Social Issues Class And Gender

One’s identity has the ability to play a central role in one’s schooling experience and in return, affect the way they perceive the world around them. Growing up in an Asian household located in a predominately Asian American neighborhood located in the San Gabriel Valley, I always identified myself strongly to my race and took pride in being a first generation Asian American child. Race has definitely affected my schooling experience in many different ways, both positively and negatively. In addition, there were a variety of other aspects such as stereotypical gender roles and socioeconomic class status which factored into the way I learned in the U.S. education system. In this paper, I will examine how race, class, and gender played a big role throughout my schooling experience.

Linda Tirado, author of Hand to Mouth Living in Bootstrap America, tells her story of what it’s like to be working poor in America, as well as what poverty is truly like on many levels. With a thought-provoking voice, Tirado discusses her journey from lower class, to sometimes middle class, to poor, and everything in between. Throughout the read, Tirado goes on to reveal why poor people make the decisions they do in a very powerful way.

There is much debate about the issue of social class in the United States. There are arguments about whether social classes are distinctly separate or fluid, dependent upon one’s community or society as a whole, and if they are subjective or objective (Hughes and Jenkins). However, despite the debate surrounding social classes, it is still important to try to define them and analyze their effects, as they are such an important part of our identity and our opportunities in society. Although our society has tried to appear as though we have no classes, and it is becoming harder to tell what class someone is in by material goods, classes do still exist today (Scott and Leonhardt). The trend has been to divide the U.S. into four major

I’ve never taken into consideration how all of my experiences growing up has really formed the person that I am today. I’ve never really taken the time to think about my story of intersectionality until I took this class. I never realized how my inner, outer, experiential, relational, and developing identities have really constructed the person that I have become today. Many of my identities have influenced and changed my life especially my identities in social class, race and ethnicity, religion, citizenship and immigration status, first language I learned, my gender, and my gender expressions.

In the book “To Kill A Mockingbird”, Mayella Ewell is the conflict of the story. To challenge herself to see if she is powerful based on class, gender, and race. Mayella is powerful due to her race; however, she would not be powerful due to her class and gender. One might think she is powerful over all; however, she does not have power in the eyes of some readers. Proceeding on to see if Mayella has power in race.

Upon entering the class I was anxious, curious, and also oblivious to the ideas I would be encountering. Like other students who had not previously spent time discussing topics of race and ethnicity, I myself had nervous tendencies in assuming that such a class may not strengthen my understanding of ethnic and race relations. I realized I knew little about race or ethnicity, and even the possible similarities or differences. However, I welcomed the opportunity to further discover the possibilities of the class. My understanding of race was concentrated in a definition that could be understood as different skin colors. My limited conception of ethnicity applied to people’s origin or where they lived. It seemed as though my lack of

THESIS: Race differences in identity and social position were, and are, more important than class differences in American society.

With that been said, through the semester my experience and my views of people who are different form me has changed. I am not saying that I’ve changed, but, my learning about other people gave me different look of who they think of me. Personally I’ve always treated everyone the same, and this course is about fairness and justice for everyone. As the course progressed I engaged more eager to learn about those issues more from different prospective, especially from the white students that don’t have the same experience as the others like black or Hispanic. Furthermore, there were things that were ambiguous to me that I learned mostly, were social and economic issues, for example the divide that exist between the poor and rich, also racism and its roots and the connection between capitalism and racism was unknown to me.

Class Matters is a very interesting site to determine how society sees an individual. I found it entertaining inputing all my information. I am in the 51st percentile for occupation, 69th percentile for education, 18th percentile for income, 29th percentile for wealth, and overall in 41st percentile average. This matched my expectations for I know exactly "what I am worth" to soceity. I almost have a bachelor's degree, I have a good job even though I do not receive much income, but what lacks the most is my wealth.

An intersectional approach is an approach which seeks to demonstrate how race, class, gender and sexuality make certain experiences different. Intersectionality is the overlapping of social categories such as race, class, gender and sexuality that leads to further discrimination against a certain individual or group. To take an intersectional approach to understand race, class, gender and sexuality, is to consider hardships not as a similar element for all individuals without regards to race, but instead consider where in a specific hardship different races, genders, classes and sexualities are affected different. According to Crenshaw, “many of the experiences Black women face are not subsumed within the traditional boundaries of race or gender discrimination as these boundaries are currently understood, and that the intersection of racism and sexism factors into Black women’s lives in ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking at the woman race or gender dimensions of those experiences separately” (Crenshaw, 357). Crenshaw explains that the personal experiences of women of color cannot be fully understood by looking at race or gender discrimination as two separate factors, but in fact can be understood if both aspects are looked at together. When race and gender are examined separately, this causes for women of color to be “erased”. Crenshaw says, “ And so, when the practices expound identity as “woman” or “person of color” as an either/or proposition, they relegate

In Anderson and Collins’, chapter on “Why race, class, and gender still maters” encourage readers to think about the world in their framework of race, class, and gender. They argued that even though society has change and there is a wide range of diversity; race, class and gender still matters. Anderson and Collins stated, “Race, class, and gender matter because they remain the foundation for system of power and inequality that, despite our nation’s diversity, continue to be among the most significant social facts of peoples lives.” (Anderson and Collins, 2010) When I was a little girl, I never knew that people were classified in to groups such as race, class, gender. I knew there were people that had a different color of skin than

The purpose of this assignment is to Examine the extent to which social class determines life chances in contemporary Britain, and explore the relevance of the issue for students on a social work degree. Within this document I will identify and explore key concepts and approaches in the sociological analysis of social differentiation in modern society. I will then use these concepts and apply them to contemporary britain in order to explain how social class influences an individual 's life chances. I will also discuss and examine the value of these theories to students on a social work course.

The 21-st century is characterized by the continuous economic downfall. The relationship between race, class and gender should be evaluated to identify the life chances of people to improve their relative position in our socially stratified world. The increased rates of unemployment, homelessness and poverty show that our society requires implementing a transformative approach to reduce social stratification. The term social stratification is applied to identify and asses different forms of inequality that exist in the US society. Patricia H Collins suggests, “while a piece of the oppressor may be planted deep within each of us, we each have the choice of accepting that piece or challenging it as part of the 'true focus of revolutionary change'” (p. 680). Inequality has become a universal feature of our society; therefore, it exists everywhere and concerns race, class, and gender as the key categories of society.

The focus of my paper is to show how my gender, race and class have influenced how I’ve grown up and decided to live my life. The way I see myself has changed since I was younger; I have become more independent, strong-willed, and less concerned about what others think of me. One thing I’ve notice that has made a drastic change is the way I’ve noticed privilege and general worries because of my gender, race or class.

According to Helsin, Possamai and Possamai-Inesedy (2011 p. 625) gender stratification occurs when a specific gender has unequal access to power, property and prestige. As gender is classed as a master status it forms a significant structural characteristic within society (Helsin, Possamai & Possamai-Inesedy 2011, p. 310). Therefore, it is society, through social construction that determines what gender norms are considered appropriate and can be passed through generations of people via agents of socialisation such as family, mass media or in the form of symbolic interaction (Macionis & Plummer 1997, pp. 139-141).