Project 4: Discussion Notes with Research Projects 2
Project 4: Discussion Notes
with Research Projects (Choose 1 of 3)
Introduction with Excerpts from Openstax, Chapter 9
You may remember the word “stratification” from geology class. The distinct vertical layers found in rock, called stratification, are a good way to visualize social structure. Society’s layers are made of people, and society’s resources are distributed unevenly throughout the layers. The people who have more resources represent the top layer of the social structure of stratification. Other groups of people, with progressively fewer and fewer resources, represent the lower layers of our society. The critical word, here, is resources which are always unequally distributed.
Sociologists use the term social stratification to describe the system of social standing. Social stratification refers to a society’s categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race and ethnicity, education, and power. These factors determine the status, or rank, of an individuals in the society. Also ranked are groups such as families/households; large populations such as ethnic and racial groups are also stratified. These sociological concepts comprise the language for the study of social inequality.
For a general understanding of the concept of social stratification as a ranking system that assigns status to individuals as members of a social category, see the classic Frontline documentary film, “A Class Divided”. The film illustrates an ingenuous experiment conducted by an elementary school teacher in which students were stratified based on the color of their eyes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcCLm_LwpE
The American Class System
Stratification systems are vertical rank orders. This is clearly illustrated in The Forbes 400. As “The Definitive Ranking of The Wealthiest Americans” which ranks the 400 wealthiest Americans.
https://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/#36846c9d7e2f
Wealth refers to total assets minus expenses. It is the most critical measure of a person’s life-chances – the opportunity to realize the fullest expression of their social being. In theory, it is possible to rank every American based on their wealth, thus extending the short list compiled by Forbes Magazine.
In the United States, people like to believe everyone has an equal chance at success. Historically, Americans hold the belief that hard work and talent—not prejudicial treatment or societal values—determine social rank, or status. This emphasis on self-effort perpetuates the belief that people, rather than external factors (e.g., the way the society is structured), control their own social standing.
However, sociologists recognize that social stratification is a society-wide system that makes inequalities apparent – and perpetuates it. While there are always inequalities between individuals, sociologists are interested in larger social patterns. Stratification is not about individual inequalities, but about systematic inequalities based on group membership, classes, and the like. No individual, rich or poor, can be blamed for social inequalities. The structure of society affects a person's social standing. Although individuals may support or fight inequalities, social stratification is created and supported by society as a whole.
Sociologists distinguish between two types of systems of stratification. Closed systems accommodate little change in social position. Status is ascribed and mobility is blocked. Open systems, which are based on achievement, allow movement and interaction between layers and classes. Different systems reflect, emphasize, and foster certain cultural values and shape individual beliefs. Stratification systems include class systems and caste systems, as well as meritocracy.
Unlike caste systems, class systems are open. People are free to gain a different level of education or employment than their parents. They can also socialize with and marry members of other classes, which allows people to experience social mobility, or to move from one class to another. The historical emergence of class systems is tied to the emergence of capitalism; status is a function of market value which explains why the best athletes or musicians are highly paid in their respective industries.
Our focus for this project is the American class system. A class consists of a set of people who share similar status with regard to factors like wealth, income, education, and occupation. The economic measures of wealth and income matter most for social status in a capitalist society like the U.S. because they more directly determine life-chances. This means that social status is a weighted sum of wealth, income, occupation, and education. See “Class Matters” interactive graphic below.
These status variables tend to be consistent, for example, higher levels of education occur with higher occupational status and income. Sociologists use the term status consistency to describe the consistency, or lack thereof, of an individual’s rank across these factors. Status inconsistency produces frustrations, for example, where income is lower than expected considering a higher level of education, while people with less education who make more. This can be shared with others and converted into political movements.
Status is Achieved and Ascribed
Meritocracy is an ideal system based on the belief that social stratification is the result of personal effort—or merit—that determines social standing. High levels of effort will lead to a high social position, and vice versa. The concept of meritocracy is an ideal—because a society has never existed where social rank was based purely on merit. Because of the complex structure of societies, processes like socialization, and the realities of economic systems, social standing is influenced by multiple factors—not merit alone. Inheritance and pressure to conform to norms, for instance, disrupt the notion of a pure meritocracy. While a meritocracy has never existed, sociologists see aspects of meritocracies in modern societies when they study the role of academic and job performance and the systems in place for evaluating and rewarding achievement in these areas. Meritocracy makes it possible to achieve a higher status in relation to parents. This is knows as social mobility. This is blocked when status is assigned, or ascribed.
See the example of the College Scholastic Ability Tests in South Korea. It is a meritocratic assessment which is the key that unlocks the door to status in the larger society. In this excerpt, note that performance on the test is impacted by the availability of family resources like money for tutors.
Nearly a half-million South Korean high school seniors hunkered down on Thursday to take an annual university-entrance exam they had been preparing for since kindergarten — a nine-hour marathon of tests that could decide their futures.
In this education-obsessed country, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of the College Scholastic Ability Tests, or suneung, in the life of a South Korean student.
Most universities select their students based largely on the test scores of the single standardized year-end exam. Diplomas from a few top universities like Seoul National can make a huge difference when applying for jobs and promotions. Many students who fail to enter the universities they covet take the tests again and again in the following years, often living and studying in institutes with militarylike discipline.
The importance of suneung can be traced back to the destitute decades following the Korean War, when families saw education as the ticket for their children to escape poverty. The country’s razor-sharp focus on education is often cited for helping its dramatic postwar transformation, going from one of the world’s poorest under dictatorship to one of its richest democracies.
Today, young South Koreans are among the world’s most highly educated. In 2017, 70 percent of the country’s population of 25- to 34-year-olds had a tertiary education, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Many families start preparing their children from kindergarten, enrolling them in after-school cram sessions or hiring private tutors to elevate their math and English-language skills. Wealthy families fork over thousands of dollars a month to help their children, creating a multibillion-dollar exam-preparation industry and eroding a once widely held belief among poorer families that college-entrance exams were a great equalizer for social mobility.
The exam has been linked, however, to troubling trends.
The soaring educational costs are often blamed for the country’s low birthrates, as families felt they could not afford to finance the education of multiple children. Suicide is the No. 1 cause of death for South Koreans between the ages of 10 and 29. And when analysts discuss the country’s suicide rates, among the world’s highest, they often cite the extreme level of stress caused by the exam.
“The College-Entrance Exam Is 9 Hours Long. Covid-19 Made It Harder”, Choe Sang-Ham, NYT (12.4.20). https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/world/asia/south-korea-college-exam-suneung-coronavirus.html
In a class system, status is more open than closed. While achieved status is prevalent in open-class societies, there can still be powerful elements of ascription, or caste. In particular, parents’ tend to transmit their social position on to their children, specifically in the form of opportunities to attain their status if not exceed it (i.e., upward social mobility). Passing on parental status includes the cultural norms that accompany a certain lifestyle as well as economic capital (see article on the 2019 college admission scandal). They share these with a network of friends and family members. Social standing becomes a comfort zone, a familiar lifestyle, and an identity. This is one of the reasons first-generation college students do not fare as well as students with parents who attended college themselves.
A caste system based on race has been built into American society, specifically in reference to a slave economy established in the 17th century and its subsequent racial formations. This has given rise to a system of racial stratification that ascribes privilege to a dominant caste and deprivation to the subordinate caste. Discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity (i.e., an ascribed status) constitutes an obstacle to achievement in leading ladders of mobility such as formal education, business, labor unions, and politics. See the caste boundaries built around privilege and deprivation that were readily erected in the “Class Divided” experiment.
Question 1: Class Rank
1) Interview someone to ascertain their subjective sense of status position, or rank in the status hierarchies that define American society as a stratification system. You will have to take into account the family household as a status unit for example if your subject is a dependent child (e.g., a college student living at home).
· How do they conceive of their social status or position in the social hierarchy (i.e., where they believe their status to be)? Do they measure their status in terms of wealth and income, occupation, and education?
· Do they explicitly describe their status in terms of social class? Take the opportunity to ask them about their overall picture of the class system including the extent of inequality and its causes.
· Does their sense of social positioning refer to racial/ethnic stratification, or inequality among entire groups defined by race/ethnicity? Elaborate.
· To what extent is their status relative in the sense that is measure against specific group others in the status hierarchy? This should furnish insight into their standard of living, which may be aspirational, as well as their cost of living.
· Intergenerational mobility: How do they conceive of their status relative to their parents?
· Income, wealth, occupation and education represent distinct status hierarchies. To what extent does your subject experience “status inconsistency”, or disparities in their status positions? An example would be high educational status and low income, or vice versa.
· How “objective” is their “subjectively” experienced sense of status? Here, you are asked to evaluate their assessment sociologically. Use interactive tools like the “Class Matters” graphic and online calculators referenced to income (see above).
Internet resources for Question 1:
*“Class Matters” (Interactive Graphic) NYT https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/index.html
“Family Budget Calculator” www.EPI.com
“Are You in the American Middle Class? Find Out With Our Income Calculator” https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/
“The Black-White Wage Gap Is as Big as It Was in 1950”, David Leonhardt, NYT (6.25.20)
Question #1 is keyed to the “Class Matters” graphic which calls attention to the 4 major “status hierarchies” that comprise social class: wealth, income, occupation, education. Wealth and income are economic measures of status, important because they most directly determine life-chances, or the opportunity to afford available goods and services. The “Class Matters” graphic relies on a prestige scale (a national survey) to rank occupations, where prestige is largely a function of income but also reflects social values; so, doctors are ranked highest on the occupational prestige scale because of their work to sale lives (especially during a pandemic). Educational status is ranked according to the number of school years completed. Note: The “Class Matters” graphic yields measures of relative status – positions have more or less value in comparison to other positions, as when 2 years of college is of greater value than no college at all.
You should also rely on the income calculators like EPI (see above) to get a ballpark idea of standard of living, which quantifies or puts a dollar figure on how people expect to live (see Weatherby and Gelles article on spending pattern during the pandemic). These online tools are interactive. This allows you to plug in your subject’s budgetary numbers to arrive at a basic understanding of class status. You can arrive at a rough determination of how much income a family needs to live (e.g., pay rent or own a house). Income calculators allow you to adjust for local standards of living. Here, class status is a function of both cost of living, which is fundamentally a financial index, and standards of living which is a function of consumption tastes or class culture.
Social class should be seen as a weighted sum of education, occupation, income, and wealth. In open-class societies like the U.S., wealth and income matter more than education and occupation (i.e., weigh more). I have also asked you to consider ethnicity – race, nationality, and religion - as ascribed status variables that intersect or overlap social class. As minorities, ethnic groups are overrepresented in lower status positions. Historically, this occurred to the extent that immigrants entered the U.S. at the bottom of the class ladder. While the latter struggled for social mobility, this was not available to Africans that were brought to this country involuntarily as slaves and subsequently experienced racial discrimination.
NOTE: The subject that is the basis for your case study is entitled to their own, “subjective”, view of their status in society. However, you have to assess their status “objectively”, in other words, sociologically according to the conceptual tools like the “Class Matters” interactive graphic and the theoretical model that we are using. See article below which addresses objective (i.e., governmental) measures of “middle class” status:
Perhaps the most striking difference between the middle class of 50 years ago and the middle class today is a loss of confidence — the confidence that you were doing better than your parents and that your children would do better than you.
President Biden’s multitrillion-dollar suite of economic proposals is aiming to both reinforce and rebuild an American middle class that feels it has been standing on shifting ground. And it comes with an explicit message that the private sector alone cannot deliver on that dream and that the government has a central part to play.
“When you look at periods of shared growth,” said Brian Deese, director of Mr. Biden’s National Economic Council, “what you see is that public investment has played an absolutely critical role, not to the exclusion of private investment and innovation, but in laying the foundation.”
If the Biden administration gets its way, the reconstructed middle class would be built on a sturdier and much broader plank of government support rather than the vagaries of the market.
Some proposals are meant to support parents who work: federal paid family and medical leave, more affordable child care, free prekindergarten classes . Others would use public investment to create jobs, in areas like clean energy, transportation and high-speed broadband. And a higher minimum wage would aim to buoy those in low-paid work, while free community college would improve skills.
That presidents pitch their agendas to the middle class is not surprising given that nearly nine out of 10 Americans consider themselves members. The definition , of course, has always been a nebulous stew of cash, credentials and culture, relying on lifestyles and aspirations as much as on assets.
But what cuts across an avalanche of studies , surveys and statistics over the last half century is that life in the middle class, once considered a guarantee of security and comfort, now often comes with a nagging sense of vulnerability.
Before the pandemic, unemployment was low and stocks soared. But for decades, workers have increasingly had to contend with low pay and sluggish wage growth , more erratic schedules, as well as a lack of sick days, parental leave and any kind of long-term security. At the same time, the cost of essentials like housing, health care and education have been gulping up a much larger portion of their incomes.
The trend can be found in rich countries all over the world. “Every generation since the baby boom, has seen the middle-income group shrink and its economic influence weaken,” a 2019 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded.
In the United States, the proportion of adults in the middle bands of the income spectrum — which the Pew Research Center defines as roughly between $50,000 and $150,000 — declined to 51 percent in 2019 from 61 percent 50 years ago. Their share of the nation’s income shrank even more over the same period, to 42 percent from 62 percent.
Their outlook dimmed, too. During the 1990s, Pew found rising optimism that the next generation would be better off financially than the current one, reaching a high of 55 percent in 1999. That figure dropped to 42 percent in 2019 .
The economy has produced enormous wealth over the last few decades, but much of it was channeled to a tiny cadre at the top. Two wage earners were needed to generate the kind of income that used to come in a single paycheck.
“Upper-income households pulled away, ” said Richard Fry, a senior economist at Pew.
“It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom and middle out ,” Mr. Biden said in his speech to a joint session of Congress last week, a reference to the idea that prosperity doesn’t trickle down from the wealthy, but flows out of a well-educated and well-paid middle class.
He underscored the point by singling out workers as the dynamo powering the middle class.
“Wall Street didn’t build this country,” he said. “The middle class built the country. And unions built the middle class.”
Of course, the economy that lifted millions of postwar families into the middle class differed sharply from the current one. Manufacturing, construction and mining jobs, previously viewed as the backbone of the labor force, dwindled — as did the labor unions that aggressively fought for better wages and benefits. Now, only one out of every 10 workers is a union member , while roughly 80 percent of job s in the United States are in the service sector.
And it is these types of jobs, in health care, education, child care, disabled and senior care, that are expected to continue expanding at the quickest pace.
Most of them, though, fall short of paying middle-income wages. That does not necessarily reflect their value in an open market. Salaries for teachers, hospital workers, lab technicians, child care providers and nursing home attendants are determined largely by the government, which collects tax dollars to pay their salaries and sets reimbursements rates for Medicare and other programs.
“When we think about what is the right wage,” Mr. Stiglitz asked, “should we take advantage of discrimination against women and people of color, which is what we’ve done, or can we use this as the basis of building a middle class?”
They are also jobs that are filled by significant numbers of women, African-Americans, Latinos and Asians .
“Biden’s Proposals Aim to Give Sturdier Support to the Middle Class”, Patricia Cohen, NYT (5.2.2021).
______
Also see G. William Domhoff’s article, “Wealth, Income, and Power” for additional perspective on the American class system. https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/wealth.html
Domhoff furnished useful charts that portray the extent of class inequality. I have reproduced some below:
Table 1: Income and net worth in the U.S. by class, 2013
|
Wealth or income class |
Mean household income |
Mean household net worth |
|
Top 1 percent |
$1,679,000 |
$18,623,400 |
|
Top 20 percent |
$257,200 |
$2,260,300 |
|
60th-80th percentile |
$76,500 |
$236,400 |
|
40th-60th percentile |
$46,000 |
$68,100 |
|
Bottom 40 percent |
$20,300 |
-$10,800 |
|
Total Net Worth |
|||
|
|
Top 1 percent |
Next 19 percent |
Bottom 80 percent |
|
1983 |
33.8% |
47.5% |
18.7% |
|
1989 |
37.4% |
46.2% |
16.5% |
|
1992 |
37.2% |
46.6% |
16.2% |
|
1995 |
38.5% |
45.4% |
16.1% |
|
1998 |
38.1% |
45.3% |
16.6% |
|
2001 |
33.4% |
51.0% |
15.6% |
|
2004 |
34.3% |
50.3% |
15.3% |
|
2007 |
34.6% |
50.5% |
15.0% |
|
2010 |
35.1% |
53.5% |
11.4% |
|
2013 |
36.7% |
52.2% |
11.1% |
|
|
Financial (Non-Home) Wealth |
||
|
|
Top 1 percent |
Next 19 percent |
Bottom 80 percent |
|
1983 |
42.9% |
48.4% |
8.7% |
|
1989 |
46.9% |
46.5% |
6.6% |
|
1992 |
45.6% |
46.7% |
7.7% |
|
1995 |
47.2% |
45.9% |
7.0% |
|
1998 |
47.3% |
43.6% |
9.1% |
|
2001 |
39.7% |
51.5% |
8.7% |
|
2004 |
42.2% |
50.3% |
7.5% |
|
2007 |
42.7% |
50.3% |
7.0% |
|
2010 |
41.3% |
53.5% |
5.2% |
|
2013 |
42.8% |
51.9% |
5.3% |
Supplementary Readings
Miller, C.C., “Class Divisions Grow Worse, From Cradle On”, NYT (12.18.15); “The Great Affordability Crisis”, Annie Lowry, The Atlantic (2.7.20); “Lives of Rich Are Longer, and Healthier, A Study Shows”, Heather Murphy, NYT (1.17.20); “How to Prove You’re Middle Class”, Karyn Lacy, NYT (1.22.20); “Does ‘Wrong Mind-Set’ Lead to Poverty, or Does Poverty Come First?”, Emily Badger, NYT (5.31.17); “The Nature of Poverty”, D. Brooks, NYT (5/1/15); “Southern Cal Will Offer Lower-Income Students Tuition-Free Admission”, Anemona Hartecollis, NYT (2.21.20); “Are You Rich? Where Does Your Net Worth Rank in America?”, NYT (8.12.19); “What Does ‘Middle Class’ Really Mean?”, Claire Zaloom, The Atlantic (11.4.18);“U.S. Middle Class Shrank in 20 Years, Study Finds”, Nelson Schwartz, NYT (4.25.17); “The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You”, David Leonhardt, NYT (10.7.19); “In An Age of Privilege, Not Everyone is in the Same Boat”, Nelson D. Schwartz, NYT (4.23.16).
Question 2: Types of Capital
2) Interview someone about the types of capital (economic, social, cultural) available to them as they position themselves in society.
· What is the role of “capital” in the attainment of social status and upward mobility?
· Assess relative amounts of each type. How “consistent” are the types of capital? Explain.
· Differentiate for capital that is inherited versus capital that is achieved by the individual. Elaborate on the capitals available or transmitted to them by family.
· Where do they believe their capital places them in society? In particular, how do they perceive their status relative to other groups? Consider the way “First Gen” students position themselves in relation to more privileged students on campus.
· Assess their views objectively: Where do you believe their capital places them in the status hierarchy? Your explanation should take account of all three types of capital.
Question #2 is a spin on the status hierarchies model. However, it substitutes the concept of capitals: status hierarchies are rank orders or gradations of capitals. Capitals are resources that can be invested in the attainment of status. Investment capital is necessary to compete for scarce rewards. However, capital is, itself, a scarce (zero sum) resource. For an overview of status capital see this video clip:
“A Nation of Tribes” (People Like Us”, #1/YouTube); “ “Joe Queenan’s Tour” (“People Like Us”, #2/YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_Rtl3Y4EuI
Also see this article for a discussion of the concept of “capitals”: “Pierre Bourdieu – Bourdieu’s Theory of Class Distinction” (on “types of capital” as resources for attaining status) http://www.liquisearch.com/pierre_bourdieu/bourdieus_theory_of_class_distinction
You may already be familiar with the concept of economic capital. This refers to the wealth available to engage in a particular endeavor. Let’s say your subject wants to become a professional chef. How much money is needed to do this? Nowadays, chefs often have to enroll in expensive higher education programs like at the Culinary Institute of America or Johnson and Wales. It has become professionalized. There are extended apprentices. How much money is needed to open up a restaurant? Can a better location be afforded? Would a food truck be a cheaper option?
But, wait, other resources are necessary to attain status. Another type of capital is cultural, or the knowledge, skills, and values that are necessary to attain status. What credential does the aspiring chef have to have on her resume? How much experience is required? Annette Lareau’s work highlights the role of parents’ cultural capital in children’s academic success. For an appreciation of speech style as cultural capital see the video “You Talkin’ to Me?” (NYT) https://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/1248069311927/you-talkin-to-me.html
There is, finally, social capital. This is who you know, or better who knows you! What names can be featured as “references” on a resume? Can the aspiring chef network his way into the profession and more specifically a position that is desired. These 3 types of capital are interrelated. For example, money can buy cultural capital and establish helpful connections. On the other hand, cultural and social capital can be cashed in, in other words, translated into economic capital. In any case, investing in status attainment requires “building bridges” for “connections” to “the right people”. An Ivy League College becomes important for First Gen students when there is no other network capital.
Keep in mind that capitals come in many shapes and sizes. The critical question is how capital matches up with the status to be attained. The video “Ivy League Trailblazers” is a good look at the different capitals at play in an elite university setting. Note the status inconsistency that characterizes the “First Gen” students. Also note that, in an meritocracy, the concept of capitals makes it possible to imagine upward social mobility. Graduating college furnishes the cultural and cultural capital needed to attain a job with greater rewards, in particular a higher income.
“Ivy League Trailblazers”, N. Osipova, (NYT 4.12.15) https://www.google.com/search?q=Ivy+League+Trailblazers&rlz=1C1AWFC_enUS755US755&oq=Ivy+League+Trailblazers&aqs=chrome..69i57.8118j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
_______
The article excerpted below examines the role of family capitals, in particular economic and cultural capital, and college admission. It focuses on the role of the college admission essay which has become controversial as another metric that reflects status privilege passes down by parents:
It’s hard to disentangle social class from the college admissions process. The University of California system says it’s trying, announcing recently that it’s dropping consideration of the SAT and ACT. (It was part of a settlement in a lawsuit alleging that the tests are biased along lines of race, wealth and disability.)
More than half of U.S. colleges have made the tests optional for fall of 2021 admissions, according to FairTest , a group opposed to college entrance testing.
Because those tests are receiving so much scrutiny, it’s easy to overlook the influence of socioeconomic background on other admissions yardsticks.
Take the college essay. It’s the most important “soft factor” and the fourth-most important overall factor — after grades, curriculum strength and standardized test scores — according to a 2019 survey of admissions employees.
But essays can be polished by a paid professional third party, or helped along by an upper-middle-class parent.
In another sign of the persistent pull of social class, a recent working paper from authors affiliated with the Student Narrative Lab at Stanford shows that essay content, when quantified through a computer program, is more highly correlated with household income than SAT scores are.
Researchers did not analyze whether these signs of status affect an essay’s quality, or speculate on whether they would make any difference in an evaluation by an admissions officer. But the research suggests that much of the socioeconomic information critics accuse the SAT of reflecting can also be found in essays.
The paper used software to classify essays written by nearly 60,000 applicants to the University of California system in 2016. The essays were quantified partly through syntax choices. The number of commas, total punctuation and longer words were correlated with higher household income, for example, although that doesn’t necessarily equate to better writing.
The content was also quantified by word choice patterns, which are associated with particular topics. Admissions officials might not look more favorably upon essays written on certain themes, but it’s still notable that there are significant differences in the topics associated with higher and lower household incomes.
The topics associated more with students from higher-income households tended to be “more thematically abstract: human nature, seeking answers and sensory experiences,” said AJ Alvero, an education Ph.D. candidate at Stanford and one of the authors of the paper.
Topics more associated with lower-household-income students “were about interpersonal relationships (e.g. multiple topics about family) and school issues like tutoring groups and time management.”
A prior study by the same authors found similar patterns in income difference. A co-author of the study, Sonia Giebel, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology of education at Stanford, stressed along with the other authors that the content they identified was not a marker of essay quality, but pointed to a broader theme: “Class patterns are likely to be present across all the elements used to make admissions decisions.”
Poorer students, beyond writing their reality, may also be more likely to write about “economic insecurity” and “abuse” because of trying to meet perceived expectations. Even without specific guidance from admissions offices, they might feel obligated to “ sell their pain .”
In contrast with much of the rest of the world, American admissions officers have a lot of discretion. Relying on elements like the essay gives them leeway to judge merit away from close scrutiny. The history of the so-called holistic approach — looking at the whole applicant and not just academic metrics — has not always been encouraging.
As Jerome Karabel wrote in his book “ The Chosen, ” relying on nonacademic characteristics had its origins in policies starting in the 1920s that aimed to limit the number of Jews admitted to elite universities. More recently, the discretion and opacity in admissions have been seen by some as harming high-scoring Asian students by penalizing them based on “character” or “fit.”
“College Admissions Can’t Escape Social Class Leanings”, Arvind Ashok, NYT (5.27.2021) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/upshot/college-admissions-essay-sat.html
________
See this article by Karyn Lacy which discusses the “cultural capital” that Black people have to possess – and perform publicly - to buy a home in middle class, white neighborhoods:
When I talked two decades ago with more than 50 middle-class blacks who lived in the suburbs of Washington, I learned that their awareness of racial stereotypes led them to take on what I call “ public identities ” — meaning they would strategically deploy cultural capital, including language, mannerisms, clothing and credentials in ways that brought their middle-class status firmly into focus. From their experiences attending integrated high schools, many of these people had come to believe this was key to managing racism in interactions with white people. They hoped it would tip the balance of their public interactions so that class would trump race and persuade white people to treat them fairly.
This is an idea related to “code switching,” a term used to describe the temporary shift from black English to standard English that some black people use to signal their appropriation of white, middle-class norms. But the public identities of the middle-class black people I studied involved more than language: They spanned everything from dress to conversation topics to the small details of workplace conduct.
As one of my subjects, Charlotte, put it, black people “have two faces. So you know how to present yourself in the white world and you present yourself in the black world as yourself.”
There’s good reason to believe that the public-identity behaviors I identified are as central a part of black middle-class life as ever. In a 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center, black respondents were more likely than any other racial group to report that they felt people were suspicious of them (65 percent), that people acted as though they were not smart (60 percent), that they were treated unfairly in hiring, pay or promotion (49 percent) and that they had been unfairly stopped by the police (44 percent).
In my research, several subjects told me that because of their awareness of the associations many make between black people and poverty, when they went shopping, they deliberately wore clothing that they hoped would convince white store clerks that they were not poor. To avoid being treated as potential shoplifters, they told me they would eschew attire that was at the time associated in the popular imagination with black culture — like oversize gold earrings, baggy jeans and designer tennis shoes.
One subject, Philip, told me that he would go as far as to wear a suit. His belief was that when he was dressed as a professional, whites saw his class status first and responded to him as a member of that social group. Once he began to make purchases, he hoped that additional signifiers such as the kind of credit cards he carried and his ZIP code would assure store clerks that he was a member of the middle class.
Another subject, Jared, had a similar theory. “When you’re out in the world, you can be wearing grubbies, and you’ll be perceived a certain way if you’re black,” he said. He told me he imagined white people operated under a different public dress code: “If you have money, it’s O.K. to wear rags.”
Michael, a corporate manager, reported that he asserted his class status at work by refusing to answer his own telephone, always allowing calls to go through to his receptionist. He believed that taking on administrative tasks would reduce his social status in the workplace to that of a subordinate and leave room for his colleagues to see his race before his class and treat him with less respect.
The people I spoke to said they paid a price when they failed to perform these public identities. Once, dressed in sweatpants and a baseball cap, one of my subjects, Lydia, decided to view a model home. Right away, the real estate agent asked if the house was in her price range. Lydia knew that preapproval was not required for a tour and suspected that, because of her casual clothing combined with her race, the agent had mistaken her for a poor person who couldn’t realistically make an offer. After learning the asking price, which was in her range, Lydia took charge of the interaction, putting on a public identity in the form of demonstrating assertiveness and knowledge of the market. “Basically, I told her I’ll take a look at the house and I’ll let her know when I’m finished,” she explained. And she did.
Lydia’s experience echoed those of other house-hunting middle-class blacks who told me that they relied on firm language and knowledge of the market to manage interactions with white realty agents, hopeful that if they conveyed that they were informed and authoritative, they would be seen as members of the middle class and treated with respect.
Lydia wanted a home with a fireplace and she got it. However, she and other middle-class blacks I spoke to had no way to systematically assess how their housing searches compared with those of their white counterparts. While these interviews took place some time ago, and much has changed in the country since, black people have just as much reason to worry today. Decennial audit studies conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as an investigation conducted on Long Island and published by Newsday in 2019 (in which black and white trained testers using comparable financial identities visited the same real estate offices) have uncovered overwhelming evidence of housing discrimination against blacks, decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 made the practice illegal.
The people I talked to tended to focus more on their success in managing public interactions than they did on what these efforts cost them in time, energy and emotions. But engaging public identities exacts a psychological toll, as one study participant hinted when she described “a relaxed day” at work for her as one during which she didn’t have to care what white people thought. And it’s worth mentioning that while my research focuses on middle-class black people, there’s no doubt that black people of lower socioeconomic status who can’t tap into these public identities have daily encounters that are even more unfair and demoralizing.
“How to Convince a White Realtor You’re Middle Class”, Karyn Lacy, NYT (1.22.20) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/opinion/black-discrimination-study.html
________
This question asks you to illustrate the transmission of status from one generation to the next. See the transmission of capitals for Kamala Harris:
Sociologists emphasize the importance of the family for placing the individual in the social structure. Kamala Harris cited the importance of her parents and wider family for shaping her as a person (i.e., her “self”) in her speech accepting nomination as Vice President. Her mother was an immigrant from India and her father had emigrated from Jamaica. Both ancestries figured prominently in who Kamala became:
The couple soon had two daughters: Kamala, meaning “lotus” in Sanskrit, and Maya, meaning “illusion.”…For Ms. Gopalan [Kamala’s mother], it was important to maintain her Indian heritage. She introduced her daughters to Hindu mythology and South Indian dishes such as dosa and idli, and took them to a nearby Hindu temple where she occasionally sang. She also stayed close to her parents and flew back every few years to Chennai, on India’s southeast coast, where her parents had settled.
But as Ms. Harris explained in her memoir, published last year: “My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls.”
“How Kamala Harris’s Family in India Helped Shape Her Values”, J. Gettlemen and S. Raj, NYT (8.17.20) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/16/world/asia/kamala-harris-india.html
Social class as well as race/ethnicity create different “opportunity structures” as individuals grow up (see the work of Annette Lareau on syllabus). Wealthy parents tend to have better educations and often work in managerial positions or careers that require creative problem solving, so they teach their children behaviors that are beneficial in these positions. This means children are effectively socialized and raised to take the types of jobs their parents already have, thus reproducing the class system (Kohn 1977). Both of Kamala Harris’s parents had PhD degrees; her mother benefitted from a family tradition of encouraging women to pursue advanced professional education. Poor families usually emphasize obedience and conformity when raising their children, while wealthy families emphasize judgment and creativity (National Opinion Research Center 2008). This may occur because working-class parents have less education and more repetitive-task jobs for which it is helpful to be able to follow rules and conform. Children are also socialized to abide by, or conform to, gender norms.
Modern societies are characterized by the outsourcing of socialization. In other words, social institutions outside the family increasingly encroach on the family. This increased the likelihood of conflict between agents of socialization and for the individual. This also increases the likelihood of rebellion by individuals. Traditional cultures like the Amish and Hasidic Jews keep their distance from the dominant society by minimizing contact with mainstream education and mass media. The Amish, for example, do not make the electricity necessary for TV and internet connections available in their communities. Amish children meet only the minimum requirements for school attendance and are allowed to stop attending altogether at 14. Amish children learn to be Amish from their families. See article and book review below for the socialization of Donald Trump.
“Like Father Like Son: President Trump Lets Others Mourn”, Annie Karni and Katie Rogers, NYT (7.29.20) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/us/politics/donald-fred-trump.html
“7 Takeaways From Mary Trump’s Book About Her Uncle Donald”, Elisabeth Egan, NYT (7.8.20). https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/books/review/mary-trump-book-takeaways.html
Question 3: Consumption Style and Status Rank
3) Interview someone who is consciously styling their lives for prestige or “distinction” on the basis of consumption. Answer questions below to see this as a “social fact”.
· What is the basis of prestige claims (e.g., clothing, cars, jewelry, cuisine, travel and vacations, address/house)?
· Does the style define membership a status group? See Guido as an example.
· Locate this group in a social hierarchy that ranks stylized performances like Guido in a conspicuous display (e.g., Hipsters and “foodie” culture, Lo-Lifes and designer cool; “players and haters”, “in crowd” and “losers”, “popular kids” and “wannabes”).
· Locate this status group in the society-wide class system. In general, how does this consumption style reflect class culture, specifically level of income and taste?
· With Lo-Lifes and Guido in mind, how is consumption style a lower-class claim to respect?
· To what extent does consumption style reflect an ethnic identity, as with Guido and Lo Lifes?
· Is there media representation and validation for the style and the group, e.g., the MTV shows Jersey Shore and Cribs? Elaborate.
Question #3 focuses on a type of cultural capital known as style which is a visible marker and even conspicuous display of taste. This is directly addressed in my article on the Italian American youth culture known as “Guido”. See this in videos for Guido, performed as an Italian American youth style, and for Lo-Lifes, an inner city Black youth style obsessed with Ralph Lauren’s Polo collection. Until recently, styles of leisure and consumption were monopolized by rich and powerful elites. In wealthy consumer societies, leisure and consumption have been disseminated to the bottom strata by a consumer economy that is perhaps the epitome of the “American Dream”.
In this project you will interview a subject about this style of leisure/consumption. You can supplement interview data with your own observations. The project is directly referenced to my work on the “Guido” youth style (see article, etc.). Also see Queenan video for role of commodities as (consumption) status symbols and the very powerful video on “Lo Lifes”. The latter poignantly illustrates the power of commodity symbolism, in particular the Polo label, to salvage dignity, let alone to make status claims, in a consumer society when populations are marginalized by class and race. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuyl1lwDWdE
“Lo Lifes (Documentary Trailer)” (YouTube).
https://hiphopwired.com/553099/thirstin-howl-3rd-releases-lo-life-documentary-video/
https://ny.racked.com/2011/7/28/7756327/the-ralph-lauren-obsession-of-the-brooklyn-gang-lolifes
When you see the Lo-Lifes video, reflect on the recent looting of upscale consumption items like Versace fashion and Invicta watches under the cover of the George Floyd political protest. Pay special attention to the role of reference groups in claiming status. Thus, Lo-Lifes and Guidos want to “buy into” an upscale consumption culture. See this discussion of status envy spun for a society in quarantine: “Quarantine Envy Got You Down? You’re Not Alone”, Nancy Wertik, NYT (8.10.20) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/smarter-living/quarantine-envy-pandemic.html
Consumerism is the ideology that makes consumption matter greatly in modern societies; thus, it is possible to refer to the latter as a consumer society – a society built on consumption. This means that people construct identities, and therefore lives, around the consumption of commodities like cars, houses, appliances, clothing, etc. Consumerism as a life-focus has become more important in the pandemic which has created a crisis of meaning; consumption has been put to the test for its capacity to give meaning to our lives. See “They’re Stuck at Home. So, they’re Making It a Sanctuary” Carl Zimmer, NYT (9.5.20).
Social media (e.g., Instagram photos of fabulous entrees and Hamptons beach scenes) seems to fuel the feeling envy and what has been termed “FOMO”: the “Fear of Missing Out” is essentially “status envy”.
Jacob Bernstein controversially maintains that the most affluent residents of New York City fled when the pandemic erupted because they could no longer conspicuously consume. See “Hisses for the Rich Who Fled”, NYT (4.15.21).
Even without final data from New York City about how many people remained in the city during the pandemic, an abundance of anecdotal evidence exists about the exodus of its wealthiest residents.
At the writer Molly Jong-Fast’s Upper East Side apartment building, less than half a dozen of the 47 units were occupied in April 2020, she said. Mark Armstrong Peddigrew, a personal trainer in Lower Manhattan, said that roughly 85 percent of his clients left town.
At Loaves & Fishes Foodstore, a grocer in the Hamptons where lobster salad costs more than $100 a pound, there were 30-minute lines on Thursday mornings during the off season.
Now, as the rate of vaccinations increases, the blooming bulbs around the city feel like a metaphor for more than just spring.
New restaurants are opening, stores are filling up, comedians are again getting heckled at the Comedy Cellar.
Rationally, most New Yorkers know these are good things. They want to conquer the pandemic, and that involves saving the economy as well as lives.
But the pride they take in their own toughness is superseded only by their propensity to complain. And these days, a lot of gripes are aimed at those who left.
Not the ones who departed because of lost jobs, underlying illnesses or the need to take care of aging parents, said Jeremiah Moss , 50, who in 2007 started “Vanishing New York,” a blog that chronicled the businesses that closed because of rising rents and gentrification.
Instead, Mr. Moss said that the resentments harbored by him and his friends relate to the “large group of people who left because they didn’t know how to be in New York without consuming, without being in bars and restaurants and stores.”
Nearby Brooke Lima, 27, was watching one of her two rescue dogs cavort with a Welsh corgi while the other begged for treats.
Ms. Lima had grievances of her own, namely the return of the golden doodles and “other dogs who look like they were grown in a lab.”
Some of the precious pooches arrive with “finance bros,” she said, who pace the run conducting business deals over AirPods. Others are tended to by young women with Gucci disco bags, an accessory that in her estimation is the only version “of haute couture or status that can be bought by a person who makes $50,000 a year and has six roommates,” she said. Usually, she added, these are the sorts of people who “get possessive about their dogs’ tennis balls.”
The writer Sloane Crosley, 41, speaking a few days later, was more measured about the millennials she knew who fled New York City.
“I didn’t take it personally,” she said. “I don’t want to be one of these people that blames an entire generation of millennials for things, but I do think there was a group of them who came to New York expecting a certain level of comfort and then, at the first whiff of Covid, upped and left.”
Then she would see their social media posts, which she said reeked of privilege.
“You have these people posting one slide of their beautiful country house — that’s what we’ll call them, slides — and then the next one up would be an image of them crowded into some restaurant for someone’s birthday party the year prior with the hashtag ‘miss this,’” Ms. Crosley said. “I just thought, ‘I don’t doubt that you miss this, but you know what else I miss? My neighbor, who was carted out on a stretcher.’”
Supplementary Reading:
“How the Age of Instagram Helps Keep the Debutante Ball Alive”, James Barron and Elizabeth D. Herman, NYT (2.13.20); “The Hipster in the Mirror” by Mark Grief, NYT (11/12/10); “’Jersey Shore’ Cast’s Guido Style Can Be Traced Back to ‘Saturday Night Fever’”, S. Roberts, NY Daily News (7/28/10); “They Taught Hip Hop How to Dress”, J. Caramanica, NYT (6.30.16); “The Gospel of Minimalism”, Jacoba Urist, NYT (5.4.17); “Island of Prep Perseveres”, John Caramanica, NYT (1.11.18); “What Hypebeasts Wore to the Hypefest”, John Ortved, NYT (10.12.18); “How a Hip-Hop Party Went From a Harlem Basement to Packing Barclay’s”, Aaron Randle, NYT (12.24.19).
“New Menus at Eleven Madison Park Will Be Meatless”, Brett Anderson and Jenny Gross, NYT (5.4.21).