The Effect of Ascribed Statuses In Our Society A person 's status has always held great importance in determining his or her life opportunities in the American society. One could argue that your quality of life is almost primarily based on your status which indicates how much of an impact it truly has on how society views and treats us. With this being said, some sociological terms to keep in mind when looking at the full scope of an ascribed status are; achieved status, ascribed status, race, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status or SES. An ascribed status is a position one holds in a social system that one attains involuntarily or by birth. An achieved or acquired status is a position in a social system that is acquired on the basis of merit. This status is earned and reflects a person 's skills, abilities, and …show more content…
The jobs that I would have available to me would be very low in pay and barely have any benefits. Jobs such as a nursing aid, cashier, cook, maid, janitorial service, retail, child care, server, etc., is what I would typically find myself working in if I were poor. In terms of education, I would be more likely to have lower educational achievement and thus more likely to continue to under-achieve. I am also less likely to be a step ahead of people in my class if my parents are poor since they would not be able to afford books or anything else that would help me be more educated in literature and mathematics. In fact, according to a psychologist by the name of McLoyd, "Recent Research consistently reports that persistent poverty has more detrimental effects on IQ, school achievement, and socioemotional functioning than transitory poverty, with children experiencing both types of poverty generally doing less well than never-poor children." (American Psychological Association, pp.
Individuals may be gifted with certain privileges because of the position one holds in society. Most importantly, one can obtain certain privileges from being born with them. One might be “born” with certain privileges because of one’s race, ethnicity, religion and or social class. The most significant factor that may influence one’s obtainment of privileges is social class. Although, race also plays a crucial role. The privileges I obtain surface from my position in society. I don’t feel as if I acquire privileges because of my race and ethnicity. I feel as though that the privileges I acquire are earned, not given. My perspective of this arises from the social stratum in my proximity. The concept that hard work will get one to their desired
Even though people are created equally, there is a very difficult to change the class you were born into. Not only because of a lack of easy upward mobility, but also because people can become content almost anywhere. If someone is born into poverty there is very little likelihood of them wanting to leave their safety-net, or even seeing an opportunity for a way out of their impoverished life. Complacency and a lack of motivation are things that are more prominent in recent generations, and so these issues also affect the poor. Although many in poverty are hard working people, they can barely get by because of the lack of good full-time work. People have to work two to three jobs just to make enough to live on. The fact of the matter is that whose who need to work can find a job, but will it be a job that can sustain them? In all likelihood, no. Businesses cannot afford to pay their employees enough to live
In learning about different ways that we as a society categorize and divide people, it is essential to understand what about people it is that we feel the need to label and differentiate between. When a person is born into this world, there are certain statuses that they automatically obtain, called ascribed statuses (Henslin 98). These statuses determine each person’s social location in society. This includes gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, and ability. Each person has their own unique social location, and is affected in a different way than the next person may be. As a white, queer, cisgender, middle class, female, in relatively good health, I have always been relatively privileged.
Morosely, people hitting poverty level are truly given zero opportunities to advance their education. In America, it 's not common that the A+ education is given to you. It 's not entirely easy to land the greatest job ever with just a high school diploma. But, the cost of college has made the difference between having a job that pays well, and having a job that pays immensely for people living in poverty. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education. The cost of living per month for a single, childless person in America is $2,372. Galbraith stresses importance of improving housing across the nation.(Galbraith 405) With unemployment rates remaining high, jobs are hard to find in the current economy. Even if people can find work, this does not automatically provide an escape from
Paul Fussell wrote; Class a Guide through the American Status System in 1983. Fussell introduces interesting points that suggests how we, as Americans are viewed through social class. This book will have you contemplate about where you fall in line in terms of the social hierarchy system. As I read, the book I analyzed how our social status is revealed not only in terms of money, but other significant characteristics that define our habitas. As humans we are social beings, and we all make assumptions about the people around us or label them. Fussell argues that social class and social status can be defined in many ways. In fact, he enlists the nine American class structures that according to his opinion American society are comprised. He investigates
(Brooks-Gunn et all, 1997) That points out the disadvantage and how the family income influence youngsters overall childhood, since under the poverty condition, they children do not have enough money to support for their necessary needs, they will more likely to have low self-confidence and hard to blend in with their peers. Poverty has impact on children’s achievement in several different ways. Payne (2003) maintained that the poverty could affect children achievement though emotional, mental, financial, and role models (Payne, 2003). Thus, the children from low-income family are more likely to have self-destructive behavior, lack of control emotional response and lack of necessary intellectual, that is really important for the students under the age of 16.
According to Henslin social, mobility is the movement of individuals, families and groups from one social position to another (Henslin, 2015, p 237-239). It can be viewed in terms of distribution of resources and power among the different social stratification and its effect on the people involved. Stratification is a ranking system for groups of people that continue unequal rewards and life chances in society. Through stratification, society categorizes people and distributes valued resources based upon these categories (Henslin, 2015,p190). The social status of a person is determined by his or her work how much money they have earned and how they move their way up the social class. Social mobility occurs whenever people move across social class boundaries, from one level to another. Mobility can be up or down on the social class ladder but the American Dream is only upward mobility on the social class ladder. The people in the United States are broken down into classes the rich people on top the poor people in the bottom and the middle class in the
The social theory of privilege states that unearned or otherwise reasonably unacquirable advantages are social endowed to a particular person or group of people. These unearned advantages are often granted on the basis of demographic features such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or generation, although other criteria (such as ability, height, or attractiveness) may confer such advantages. There lie subtle distinctions between advantages that are earned but reasonably acquirable and advantages that are earned but reasonably unacquirable. For example, education confers social advantages, but not privilege; however, the access to education is a reasonably unacquirable advantage and would be considered a privilege. The ambiguity of privilege, though,
The fact that students from lower income families fail to perform as well in school holds no dispute. Growing up with less money has been proven to create a significant disadvantage. Those struggling to pay their bills often are forced to cut back the money spent on food, leaving kids with only the option of cheaper food with poor nutritional value, or sometimes skipping meals. This inhibits the brain from functioning at its best and can leave students more worried about their growling stomachs than their schoolwork (Ladd, Fiske). Low income students face other distractions from their schoolwork including home struggles like in the movie Freedom Writers. A teacher starts a job...
Students in poverty tend to obtain low grades, have little academic achievement, and often misbehave. Many often drop out before graduating high school. Students ages sixteen through twenty-four are up to seven times more likely to drop out. A study published in Nature Neuroscience discovered “a link between physical brain development and poverty level. In a study of eleven hundred children, adolescence and adults from around the US, researchers found significant differences in the brains of children from the lowest income bracket in comparison to those in the highest. Families who lived on less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year had as much as 6% less surface area in their brain in areas like language and decision making than families who made more than one hundred and fifty dollars a year.” This may support why many students in poverty tend to do worse in school over middle class students. Employers usually lean toward more educated workers, leaving the poor at a serious disadvantage when it comes to work Children growing in poverty regularly have families of their own poverty. Some workplaces, manufacturing jobs have replaced their human labor with machinery and technology, which leaves many potential jobs out of the hands of people hungry for work. Having a weak education leaves them unskilled, resulting poor and low paying occupations. This creates a long lasting loop of poverty, a loop which is hard to escape. They
In the movie “Crash” an example of Achieved Status is Brendan Fraser's character. In the movie he shows favoritism towards the blacks to get a vote for a position higher in the judicial system. This shows the decision he had to make in order to achieve the likelihood of his voters.
Another example of the little bit of privilege that I have, is religion. I am a Christian and America is a Christian nation. If I were to claim myself as Christian, I would probably be less ridiculed if a Muslim stated his/her religion. Not everyone in America are very welcoming towards other religions because they may or may not be affiliate with something bad. A lot of times, the only reason I have privilege is because of peoples preconceived notions. Someone would more likely give me special treatment because they have this assumption that I am better than the next option. I do have certain privileges, but in my opinion, it’s not enough to matter. The reason for this is mainly because of my race. The only privilege I have is because I am a Christian, or just got lucky and was better off than someone else. Beside race and religion, social class has a lot to do with the certain privileges I have. A key example is where I live. My father lives on a predominantly white side of town, and my mother lives on a predominantly black and Hispanic part of town. If I were to tell someone that I lived with my dad in said neighborhood, then I would most likely be considered better than others of
Being born into an economically disadvantaged family causes dilemmas before the kid is even born. According to Gulick, “Economically disadvantaged students have it tougher before they are born because they have less prenatal care if any at all” (1). Because the babies do not even have the care they need before they are born they end up being born with things that aren’t good. “Children born into poverty have lower birth weights, and many suffer from hunger and poor nutrition. When the youth suffer from poor nutrition and low birth rates it causes many complications for the hospital staff, the babies family, and causes stress on whoever pays the medical bill because the baby possible has to stay at the hospital longer. Once the kid is born the dilemmas go on and on. So how does being economically disadvantage affect people?
A sociologist will also find this topic interesting because of how the individual believes he is of a higher status than others. Status is defined as a prestige a person or group feels that could be formed through education, money, background, popularity etc. When someone who feels that their better background ...
A Social Status is defined as “a social position that a person holds” (J. Maconis., 2010). This shapes your identity, meaning who you are as an individual and in the society, and is most commonly thought as your role. For instance, something as simple as an occupation. Generally, your job or how you make a living defines your social status. Everyone holds multiple