SOCY
vemylami
Week6pt.1.docxUse your own life stage table and the Analysis of outcomes for all children (see attachment)to answer the following questions. (note this has several tabs look at all tabs)
Use class materials from previous weeks and outside sources as back up evidence. Please provide in-text citation and references for all resources.
A note on income: This exercise uses quintiles - which are the approximate distribution of all household incomes into approximately the same size group- that means the income distribution may be larger for some groups than others- for example the 5th quintile ranges from household incomes around 120,000 to households making over a million, while incomes in the lowest quintile only ranges from about 0 to 25,000.
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The 3rd and 4th quintile are really what we call middle class, the fifth is upper class and the top 5 percent the upper upper or financial elite, |
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the 1st and 2nd quintile fall at or under the poverty line depending on household size- the first quartile are what we consider the underclass or the extremely poor - these people live in absolute not relative poverty |
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some of the 2nd quintile also lack basic needs for all or much of the year (this is sometime true of the 3rd quintile that is in the lower middle class as well). |
A note on Intersectionality- your textbook contains a pretty serious error - it credits intersectionality theories to Patricia Hill Collins. although Patricia Hill Collins is a wonderful scholar and has done some exceptional work involving intersectionality, she did not originate the theory. It was actually Kimberle Crenshaw.
Questions
1. Take a look at the outcomes for your child would they have been different - using the exact same random numbers if your child had been a different race? What if they had been a different income or gender? What does this say about the importance social location?
2, Take a look at the income level you started at in demographics- how did it change for your child by adulthood? What does this say about the importance of the income status we have when we are children? What would be the impact of this child's demographic characteristics if they were to have a child?
3. How did multiple statuses (race, gender, income etc.) combine to create your outcomes. How does that relate to the ideas about intersectionality and cumulative disadvantage?
4. Take a look at the outcomes for all children (this means using the graphs and data from the outcomes for all children spreadsheet above)- what are the main trends in the data? We started with 2 competing hypotheses- that 1) because all the children had similar traits, they would have similar outcomes or 2) because of structural constraints they would have different outcomes. Which was most supported? of the 160 children, 1 started at the lowest income and moved to the 5th - Given that all children have the same work ethic, resilience, intelligence etc. what explains the success of this child? How does that relate to patterns of success in society?
5. What were the characteristics of the children that had the best outcomes? What were the characteristics of the children with the worst outcomes? What does this say about the importance of our ascribed characteristics? How does this relate to ideas of privilege?
6. Were there aspects of this that you had previously considered to be all about personal choice and personal traits? How does this exercise help you think about those things as social structural constraints?
7. There ended up being a big diversity of experience in these 160 cases, talk about how other social structural forces such as parents, socialization and social networks interact with choice to create individual life paths. What are the limitations to that diversity?
8. In the exercise- students who were already in upper level social classes were able to take advantage of legacy programs to improve their chances of getting into a top tier school. In reality between 20- 40 percent of students admitted to top tier private institutions are legacy students and they are 85% white. their GPA's average 3.0 compared to the 4.2 average of students admitted that are not in these programs. On the other hand, between 1 and 10 percent of students are admitted to top tier institutions under diversity programs (we refer to these as affirmative action programs. These programs are aimed at increasing the diversity of campuses and allowing minority students that did not have educational advantages chances to attend college. The average gpa of these students is 4.0 compared to the 4.2 of other students. in state public institutions that have these sort of programs - gpa's of students that qualify for these programs are the same or only a point or two below the average of other students.
Only one of these programs are under attack and have had court challenges- the diversity programs. As we look at the game and the persistent inequality throughout the life course- discuss how affirmative action programs could potentially address the types of inequality seen in the game. what would need to change in these programs to make them more effective solutions. Discuss legacy programs and their impact on the current system of inequality.
9. Although not a popular idea in the U.S., the idea of a basic income in becoming popular in many developed nations. The basic premise is to provide everyone with the basic tools to live - good safe housing, clean water, food, clothing, high quality education, and health care. The idea is that people can be more productive and more creative in solving the world’s problems and improving the world if they are free from the day to day worries of surviving. This idea has good support from recent research about the brain that finds (contrary to popular opinion) that competition and striving to survive is bad for human development and that people work harder and achieve more when they don't have to worry about basic survival (more on this here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc )
What differences would this have made for the children in this example?
10. What other solutions could help address the inequality seen in the game?
11. elaborate on other thoughts about the content of this project.
12. This game is a work in progress. I am working on adding a bibliography - there are currently upwards of 500 sources. Are there areas that you liked? were there things that were difficult? did you notice errors that made it hard to complete a section? Do you have and feedback on this assignment? ( I am currently trying to figure out the volatility- there is much more social movement in and out of class in my assignment compared to the real world but otherwise final outcomes track fairly well with real world sources).
RESOURCES
Watch the examples below and read these articles
· https://www.huffpost.com/entry/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255
White privilege unpacking the invisible knapsack
· https://nationalseedproject.org/Key-SEED-Texts/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack
and https://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/Asset%20Value%20of%20Whiteness_0.pdf
- this last one is partly about privilege and partly about discrimination and is a bit long but make sure you pay particular attention to the conclusion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=49&v=_cCQU0jt4cs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLXCCcqnY-I
· Openstax introduction to Sociology chapter 11-Introduction to Race and Ethinicity
· Openstax introduction to Sociology chapter 12- Introduction to Gender, Sex and Sexuality
· The Asset Value of Whiteness: understanding the racial wealth gap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7myLgdZhzjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSddUPkVD24
· Social construction of gender (week 5 lecture 2)
https://prezi.com/iqft-cwfginx/social-construction-of-gender/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqt-_ILgv5c
