Media Magic Making Class Invisible

In Mantsios article “Class in America” he states that Americans hold beliefs that blind them to social classes, citizens in America have four myths they use to ensure talk about the classes never take place. America has the largest gap between rich and poor in the world, and the lower class has no means to an end they can’t afford health care or quality education. The upper class avoids talk about social class the most; wealthy people don’t want to admit that they are better off than others. While the lower class sees how much better off others are than them, but they still don’t like to label themselves. I agree with Mantsios that most Americans avoid talk about classes although I am not one of them. Also I

Social class refers to the system of stratification of the different groups of people in a society. Social class makes everyone’s lives extremely different. So does education. Not surprisingly, affluent students in well-off school districts have higher rates of high school graduation, college attendance and entry to the more selective colleges. This has little to do with intelligence or ability. Statistics provided by the College Board for 2013, suggest that having more money is the key to getting

In “Class in American,” Mantsios offers evidence to challenge the idea that everyone in the United States has an equal chance to succeed. Mantsios offers three different American Profiles. Each person in the different profiles worked hard, but they all came from very different classes; they also lived very different lifestyles due to the fact that they came from these different classes. These three different American Profiles helped Mantsios challenge the idea that everyone in the United States has an equal chance to succeed, because they provided proof (from similar areas, all ambitious, hard-working) that even with all these similarities their lives were still drastically different. The explanation of spheres of power and oppression is most closely related to Mantios’ position on the causes of inequality, because he believes these two things are the most to blame for keeping individuals from succeeding. He explains that these are things are out of a person’s control (race, gender, what class an individual is born into), which may be most to blame for not having an equal chance to succeed.

Mantsios writes about class in the United States. He covers the fact that people rarely speak about the existence of social class. As americans we refer to each other by their race, ethnic group, or geographical location. Mantsios states that we do not speak about class because it has been taken away from pop culture. The author is the one making the argument in this article. He has very outstanding credentials such as being the director of the Murphy Institute for Workers Education and Labor Studies at Queens College in New York. He is also editor of a New Labor Movement for the New Century (1998). The targeted audience seems to be the “upper class.” I feel like the “upper class” needs to help out the “middle class,” but I also think the middle class needs to be more aware of the situation. They could both work together. The authors main point of this article was to inform the readers about social

Primary education, Supplemental tutoring, summer camps, secondary education, family activities, higher education, first full-time job, subsequent employment, present employment with the age of the person, present residence, second residences"(pp.336-340). He lets you look into the life of different people, some from upper-class families and some from lower class families. The reader can see for themselves that the way they are brought up, whether it is from and upper-class family or lower-class family, it affects them. It

Mantsios gives his readers great evidence and details that not only show class distinctions in our society, but how the chances to move up from the poor to wealthy is one in a

In Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor, author Gloria Watkins under the pen-name Bell Hooks discusses the problem with the way poverty is depicted in the media in America. From her own personal experiences growing up poor, she has observed what the stigma surrounding poverty does to the underclass. Hooks points out how the media generates the idea that being poor means that one can’t live a meaningful life, and that one should feel ashamed for not having lots of money or things. To further her argument, Hooks uses examples from encounters she has had where people are conditioned to believe the poor are lazy, dishonest, and unworthy. Bell Hooks

In reality class always matters and it shapes our interests in life. We all come from different background and ethnicity. I believe that class is shaped mainly by income and occupation. However, many people think if a person is wealthy, therefore, he belongs in the upper class. But there are other factors that define class and it is more than just how much money you have. It can be the network of people that surrounds, traditions, and academic status that can also define class. Many of it has to do in which family you have been born and network that creates it. All of my family members have been born and raised in Russia; they completed universities, got jobs, and had enough income to support a family. “Each of us is born into a family with a particular class identity and class history—sometimes it is a mixed or hybrid identity—but almost always it is part of a network of other relationships—to other families in a community, to work and jobs, and to institutions” (Zandy 112).

According to Bynner and Joshi (1999) class differences have persisted since the late 1950’s. It can be seen that all studies carried out by various theorist came to the same conclusion that middle class pupils tend to do a lot better than working class in terms of educational achievement. Pupils from middle class backgrounds tend to pass more exams, stay on at school for longer and are five times more likely to go to university. This gap in achievement widens with age as right from nursery school to university, processes like labelling or the self fulfilling prophecy take

In the second reading title “Framing Class” by Diana Kendall the idea of class is described as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Diana focuses on the idea that the media shapes the way we view class. The media

In his novel, Making Societies, William G. Roy expresses class as “social relationships that are understood by participants to be hierarchical on the basis of socioeconomic group membership, reinforced by major institutions and recurrent over time” (Roy, 158). With this definition in mind, my family would be considered upper-middle class in today’s societal terms, or upper class based upon Roy’s explanation. Max Weber identifies three concepts that determine the class categories: education, religion, and medicine. We can use these parameters in order to argue that my family has used class advantages in order to get into ISU.

In “Making Class Invisible” Mantsios speaks to how the media addresses of lacks to address those classified as poor in the U.S. He says how most times media news outlets purposefully aim to update middles to upper-class citizens and rarely report news or information that is relevant

These images are constructed by what the media allows us to see and what people see on the television. Popular television shows, such as Law & Order, tend to use certain stereotypes like “welfare queens” and “crack-whore mothers” to portray the people living in poverty. The sympathy for people in poverty skyrockets downward when it is known that they are using welfare. The images that people have in their minds only get more stereotypical as they watch more television and don’t see anything else that would counteract these images. The media coverage plays a huge role in forming an image in each person’s head; therefore, the lack of coverage around Grand Forks only leads the public to form stereotypes from fictional television shows.

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,

That a student’s social class origin impacts on their learning outcomes is self-evident across much of the developed world, with entrenched disparities in academic achievement that are inversely correlated with family income (Snook, 2009:3, Argy, 2007:para 3, Reay, 2006:289, Nash, 2003:179-180).