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Social class influence educational attainment
Culture influences on adolescents
Social class influence educational attainment
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In every writing the author’s point is not always illustrated at first. It’s not until you analyze the passage and understand the author’s purpose or point of view to find the truth behind the words. In the passage“Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class”, the author: Bell Hooks story depicts what her life consisted of, mainly in her college years, what it was like as a colored, minority student in a predominantly white environment. Throughout her college career, Hooks has experienced racism, rejection, and ultimate solitude as her journey to find herself as a minority. However, Hooks remains true to her values and beliefs, and she doesn't let the bitterness and stereotypical world determine her outcome. From my analysis, I noticed through-out this story a person's social class has affected their education, social life, and how they’re respected as a person. Bell Hooks language, structure and background story al support’s one of themes of belonging to a specific social class can cause internal and external conflict.
As Hooks stated in the passage in many different narrative ways, the main point to her audience, is that the social class into which a person is born greatly affects the trajectory of one’s life, especially in the early formative years. Social class affects the type of
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Envy was always something I pushed away from my psyche (pg.140)”. As stated in this quote from the passage, the young lady Hooks met has an internal problem, she's not comfortable with her background and she’s angry as the fact that she wasn’t “blessed” with a family in a higher social class. The woman is so caught up in materialistic things, she shamelessly deplays her desires and envy. This young lady is feeding into the “social class category”, by allowing herself to think that she needs certain materials to “fit
In bell hooks’ “Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor”, she discusses the portrayal and misrepresentation of poverty in our society and the methods behind the dilemma. In this excerpt, retrieved from her book Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (1994), hooks focuses on the negative effects of contemporary popular culture and its contribution to the negative societal views on poverty.
In his essay “Land of Opportunity” James W. Loewen details the ignorance that most American students have towards class structure. He bemoans the fact that most textbooks completely ignore the issue of class, and when it does it is usually only mentions middle class in order to make the point that America is a “middle class country. This is particularly grievous to Loewen because he believes, “Social class is probably the single most important variable in society. From womb to tomb, it correlates with almost all other social characteristics of people that we can measure.” Loewen simply believes that social class usually determine the paths that a person will take in life. (Loewen 203)
In "Bums in the Attic," a chapter from her novel The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros discusses the differences between groups in which the upper class ignores anyone not belonging to the same leisure status. Those belonging to the lower classes however, has had to work to gain success and cannot forget the past in which he struggled. In chasing the American dream, the lower class realizes that the only way to gain true happiness from monetary success, one cannot forget his past and must therefore redefine the traditional attitude of the upper class.
Because it is very credible, emotionally appealing, and slightly academically based, bell hooks's essay "Keeping Close to Home: Class and Education" is an essay that I consider to be very touching. While arguing in her essay that the rich class and the working-class should come to respect and understand each other, bell hooks employs three elements of argument: ethos, pathos, and logos. With her usage of ethos, hooks relates her experience as an undergraduate at Stanford. Providing an experience from a time before she went to Stanford, hooks uses pathos to inspire the audience. However, hooks uses logos by appealing to the readers' logic. These readers are the working-class and the privileged, the audience of her book: "Ain't I a Woman: black women and feminism." Relying mostly on ethos, hooks uses the three elements of argument to express her belief that students should not feel the pressure to replace their values with others' values. Because hooks feels strongly about her belief, she argues that a university should help students maintain the connection with their values, so people of different communities will feel neither inferior nor superior to others but equal.
Even though extraordinary changes have been made in the past to achieve racial equality, America is still racist, especially in schools. In the novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” written by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch is criticized for defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. During the 1930s, the time this novel took place, America was a very segregated country. At the time when Harper Lee wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird," America was fighting a civil rights movement. The events of racism in “To Kill a Mockingbird” reflect the time period.
In public schools, students are subjected to acts of institutional racism that may change how they interact with other students. In the short story “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by Packer, readers are allowed to view firsthand how institutionalized racism affects Dina, who is the main character in the story. Packer states “As a person of color, you shouldn’t have to fit in any white, patriarchal system” (Drinking Coffee Elsewhere 117). The article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools” by Brodbelt states “first, the attitudes of teachers toward minority group pupils” (Brodbelt 699). Like the ideas in the article “Disguised Racism in Public Schools” Dina encounters institutionalized oppression on orientation day at Yale.
In Loewen and Hooks, both authors talk about poverty and class. They both talk about class structure and social class in their essays. Social class is one of the most important things in society. Loewen’s essay is more about why people are poor and how they survive under what class someone is in. He talks about rich and poor children and how their health could be involved. He also says, “Everyone has a chance in this land of opportunity”. As the reader, he is saying everyone isn’t given an equal opportunity in this day of age, especially the lower class. Hooks talk about her experience more as a child in poverty and how poverty was no disgrace in her household. She shows a lot of her emotions and what she went through to get where she is today. She explains to her readers that water in her household was a luxury and using too much would result in punishment. Water is just an everyday necessity American use to take showers and drink. Thinking about not being able to use water whenever one needs it is tough to think about. Although, being poor should not be a considered a bad thing or be put into a negative light it is every day and they are judged. If someone is poor that doesn’t make them a terrible, lazy person. Where ever someone goes they may see it in the streets or in stores and, most of us don’t want to help anymore. Wealth differences are ten times larger than income differences in America.
Bell hooks knows about the challenges of race and class, and why some people have a harder time than others in achieving the American Dream. It is normal to feel uncomfortable and awkward arriving at a new school for the first time, but this was something completely different. For bell hooks, walking through the halls with eyes staring at her as if she was an alien, she realized that schooling for her would never be the same. She describes her feelings of inequality a...
Looking at this from the different perspectives of a functionalist, symbolic interactionist, and conflict helps to show other points of view. If you were to look at this book from a functionalist’s perspective you would be looking at it from an extremely greedy aspect. A functionalist would say that their parents and society told them that only people with money were good and successful. Thus, causing you to feel like “trash” or class if you did not make a huge salary, and live a wealthy life. A symbolic interactionist would tell you that they grew up where all of their peers drove nice cars, and had large homes, so to fit in, you need to be able to buy those things. However, a person with a conflict point of view would say that it was her ongoing struggle with society, and having to defend her class, that has made her who she is today.
As we can clearly see, socio-economic status and class conflict both affect each character in the story in a different way, but ultimately lead to the same place. Class conflict is a major theme from the beginning of the story. “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had” (1). A quote from Nick’s father on the first page of the novel immediately sets the theme of class conflict. Even though this is a piece of advice about humility, it still highlights the economic and power gap between the American upper and lower classes.
Classism has existed for many years within the Black community. It introduced its self to the slaves and has continued to reveal its self to Blacks well into the 21st century. Having a great presence within the Black community, classism has caused a disunification within the Black community. In the years of slavery the house Negro considered himself better than the field Negro. Today the middle-class black considers himself above the lower-class black. Both the house Negro and the middle-class black family have strived to disassociate themselves from those Blacks of lower status. Consequently, Blacks have suffered a great separation among their community.
Having a family of low socioeconomic status inevitably leaves me to reside in a low-income neighborhood which makes it more likely for me to witness the tragedies, adversities and hardships that people go through [not excluding myself]. Being conscious of this kind of environment, and these kinds of events, creates a pressure on me for having the aim to achieve social mobility in order to escape the aforementioned environment so that my own children could witness one less abominable aspect of life. Moreover, my family’s low socioeconomic status does not authorize me the privilege of being raised with the concerted cultivation method that kids of high socioeconomic status are more prone to being raised in. My family did not have the financial resources that granted us access to extra classes or lessons of instrumental classes, swimming practices, karate practices, or any other extracurricular activities that people of high socioeconomic status would be able to afford. This invisible fence that prevents me from these extracurricular activities enables me to having more appreciation towards the hobbies and talents that other people have. Plus, the fact that my family’s low socioeconomic status acts as a barrier from enjoying expensive luxuries in life creates a yearning [in me] to enjoy them later on in my life, in addition to acting as the fuel to my wish of achieving social mobility in anticipation of providing my own children with the luxurious vacations, gadgets, beachhouse, new cars that I could not
Social classes are a dividing system for people of a nation or country, and have existed for as long as history can date back. In the past, it has designated people to certain categories that determined the opportunities and privileges that they could receive. In the past, the social class a person belonged to was determined by which one he or she was born into, and this label generally stuck to someone for life. In more recent history, broadened opportunity has opened up an escape for those stuck in the lower classes. The social class a person is born into has become a starting point in life, and where somebody ends up is decided by his or her determination. In Toni Cade Bambara's “The Lesson,” the theme is about learning that a person can break free of the inequality of a social class, which is shown by the use of plot, characters, and symbols.
Social class is an underlying factor to which all characters run their lives. It is always a priority and influenced most, if not every part of their lives. Most of the characters in the novel respect the rules of class and are always trying to climb the social ladder. Or if they are atop this ladder, they make it a mission that they remain there. Mrs. Bennet tried very hard to have her daughters marry the most socially advanced men and in the end the daughters chose socially respectable men.
Social class played a major role in the society depicted in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Social class determined the manner in which a person was treated and their access to education. Yet, social class did not define the character of the individual.