UB Number: 15010513 The article ‘Is Social Mobility Really Declining?’, by Fiona Devine and Yaojun Li, is an excellent piece which focuses solely on the ongoing debate, social mobility and whether it is, really decreasing. It looks from the 1990’s to the 2000’s and research in this article shows if social mobility is decreasing and if so, why and how this may be happening. Alongside this it also looks at concerns, studies and methods in which they have received these results over the years. It is very informative and insightful as the Authors have included tables and diagrams which show information such as distributions of origins and destination classes and their summary statistics and outflow mobility rates. These inform the reader with …show more content…
“Social mobility is a person's ability to move to a different social class, usually from a lower to a higher social class.” Collins (1999). Social mobility essentially portrays how individuals move along the social stepping stool. For this to occur there must essentially be some type of social class set up. Social class happens all over the place, even in the poorest groups. The lower class is known by poverty, homelessness and unemployment. The working class are those seen to be educated who engage in ‘manual labour’ with hardly no prestige and usually underpaid for their work. “manual labour- physical work done “by hand” instead of by machines”. Definitions.net (2017). Those who are in the middle, have more money than some, but some, have more money than them are often labelled as middle class and finally the upper class which are at the top of the social mobility ladder, wealthy individuals. Whilst researching I came across a paper which Stephen Aldridge defines social mobility as “movement or opportunities for movement between different social groups and the advantages that go with this in terms of income, security of employment, opportunities for advancement etc." (Aldridge, 2001). If an individual works hard and moves social class, the rewards may be …show more content…
It makes you think about yourself as an individual and your family and what social class we are in and whether we have changed it. The outcomes of the manual or low class staying under-spoke to in advanced education is inconceivable as kids from these foundations will encounter either downwardly portable or not proceed onward the social stepping stool at all because of them not entering advanced education. The present occupation showcase is exceptionally aggressive and even those with great capabilities are thinking that it is hard to clutch their employments. It implies that most all clerical occupations will be held by the white collar class and high society families. Overall the article is a good piece of writing and was really enjoyable to read and explained in great depth how social class may be declining. Furthermore, the article is very clear and well structured. “The structure of your document is like a skeleton or framework – it holds it together and guides the readers through to find the information they need.” Collins
The book Class matter shows the importance of how much people should value and appreciate the importance of a classroom education. How much you dedicate yourself to school can help you gain enough knowledge to be successful in the future. Having good quality education in America seems to be the closest thing to a ticket to class mobility. The book was very interesting in explaining what social class really is in America, and the way it affects people's lives on how they live day to day. The different types of social class is what shapes our society. But I think this book is more for those people who aren’t that aware of social class, or for the ones who feel that we live in a society that is classless rather then the actually people who have realized the consequence that class really has on someone’s life. Many people can relate to what stories are told in the book if not, they know of a person that can relate to these stories. As a person that grew up in the lower class, I can definitely relate to most of the stories told in this book. From experience, there is a big difference in this country between the rich, middle class, and who are the poorest that we see daily. Even those in the so called working class have to make continuous sacrifices and live very differently from those positioned firmly in the middle class. Some people may have decent jobs but the bills and other expenses people may have make it harder on people than those who are in the same class but don’t have to necessarily go through the same thing as others. The chapters that I read in this book broaden what I said to a better more clear understanding.
lower class(poverty)/working class are blue-collar workers a the “bottom” they work in manufacturing jobs, janitors, etc.
The working class stays working and the middle class stays being middle. Author Nick Tingle, wrote “The vexation of class”, he argues that the working class and the middle class are separated educationally based on culture and the commonplace. Tingle uses his own personal experiences and Ethos, to effectively prove his point about the difference in class based on culture ; although, Tingle also falls short by adding unnecessary information throughout the article that weakens his belief entirely.
was trying to accomplish in this essay was not just the fact that the working class is not noticed
Social stratification as defined by Brinkerhoff et al. is “an institutionalized pattern of inequality in which social statuses are ranked on the basis of their access to scarce resources” (Brinkerhoff et al. 152). By scarce resources, many people have to deal with poverty and having a lack of money to buy the things they need in their lives. Social class is defined as “a category of people who share roughly the same class, status, and power and who have a sense of identification with each other” (Brinkerhoff et al. 155). Your social class has to do with your socioeconomic status along with the power and connections you have. Social mobility on the other hand is “the process of changing one’s social class” (Brinkerhoff et al. 153).
Class for the purpose of this paper is the concept that those who are better off are of what can be considered to be upper class and those that lack financial means are of the lower class. Mantsios says that there is an absence of discussion in reference to the distinctions of classes (697). In a study performed by Susan Ostrander, in regards to the term “upper class” one woman responded “‘I hate to use the word ‘class.’ We are responsible, fortunate people, old families, the people who have something’” (697). Yet it appears to be opposite that those who are in this lower class realize the plight they suffer. As one student from Fremont High School noted, “‘The owners of the sewing factories need laborers. Correct…It’s not going be their own kids… You’re ghetto,’ said Fortino unrelentingly to her. ‘So Sew!’”(Kozol 645). The student who knew that he was more than likely to be stuff in his place was willing to point out this fault of the system. This topic which more than likely the well-off woman would stray from rather because she had life easier than Fortino will in his lifetime.
The American Dream, the national promise of equal opportunity and the endless possibilities of economic mobility, has and is still deeply inculcated in American culture. However, there is less economic mobility in the United States than originally thought as proven by many studies of economists, and therefore refutes the basic ideas of the American Dream. Class, one of the major causes to the decrease in economic mobility, remains a sensitive subject in America. This sensitivity stems from popular culture ideals of not debating or discussing class as well as the many myths Americans and foreigners are trapped into believing. Variations in the American life-styles, a component of the ideas of class presented by Mantsios, is another factor to the reduction of economic mobility. This variation is mainly a result of the diversity in the United States and its heterogeneous society. Race, a social construct, is also a major source to economic mobility. Through the help of the media, society has shaped Americans into associating success and wealth with Caucasians, and failure and poverty with minorities. Another major cause to the decline in economic mobility is parental influence, the idea of a child following or straying away from their parent or guardian’s footsteps. Education, America’s token to success, also determines an individual’s economic mobility. In American culture, it is believed that by furthering or completing education automatically guarantees individuals endless opportunities to a job, increased income and upward mobility. In conclusion, class, race, parental influence and education are all interrelated factors to economic mobility.
In the land of the “American Dream,” it is the common belief that there is a direct relationship between hard work and success. In this ideal prototype, those who put in long hours are bound for success and movement up the social ladder. Theoretically, one could be born into the “bottom of the food chain,” and with some hard work, rise into the realm of the social elite. As a testament to this global view of the United States, immigrants from all over the world have made the journey to the “land of opportunity” in hopes of better education, jobs, government, communities and lives for themselves and the generations following them. All of this is based on a system of social stratification – a guide to how successful one has been at achieving the American Dream. This evaluation of social class is based on many components, some of which are presented to people at birth, and not gained through hard work or money. The class system at play in the United States has become extremely complex – no longer adhering to the basic class values of our forefathers. Those trying to move up in the class system of America are often caught emulating the behaviors of the rich and famous, but this does not necessarily make them higher class. Many people think that there is a checklist to fill on their way up in the class system, but there is more to being upper class than just talking the talk or having the right credentials.
Social class is a group in society having the same economic status as one another. Class could
"Class in America: Mobility, Measured." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 1 Feb. 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2014. .
The article was organized very well because there were headings to help understand the content material. The structure of the article enabled me to understand the main points through repetition of important issues.
According to Henslin, 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 to receive 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.
Middle class is defined in different ways by different people. For example, Easterly describes middle class “as those lying between the 20th and 80th percentile on the consumption distribution” (Banerjee and Duflo 5); or Birdsall, Graham, and Pettinato says this class “as those between 75 and 125 percent of median per capita income” (Banerjee and Duflo 7). In America, people are divided into classes by many factors. The most popular factors are income and education. For income, people in this class make less money than upper class. Pew 's analysis in the article of Philip Bump says that middle class “holds less aggregate income than the upper class”; this is true. However, people in this class have better jobs and salaries than poor class. The working poor tend to have less stable jobs than their middle class brothers. Because of the temporary nature of these jobs, they have a
The analytical lens that will be constructed aims to allow for an interpretation of how students who are attempting to be upwardly-mobile are helped with moving beyond roadblocks that prevent mobility. This is mobility is achieved through a combination of adherence to meritocratic systems and the borrowing of cultural capital. I will argue that reproduction occurs when reliance on meritocracy in the educational system and the limited cultural capital of the student’s working-class parent/s are solely employed. In order to move beyond a mere reproduction of the parent’s social class, I argue that the student must interact with individuals or groups from higher social spheres who know how to activate cultural capital in specific instances
“Social mobility is Upward or downward movement within a stratification system. Liberal theory claims that capitalist societies are open-class and therefore one can expect a high degree of social mobility. According to liberal theory this movement within a stratification system should result from a person's achievements and should not be based on ascribed characteristics such as sex, race, region of birth, and parent's class position. Social mobility is typically measured by comparing the status positions of adult children to that of their parents (intergenerational mobility), but it can be measured by comparing a person's status position over their own lifetime (intragenerational mobility). Sociologists see social mobility as a useful way to measure equality of opportunity.”Ref(Online dictionary of the social sciences Available from: URL: http://bitbucket.icaap.org/dict.pl )