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Social class in the United States refers to the idea of grouping Americans by some measure of social status, typically by economic status. However, it could also refer to social status and/or location. The idea that American society can be divided into social classes is disputed, and there are many competing class systems.
The knowledge gap hypothesis is a mass communication theory based on how a member in society processes information from mass media differently based on education level and socioeconomic status (SES). The gap in knowledge exists because a member of society with higher socioeconomic status has access to higher education and technology whereas a member of society who has a lower socioeconomic status has less access or none at all. Since there is already pre-existing gap of knowledge between groups in a population, mass media amplifies this gap to another level. For example, television news programming targets a more affluent group who are interested in political and science news. The higher status viewer pays more attention to the serious stories and seeks out more in depth information beyond the news program. This article provides an overview of the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis and includes theoretical concepts, historical background, operationalization, narrative review, meta-analytic support, new communication technologies and competing hypotheses.
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society. This movement occurs between layers or tiers in an open system of social stratification. Open stratification systems are those in which at least some value is given to achieved status characteristics in a society. The movement can be in a downward or upward direction. Markers for social mobility such as education and class, are used to predict, discuss and learn more about an individual or a group's mobility in society.
Otis Dudley Duncan was "the most important quantitative sociologist in the world in the latter half of the 20th century", according to sociologist Leo Goodman. His book The American Occupational Structure, which received the American Sociological Association's Sorokin Award, documented how parents transmit their societal status to their children. Duncan compiled his thoughts on the major issues of the field into Notes on Social Measurement, which he considered his greatest work.
Life chances is a theory in sociology which refers to the opportunities each individual has to improve their quality of life. The concept was introduced by German sociologist Max Weber in the 1920s. It is a probabilistic concept, describing how likely it is, given certain factors, that an individual's life will turn out a certain way. According to this theory, life chances are positively correlated with one's socioeconomic status.
The American upper class is a social group within the United States consisting of people who have the highest social rank, due to a lineage associated with wealth, pedigree, and economic wealth. The American upper class is distinguished from the rest of the population due to the fact that its primary source of income consists of assets, investments, and capital gains rather than wages and salaries. The American upper class is estimated to include 1–2% of the population.
Status attainment is the process of one attaining one's positions in society, or class. Status attainment is affected by both achieved factors, such as educational attainment, and ascribed factors, such as family income. The theory of status attainment states that one can be mobile, either upwardly or downwardly, in the form of a class system.
Social class in New Zealand is a product of both Māori and Western social structures. Researchers have traditionally discussed New Zealand, a first-world country, as a "classless society", but this claim is problematic in a number of ways. Since at least the 1980s it has become easier to distinguish between the wealthy and the underclass in New Zealand society.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family's access to economic resources and social position in relation to others. When analyzing a family's SES, the household income and the education and occupations of its members are examined, whereas for an individual's SES only their own attributes are assessed. Recently, research has revealed a lesser-recognized attribute of SES as perceived financial stress, as it defines the "balance between income and necessary expenses". Perceived financial stress can be tested by deciphering whether a person at the end of each month has more than enough, just enough, or not enough money or resources. However, SES is more commonly used to depict an economic difference in society as a whole.
Social inequality occurs when resources within a society are distributed unevenly, often as a result of inequitable allocation practices that create distinct unequal patterns based on socially defined categories of people. Differences in accessing social goods within society are influenced by factors like power, religion, kinship, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, and class. Social inequality usually implies the lack of equality of outcome, but may alternatively be conceptualized as a lack of equality in access to opportunity.
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The Wisconsin model of socio-economic attainment is a model that describes and explains an individual's social mobility and its economic, social, and psychological determinants. The logistics of this model are primarily attributed to William H. Sewell and colleagues including Archibald Haller, Alejandro Portes and Robert M. Hauser. The model receives its name from the state in which a significant amount of the research and analysis was completed. Unlike the previous research on this topic by Peter Blau and Otis Dudley Duncan, this model encompasses more than just educational and occupational factors and their effect on social mobility for American males. The Wisconsin model has been described as "pervasive in its influence on the style and content of research in several subfields of sociology."
Occupational segregation is the distribution of workers across and within occupations, based upon demographic characteristics, most often gender. Other types of occupational segregation include racial and ethnicity segregation, and sexual orientation segregation. These demographic characteristics often intersect. While a job refers to an actual position in a firm or industry, an occupation represents a group of similar jobs that require similar skill requirements and duties. Many occupations are segregated within themselves because of the differing jobs, but this is difficult to detect in terms of occupational data. Occupational segregation compares different groups and their occupations within the context of the entire labor force. The value or prestige of the jobs are typically not factored into the measurements.
Robert Mason Hauser is an American sociologist. He is the Vilas Research and Samuel F. Stouffer professor of sociology emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he served as director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and the Center for Demography of Health and Aging.
In the United States, despite the efforts of equality proponents, income inequality persists among races and ethnicities. Asian Americans have the highest median income, followed by White Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans. A variety of explanations for these differences have been proposed—such as differing access to education, two parent home family structure, high school dropout rates and experience of discrimination and deep-seated and systemic anti-Black racism—and the topic is highly controversial.
Socioeconomic mobility in the United States refers to the upward or downward movement of Americans from one social class or economic level to another, through job changes, inheritance, marriage, connections, tax changes, innovation, illegal activities, hard work, lobbying, luck, health changes or other factors.
The Duncan Segregation Index is a measure of occupational segregation based on gender that measures whether there is a larger than expected presence of one gender over another in a given occupation or labor force by identifying the percentage of employed women who would have to change occupations for the occupational distribution of men and women to be equal. A Duncan Segregation Index value of 0 occurs when the share of women in every occupation is the same as women's share of employment as a whole. In other words, 0 indicates perfect gender integration within the workforce, while a value of 1 indicates complete gender segregation within the workforce.
Numerous studies around the world have found a relationship between socioeconomic status and mental health. There are higher rates of mental illness in groups with lower socioeconomic status (SES), but there is no clear consensus on the exact causative factors. The two principal models that attempt to explain this relationship are the social causation theory, which posits that socioeconomic inequality causes stress that gives rise to mental illness, and the downward drift approach, which assumes that people predisposed to mental illness are reduced in socioeconomic status as a result of the illness. Most literature on these concepts dates back to the mid-1990s and leans heavily towards the social causation model.
Higher education in the United States is an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education. Higher education, also referred to as post-secondary education, third-stage, third-level, or tertiary education occurs most commonly at one of the 3,899 Title IV degree-granting institutions in the country. These may be public universities, private universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, or for-profit colleges. Learning environments vary greatly depending on not only the type of institution, but also the different goals implemented by the relevant county and state.
The psychology of social class is a branch of social psychology dedicated to understanding how social class affects individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. While social class has long been a subject of analysis in fields such as sociology, political science, anthropology, medicine and epidemiology, its emergence within the field of psychology is much more recent.
References
Notes
- ↑ Hauser, Robert M.; Warren, John Robert (1997). "Socioeconomic Indexes for Occupations: A Review, Update, and Critique". Sociological Methodology. 27 (1): 177–298. doi:10.1111/1467-9531.271028. ISSN 1467-9531. S2CID 143449571.
We conclude that composite indexes of occupational socioeconomic status are scientifically obsolete.
- 1 2 North, C.; Hatt, P. K. (1949). "Jobs and Occupations: A popular evaluation". Opinion News. 9: 313.
- ↑ Duncan, O. D. (1961). A Socioeconomic Index for all Occupations. In J. Reiss, Jr. (Ed.), Occupations and Social Status (pp. 109–138). New York: Free Press of Glencoe
- ↑ Donald J. Treiman. (1977). Occupational Prestige in Comparative Perspective. New York: Academic Press.
- ↑ Young, Michael; Willmott, Peter (1956). "Social Grading by Manual Workers". British Journal of Sociology. 7 (4): 337–345. doi:10.2307/586697. JSTOR 586697.
- ↑ Donald Easton-Brooks & Alan Davis (2007). Wealth, Traditional Socioeconomic Indicators, and The Achievement Debt. The Journal of Negro Education. Washington: Fall 2007. 76 (4); 530–542.
- ↑ Nakao, K.; Treas, J. (1994). "Updating Occupational Prestige and Socioeconomic Scores: How the new measures measure up". Sociological Methodology. 24: 1–72. doi:10.2307/270978. JSTOR 270978.
- ↑ The Harris Poll #77, August 1 (2007). "Firefighters, Scientists And Teachers Top List As Most Prestigious Occupations; According To Latest Harris Poll:Bankers, Actors And Real Estate Agents Are At The Bottom Of The List"
- ↑ "Norc Scores". Colorado Adoption Project: Resources for Researchers. Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado Boulder. Retrieved 26 October 2012.
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- Klaczynski, Paul A (1991). "Sociocultural Myths and Occupational Attainment: Educational Influences on Adolescents' Perceptions of Social Status". Youth and Society. 22 (4): 448–467. doi:10.1177/0044118x91022004002. S2CID 144036559.
- "In U.S., Women's Weight Gain Brings Loss of Income, Job Prestige, Study Finds." Health & Medicine Weekly, 2005, June. Retrieved March 9, 2006, from NewRx database.
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- Ollivier. "Too much money off other people's backs': status in late modern societies". The Canadian journal of sociology. 2000 vol:25 iss:4 pg:441 -470.
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