Social Inequality

1193 Words3 Pages

As we prosper through time, inequality is slowly less evident. A lot of people don't realize that although things are improving with time, inequality is still prominent in our society. The people that are failing to realize that there still is inequality, are the fortunate ones. They rise well above the poverty line, and usually live relatively economically sound lives. They are the people who are supplied with our society's benefits.

The people that are in pursuit of social change, and constantly bring attention to issues of equal rights and privileges, are often the people that do not have them. They are the ones who suffer daily from different levels of inequality.

The majority of post-secondary students are considered to be privileged people. This tends to cause an ignorance, or lack of education, towards inequality because most of the students do not experience great levels of inequality. When our class was given our first quiz, everybody was able to feel a sense of inequality. As the class was divided into the different time groups, every student felt the unequal opportunity. Even the students that were allotted the most time for the quiz were able to at least see the inequality. As different times were announced the less fortunate students began to complain, and the more fortunate ones realized that their once equal peers, were now placed in an unequal situation. Since most of the students do not experience great amounts of inequality, the unequal time distribution shocked them.

Fortunately for myself, I have grown up in an upper-middle class family. Although my parents have always tried to educate me on inequality, I never experienced much of it. During a class exercise I was placed in a group, and was given six minutes to complete my quiz. Although this was almost enough time for me to complete my quiz, I was definitely jealous of the students that were allotted more time. Even though the groups were arranged randomly, I still felt like I was treated unequally to my peers. I felt unequal to both my peers that had more, and less time, than me. The situation made me angry, and I wanted an explanation from the instructor for the unequal situation that was forced upon me. I felt the injustice because I had a different time to write my quiz than a neighboring peer; who pays the same tuition...

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...hey may not have the opportunity.

Most people look down upon lower classes, failing to realize that inequality deprives those people of the equal rights to prosperity. This occurs not only in a few societies, but all around the world.

According to the social conflict paradigm, society is a complex system characterized by inequality and conflict, which generate social change. Power and privilege are distributed unequally by social class, race, gender and age. These inequalities are often reinforced in societal institutions (Macionis 19).

My participation in the class exercise allowed me to have an experience of life through the eyes a lower class individual. Even though the real world is much more extreme than the class exercise, I was still able to understand society and its levels of inequality. After experiencing society from a different perspective, I realize that although society has changed from the days of extreme inequality, it still needs much attention to equalizing the privileges between the different levels of stratification.

Works Cited

Macionis, John and Gerber, Linda. Sociology. 3rd ed. Prentice-Hall Canada Inc.: Ontario, 1999.

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Social Inequality

Poor People And Economic Injustice By Barbara Ehrenreich

Examples Of Low Class In America By Gregory Mantsios

Freedom for Humanity, by Kalen Ockerman