Examining the relationship between identity and social class Social class is the way in which society categorizes itself into different forms of genre. Social class refers to the status in which a person is given in society. Strictly speaking it is measured by how much wealth you have. Being born into a wealthier family will mean you start life in a higher class. If you are born into a poorer family you would have to work your way up the classes through employment.
Last but not least, I would like to give examples and give my point of view on the word sociology, such as what does it mean to me! First, I would like to define and explain what sociology means to me! Sociology explores people and society. It examines our social institutions; our families, the state and social relationships like gender and ethnicity, to help make sense of how we both see and interpret our rapidly changing world. Sociology examines how our behavior individually and in groups is influenced by social processes and what that means.
They argued that people 9in the lower social class had a higher population of older people and people working in dangerous industries and others are working in a more traditionally will be expected to have higher levels of illness than the more younger, prosperous working in call centres offices and other service industries. This explanation suggests that it is the social class but the age structure and patterns of employment of the people in the lower social classes that really explains the differences. Furthermore recent studies have shown that even the researcher account for this bias in employment and age, they still have to find a link between higher and lower social class level of illness and the lower life
In terms of social stratification, this suggests that there are various classes of people necessary to balance society (Giddens, 1990). Some will be laborers others managers or leaders. Some will be at the lower levels of society while others will achieve the highest levels of middle levels of in society. Consider the most prevalent reason why minority students need to complete their higher education. The lack of realization of any roadblock that hinders the success of students in graduating or gaining a proper education can create an imbalance in the productivity and advancement of society.
This is usually based on factors such as income, ownership of property and occupation. People in the lower groupings of social class might not be able to change their behaviour after seeing health education campaigns because they have experienced the poorest health in society, they might believe that they have little control over their health, they might not be able to afford to make changes to their health lifestyle and they could find it harder to access health services (for example there could be less GP services in lower social class areas). People in higher social classes are more likely to be influenced by health campaigns because of money, time and understanding of health campaigns (people of higher social classes spend more years in
The Effects of Socioeconomic Status Socio-economic status is or SES is a classification of an individual’s social and individual status. To determine someone socio-economic status we would need to look into facts such has someone’s income, education and job. Every socio-economic status is different, the higher an individual’s education is the higher their income would be because they have a better opportunity of obtaining a higher paying job; now if a person earns less income then most likely their education level is lower. There are some advantages and disadvantages when it comes to SES. The disadvantage lies more with someone who has a lower income level, some of the disadvantages that I come across are personal health issues, obtaining adequate health care and academic achievement currently and on future generations, Race/Ethnicity and Gender.
Violence, obesity, children’s education, life expectancy, mental illness, teen births, trust- all are major problems for societies across the globe, and according to Wilkinson and Pickett, can be attributed to inequality. In their examination of developed countries, they found that inequality, rather than average income, is a far better indicator of wellbeing. Furthermore, the authors posited that nearly all problems that are more prevalent at the bottom of social hierarchies (many are aforementioned) are more common in unequal societies. They suggest that despite a nation’s apparent affluence, wealthy yet unequal nations are nonetheless “social failures” (18). Wilkinson and Pickett explore two of the most common assumptions about the social gradient that shows people at the bottom of social hierarchies suffer more problems- circumstances and individual tendencies.
Examine sociological explanations of the ways in which social class may shape social identity: • Identity is concerned with how individuals see and define themselves and how other people see and define them. • The identities that people adopt are formed within the cultures and subcultures to which they belong. One of the factors that have traditionally had major effect on people’s identity is their social class and the class subcultures into which they are socialised. • Ken brown breaks society up into different social classes, which all have the same norms and values. Which are: working class, middle class and upper class.
It will touch on sociological theories and key reports such as The Black Report (1980), The Health Divide (1987), The Acheson Report (1998) and The Marmot Report (2010) these will explain the impact of what does influence health and why. Social Class was defined by the Registrar General in a system which was used from 1911 up until the 1990s which set this out in relation to occupation, housing, income and education in what may be referred to as a ‘Hierarchy’ system, Graham (2000). There was a growing need to replace this system as the original data collected was based largely on the status, wealth and occupation of the man of the household. Today’s structure of society has changed enormously for example, more women now work outside of the home and work full time even though unemployment levels are at their highest because of the economic recession, (Giddens 2009). Today the classification system used to denote socio-economic class reflects a different society and the terms for different classes have been replaced by; The ‘Advantaged’, ‘Marginalised Insecure’ and the ‘Disadvantaged’ (Graham 2000).
Academically successful students will have more employment opportunities than those with less education. Thus, academic success may mean the difference between working at a job merely “because it pays the rent” and working at a job that one enjoys (Rentner & Kober, 2001, p. 15). Research also shows that people who are academically successful • are more stable in their employment; • are more likely to have health insurance; • are less dependent on public assistance; • are less likely to engage in criminal activity; • are more active as citizens and charitable volunteers; and • are more healthy (National Alliance of Business, Inc., 1998). According to Ruby Payne in her book , A Framework for Understanding Poverty, low achievement can be closely correlated with low socioeconomic status. Poverty can be related to academic achievement in the United States.