In America, the expanding chasm between social classes is a reality, and we are all affected by it, rich or poor. And as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the rift increases and as it affects Adults finances it also affects their perspectives of their social standing. Thier prejudiced perspectives trickle not down to the poor but to their children as they to take on their parents view of the world. A perspective that was the cause to some of the most difficult years of my childhood. That part of my childhood started when my family moved to Connecticut in 2005, my father had gotten work near the affluent side of Hartford. I lived in an average apartment complex steps away from a Upscale private school which also …show more content…
Friends are an integral part of childhood, and in this portion of my life I had none. I was alone, lashed out as the middle-class girl who did not even have her own bedroom. These were painful years, I came home crying almost everyday. But my Dad worked days and nights as a consultant for a small Connecticut health insurance company and made barely enough money to keep my family afloat. When he finally did come home, he was tired to the bone and would almost always fall asleep in the spot where he was sitting, whether that was the dining room chair or the sofa. I suddenly realized how hard my dad had been working for my family and me, and I cannot let people affect my education. My dad gave me the motivation to go to school everyday and get my education no matter the slicing remarks or stomach- wrenching games. One day, my teacher assigned us with other students in the class for a history project where we had to research, write two separate essays, provide a vivid visual representation and present over Connecticut history. As a 3rd grader this was a tedious project, and was not easy even with a partner. I had been assigned to one of the most affluent girls in the class, and the moment she heard my name slip from the
Power is mostly associated with all three elements of social class, consumption and cool. This is the case because those in power dictate what those people who are not in power will spend their money on. Those who are in power are wealthy and they own the manufacturing, production, and advertising. Also, people like celebrities who wield influence and thus power over people get to decide what is in demand. Power is connected to social class because those who are in the upper class decide what will be popular because they are on television and in the media. For example, when Sarah Jessica Parker, begin to wear Christian Louboutins, now everyone wants that coveted red sole. Louboutins are on the feet of everyone in power, and this makes those people who are not in the upper class want the same thing. With consumption, those who are I charge of advertising dicatate what consumers are will buy. If an advertiser can make a product look cool, sexy, and aforadle then the product will sale because many people will
THESIS: Race differences in identity and social position were, and are, more important than class differences in American society.
We should care because the middle class is being exploited financially and socially. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The wealth gap is further increasing and the middle class growing narrower and narrower. However, this narrow group of Americans is the ones paying the taxes to keep this government operating, which doesn’t seem logical. The middle class will be faced with more taxes. However, these taxes are not benefiting the middle class that much, instead, they are helping people in poverty as well as the rich in case of bailout or even filing bankruptcy. The middle class has to work even harder because they don’t receive the same benefits that other socioeconomic classes receive. So the more the middle-class works, the more they will be taxed on. This becomes a cycle that can’t be stopped.The middle class doesn’t get any help from the government because they are the ones supplying the government. Many of the middle-class members are blinded that these taxes are for the general good including them, but the general good does not
I agree that America’s natural resources are most efficiently when used in the mainstream way to an extent. While the European status quo is somewhat wasteful in nature, it does promote advancement in technology. While it may be a controversial topic, white people are more likely to visit national parks, and while there are several reasons for this fact, it does display a greater appreciation nature than minority groups. According to the Social Science Research Review: “a higher proportion of Whites visit national parks than of minority groups” (Floyd 1999). It is crucial to understand that my argument is based on modern times, because a hundred years ago, my argument would be different. Socioeconomic status plays a large role in this number.
In the 20th century, the English class system seemed more prominent than ever. George Orwell (1941) even remarked that England was “the most class-ridden country under the sun.” The class structure could be broken down into the upper, middle, and working classes, and within those groups were further subdivisions based on a variety of factor such as occupation, economic power, values, and beliefs. The differences between social classes could be viewed as those who had power, and those who did not (Cannadine, 1999). It could also be seen as pitting those who were the “elites" of society versus those who were the "common people." The division between classes was the largest it had ever been in England’s history. And, in some way, some were aware
My gender, having a military parent, our type of society and being a middle-class family is the biggest influences in terms of my own biases. Lareau states the best example of the next influence, which is how a person’s class affects their growth and development in Unequal Childhoods (2003). She talks about how the class of a child gives them more opportunity for growth and advancement. In society today we perceive the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Throughout history, and even today, it appears poor, middle, and working classes all strive to help each other, but the upper class has more of self-interest. This self-interest tends to gain favor and position from the public people. There is always
The idea of social inequality dates back since the time of our founding fathers. The mistreatment and unlawful equality and opportunity that these foreigners received became embedded into our history—this endless list includes, just to name a few, the Irish, Chinese, Jews, and most notably the African Americans (Blacks), who became slaves to the American people. Here in the United States, the current social class system is known as the class system, where families are distributed and placed into three different existing class—the upper class (wealthy), middle class (working), and lower class (poor). Since then, improvisations have been worked on into the class system, establishing now roughly six social classes: upper class, new money, middle class, working class, working poor, and poverty level. Social stratification is a widely common topic of debate because there have since been many arguments and debates on this controversial situation of social inequality and how it relates to social class and social mobility. According to Economist Robert Reich, he states that "The probability that a poor child in America will become a poor adult is higher now than it was 30 years ago..." (Reich, par. 5), meaning the given amount of equality, opportunity, and support that these struggle families obtain have gone mainly unnoticed by the government that it has gotten worst. The constant uproar of social inequality and injustice that these middle and lower working class families stem
Social class can be defined as a social construct which is used to describe a group of people with similar levels of wealth, influence and status. They tend to have dramatically different values and mannerisms to others groups, for example, the working-class are seen as uneducated and unskilled workers, whereas the middle-class are seen as highly educated people with high incomes (Harcourt, 2016). Despite there being other social class groups, including, the upper-class, this essay will explore the portrayal of the working-class, lower-class, also known as the ‘underclass’, and the middle-class in reality television, using the example of Wife Swap.
Over the past few years, questions over the role of social class and the working-class in modern Britain have been raised. The strata of British society have been discussed more frequently than at any other time I can remember.
In the United States, the relevance and importance of social class is absolutely enormous. The hulking impact that class and stature has on people is largely apart of the nations problems. Statistics are shocking; the amount of homeless people, or just the population of people in poverty in all, is a number to be dealt with. The numbers are astounding; ninety percent of all American citizens share one percent of the wealth. The other ninety
Having studied this topic, I understand that historical interpretations on specific areas of class and its meaning are in some ways entwined together ultimately resulting in a societal action. In a class society, the underlying social issues in regards to members of a specific class; the concealed feelings of the lower class in relation to their social standing within society, consequently forms a class consciousness therefore determining a social revolution. Marxism being a conflict theory primarily focuses on class and its meaning within society. Having read historiographies around this topic, it has also compelled me to reflect upon what the theory advocates; why a society that embodies classes will always be inherently unstable due
I found this video, and the results from the studies performed, very interesting and educational. The video showed an clear link between social class and behavior.
The socioeconomic classes have entirely taken control of our education system at all levels. It starts at the young age of students who have trouble learning as every student is different and it takes a vast amount of strategies to help each student learn, but our schools are failing to do so. Our social classes determine the type of education we will receive before we are even grown to realize it. Students of different classes are not given equal opportunities toward their education. Therefore, how do we expect them to reach their full potential and become successful if they are not given the essentials to get there.
Socio-economic class has an extensive social influence on language variation (Meyerhoff and Schleef, 2010 pg. 392). Individuals of higher socio-economic class typically have a greater income in which can be further invested in higher education. Consecutively, those who are educated tend to use more of the standard form of language and in contrast, speakers with lower educational levels tend to use more of the non-standard language (Meyerhoff and Schleef, 2010 pg. 415). Among the various social classes of the socio-economic hierarchy, the use of standard and non-standard forms of language can vary greatly. The data from Trudgill (1995) demonstrates the percentage of appearances of three non-standard variants ((ng): [n], (t): [?], (h): [0]) in 5 socio-economic classes in the UK. What is defined as a social class depends on many different factors. Occupation, home value, personal wealth, aspirations to social mobility and various other factors need to be considered when determining one’s social class. The levels in the hierarchy of social class are also affected depending on the region. In the adapted Trudgill study (1995) that took place in the UK, the socio-economic classes that they observed were the middle middle class (MMC), lower middle class (LMC), upper working class (UWC), middle working class (MWC) and LWC (LWC). The Trudgill study (1995) demonstrates the usage of non-standard variants in the UK that differ significantly across the social classes. The current analysis of data adapted from Trudgill (1995) investigates the differences between the social classes and their varying association with the usage of the three non-standard variants in the UK.
Imagine an utopia in which there is no social injustice. No discrimination on gender. Status. Mental health.