pressures, I don’t think these people try to aim to get bourgeoisies’ powers.” To make these clear, I could get the strong idea that people who are lower class people can’t or even don’t try to improve their life. At the time, I gave “pressure from people and society” as a reason of this problem but I argue that it is because it is almost impossible to do once they get in lower class, such as poverty cycle, because of strong social structure.

Another defining factor for social class is education especially since education is seen as an achievement toward the American Dream. (Lareau, 235). Younger generations seem to place more emphasis on achieving higher education and the occupational opportunities provided for those who are well-educated (Cherlin, 113). The socioeconomic stratification corresponds to those with differing levels of education such as upper/middle class individuals have a college education while working/lower class have some college and/or minimal high school education (Cherlin, 118-119). These individuals and their given circumstances based on education and income have different values and trends about marriage, family and socialization/rearing of children. (Cherlin, 114-117). Family inequality is then based on direct obtainment for individuals who are head of these households such as employment of fathers and mothers (Cherlin, 111), which in turn affects the childhood/family experience of child within the socioeconomic status of their parents. (Lareau,

Social class has a major influence over the success and experience of young people in education; evidence suggests social class affects educational achievement, treatment by teachers and whether a young person is accepted into higher education. “34.6 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) achieved five or more A*-C grades at GCSE or equivalent including English and mathematics GCSEs, compared to 62.0 per cent of all other pupils” (Attew, 2012). Pupils eligible for FSM are those whose families earn less than £16,000 a year (Shepherd, J. Sedghi, A. and Evans, L. 2012). Thus working-class young people are less likely to obtain good GCSE grades than middle-class and upper-class young people.

Class is the relative location of a person or group within a larger society based on wealth power, prestige, or other valued resources. In other words, class can be defined as a socioeconomic status in which one’s capital defines their class position thus giving us a ranking of financial status. This categorization of class position is based on economic status that can be determined through income, profession, or inherited wealth. Blue collar (working class), white collar, and upper class (professional services) are the three class categories based on economic status. This class structure is society’s way of determining between the haves and have-nots. One’s ability to be aware of the class system and one’s place within it is known as class consciousness or class standing.

Social classes are a description of individual’s position within the society concerning so leadership, prestige, influence, or compensation. Income levels of households or individuals play a