Ethnicity, Race, Gender & Class

Class and Values across Cultures

Social Hierarchy & Stratification Although the power structure in the United

States is complex and multileveled, its predominant, generating force is economic.

“Class is a category denoting economic position and rank in a social hierarchy” (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2008, p. 221).

It implies some sort of social stratification and inequality.

That is, the power elite is an elite that controls the material resources and goods in this country as well as the means and manner of production and distribution.

Social Hierarchy & Stratification Stratification is global—strong disparities in

income, living standards, as well as access to health, wealth, power, and well being exist among and within nations.

Subordinated segments may include racial and ethnic groups, women, elders, and individuals raised in poverty.

Though one of our national fictions is that the United States is a classless society, we have, in fact, a well-established class structure based largely on economic power and control.

Social Hierarchy & Stratification We too assign low to high status and

privilege to our people. The fact that this assignment of status and

privilege may be active or passive, conscious or unconscious, malicious or unthinking, does not detract from the reality of the act.

When we talk of lower, middle, and upper classes in this country, we are not usually talking about birth or origins, but about power and control over material resources, and the attendant wealth, privileges, and high status.

Social Hierarchy & Stratification One of the major determinants of status, position,

relates back to who has historically or traditionally had access to or influence upon or within the power elite and its concomitant structures and institutions.

There is even a kind of temporal status distinction made within the upper-class society in this country that again relates to wealth and power—how long one has had wealth, power, and high-class status.

Distinctions are made between the old rich (e.g., the Gores, the Pews, the Rockefellers) and the “nouveau,” new rich (e.g., the Gates, the Trumps).

Social Hierarchy & Stratification Historically blacks, native Americans, Chicanos,

women, the old, and the physically challenged have often been identified negatively when it comes to issues or power, dominance, and social control.

Low status has been assigned to those people whom society views as somehow “stigmatized.”

It is not accident of nature that many of the minority peoples in this country are also poor people.

Nor is it surprising that minority groups have been historically the unpaid, low-paid, and/or enslaved work force for the economic power elite.

Forms of Socioeconomic Stratification Socioeconomic stratification, or class system,

is a defining feature of capitalist state societies which stratify segments of the population.

In capitalist state societies, the elite (the superordinate), because of their wealth, power, and prestige, control access to valued resources and their means of production.

Members of the subordinate or underprivileged stratum, including many racial and ethnic groups, women, and older people, have limited access to resources and reduced chances of social mobility.

Forms of Socioeconomic Stratification It is a myth that the United States is a “land of

opportunity.” Opportunities and life chances are not equally

distributed in the United States. In fact, about 37 million Americans presently

live in poverty and the US “has the highest poverty rate of the 40 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OCED)” (Kottak & Kozaitis, 2008, p. 226).

Many rural southerners, black and white, have limited access to job opportunities, particularly those that require higher education.

Forms of Socioeconomic Stratification The ongoing economic shift from

manufacturing to services and information processing demands a better educated and more skilled workforce.

Poorly educated people find it especially hard to make a living in the new economy and members of this underclass lack jobs, adequate food, medical care, even shelter.

The prospect of homelessness has even begun to threaten the middle class.

People with highly regarded credentials have become victims of downsizing due to corporate cutbacks and factory lay offs.

Domination, Hegemony, and Resistance

Role prescriptions are linked to both matters of status and expectations in terms of one’s perceived status or class.

We hold certain behavioral expectations for certain roles.

Despite the Horatio Alger myth that there is room at the top for the industrious, bright go-getter, the truth is that there is room at the top only if you have the right status and class.

Minority peoples often encounter resistance, even outright hostility when they aspire to or claim certain occupational roles (e.g., Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton).

Domination, Hegemony, and Resistance

In the United States, the governing and predominant white population often determines the degree and the extent to which members of other ethnicities may act out membership in the reigning culture.

Because of its power, the white population not only makes most of the important decisions governing the entire culture, but also tends to establish the value system that the media and other institutions transmit.

The power elite is reluctant to relinquish those positions that have been traditionally associated with privileged status and high class ranking.

Domination, Hegemony, and Resistance

The cultural prescription is to keep minority peoples “in their place” by those who dominate the culture.

The oppressed social agenda can be felt in the deterioration of health care and education systems, all of which are longstanding and continually worsening.

Moreover, the elite having established the rules by which we are governed, and these laws and social systems serve and protect them.

Domination, Hegemony, and Resistance

They tacitly or openly encourage the perpetuation of cultural prejudices, stereotypes, values, and beliefs that maintain the status quo—the asymmetrical nature of the social hierarchy.

In public, however, the oppressed and the elite observe the etiquette of power relations.

Subordinates often comply with domination by internalizing its values, and the elite offer explanations about why the existing order is in everyone’s best interest—things will get better if you’re patient.

Domination, Hegemony, and Resistance

Can those who are oppressed make gains by acting defiantly?

As a general rule, we can say that whatever economic, social, and legal rights that oppressed people have secured thus far have been obtained through social resistance that disrupted the status quo to the point of generating crises.

Such activity was rarely conducted with official sanction, and it often occurred despite legalized efforts to destroy any uprising.

Domination, Hegemony, and Resistance

When the oppressed are allowed to assemble, discontent and resistance can be publicly expressed and the oppressed may draw courage from the crowd, from its visual and emotional impact.

Such public social grievances are only the sharpest expressions of much more wide ranging injustices.

Elites, however, try to discourage such gatherings fearing that the dreams and shared anger of the oppressed may upset their comfortable status quo.

Diversity within Social Categories

Racial, ethnic, and class labels can conceal considerable diversity.

There are ways of being different even within social categories.

As your book describes, differentiation within America’s black population dates back to the era of enslavement—those with lighter skin color were afforded more prestigious house jobs than those with darker skin color who worked the fields.

Diversity within Social Categories

Discrepancies in access to information, networks, skills and employment continue both between and within racial and ethnic groups.

Our economy includes “racialized” jobs, such as migrant agricultural work.

Low-skilled jobs, such as janitorial work in hotels, restaurants, hospitals, and universities, tend to be held by minorities.

Historically and cross-culturally, the poor have been classified as functionally and morally inferior.

Diversity within Social Categories We have distorted images of the poor and those

who make up the “welfare class.” Many welfare recipients have previously worked

and are participating in the welfare system for a brief period of time following a financial crisis.

Most welfare recipients actively seek to rejoin the formal labor force.

Diversity among the poor also reflects age and gender.

Children are more likely to live in poverty than adults; as are woman than men.

Women of color and women who are single heads of households are especially prone to poverty.

Diversity within Social Categories Poverty reduces access to higher

education and professional training, which in turn contributes to the disproportionate higher unemployment, underemployment, and poverty rates of minority groups.