Social class impacts
one’s level of political participation and political influence
. … This trend means that middle and upper class individuals have greater political participation and greater political influence than those in lower positions.
Those from higher social class backgrounds tend to be
more successful in developing career aspirations
and are generally better prepared for the world of work because of access to resources such as career offices, guidance counselors, better schools, high level “social actors,” and familial experience with higher …
Numerous studies have shown that those with higher social class have better health. … Furthermore, social class is
related to psychosocial working conditions, to job control, and job demands
. High job demands are more frequent in the higher social classes and low job control is more frequent in lower social classes.
In other words, social class differences in
identity, cognition, feelings, and behaviour
make it less likely that working-class individuals can benefit from educational and occupational opportunities to improve their material circumstances.
In what three ways is social class having an ongoing impact on your life?
It affects our chances of dying early, becoming ill, receiving good health care, and getting divorced
.
More specifically, the lower the class,
the lower the health self-management ability
, which in turn leads to worse mental and physical health statuses. Revealing the importance of health self-management in the influence of social class on mental and physical health.
Social class and crime are connected in a magnitude of ways. Those from lower economic strata
are more likely to be arrested, convicted
, and incarcerated for crimes than are more affluent individuals. Prisoners in the United States are more likely to be unemployed and earn less than the general population.
Changing social class is a
“Yes
, and” process at best. You may add to your life and you may experience internal conflict. You may do both. Changing your social class may alienate you from people you know and may alienate you from the person you are now.
Social classes provide their members with distinctive sub-cultures that prepare them for specialised functions in society. It is said that the social class is
useful as an efficient means of role allocation in the society
. Through role allocation, a society fixes social responsibilities of persons.
What is the role of norms in society?
Norms provide order in society. … Human beings need norms
to guide and direct their behavior, to provide order and predictability in social relationships and to make sense of and understanding of each other’s actions
. These are some of the reasons why most people, most of the time, conform to social norms.
Social Stratification
provides motivation for different positions
, particularly those which carry higher statuses and rewards. By distributing resources unequally, society motivates people to work harder and better in order to achieve a higher status.
It has assigned the quintiles from lowest to highest as lower class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class, and upper class.
Social class or socioeconomic status greatly impacts
child development and student achievement outcomes
. It is well documented in educational and child development research that there is a significant achievement gap between children of economically stable backgrounds and economically disadvantaged environments.
A clear link exists between
social and economic inequality
and poor mental health. There is a social gradient in mental health, and higher levels of income inequality are linked to higher prevalence of mental illness.
Inequality
leads to major differences in the educational success or efficiency of these individuals
and ultimately suppresses social and economic mobility. … Generally, grades, GPA scores, test scores, dropout rates, college entrance statistics, and college completion rates are used to measure educational success.
A focus on objective social class entails a direct determination of a person’s social class based on
socioeconomic variables — mainly income, wealth, education and occupation
. A second approach to social class, the one that occupies us here, deals with how people put themselves into categories.
