Transcript Culture and Social Class

CULTURE AND SOCIAL
CLASS
INAS BARSOUM
30 MARCH 2011
QUOTE
“It is impossible to understand people's
behavior...without the concept of social
stratification, because class position has a
pervasive influence on almost everything...the
clothes we wear...the television shows we
watch...the colors we paint our homes in and
the names we give our pets...
Our position in the social hierarchy affects our
health, happiness, and even how long we will
live.”
SOCIAL CLASSES
• Social classes are economic or cultural
arrangements of groups in society.
• In the modern Western context, the division
consists of three layers: upper class, middle
class, and lower class.
• The most basic class distinction is between
the powerful and the powerless
THE UPPER CLASS
• The Upper Class in the United Kingdom
consists of only the traditional aristocracy of
noble families with hereditary titles which,
since World War 2, the Upper middle class
has echoed the upper class,
• The Upper Middle Class consists of the rich
and powerful members of the managerial
and professional class usually socially
economically graded as class A or class 1
• In the United States the upper class, also
referred to simply as the rich, is often
considered to consist of those with great
influence and wealth.
• In this respect the US differs from countries
such as the UK where membership of the
'upper class' is also dependent on other
factors.
• The American upper class is estimated to
constitute less than 29% of the population,
while the remaining 71% of the population
lies either within middle or working class.
• The main distinguishing feature of upper class
is its ability to derive enormous incomes from
wealth through techniques such as
investment and money management, rather
than simply engaging in wage-labor or
salaried employment
• Successful entrepreneurs, CEOs, politicians,
investment bankers, some lawyers and top
physicians, heirs to fortunes, stockbrokers as
well as celebrities are considered members
of this class
THE MIDDLE CLASS
• The middle class is any class of people in the middle
of a societal hierarchy.
• The middle class is the broad group of people in
contemporary society who fall socio-economically
between the working class and upper class.
• From an economic perspective, for example,
members of the middle class do not necessarily fall
in the middle of a society's income distribution.
• Instead, middle class salaries tend to be
determined by middle class occupations, which in
turn are attained by means of middle class values.
• Values ---- certain occupations ----- salaries ----- class
• What are those values?
• In February 2009, The Economist announced that over half
the world's population now belongs to the middle class, as a
result of rapid growth in emerging countries.
• It characterized the middle class as having a reasonable
amount of income, so that they do not live from hand to
mouth as the poor do,
• and defined it as beginning at the point where people have
roughly a third of their income left for other ways of spending
after paying for basic food and shelter.
• This allows people to buy consumer goods, improve their
health care, and provide for their children's education.
• Most of the emerging middle class consists of people who
are middle-class by the standards of the developing world
but not the rich one, since their money incomes do not
match developed country levels.
• By this definition, the number of middle class people in Asia
exceeded that in the West sometime around 2007 or 2008
UPPER MIDDLE CLASS
• The upper middle class is a sociological concept
referring to the social group constituted by higher-status
members of the middle class.
• This is in contrast to the term lower middle class which is
used for the group at the opposite end of the middle
class stratum and the regular middle class.
• There is considerable debate as to how the upper
middle class might be defined.
• The upper middle class consists of well-educated
professionals with graduate degrees and comfortable
incomes.
• The American upper middle class is defined similarly
using income, education and occupation as the
predominant indicators.
• In the United States, the upper middle class is defined
as consisting mostly of white collar professionals who
not only have above-average personal incomes and
advanced educational degrees but also a higher
degree of autonomy in their work
VALUES AND CLASS
• Those encompassing the Upper Middle
Class statistically espouse high regard
for higher education, striving for
themselves and their children to obtain
undergraduate and graduate
degrees.
NOUVEAU RICHE
• Nouveau riche (French for "new rich"), or new money, refers
to a person who has acquired considerable wealth within
his or her generation.
• This term is generally to emphasize that the individual was
previously part of a lower socioeconomic rank, and that
such wealth has provided the means for the acquisition of
goods or luxuries that were previously unobtainable.
• The term can also be used in a derogatory fashion, for the
purposes of social class distinction, to describe persons with
newfound wealth as vulgar—lacking the experience or
finesse to use wealth in the same manner as old money—
persons from families who have been wealthy for multiple
generations.
SOCIAL STATUS
• Social status = the position or rank of a person or
group within the society,
• Social Status can be determined two ways.
• One can earn their social status by their own achievements,
which is known as achieved status.
• Alternatively, one can be placed in the stratification system
by their inherited position, which is called ascribed status.
ASCRIBED STATUSES
• Ascribed statuses can also be defined as those that
are fixed for an individual at birth.
• Ascribed statuses that exist in all societies include
those based upon sex, age, race ethnic group and
family background.
• For example, a person born into a wealthy family
characterized by traits such as popularity, talents and
high values will have many expectations growing up.
• Therefore, they are given and taught many social
roles as they are socially positioned into a family
becoming equipped with all these traits and
characteristics.
ACHIEVED STATUSES
• Achieved status is a sociological term denoting a
social position that a person can acquire on the
basis of merit; it is a position that is earned or
chosen. It is the opposite of ascribed status.
• It reflects personal skills, abilities, and efforts.
• Examples of achieved status are being an Olympic
athlete, being a criminal (low status), or being a
college professor.
STATUS
• Status is important sociologically because it comes
with a set of rights, obligations, behaviors, and
duties that people occupying a certain position are
expected or encouraged to perform. These
expectations are referred to as roles.
• For instance, the role of a "professor" includes
teaching students, answering their questions, being
impartial, and dressing appropriately!!!
OVERCLASS
• Overclass is a recent term = the most powerful
group in a social hierarchy.
• The term generally implies excessive and unjust
privilege and exploitation of the rest of society.
• Perhaps the most commonly agreed-upon
"overclass" consists of leaders in international
business, finance and the defense industry!
UNDERCLASS
• The underclass is not simply the poor as defined by their
income.
• Underclass are permanently Poor!!!
• But they must have the behavior of a deviant or
antisocial outlook on life.
• This group is classified into the following categories:
• the passive poor, usually long term welfare recipients;
• the hostile street criminal, drop-outs and drug addicts;
• the traumatized drunks, homeless, and released mental patients.