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Social stratification today
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From a very early age, children experience many different stages of life until they become adults with distinguished personalities, but the concept of social inequality has different impacts on different classes of individuals. Throughout this essay, I will discuss what social inequality is. Furthermore, to accomplish this task, I will describe three different ways a society can be stratified (the upper class, the middle class, and the poor). I then aim for the audience to comprehend the various ways our current society in the United States of America is unequal with a couple of examples. While defining and describing the concepts of class, race, and gender, I will further give a couple of general examples of how inequality related to that
concept manifests in society. Correspondingly, I will describe how race can affect one’s life chances, then I will delve deeper by describing how social institutions perpetuate that type of inequality or help to create equality. Lastly, I will offer insight into a time in my father’s life where his race and/or ethnicity impacted his life trajectory. Whether people notice or not, race, class, and gender all play a vital role in one’s life chances and trajectory.
Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.
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 a country like the United States of America, with a history of every individual having an equal opportunity to reach their dreams, it becomes harder and harder to grasp the reality that equal opportunity is diminishing as the years go on. The book Our Kids by Robert Putnam illustrates this reality and compares life during the 1950’s and today’s society and how it has gradually gotten to a point of inequality. In particular, he goes into two touching stories, one that shows the changes in the communities we live in and another that illustrates the change of family structure. In the end he shows how both stories contribute to the American dream slipping away from our hands.
Besides race, the scholar also reveals how childhoods are unequal based on social class. Drawing from the American society, there are several social classes. For each class, there are unique pathways of lives followed and these usually influence both the educational and work outcomes. To ...
There is a high degree of social inequality within the United States. Of most modern industrial countries, the United Stated has some of the richest and some of the poorest people to be found. That fact is very disturbing, however, explains why much of the inequality exists in the US. In the following essay I will explain to you about the inequality in our country and why it occurs, based on the theoretical perspectives of a functionalist, conflict theorist, and social interationist.
Furthermore, Chapter 15 begins to explain educational inequality. In the United States, education is available but not to every child in the same way. Different social-classes means different schools, instructions, criteria, rates, and times. In addition to class differences, races and ethnics unfortunately play a role in educational achievement. For example, in general, African Americans, Latino/a’s, and Native Americans usually do worse in school than white or Asian American students
Where would you consider yourself with your ranking in America 's social classes, are you upper class, middle class or even lower class? This is actually very important when it come to you receiving opportunities and in a sense special treatment. I’m referring to of course social inequality which is still very much alive in America and still affects a lot of families mostly in a negative way. This problem in America has grabbed the attention of two authors, Paul Krugman who wrote “Confronting Inequality” and Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy who wrote “The Upside of Income Inequality”. However, they both have different views on inequality Krugman believes that social inequality is only negative while on the other hand, Becker and Murphy believe Krugman believes that the only way to get into a good school is to be living in a higher economic area.
In today’s world, the American still has barriers to overcome in the matter of racial equality. Whether it is being passed over for a promotion at the job or being underpaid, some people have to deal with unfair practice that would prevent someone of color or the opposite sex from having equal opportunity at the job. In 2004, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Incorporation was a civil rights class-action suite that ruled in favor of the women who worked and did not received promotions, pay and certain job assignments. This proves that some corporations ignore the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects workers from discrimination based on sex, race, religion or national origin.
The highest earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, while the richest earned 88.9% of all wealth. A big gap between the rich and poor is often associated with low social mobility, which contradicts the American ideal of equal opportunity. Levels of income inequality are higher than they have been in almost a century, the top one percent has a share of the national income of over 20 percent (Wilhelm). There are a variety of factors that influence income inequality, a few of which will be discussed in this paper. Rising income inequality is caused by differences in life expectancy, rapidly increases in the incomes of the top 5 percent, social trends, and shifts in the global economy.
I believe that there is too much wealth and income inequality in the United States
Income inequality not only harms us fiscally, but also affects our mental and physical wellbeing; therefore, it is important to identify the right ways to control wealth distribution among people.
According to Schwartz-Nobel, America will lose as much as 130 billion in future productive capacity for every year that 14.5 American children continue to live in poverty (Koppelman and Goodhart, 2007). Sadly the seriousness of poverty is still often clouded by myths and misunderstandings by society at large. This essay studies the issue of poverty and classism in today's society.
Ever since agriculture replaced hunting and gathering, the division of labor led to the creation of social classes and the division of land and unequal distribution of food surplus allowing inequality to flourish. Unfortunately, this has not only remained, but inequality has exponentially grown, making the difference between each social class quite noticeable. This distressing factor makes American economy highly unstable, and there is little to be done in order to fix this grave issue. It is only a matter of time before America’s economy comes crashing down. American economic inequality has been around for a long time, and it has become a monumental issue.
“Confronting Inequality” by Paul Krugman opens our eyes to the fact that, in America, we are becoming more and more unequal based on our standing in society. Our standing in society is directly related to the amount of money that we make and what class our parents were in while we were growing up. However, being judged based on parents’ status is not justifiable. America is full of injustice when it comes to the social structure of it’s’ citizens. The majority of America used to belong to the middle class, now there is less middle class and a widening gap between the high class and the low class of people.
Kerbo, H. R. (2012). Social stratification and inequality: class conflict in historical, comparative, and global perspective (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.