Sociology

SOC101h: Week 6 and 7 Assignment Page 3

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Worksheet: Social Inequity

Every society has social classes – general groupings in a society that share common cultural, economic, or political status. The notion of social classes extends beyond a societal level and exists in other social situations. For example, consider the social classes within a high school setting. The obvious grouping is by grade level; other “social classes,” in a high school setting, may depend on income, GPA, and popularity as an example. As you discovered from your lesson this week, sociologists use objective factors of income, education, and occupation to define social class.

How does social class affect achievement of goals? For this assignment, you will examine what is social class and apply the concepts to your own situation.

Assignment Details:

Perform the following tasks:

· Complete the reading assignment and the interactive lesson before attempting this assignment.

· Read the Written Assignment Rubric for a review of writing expectations.

· To complete this assignment:

· Use the worksheet on page 2 to respond to the questions:

· Use Safe Assign to check your written draft against unintended plagiarism.

· Ensure that your responses are free of spelling and grammatical errors.

· Use the proper naming convention when saving your assignment:

· SOC101h_wk7_assn_jsmith_mmddyyy

· Submit your assignment for grading.

Grading:

Gradable items in assignment	Points Possible	Points Earned
Describe social class from birth and how it affected life chances.	10
Describe if born into a certain social class made it harder or easier to achieve goals.	10
Describe factors, other than money, that determine what determines a person’s social class.	10
Responses adhere to writing conventions.	10
Total Points	40

Assignment Worksheet:

· Respond to both questions, using at least 350 words (total for both responses).

· Ensure that your responses adhere to writing conventions.

Questions:

1. What social class were you born into and how do you think it affected your life chances? Describe if it made it harder or easier to achieve your goals.

Social class refers to a group of people grouped together on the basis of their influence, wealth, and status. There are four social classes that people can be grouped into within a society. they include; the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class. I was born into the working class. Many people within this class have minimal chances in life. My parents in manual labour to earn a living. We are five siblings in our family and it was hard for my parents to take all of us through descent education.

I am the first born in our family and therefore when I was done with high school education after so many struggles, I had to pause my education at that level so that I could help my parents with some manual labour so that the young ones could also get some education and also provide the family members with some basic needs. Because of these hardships in life I could not manage to secure myself a good paying job despite the fact that I am a very bright person. However, I am lucky to have resumed my education through a sponsorship program after five years since I finished my high school level

Being born into the working class has made it harder for me to achieve my goals in life. I had goals of becoming an electrical engineer at the age of twenty three years. I had dreams of securing my family from poverty because I am the first born of the family but these goals are hard to achieve. I had to spend about five years out of school by circumstances. I had to do so to help my parents and see my youngs ones to school as well. If I had been born in the upper or the middle class, it would have been easier for me to achieve my goals because I would not have dropped education for five years. Some people that I schooled with in high school have already finished their O level education and are now employed with good salaries.

2. Other than money, what are some other factors that determine what social class we are “classified”?

There are other factors apart from money that are used when grouping people in different social classes. Some of these factors include; education, occupation, and power. The upper class is mostly made of highly educated people in the society as compared to those in lower class. However, this narrows down to money because those in upper class are able to acquire good education because they have enough money to pay for their education while those in the lower class have no money to pay for the best education.

Occupation is also another factor used to group people in different social classes. The lower class is made of the unemployed people. They have no specific means of earning income. Some are drug abusers, robbers, and so forth. Those in the working class are manual laborers. They are the people who do heavy tasks but are paid wages. Their pay is too low to cater for basic needs. The middle social class is made of white color workers who get paid more money than laborers and paid less than those in upper class. They include business owners and managers. Those in the upper class have the best occupations. They earn millions of money. They are the CEOs of companies and other big positions in the government.

Power is also another factor of grouping people in the society where the upper class is made of the most powerful people in the society wherelse the lesss powerful or powerless are grouped in the lower class.

In conclusion, social classes affect the life of people differently. They may make it easier or harder for people to attain their goals depending on the social classes that people are born into. Those who get lucky to be born in upper social class have higher chances in life and it is easier for them to achieve their goals as compared to those born in the lower social class.