Social class is a holistic and scientific study of societies. It helps to understand the similarities and differences between societies and people’s behaviour. Learning about human behaviours and thinking patterns helps in daily life as it makes interactions and dealings with other people easy. It helps in learning and dealing with many social and personal problems. For example, it is easy to deal with the problem of overpopulation in an area if we know about their culture and their thinking. It keeps us up to date about the world around us, which is helpful in making good decisions in our personal lives.
Racial stratification is when society discriminates against a person by his race. Although the United States has had an African-American president and public spaces are not segregated, racism is not only related to African Americans. In the USA, President Donald Trump is labelled as racist by The New York Times (Kristof, 2016). This shows that racism is still present in the USA. The concept of Islam phobia is also racism present in the USA.
Sex and gender are two different things. We are born with different genitals, which makes us male or female, but how a girl or a boy should behave is called gender and is a social construction. It was a general belief before the Industrial Revolution that women were too weak to work side by side with men, which is not the case today. The difference in sexualities also is an example that gender is a social construction.
Deviance is a social construction as deviance is just a label for those people who do not conform to the social norms. Behaviors vary from society to society what is right in one social setting can be termed as wrong in another. Therefore, there are no universal wrong behaviours. For example, homosexuality can be termed as wrong in some societies, but it is completely normal behaviour and legal in the USA.
In her article, Lareau explained that working-class families and middle-class families raise their children differently. Working-class families let their children grow without much interference. On the other hand, middle-class families interfere and dictate the lives of their children in every possible way. The similarity is that they both teach their children to survive in the same class they are born in, and the difference is that working-class families are much more relaxed and less tired as compared to the other class (Lareau, 2002).
Colour blindness is a concept that describes a utopian society where there is no racial discrimination. Therefore, it can be said that colour blindness is a good idea. It is not possible because racial discrimination is always present in society.
Socioeconomic status describes the economic stratification system in the USA. The USA has six social classes roughly. It is different from other types of economic stratification systems as other forms of economic stratification systems in the world do not influence the social status of the people, unlike in America.
Although we want to get rid of poverty, it is not possible because of the overpopulation of the world, which increases unemployment and reduces natural resources. There is always an elite class present that suppresses the lower class, and this can never end. Another reason is the world economic system, as described in the world system theory, in which the core always exploits the periphery. The last reason is fatalism, which hinders humans from working for a better living.
The sock of assists like property, home accessories, and savings held by a person defines wealth. On the other side, income is the money received by a person at regular intervals is known as income. Wealth is significant when talking about stratification as it defines the social status of the person and the prestige attached to it.
Sex is a biological difference between males and females. A person is born either a man or a female based on their genitals. Gender is a social construction of how a girl or a boy should behave and make choices is defined by society and differs from society to society. Sexuality means the way people feel and express themselves sexually.
References
Kristof, N. (2016). Is Donald Trump a racist? The New York Times.
Lareau, A. (2002). Invisible inequality: Social class and childrearing in black families and white families. American Sociological Review, 747–776.
