Transcript Social Mobility & Social Class Reproduction

Contemporary Sociology:
Social Class
Agenda
Objective:
1.
To understand how social class is defined.
2.
To understand and debate the existence of
social mobility in the United States.
3.
To understand the concept of social
reproduction.
4.
To explore the shape and consequences of
class inequality.
Schedule:
1.
Lecture & Discussion
2.
Film: Nursery University
Homework:
1. Social
Class
Critical
Thinking
paper
Due: Mon
3/19
2. Midterm
Fri 3/30
Social Class
• This week, we will work on
understanding some core ideas
in the study of social class:
– Defining Social Class
– Understanding Social
Mobility & Social
Reproduction
– Inequality
– Poverty
• We will apply our understanding
of these ideas through an
examination of the documentary
Nursery University
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Defining Social Class
What is Social Class?
• How do you define it?
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What is Social Class?
• Social Class refers to a large group of
individuals who share similar positions in four
dimensions of economic life:
Occupation
Education
Income
Wealth
• A Different Kind of Class Rank:
– http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20
050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html
What is Social Class?
• How correlated do you think these
dimensions of class are?
• Correlation Between Education and
Income:
– http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nati
onal/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_
01.html
Social Class = Power & Prestige
Top Ten Wealthiest U.S. Senators (2008)
Rank
Name
Net Worth
Occupation
Education
1
Herb Kohl (D-Wis)
214,570,011
Business Executive - Kohl’s
Wisconsin; Harvard
2
Mark Warner (D-Va)
209,700,598
Telecommunications Executive;
Venture Capitalist
GW; Harvard
3
John Kerry (D-Mass)
208,801,275
Lawyer; Professional Politician;
Married Rich
Yale; BC
4
Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa)
94,306,010
Heir to the Rockefeller fortune;
College Administrator
Harvard
5
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)
74,744,094
CEO Automatic Data Processing
Columbia
6
Dianne Feinsten (D-CA)
72,380,637
Professional Politician; Married Rich
Stanford
7
James Risch - (R-ID)
53,325,524
Lawyer; Property Investments
University of Idaho
8
Bob Corker (R-TN)
52,345,517
Real Estate Tycoon
University of
Tennessee
9
Ted Kennedy (D-Mass)
44,917,518
Heir to the Kennedy fortune;
Professional Politician
Harvard; UVA
10
Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
28,542,526
Professional Politician; Married Rich
UMaine
What is Social Class?
• To the extent that the higher one’s position in
occupational, educational, income, and wealth give
people greater access
to power and prestige,
we might modify our
definition…
• Social Class = A large
group of individuals who
share similar occupational,
educational, income, and
wealth positions and thus who share similar amounts
of power and prestige.
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Social Mobility & Social Class
Reproduction
Is There Social Mobility in the United
States?
• How many people agree with the following
statements:
– America is the land of opportunity where everyone who
works hard can get ahead.
– People from poor or
working-class
backgrounds have an
average or better than
average change of getting
ahead in America.
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Is There Social Mobility in the United
States?
• America is the land of opportunity where everyone
who works hard can get ahead
– 70% of Americans agree
• People from poor or working-class backgrounds
have an average or better than average change of
getting ahead in America
– 80-90% of Americans agree
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Statistics on Social Class
Mobility
• http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/
national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/i
ndex_03.html
• What trends do you notice?
• How does this support or challenge your
prior thinking?
Social Class Reproduction
• These trends are
evidence of a
phenomenon sociologists
call social class
reproduction.
• What is social class
reproduction?
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For sociologists, the
question is:
How do we explain why
social reproduction is
occurring?
What are your thoughts?
(Think about both culture and
structure)
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Cultural Capital
• What do we mean when we talk
about capital?
• Habitus
– Each class has its own cultural
background, knowledge,
dispositions, and tastes that are
transmitted through the family
(Bourdieu 1984)
• Cultural capital
– The habitus valued socially or
culturally (by society as a whole?
By those in power?) that can be
transformed into status, power, or
economic capital
– Habitus as social/cultural currency”
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Cultural Capital and Social Class
Reproduction
• Argument: The cultural capital/habitus of the
dominant group in society (holding the most
power and wealth)
becomes the knowledge
that is most valued in
schools
• To possess that cultural
capital means one is
considered educated or
smart or talented (i.e., having merit)
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Cultural Capital and Social
Class Reproduction
• Mechanism:
– While schools look like they are neutral in
evaluating students, but because the knowledge
and dispositions they value correspond to the
cultural capital of the dominant group, students
from that class perform better in schools.
• Formal Curriculum
• Hidden Curriculum
• Null Curriculum
– Schools therefore legitimate social reproduction.
Formal Curriculum
• The explicitly stated goals and objectives of education.
• Political act, even if not stated as such.
• What gets taught as “knowledge” is the cultural capital held by
the upper-class:
– Jazz Band (Rock Band? Country Band?)
– French (Scandal over
Ebonics)
– Assignments that Require
the Use of Technology
(Denies As to students who
lack technology, regardless
of intelligence)
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Hidden curriculum
• Unintended lessons taught in schools
• Examples:
– How to behave in class
– Rules of conduct
– Classroom organization
– Brown nosing
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– Being polite
Null curriculum
• The curriculum that does not exist; Did not make the
cut
• We teach things by excluding them from the
curriculum—by not teaching them.
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Cultural Capital and Social
Class Reproduction
Cultural Capital
Economic Capital
Good Academic
Performance
High Educational
Credentials
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• Check out these other
statistics:
– 74% of students
attending “most
competitive”
colleges come from
families in the top
quartile, 3% come
from families in the
bottom quartile
– The income gap in
achievement is
twice as large as
the racial gap in
achievement!
The Reproduction of Privilege
• NY Times Article
• Check out these statistics:
– 74% of students attending “most
competitive” colleges come from families in
the top quartile, 3% come from families in
the bottom quartile
– The income gap in achievement is twice as
large as the racial gap in achievement.
Inequality
How Much Social Class Inequality is
there in the United States
• The richest 20% of Americans control what
percentage of our nation’s wealth?
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How Much Social Class Inequality is
there in the United States
• The richest 20% of Americans control what
percentage of our nation’s wealth?
– Answer 84%
– Though when surveyed, most Americans believe it is
59%
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Household Income and Wealth, by Household Quintiles
90
84.5
80
Percent of Income or Wealth
70
60
50
49
Richest fifth
Fourth fifth
Third fifth
Second fifth
Poorest fifth
40
30
20
10
23
15
10.7
9
4
4.4
1
0
Income, 1999
-10
Wealth, 1997 -0.7
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1960
Avg. Employee
40x More
CEO
2000
Avg. Employee
431x More
CEO
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Consequences of Inequality
Social Class Influences Every Part of
An Individual’s Life!
What food they eat, where they shop,
clothes they wear, schools they
attend, income they earn, how long
(and quality of life) they live,
occupation.
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Poverty
What is Poverty
•Government definition of “poverty”
– Lack of minimum food and shelter necessary for maintaining
life.
•Poverty Line
– Government calculation of the amount of yearly income a
family needs to meet its minimum needs.
– “Official Figure”
– Family of Four: $22,050/year
– Calculation:
• Poor people spend about 1/3 of their income on food
• The government figures out a low cost food budget and
multiples it by 3
• Those below the line are considered impoverished
•Poverty rate
– Percentage of US residents whose income falls below the
poverty line
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International Comparison of Poverty
Rates among Wealthy Countries
Nursery University
Look For:
“Definition” of Social Class
Social Mobility / Social Class Reproduction
Inequality