Social Class, Stratification, And Inequality

Herbert hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt were both a very important part of the great depression. However both played a totally different role in it. Hoover was more known as the one who caused it. He was not liked by many people, and tried blaming the depression on them.(Biography.com Editors) FDR took over after Hoover and helped America out a lot. He provided help for people in America. He created jobs, provided food and, helped people in need. He even ended the depression in 1939. (Freidel) FDR and Hoover were two very different people. Both came from two totally different lives. Also they both took different turns on the great depression, one started it and the other finished.(Hoover V.S. Roosevelt)

In the article “Who Gets to Graduate” by Paul Tough examines a problem about low income students are less likely to graduate from college than students from middle class or wealthier families. In the United States, school systems are not created equally. Middle and upper class students have access to safe and modern schools equipped with everything they possibly need to stay in that high rank because they came from a family who has the money to support their studies. Students from low-income families don’t have a lot of the support, stability, and money from home that higher-income students can take for granted.

Millennials form the majority of the United States population, outnumbering Baby Boomers by eleven million. Higher education is now more crucial for securing a middle-class lifestyle than ever before, yet for the majority, the cost for a bachelor’s degree has become prohibitively expensive. In “The Land of Opportunity”, Loewen contends that high school education methodically avoids a critical dialogue of socioeconomic inequality in America. The social class to which a student belongs greatly influences their capacity for upward mobility. If higher education is a requirement for improved economic status, then students in the lower class are already disadvantaged. Loewen quotes Theodore Sizer, “If you are the child of low-income parents, the chances are good that you will receive limited and often careless attention from adults in your high school” (qtd. in Loewen, 203). High school students cannot look to the classroom to prepare them for real world power dynamics. If left to their own devices, adolescents may be influenced by skewed allegories in fictional entertainment media. Parents must use educational resources to prompt critical thinking about socioeconomic inequality in order to prepare America’s youth for securing their futures.

Obtaining a degree remains one of the most important pathways to economic and social class in the United States (U.S.), regardless of rising tuition costs and the value of having a higher education coming in to question. Of the 20.6 million students enrolled in a college or university, first-generation college students represents about one-third (The Institute for Higher Education Policy, 2012). These group of individuals are more likely to encounter academic, financial, professional, cultural, and emotional difficulties (Sanez, Hurtado, Barrera, Wolf, and Yeung, 2007).

The researchers wanted to explore the idea that the “American system of higher education is widely regarded as an engine of social mobility that provides equal opportunities to all deserving students, irrespective of their previous background, upbringing, or life circumstances (Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson & Covarrubias, 2012) and compare it to the reality of the rise of first-generation college students who are from interdependent working class families attending institutions who focus on norms of independence. It has

Hidden behind ivy-covered buildings is a system of social stratification silently propagating the next posterity of continuing-generation students. The story does not unfold in the same way for first-generation college students who, tangled in ivy, cannot free themselves long enough to experience dorms filled with students on their way to their next student club, rushing for a spot in a Greek organization sure to open a lifetime of networking opportunities, or volunteering for an organization that can lead to an internship. For some first-generation college students, the Ivory Tower is a place of isolation. It is here that social origins and cultural dispositions matter; where your chances of attaining institutionalized capital are lowered

Today in society the determination for a college degree lies beyond education towards future financial security. While college debt seems to be ever increasing, students from low-income families are less likely to attend college due to the financial hardship. The social class that a student’s family falls into shows correlation on whether that student will or not attend college (Peske & Haycock, 2006). However, looking at this issue from my own prospective it seems as though no matter the social class students are attending college. What more so seems to have an affect on outcomes for individuals is how there family’s social economic status effects how well a student performs in college. For a student from a low-income family nothing can seem more daunting than the overwhelming amount of debt we have to pay after college.

Students from low-income and first generation backgrounds often struggle in different academic subjects. Subsequently, students have lower expectations for themselves when it comes to academic achievement. The majority of first generation students come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Seeing that, families work countless hours in factories and other places where they are underpaid because of the lack of educational opportunity they experienced themselves. According to Blackwell and Pinder (2014) in the United States higher education is becoming the outlet to different avenues of opportunity whether it is through social mobility or economic progress. While screening out possible topics of interest for a research proposal, one of the challenges I encountered in my field experience was the lack of college access education and funding for the families in the urban high schools. The first generation student family typically is unaware of the college process because the student’s parents have not attended an institution of higher education. Therefore, the students cannot count on their knowledge of the process. Eventually, when students reach the financial aid process it becomes difficult because parents usually cannot afford full tuition expenses and at the same time do not understand the process. In these situations, schools with a college going culture can prepare staff to provide extra support to students by developing professional training in college access, mentorship

As a student from a working-class background, I did not have access to the type of cultural capital needed to gain upward social mobility. For example, I come from a family that has had no formal education beyond high school and so I was without the knowledge of how to gain access into the realm of higher education. My family had never gone through the application process and so they did not know how to access and utilize the college help that my school provided. Also, my high school only had fourteen counselors available to provide assistance to the 4,263 students that attended the school (Illinois Report Card 2010). This counselor-to-student ration meant that not much time could be devoted to each student to give them the help they needed to navigate the complex college application system (Civil Rights Data 2009, Illinois Report Card 2010). During my time in high school, I never actually spoke to any of the counselors about college plans and I was not even aware that they could help in that area. In the following sections I detail how the cultural capital borrowed or learned from scholarship programs and cultural mentors ultimately impact a student’s upward mobility most.

Thus, globalization forces researchers to understand the influence of mobility, in addition to education, on social class (Banks & Banks, 2013). This articles I chose to investigate social class and its implications for educational outcomes are Social class and the hidden curriculum of work by Jean Anyon and Reappraising the importance of class in higher education entry and persistence by John Field and Natalie Morgan Klein.

In this case, an analyst can prove that BONIA CORPRORATE BHD use 39 percent debt. BONIA has $0.39 in debt for every $1.00 in assets. Therefore, there is $ 0.61 I equity for every $0.39 in debt. It also can prove that the company has enough assets to cover its debt to set long-term goals. It also creates a framework for its businesses to plan out a future long-term direction. Next, the company also definition a budget carefully identifies the necessary expenditure and R&D required for an investment project. It can turn bad from a good project since the expenditures are not carefully controlled or monitored. To prove the statement above, we can see that the company and the company is making sound business decisions, demonstrate accountability

Economic stratification is the different rankings in social class are separated in different economic ways. These differences can vary from clothing, cars, perfumes, cigarette brands, etc. There are many ways you can tell what a person stratification is just by the way they look or the things they have. Usually these ranking go from lower class to middle class then the upper class. Each of these classes have very different ways of living and what they do to maintain a certain status.

Individuals within a society are grouped into certain rankings that is based on their wealth, income, race and education known as the social stratification. Sociologist use this to determine the social standings of individuals within a society. Social stratification can also appear in much smaller groups. These groups such as the work place, schools, and businesses can “take the form of a distribution of power and authority down the ranks”. (Cole, 2017) The Caste system is also another form of stratification that one does not get a choice in. They are born into it and regardless of their talents will hold positions that are given to them their whole life. Social mobility is the ability for individuals to move about their social standings.

That a student’s social class origin impacts on their learning outcomes is self-evident across much of the developed world, with entrenched disparities in academic achievement that are inversely correlated with family income (Snook, 2009:3, Argy, 2007:para 3, Reay, 2006:289, Nash, 2003:179-180).

Class stratification and inequality has been the starting point for many debates and arguments about why and how societies are divided. There are several sociological perspectives that all have different ideas and theories on this topic, including Marxism (conflict theory), Functionalism (consensus theory) and Social action. This essay will be focusing on class stratification from the perspective of conflict theory.