social mobilization and education
Meet Sandra, a mother recently divorced from her abusive middle-class husband. Her previous life had been comfortable; she now lives day-to-day with her children, working as a secretary while attending college courses in her little spare time, all while attending to her home and family. She finally ends up attaining her degree, yet can still find no job paying higher than her secretarial job, so she takes on a second job as a grocery checkout person, still barely making ends meet for her family. As described in Ch. 9 of the Giddens text, this woman had obviously worked very hard to attempt to restore her life back to her previous pre-divorce middle-class state. She says, “You try to do the responsible thing, and you’re penalized, because the system we have right now doesn’t provide you with a way to make it.” (p. 169) However, she learned the hard way that class is not quite as easy to transcend in this so-called “land of opportunity.” The United States is the most highly stratified society of the industrialized world. Class distinctions operate in virtually every aspect of our lives, determining the nature of our work, the quality of our schooling, and the health and
safety of our loved ones. Yet, remarkably, we, as a nation retain illusions about living in the capitalist “land of opportunity”, where any average Joe can make his million if he works hard enough. The reality of the our situation is that the US is not as “open” as we think it may be, meaning that social mobility, or the movement between classes, is not nearly as easy as we may believe. This is due to the fact that many social issues, such as gender, racial, and economic class, serve as barriers that obstruct the path of one’s social mobility. Despite our own personal efforts and talents, mobility in our society is primarily based on one’s status, and overcoming the stereotypes that accompany one’s status makes mobility extremely hard. Before examining how mobility is suppressed within society, it is important to look at what types exist in our industrialized nation. Usually the amount of mobility in a society is a major indicator of its openness. India, for example, is a very closed society, running on a caste system that dictates one’s status in life and prohibits any movement between classes. The US has mostly seen structural mobility, which is advancement opportunity made possible by an increase in better-paid occupations at the expense of lower-wage occupations. Since WWII, there has been a large increase in high-paying managerial and executive positions, as well as blue-collar working class jobs. Within this structural mobility, there is upper and downward mobility that can allow a person to either rise or fall in economic class. However, many other elements come into play, making advancements extremely difficult, and class lines deeply imbedded. In our society, as well as every other industrialized nation, mobility is based on the idea that the poor are the lowest of the social strata, and that all mobility continues up
Some common words found in the essay are:
Meet Sandra, Roughnecks” Saints, Holly Sklar, Functions Poverty”, Herbert Gans, social mobility, William Chambliss’s, one’s status, middle class, extremely difficult, white middle class, economic class, downward mobility, society makes, movement classes, poor woman, mobility society,
Approximate Word count = 1272
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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