Sociology A Down To Earth Approach By James Henslin

Post the economic crisis in America and the recession during the years of 2008 and 2009, the country saw a great increase in poverty and worsening of living conditions of Americans. Currently, almost 50 million of fellow Americans are living in extremely bad conditions under the poverty line which means earning less than $11490 for a single person or $23550 for a family of four people. That’s about 1 in every 6 people in this country are living under poverty. A person living in this country on minimum wage which is $7.25 an hour also cannot pull himself out of poverty even after working 40 hours a week.

Chapter 3 of Essential of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach by James M. Henslin discusses the topic of socialization, which is the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group—the knowledge, attitudes, skills, norms, values, and actions thought appropriate for them. Sociologists try to determine how much of a person’s characteristics comes from “nature” (heredity) and how much from “nurture” (social environment). Studying feral, isolated, and institutionalized children, such as The Skeels/Dye Experiment, have helped them understand how “society makes us human.” The theories and research of Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Piaget to explain socialization into the self and mind. Cooley’s looking-glass self theory focuses on how we believe others perceive us.

In today’s society, norms are expected by everyone. According to the book Essentials of Sociology a Down- To- Earth Approach, Hansen states that norms are expectations of "right” behavior (Hansen, 2014). There are also two forms of norms that may be strictly enforced or not. There is folkways and mores. Folkways are norms that aren’t strictly enforced while mores are strictly enforced for essential thought to care values or the well-being of a group (Hansen, 2014). Along with a norm and the two types, there may also be reactions to it. These reactions may be positive or negative and termed as sanctions. Sanctions are either expressions of an approval given to people for upholding norms or expression of disapproval for violating them (Hansen, 2014). In conducting a norm experiment, the terms were put to a test. The experiment consisted of an observed norm violation and an individual norm violation. The experiments resulted in what I had hypothesized. My hypothesis consisted of sanctions of the norms that were conducted.

The Federal Government defines poverty as income that falls below the United States Poverty threshold. (Begun 95). If a person

Poverty within the United States is defined as “having an income below a federally determined poverty threshold. ” Poverty thresholds were developed by the United States government in the 60s to benchmark levels of subsistence. Over time these thresholds are often adjusted to account for inflation; it is now typical for the federal government to adjust the poverty threshold levels annually. Poverty levels represent the government’s estimate of the point below which a family has insufficient resources to meet their basic needs. Any family with less income than the established poverty amount is officially classified as poor or as living in poverty. Income as defined by the federal rules can include cash and cash welfare assistance, but excludes any in-kind welfare assistance. There are restrictions a few other

People are deemed poor if their incomes are insufficient to obtain the basic necessitates for themselves or their families. The most common and stereotypic explanation of poverty is the poor cause their own poverty because in America anything is possible if you want it. This “blame the poor” point of view is does

Poverty, in economic terms, is typically based on a poverty line, which measures the minimum amount of income deemed sufficient for livelihood. Although, poverty can also connotate the deprivation of capability.

In an article written by Angus Deaton, he discusses the issues behind poverty and why it is persistent in the United States. In the beginning of his article, he presents data from the World Bank which states that 3.2 million out of 769 million of the world's poorest people are living in the United States and are living off of less than $1.90 a day as of 2013 (Deaton). Some of the arguments he mentions that may contribute to the United States high poverty rate include where our poverty line is set, the quality of our necessities, and our government aid.

In the United States, income poverty is defined by the poverty threshold, developed in 1959 and based on expected food expenditures (thrifty food basket) for families of varying sizes. Each year the threshold is adjusted for the Consumer

Taking Poverty 101 class is a way to learn about poverty and what causes it (Beegle 342-343). In the article All Kids Should Take 'Poverty 101,' Beegle explained that in order to help the poor, we first need to be able to sympathize and understand their situations (342). Poverty 101 class will help us to do so because through this class, we will learn the real meaning of poverty, what causes it, and the attitudes that Americans have toward poverty and people who are in it. Moreover, we will get exposed to different types of poverty, such as generational poverty, working-class poverty, immigrant poverty, and situational poverty.

Each year, the Census Bureau updates the poverty threshold. According to their website, the official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and excludes capital gains or noncash benefits like public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps. Beyond that, there is also a poverty threshold that measures need. These include the dollar amounts to determine poverty status. It can be individual or by family and varies by the size of the family and age of the members. In a utopian world, there would be a single computation and we’d be able to see a complete description of what people and families need to live. (In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have poverty.) However, defining poverty is not a simple feat.

Poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (Dictionary.com, 2017). Based off this definition poverty is a condition that can cause a cascade of cause and effect actions that is detrimental to families and individuals both physically and mentally. Haan, Kaplan, & Camacho (2017) completed a study on the correlation between social and economic status and health in adults in Oakland, CA. They found that the lower the socioeconomic class the higher incidents of diseases and deaths related to chronic diseases (p.1161-1162). Just being without money or little money was not the only indication of health indication, a person living in an area with higher poverty issues

Poverty for centuries has been a very severe issue that has troubled many nations while impeding economic developments and progress. Poverty stricken countries are majorly concentrated in the continents of Africa and Asia. Continents like the Americas and Europe have globally been recognized as been wealthier yet still many parts of these ostensible countries face massive cases of poverty. Most at times, countries with high populations owing to high birth rates face the most cases of poverty. The definition of poverty can be boundless in the sense that poverty entails so many subsections as it sometimes gets complicated to group everything under one umbrella. Society tends to focus more on the tangible aspects of poverty because many people associate poverty with lacking money and it makes sense because poverty in terms of lacking money is a major problem affecting almost every country in the world. Even though it is debatable that poverty can be physical, intellectual, spiritual and even emotional, it is best to talk about the lack of money and economic developments in this essay. With reference to the oxford English Dictionary, poverty is state of being extremely poor and the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount. Reflecting on this definition given, I deduced that malnutrition and hunger can define poverty. In the light of this, I think poverty is lacking a comfortable place of shelter, being ill and not having access to a better

HERE IS A SUGGESTION FOR A TRANSITION: WHY NOT SAY THAT IF ONE HAS THE EDUCATION THEN HE OR SHE CAN LEARN HOW TO REPOSITION HIMSELF IN SOCIETY. HE CAN CHANGE HIS CLASS STANDING. BY CHANGING HIS OR HER STANDING THE PERSON THEN CAN GAIN SOCIAL POWER. Social status means power, economic standing means money. However, one of the myths in “Class in America” is that the United States is fundamentally a classless society. Class distinctions are largely irrelevant today, and whatever differences do exist in economic standing, they

In Essentials of Sociology, by James M. Henslin we read that there are four origins of sociology. The origins are the Industrial Revolution, social upheaval, skepticism, and the power of science. This was known to be tradition vs. science. When tradition was tested and failed and science was used that gave birth to sociology.