Cultural Representations of Social Class free essay sample

Social Stratification Cultural Representations of Social Class Melba Theodis Grantham University 15 November 2011 Abstract This essay will touch on the ways that culture is related to social class with the impact on identity and pride within the specific social classes. I will also describe how culture helps keep others outside of a specific social class. We will explore how culture reproduces social class from generation to generation. Social class is represented in the food we eat, the clothes we wear, where we shop and even the types of interests we have. This essay will attempt to cross the barriers of society and explain the differences in our lives, our communities, and the world. Social Stratification Cultural Representations of Social Class Social stratification is an important area of research in sociology. Social stratification is a concept of class that groups people into separate categories based on shared socio-economic conditions. It is based on a hierarchy of ranking people who have access to valued resources of society that include: property, prestige, power and status. The differences have caused segregation even still as they are based on wealth, access to resources and a certain amount of power over others. For this reason, and because sociologists are generally concerned with social justice, stratification of society continues to elicit many theories, research studies, and social action in the field. Is it safe to assume that not all people are created equal? Having resources can mean the difference between life and death. While I like to believe that all people are offered the same opportunities as others, there are cultural differences that are impossible to ignore. Social class is represented in the clothes we wear, the vacations we go on, the houses we live in, the friends we surround ourselves with and the list goes on and on. There are 4 general social classes which are: upper, middle, working and lower class. Social class is a category of people who have similar standing or ranking in a society based on wealth, education, power, prestige, and other valued resources. The upper class individuals are an elite group of people that have more than likely inherited their wealth. In what we call â€Å"old money†, this is something that these people were born into or had passed down to them through generations. There is also a term that we site called â€Å"new money† and this term is used for all those who have worked hard to make a name for themselves also fitting in the social class of being in the upper class social arena. The middle class individuals are more diverse in which they live off of their earned income rather than their accumulated wealth. These are your managers and professionals who have obtained an education and are in supervisory positions. The working class is a group of individuals that are not in the supervisory positions, and consist of the skilled laborers and other blue collared workers that work as truck drivers, mechanics, carpenters and electricians. The lower class individuals are those who are living on the poverty line. They have very little education, few occupational skills and are most times unemployed. Culture consists of norms, beliefs and values. Culture keeps others outside of a specific social class from entering. It is also a way that people within specific cultures can identify with those within and outside their class. Culture related to social class has an impact on identity and pride within specific social classes because of what is the norm for that culture. For instance, some people that live in low income housing (the projects) don’t strive to do better to get out of the projects because this is the norm for them. Families over time have grown up and raised families in these housing projects and have grown accustomed to the way of life they have lived. For some people it is a part of their identity and you can tell. This is how culture reproduces social class from generation to generation and thus the reason some people stay in the same social class from which they were born. Culture keeps others outside of a specific social class because people within a specific class identify with each other. Take for instance a group of elites that have inherited their money and a group of upper middle class individuals who work to earn their living; the elites with their Ivy League schools (Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Harvard, and Cambridge) and their â€Å"name† have more in common with each other so to speak, whereas the middle class individuals that graduated from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (North Caroline AT, Howard, Virginia State, Norfolk State, and Morehouse) would not quite fit in. Is it more difficult for someone from a lower social class to â€Å"pass† as upper class? I can neither agree nor disagree because it depends on several different factors. The answer would be yes however, if you were taking someone off the streets that was a high school dropout and didn’t have the resources available to him and putting him in a room full of prestigious individuals that were having an intellectual conversation. I believe it would be difficult for someone from the upper class to â€Å"pass† as someone from the lower class because they are used to a certain way of life and sad to say, some people tend to look down on others that are not on their level. The bottom line is that in order for all to be created equal, we need to be able to have access to the resources needed to sustain a way of life that is comfortable. We all need to be able to obtain an education so that we can be knowledgeable. We all need to be able to support our families and build a nest egg for the next generation of people that will dominate our future. The fact is that most people live in very different, separate and unequal worlds, but we must stop blaming each other and take responsibility for our own actions. We must want more for ourselves and break the cycle of helplessness. Visual representation