Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
SOC 001
The documentary Ups and Downs: Social Stratification depicts the gap between the “haves
and have nots” in our society and emphasizes the social inequalities that exist in the United
States. What stands out the most to me was when the speaker Gloria Hamzai, the founder of Our
Kids Child Care Preschool who grew up from a small town, community where dream is the only
hope for the future talks about her experience. When she was in the third grade, her dream was to
become a doctor. However, after her father got arrested, everything in her world collapse. Her
dream of becoming a doctor has to be replaced by another dream. What stands out to me was the
fact that social inequality has an enormous effect on a person’s opportunity to become
successful. Reflecting on reality, a lot of people gave up their chances to continue higher
education because they cannot financially afford tuition. It is a cycle of poverty because when
those people who consider lower class, who has low income, come together and have a family;
their children don’t have the opportunity to achieve social mobility, to change their life and their
social status by becoming doctors, lawyer, engineer. Just like that, the poverty, the social
stratification continues on for many generation. The rich continue to be rich, and the poor
continues to be poor
categorize and rank people in different hierarchy and social status base on their wealth and
power. In chemistry, stratification happens when there is a density differential between two
water layers, arise as a result. of the differences in salinity or temperature. Social stratification
has always existed in all society at all time. It is universal and takes different forms in different
societies. As the world becoming more and more innovative and develop, we see social
stratification clearer each day. It divided the society into 3 different classes: low class, middle
class and high class, the hierarchy that rank them as the superior or inferior. According to Karl
Max in Marx’s theory of Class Polarisation, capitalist class structure divided into 2 social
classes: The Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. As a result, social stratification almost always will
lead to social inequality. Or in another word, social stratification and inequality tightly link
together. Inequalities that stand out in the society include but not limited to income, education,
health and career. Inequality occurs when resources in the society are not distributed evenly.
conflict and symbolic interactionism. Social mobility is a small part of social stratification, refers
to the movement of individuals, families and groups among social positions. Functionalism
perspective believe that each aspects of society exist because they have a purpose. So is social
stratification. Sociologist believes that social stratification is essential to encourage and promote
productivity and efficiency in the society. It gives people a sense of motivation and
encouragement to strive harder. Conflict theory believes that social stratification benefits some
components of society, not the society as a whole like functionalist. It brings awareness to
inequalities in the society. Conflict theorists believes that stratification creates class conflict.
Symbolic interactionism believes that human relationship and interaction makes up society as a
whole. This theory explains that how social stratification and social status affects human
interaction. In society, we see in our daily life that people tend to interact with people that have
the same social standing as them. As we have discussed, one of the biggest barriers that hinders
social mobility or the change in status of people living in the society could be education, income,
health, race, gender, family structure, racial and economic segregation, school quality and social
capital… To obtain social mobility is to shorten or erase the gap between the rich and the poor,
to eradicate social stratification. To overcome the barrier, some of the social campaigns address
improve early childhood development, establishing viable pathways to careers, decreasing over
criminalization and over incarceration, building capacity for continuous learning and