DeeDee
Sociology
Period 2
- “All the world’s a stage. And
all the men and women merely
players; they have their exits and
their entrances; and one man in his
time plays many parts.”
- William Shakespeare
- What is our role and/or
purpose in society?
- How do we know where
we stand on the social ladder?
Our Society?
We live in a Post Industrial Society,
meaning that we don’t focus on the
production of goods but emphasize the
production of services
Ex: such as car washes, lawn services,
maintenance
Subjective Social Class
If we choose the subjective method, we ask
people what class they think they are in. For
example, the General Social Survey asks, " If you
were asked to use one of four names for your
social class, which would you say you belong in:
the lower class, the working class, the middle
class, or the upper class? The trouble with such a
subjective measure is that some people say they
are in a social class that differs from what
objective criteria might indicate they are in. This
problem leads most sociologists to favor objective
measures of social class when they study
stratification in American society.
Subjective pie graph of where people
think they belong on the social class scale
(where they belong on the social class
ladder)
Social Mobility
Regardless of how we measure and define
social class, what are our chances of
moving up or down within the American
class structure? As we saw earlier, the
degree of vertical social mobility is a key
distinguishing feature of systems of
stratification. Class systems such as in the
United States are thought to be open,
meaning that social mobility is relatively
high. It is important, then, to determine
how much social mobility exists in the
United States.
Social Mobility
Here we need to distinguish between two types of
vertical social mobility. Intergenerational mobility
refers to mobility from one generation to the next
within the same family. If children from poor parents
end up in high-paying jobs, the children have
experienced upward intergenerational mobility.
Conversely, if children of college professors end up
hauling trash for a living, these children have
experienced downward intergenerational mobility.
Intragenerational mobility refers to mobility within a
person ' s own lifetime. If you start out as an
administrative assistant in a large corporation and end
up as an upper-level manager, you have experienced
upward intragenerational mobility. But if you start out
from business school as an upper-level manager and
get laid off 10 years later because of corporate
downsizing, you have experienced downward
intragenerational mobility.
Objective Social Class
Objective Social Class is not what class
people think they’re in but what social
class they’re actually in
Vocabulary
Social Structure- the underlying patterns
of relationships in a group
Status- a position a person occupies
within a social structure
Ascribed Status- a position that is neither
earned nor chosen but assigned
Status Set- all of the statuses that a
person occupies at any particular time
Vocabulary
Role- an expected behavior associated with a
particular status
Right- a behavior that individuals can expect
from others
Obligation- a behavior that individuals are
expected to perform toward others
Social mobility- is the movement of
individuals, families, households, or other
categories of people within or between social
strata in a society. It is a change in social
status relative to others' social location within
a given society.
Bibliography
http://www.peoi.org/Courses/Coursesfa/socfwk/ch
/ch8c.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/4722
01/postindustrial-society
Textbook Chapter 5