Social Classes

Social class is a “tag” to define your status in a community. One of the main requirements you must have to be in the Upper class, is to have wealth and power. That is basically it, and obviously the absence of those characteristics could mean you are in a Middle or even in the Lower class. Sports are an activity that people do for pleasure that requires physical activity and sometimes has rules for the players to follow in order to play the game. It is most commonly played outdoors. It can improve your cardio, health, and physical condition. For example, it can prevent things like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer or even mental illnesses like depression.

There are many people throughout the world that are born into different socio-economic status. In the United States there are 3 typical socio-economic statuses, upper class, middle class, and working class. The majority of people are born into the working class and try to make their way up. The main way people believe to go up a class in America is through education, but how does socio-economic class play a role in the amount of education one will receive in their future?

Throughout time one of the most obvious class markers has been education and it still remains so. People who belong to the higher classes view education as a higher priority and have more access to the best school in the country. When stuck in lower classes people must attend schools where books, computers, and education are not found at the same level. An article in the Atantic Times mentions that “ Kids who belong to lower social classes fell behind children in the upper classes by about a year or so.” Today, that gap is close to four years.” For those in the upper class their kids are placed in an abundance of classes from an early age such as foreign language, art, and many sports. Children who are in lower classes have no way of getting a head start when compared to children in higher classes Sarah Garland also mentions how “ When children have plenty of time to build social skills and bigger vocabularies in short term reduce their chances of

Social class has developed over the centuries into an obstacle we cannot ignore. I believe that social class exists and proves itself in stereotypes as well as in our government. Our world divides social class into three sections: upper, middle, and lower class. However, many also think that there could be multiple classes. The problems that we face with social class display themselves in the lack of opportunities for lower class children, the abuse of power by ghettoizing, and the addiction of money instead of longing for Jesus. We need to awaken to the world around us that daily struggles with the uncompromising chaos of their circumstances.

The affluent become educated because it is expected of them in order to maintain their wealth and power. However, those who come from blue-collared families are uninspired by both their milieus and the normalities placed by the American government concerning education. The set of standards the government goes by currently doesn’t allow for academic growth, especially when concerning children who are attending

“ I got to figure.  We all got to figure.  There’s some way to stop this.  It’s not like lightening or earthquakes.  We’ve got a bad thing made by man, and by God that’s something we can change.” John Steinbeck. This excerpt from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is talking about the ‘bad things’ that we deal with in our society. Two bad things that are extremely pressing in society today are the growing gap in the social class system and gender inequality. Both social class problems and gender inequality affect the way members of our society live their daily lives but are commonly overlooked or underestimated.

Those of privilege tend to have parents with a higher education themselves. The quality of our education at an early start, dictates our outlook for our educations in the future. “Schools in poor districts have the poorest physical facilities, libraries, laboratories, academic programs, and teachers,” (Purrucci and Wysong, 114) schools in the privileged areas of course, would have higher standards for their students and top of the line equipment and teachers. Children born into privileged families are expected to seek higher educations as their parents, while most working poor children are pushed to go to work right away to help their families, a higher education is not viewed as a realistic goal. They have limited monetary resources to pay for tuition, room, and board, let alone most of their own parents have not received a high school diploma, some not even grade school. Sociologists believe a person of privilege with a college degree (from a well known National college) would have stable, secure resources over time, a stable job and income, secure health insurance and pensions, compared to those in the working poor class with limited education would have to living paycheck-to-paycheck, possibly have to work multiple jobs to survive and are paid low wages, with no health benefits. Those in the poor working class tend to have jobs within corporations that

Classism is real and its effects can be felt in virtually every aspect of society. Public school is not free of its reigns. Wealthier students are significantly more likely to receive a better foundational education than their poorer classmates; students in urban schools frequently have

The basis of the standard hierarchy is challenged by the rise of social media and therefore directly correlates with the influence of celebrities and people with a name brand. Most social scientists agree that society is stratified into a hierarchical arrangement of social classes. Social classes are groupings of individuals in a hierarchy, usually based on wealth, educational attainment, occupation, income, and membership in a subculture or social network. Social class in the United States is a controversial topic; there have been many competing definitions, models, and even disagreements over its very existence. Many Americans believe in a simple three-class model that includes the rich or upper class, the middle class, and the poor or working

Human beings within a society need a sufficient amount of education to go about communicating and functioning in a community. However, despite how crucial it is that one is educated, many do not have an opportunity to do so. This lack of opportunity can, in someways, be traced back to a single concept, classism. Both in the past and present, classism is a growing injustice in society that impacts ones ability to learn and is a determining factor for those that will succeed and those that will fall behind.

When people think of education their first thought of it is not to think about how the socioeconomic class that people are in affect their education. But it does when you look into it. Education has a huge impact on your socioeconomic class, and socioeconomic has an effect on your socioeconomic. This cycle of education and class is making it harder to move up in the United States of America. Regardless of people’s perspective on education, we all agree that one should have the ability to have access to the means of an education. Many think people have that ability, but others think that people do not because of their socioeconomic class and ability to pay for the education needed to get higher pay jobs. This invitational essay will talk about the effects of class on education and education on class.

Another defining factor for social class is education especially since education is seen as an achievement toward the American Dream. (Lareau, 235). Younger generations seem to place more emphasis on achieving higher education and the occupational opportunities provided for those who are well-educated (Cherlin, 113). The socioeconomic stratification corresponds to those with differing levels of education such as upper/middle class individuals have a college education while working/lower class have some college and/or minimal high school education (Cherlin, 118-119). These individuals and their given circumstances based on education and income have different values and trends about marriage, family and socialization/rearing of children. (Cherlin, 114-117). Family inequality is then based on direct obtainment for individuals who are head of these households such as employment of fathers and mothers (Cherlin, 111), which in turn affects the childhood/family experience of child within the socioeconomic status of their parents. (Lareau,

Many people around the world have been faced with inequality at some point in their life whether it is because of race, ethnic background, or gender. Also, social class plays a major role within inequality because, depending on the social class one is born into it can predict a lot about their future. Class is defined as the status one hold in society, socially or economically: according to socioeconomic factors, it can be one's status pertaining to things such as education, wealth, or occupation. Social class in our society has always been, and continues to be, a major problem for various social inequalities related to work, educational opportunities, and health benefits. Although there have been many improvements in our social structure in the past decades, many people in the United States find themselves at disadvantage because of their social class.

There is no way to deny that a social class system exists that divides people by general popularity. Once children begin school, they begin to separate into these divisions. The top of the social ladder, often considered to be people who are cool, are stereotyped to be beautiful and happy. Although in some cases this may be true, it is not always that way. Misconceptions about popularity lead to a greater divide amongst the social classes, and cause those in the lower social levels to be considered as or to feel as if they are inferior. Articles like one written by Christian McBride, entitled Be Cool, published in This I Believe II, continue to develop the false ideology that one must be popular in order to live a full, happy life.

When considering the social class of an individual, I tend to analyze the educational aspect and the experiences they had over the course of their life. As I was growing up, both of my parent social class position is in the working class group. They didn’t have the opportunity to attend college / university nor graduated from high school when they were younger due to the situations that wouldn’t allow it to happen. They grew up in Southern China and their families didn’t have much money for them to go to school. Instead, they were working to earn enough to just buy food and to survived. When they came to the United States, life was better for the both of them. For me, I want to study hard to at least graduate to earn a bachelor degree so I