¶ … Social Class
My current social class is dependent upon the fundamental reason why I am writing this paper: my level of education. Even though it is an idealization to consider that education in America is as meritocratic as it pretends to be, and whether its high price-tag is merited. The price tag looks particularly high when viewed in comparison with most European countries, in which the cost of university education is virtually subsidized. Recent riots broke out in London over the raising of the level of school fees required to be paid by students at universities like Oxford and Cambridge. By American standards, even the proposed raised fees make Oxford only as expensive as a community college education would be for an American. Nevertheless, the price tag of an education in America is only part of the complex process whereby it does offer an automatic way of increasing one's own social status.
Nonetheless when I anticipate my own future work as a therapist, it occurs to me that the social class of my patient population is not something that I can necessarily predict, and on some level I can anticipate that the attendant potential increase in social status that I will undergo by receiving the education for which I am currently studying might also potentially alienate me from certain communities which might be mistrustful of the concept of therapy altogether....
For example, in discussing his childhood in "Southie" a poor neighborhood in Boston, Patrick MacDonald talks about the willful ignorance of the people in the neighborhood when he was a child. "They were all here now, all of my neighbors and friends who had died young from violence, drugs, and from the other deadly things we'd been taught didn't happen in Southie" (MacDonald, 1999, p.2). In other words, the
Social Class And Health During the Renaissance and Medieval Times THE BASIS OF PRIVILEGE The Diet of the Rich and the Poor What the rich and the poor ate in those times was vastly distinct (Cheng et al., 1999). The nobles and the wealthy could well afford and were served a wide variety of foods by cooks. Poor peasants, on the other hand, subsisted on a few and affordable types of meat and
IT is commonly asserted that there are in the United States no classes, and any allusion to classes is resented. On the other hand, we constantly read and hear discussions of social topics in which the existence of social classes is assumed as a simple fact. "The poor," "the weak," "the laborers," are expressions which are used as if they had exact and well- understood definition. Karl Marx, a famous philosopher
SOCIAL CLASS SYSTEM IN THE U.S. Classism' refers to distribution of national wealth is such a manner that it benefits the highest social class, the elites, and leads to the creation of social hierarchy. "Classism is made up of falsehoods about the frugality and seriousness of the upper class and the profligacy and frivolity of the lower" (Dugger, 1998). While in the Britain and other imperial countries, social classes took birth
In "producing something," workers elevate their status in life by justifying that their work is meaningful not only to them, but to society, for they contribute to the economic machinery of capitalism everyday. The following passages from various interviews in "Working" demonstrate the concepts of "producing something" and "making sense" as the avenues through which workers momentarily suspend or escape their marginalization in American society: The *****in' world's so *****ed up,
Social Class The place and role of social class within the American society Social class plays a significant role in shaping the American society to what it is today and influences the interaction of people in different social classes and the interaction inn terms of politics as well as influencing the economic trends of given regions. Definition of social class in the American context -- the various definitions as fronted by different scholars
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now