Social Class Awareness

 A child does not have a care in the world. They know very little about the issues that their parents are faced with on a daily basis, when children grow up and mature they start to see the bigger picture. They begin to see inequality, racism, poverty, social class, and so forth. These issues, which they did not even know existed, become real to them. They slowly become aware of their social surroundings and the place that they hold in their society. It is something that we may wish never happened, but it happens to all of us at some point in our lives. We become aware.

            There is a place in our society for everyone and each place is just as important as the others. The different parts of our society work together and one without the rest would make society motionless. The functionalist view of social inequality is that it is “necessary so that people will be motivated to fill functionally important positions” (Schaefer 188). The key word is important. The Working Class would not be able to function without the Upper Class and vice versa. The position that the Upper Class man holds is just as important as the one that the Working Class man holds. They work together to make up a society. Social inequality is a phrase that seems at first glance unfair, but it is in fact just a condition that we are either placed in or place ourselves in.

            Schaefer terms these differences as stratifications. Stratification is a “structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in a society” (Schaefer 188). There are four different systems of stratifications, one of which is social class. Our society is made up of three different social classes which are the Upper Class, the Middle Class, and the Working Class. At a certain point in everyone’s life we take a place in one of these classes. Some are placed there due to uncontrollable factors and there are some who create their own fate and choose to be in the class in which they reside.

            Stratification can pass from generation to generation. My place in society started off as that of my parents, theirs started off as that of my grandparents and so forth. When the time comes, a child leaves the nest and can either stay put, go up, or go down the social class ladder. This does not necessarily mean being more or less successful. Someone from a middle class family can work very hard, be very successful and remain in the middle class. I think that most people truly acknowledge their social class when they become independent and start to travel down their career path. For me, I started to think about my place in society when I began applying to colleges and started to think about what I was going to do with my life.

            Throughout our lives we either inherit or create our social statuses. These two types of statuses are entitled ascribed status and achieved status. In most cases our ascribed status is handed down to us from our families and then as we get older we have the opportunity to figure out what our achieved statuses could be. The social class in which I am a part of and the ascribed status which I have been given is that of my parents. Now that I am in college, working toward my career, I will discover what my achieved status will be and I will eventually experience social mobility. Social mobility is the “movement of individuals or groups from one position in a society’s stratification system to another” (Schaefer 206). After I graduate, when I begin my career, I will move within my social class or move outside of it, but either way, I believe that this will be the moment when I become aware of my true position in society.

 Works Cited

Schaefer, Richard T. Sociology: a Brief Introduction. 9th ed. NY: McGraw Hill, 2011. Print.

           

           

Acts of Deviance, Informal and Formal Social Control

There are some who believe that it is very possible for a person to be born inherently evil. Arguments against this accusation would state that man himself is never born evil, but is simply capable of evil acts. Every human being is capable of committing an evil act, or better stated as, an act of defiance. Whether it is done in a rebellious manner or done with the best of intentions, a socially unacceptable act is considered deviance. Schaefer (2011) defines Deviance as “behavior that violates social norms” (165). The violation of a social norm can range from disrespecting an elder to committing a murder, and there are ways in which every society tries their best to lessen the amount of deviant behavior that takes place.

            A deviant act is any act that violates a social norm. One deviant act in particular that is very popular among college students is the act of plagiarism. Taking the ideas of someone else and expecting credit for it is something that every college student knows is socially unacceptable. A student may be lazy, simply not want to do the work or may be stressed; it may have been the idea of the one who committed the act or maybe they were pressured into it by a friend. No matter what the circumstance, the act of plagiarism is one that violates a social norm, making it a deviant act.

            Because plagiarism is a very serious offense, there are very serious consequences that are attached to it. If a teacher or professor happens to find out that a paper has been plagiarized, the student will be faced with a penalty and sometimes that penalty is expulsion. There is a rule against plagiarism, which means that there are formal social controls that were created to combat it. As stated by Schaefer (2011), social control “refers to techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behavior in any society” (159). Expulsion from school is a form of formal social control, because it is enforced by a person of authority, and it is used in the hopes of decreasing the deviant act that took place.  

            Informal social control is something used “casually to enforce norms” (Schaefer 162). Informal social control can be a phrase, an expression or even just a look. There is a certain look that almost every child has grown to despise. This particular look is one of a disappointed parent. From a very young age this look of disappointment is one that is extremely effective and grows even more effective with each passing day. It is not the case with everyone, but most children want their parents to be proud of their accomplishments. Especially as teenagers turn into young adults, they long to go above and beyond their parent’s expectations of them. They long for approval. This, of course, makes the parental look of disappointment ever more displeasing and it may even seem, at times, a punishment in itself.

            Both Informal and formal social control are very effective in their own ways. Honestly, I do not believe that one is more effective than the other. The effectiveness of the two types of social control depends on the person committing the act and on the situation. The parental look of disappointment may be enough to stop one child from a deviant act, but others may need that extra hit on the head that, for them, only comes from penalties such as getting expelled, receiving a ticket or even going to jail.

            Acts of deviance are characteristics of the society, not of the individual. A student may plagiarize for a variety of reasons, but where did the idea come from in the first place? This idea came from his/her surrounding; it came from teachers and from peers. As we learned in chapter 1, we are always influencing each other and in doing so we influence our social environment. It is a never ending cycle. Cultural transmission is a term Schafer (2011) explains as learning “criminal behavior by interacting with others” (170). We do not come out of our mother’s womb ready to lie, steal, vandalize or murder. We are constantly being molded by our surroundings, and although we ourselves determine the type of person that we want to be, it is our social surroundings which draw us closer to that conclusion.  

Works Cited

Schaefer, Richard T. Sociology: a Brief Introduction. 9th ed. NY: McGraw Hill, 2011. Print.