Assignment 4

1. According to the slides how do we define power, prestige, and privilege and give an example of each. Power: ability to force another person to do something even against their will, and example would be if you have a boss and they want you to clean the bathroom even if it is something that you don’t want to do you have to because your boss has power over you. Prestige: respect and status in society, an example is people who own companies, and run business are more likely to be given more respect. The more money that you have the higher up in a social class you are which makes more people under you have more respect for you. Privilege: special advantage or benefit enjoyed by individuals, but not all, if you have more money than it is easier to get what you want. Sometimes people can pay their way to get a table at a restaurant or cut a line because they paid for it. 2. Also, what three variables do Sociologists use to define social class. When Sociologist define social class they use three variable they are income, occupation and Education. 3. After reading the textbook and reviewing the lecture slides, how would you define your social class (using terms from the lecture and textbook) and why? There are two ways to look at my social class if I was just looking at me apart from my family I would probably be in the lower class because I have a part time job, cannot support myself, having college loans, but If I was looking at my families social class then I would be middle class. My mom owns her own house, three cars, works, can support a family, a college education, a job. There are different ways to look at social class in my option. 4. Briefly describe what is happening to the upper class (the rich), the middle class, and the working and lower classes according to Chapter 13 in the Benokraitis textbook. The upper class are making more and more money, there are not a lot of people that are being added to the upper-class but the people there are taking more and more of the wealth. The middle class is shrinking because of the way it is defined. Many people just place themselves in the middle class because they aren’t rich and they aren’t poor. The lower is barely able to service the rich has so much money and are constantly taking more of the overall wealth that there is very little lift for the poor. 5. Lastly, your importance in U.S. society is often linked to race/ethnicity, education, age, income, and gender. Think about how your race/ethnicity or gender or age has blocked your from an opportunity or given you an advantage. Please identify your age, education, gender of race/ethnicity and then tell me your story of an opportunity or disadvantage you have experienced in your life. I am a 19 year old white American female, in college getting my undergraduate degree. When getting my job in retail now my boss hired me because I was white. My boss is in some ways races when it comes to blacks or African Americans because she says they never work out. This was beneficial for me.

blog 3

I am an American I was born and raised her and so were both of my parents and their parents. I was born and raised in NJ and my Mother’s family was born and raised in Philadelphia and in Delaware. I don’t have any ties to where my family comes from because they have been here since 1620 when the Mayflower came over. Which is why my family have Americanized our self because there is nothing else that we know. On the census questions 8 and 9 are not hard for me at all in white. So for 8 I am not of any Hispanic background, and for 9 I’m white nothing else. I do not think much about race and ethnicity much before, I grew up in Bloomfield, NJ and was always open to learning about other people race and ethnic background being that don’t have one I wanted to learn others. I was never judgmental I had friends from every background when I was little even till now. For me on the census what am I is so easy I am white nothing else and nothing more. The video is not shocking to me being a psychology major I have seen multiple studies that have been done this way. I think at the same time that even though there are many people who feel as though blacks are bad and whites are good. I think that black families should try to build their children especially women’s confidence. The younger children who picked the dolls were taught that white people were better than the black people, they were not born knowing that being racisim, sexisms, and everything else is taught to children. So I think that even though everything is not perfect in the world when dealing with race and ethnicity people need to stand up for themselves. Everyone is beautiful and special in their own way and color should not effect that. From a sociological point the children could be influenced by the media and what they see on TV or what people tell them that they should know. Children are able to absorb so much knowledge that they remember that one incident on TV where there was an issue with a black and white person. They will remember what their family said while watching it and the well remember what was said on TV and that all plays a huge role in how they feel about themselves and also other people around them