Final Summary/Reaction

Over the weekend, I handed out my survey to the rest of the adults I planned on. I am still waiting for a few of them to get back to me. The results I have received are pretty much what I expected. My cousin who works in a bank knows more of the statements about finance, as does his wife. Whereas, my cousin who is a teacher knows the finance questions, but not as many. My predictions, for the most part have been true. One thing that surprised me was that my one cousin, who is unemployed checked off the statement that he knows about personal security systems. The family has never been very wealthy so I asked him why he said that. It turns out that he works for his step father's catering company part-time. Doing this, he interacts with a lot of people who are considered upper class and has had to deal with things like personal security systems on a regular business. There were a few more unexpected answers, but for the most part most of my predictions were correct. 

Revised Plan/Summary/Update

I have given my survey to three adults as of now. I have given it to my mom, dad, and aunt. I haven't seen the other people I want to survey yet, but I will be seeing them and giving them the survey this weekend. So far I've seen pretty consistent results. My aunt and my parents are pretty close in terms of class, but my dad is a salesman, my mom is a teacher, and my aunt is a nurse, so they know different things about different topics in the survey. This weekend, I will give the survey to my cousins and neighbors and see how they answer the survey. 

Strategy Plan for Research

I have decided to definitely use the survey we did in class a couple of weeks ago. I have also decided on the adults in my life I will give this survey to. I realized that I don't know too many adults that are on very extreme sides of the spectrum. I don't anybody who is considered to be very low class, and I don't know very many people who are considered upper class. However I know that many of the adults in my life may answer the questions differently. I will give the survey to my parents, my neighbors, my aunt and uncle, and some of my cousins. My one cousin is a manager at a bank and another is a teacher in a public school. Though they are very close in terms of class, obviously, the bank manager may know more of the financial related questions. After I give this survey to adults in my life, I will ask them the same questions we were asked. Which section do you have the most check marks in? What do you think this survey was about? Which statements did you check and why/didn't you check and why? Which statements stood out to you? Do you agree with this assessment? It was interesting to see how a bunch of 17 year olds responded to this survey, so I think it will be good to see how adults respond. 

Applied Research

For the research portion of my blog, I will be giving out a survey about social class to the adults in my life. I will be using the survey we did in class, but seeing how my parents and other adults respond. After I give them the survey and look over their answers, I will ask them questions similar to the ones we went over. Why did you say you know about this topic? Why did you respond this way? What do you think this survey is about? I think it will be very to see how the adults that I know respond to this survey and see how it compares to our class' answers. 

I think that this picture does a great job of depicting social class. It shows a group of boys, two of whom are in a wealthy class and three of whom are obviously poorer, but not too poor. I think it really shows the difference between the classes, even though the boys are so young.

The wealthier boys are holding themselves better. They are standing up straight and wearing nice clothes. They look clean. Their hair is cut. Their clothes fit them. One thing I realized is that they're not looking at the other boys. It may have just been that the photograph was taken when the boys were looking the other way. However, I think it is very interesting that the one boy is facing the complete opposite direction and the other is staring off, not looking at the other boys, with a hand in his pocket and his other hand on a post supporting him. I also think it's interesting that the smaller boy has a cane. He could have a medical condition, but to me it doesn't look it. These two boys look like the wealthy class men we so often see pictures of from this time period. Suits, top hats, ties, and a cane.

The other boys look much different compared to the wealthy boys. Their hair is disheveled, their clothes are too big, and they look a little dirty. It is shocking to see how different these boys are from the wealthy boys, despite them being around the same age. Their body language is more reserved. They're not standing as straight and they all have both of their hands in their pockets. Also, each of them is looking at the wealthy boys. To me, it looks like they're intrigued by these boys.

I thought this picture was very interesting when I found it. It is a picture of a group of young boys from the early 1900s, but it really shows the difference between social classes at that time. Even though I don't think the poorer boys were the poorest there was, it still shows how different the classes can be, even if they're close to each other. 

Does social class discrimination contribute to poor health?

Can social class discrimination cause your health to decline? That doesn't really seem to make sense, at least to me. I can see that being poor can cause you to have lower health. You have less money, you can't afford medicine, you get sick. But, discrimination against a class? How does that cause you to have poor health?

This article says that stress is a big factor. Being in a lower class and having less money can lead to increased stress levels. We all know that stress can make us feel lousy, but it can also affect our actual health. Researchers at Cornell University studied a group of 17 year olds to see the affect of discrimination on class. 

First, they were asked questions based on their social class background and measured their perceptions of discriminations. Next, they did physical tests. They took their blood pressure and  took urine samples to measure the levels of stress-related hormones. These factors form an "allostatic load", which is a term that describes the negative health changed caused by exposure to frequent stress. 

Teens that grew up in poverty said they experienced more discrimination and it turned out that their allostatic loads were higher. 

The article then goes on to talk about how we can fix this. Americans are very big on no racial discrimination. But when it comes to social class discrimination? Americans tend to pretend that it doesn't exist, because America is supposed to be a "class-less" society. The article says that talking about social class and social class discrimination in schools, to children, is a start. But I don't think that's good enough. We need to talk about this to everyone, let everyone know this is a problem, and get everyone to work on a solution. Not just children. 

For this post, I decided to take a look at social class in the "olden days", instead of today. This picture shows the level of classes in, what looks to be the Industrial Age. 

The top level of the picture says "We rule you" and has a picture of someone who looks like a king, and other important looking people wearing suits. The next level is priests and other religious leaders and it says "We fool you". The middle layer is soldiers saying "We shoot you".  the next layer has a bunch of fancy looking people who look like they're at a dinner party. It says, "We eat for you." The bottom layer is of the working/bottom class and says "We work for all" and "We feed all". 

Obviously, the classes showed in this are different today. We do have monarchs and presidents who are on top, but today, beneath them isn't the priests and religious leaders. Also, soldiers aren't in the same spot in today's society. If I were to rearrange this picture to show social classes today I would make it: president/monarch, upper class, soldiers, priests, lower class. I also think that the soldiers and priests would be combined into a group showing the middle class. 

One thing in this picture that's interesting to me is that the lower class says, "We feed all" and "We work for all". I think this can still be considered true. One way I see this is that we usually see people, like fast food workers, cashiers, and other "lower" jobs as being less important and for lower level people. However, people in today's world would hardly be able to function if they didn't have someone cooking their french fries or bagging their purchases. Yet, these people are looked down upon. As a cashier, I can say that there a lot of the people who insult me for being a cashier and accuse me of being stupid and making mistake, but a lot of them probably couldn't even work the cash register if their life depended on it. 

To be honest, I could probably look at, analyze, and talk about this picture all day. But,  I found it really interesting to see how people viewed social classes back then. I think it's also very interesting to see how much their ideas of social class relate to ours. 

How do people define social class?

When I went searching for videos about social class, I have to admit, I had a little trouble. A lot of the videos were either too depressing, or they were filled with stuffy economists talking about money. Then I thought, who would have a good video about social class? Oprah!

I can't embed the video I want into this post, so here's the link (don't try to watch it in school, it won't work):Understanding Social Class

In this video, woman from around the Chicago are were asked to define what they thought social class is. I think it was very interesting to see the different perspectives of these women, and the way they view different social classes.

The first woman is an African American woman in a business suit. She talks about her definition of class and says it is "when someone looks at another individual for how they dress, what car they drive". She then goes on to say that nobody even knows she's unemployed, because of the way she dresses. I have to be honest, I never would have guessed she was unemployed, and I did base that off of the fact that she was wearing a business suit. I think this shows how much we assume things about other people, based on things like clothes. I agree with the woman that it's bad that we assume things based on looks.

One thing that stuck out to me was that almost every woman said that social class seems to based upon how people dress and the outward appearance of someone. I think it's very interesting that the idea that you can think you know a person's class/what they're like based on how they look on the outside. 

My favorite part of this video is the statement by the last woman. She mentions how there are a lot of upper class people who have a lot of options on how to behave, but she doesn't think they're very classy. This reminds me of my last post, and how upper class people are more likely to cheat and act unethically. I think it's interesting that she says how she thinks class is inside of you and it is how you act, and that it can't be taken away by lack of money. I agree with this, to an extent. I've seen a lot of lower/middle class people who act much more polite, ethically, and yes, classier than some of the upper class people I've seen.

I really enjoyed this video because it showed different perspectives on people's views of class. I found it very interesting that most of the woman agreed that class seems to be based upon what we see a person wearing and driving, and what job they have. 

Are rich people more likely to lie?

This article by CBC news thinks so! This article says that a study shows that the wealthier, better educated, and more successful people are more likely to engage in unethical behavior, like lying and cheating, than their counterparts in lower classes. The study cited several experiments that consistently showed this.

Stéphane Côté, a psychologist and the co-author of the study, said "I think it's important for those people who have the resources to understand that this is their basic tendencies and potentially … reflect on their behaviour and whether it in fact takes into the needs of others." However, he also states that is important to look at the context in which these people are supposedly "cheating".

One of the biggest ways that the upper class "cheats" is in driving. An experiment classified 152 California drivers by the type of car they drove, and it was shown that  the most expensive cars were 50% more likely to cut off a pedistrian, than those in "average" cars would. 


However, multiple experiments showed other ways that people in the upper class lie and cheat. These experiments showed "moderate" class effects where participants:

• Rated their likliehood in enganging in different types of unethical behavior. 
• Decided how much candy to take from a jar where the rest was destined to be given to children. 
• Chose  whether to tell the truth when negotiating a salary.
• Were tested to see whether they would cheat to increase the chances of winning a prize. 

The people who did this experiment speculated on why upper class people may lie and cheat. One reason is that they may be more easily forgiven and they might have the resources to deal with the consequences. However, the experimenters found that, regardless of class, people's behavior is influenced by two things: their perception of class and their attitude toward greed.

In the experiment involving candy, those who perceived themselves as upper class took more candy than those who perceived themselves to be lower class. They found that, in the the experiment rating their liklihood to engage in unethical behavior at work, regardless of class, they all expressed a willingness to cheat if they were asked beforehand to think of the beneficial effects of greed. Côté also said that a more positive outlook on greed may lead to the upper class engaging in more unethical behavior.  

I found this article to be very interesting, and to be honest, I wasn't really surprised that the upper class is more likely to involve themselves in unethical behavior. 

Does social class affect student rankings?

When compared to those in the rest of the world, students in America seem to perform less than satisfactory. In fact, America is ranked number 17 in global education, according to an article published on November 27, 2012. It's not necessarily bad, but we would like it to be a little higher.

People attribute America's low standing on the education scale to many things. Poor study habits, a lack of the good educators that other countries have, low test scores. The list goes on and on. One factor that hasn't really been discussed, is the effect of the distribution of social class on our education system.

In this report, we see how the distribution of social classes in America affects our educational ranking. There were many different findings that I found very interesting in this article.

• In every country, students at the bottom of the social class scale tend to perform worse than students higher on the social class scale. The U.S. average seems to be very low, partly because we have a lot of test takers/students from the lower class, more so than other nations. This made me think of the fact that, in America poor, low-income, lower class children can still attend public school. Regardless of how good or bad that education is, it's still an education. I thought of the poor children in other countries that can't afford to go to school at all, not even public school. 
• A sampling error in the U.S. test scores reported. It seems that a large portion of the disadvantages, lower-class American students are represented in America's test taker samples. Other countries wouldn't dream of publishing the low test scores of these students, they only publish the good grades of higher class students. The large representation of disadvantaged students' scores makes America's grades seem even worse. 
• Our scores would be better if they were compared to countries similar to us. The article says that if our test scores were placed next to those of similar, post-industrial countries (France, England, Germany), our reading scores would be much higher, and our math scores would be about the same. However, since we're compared to the whole world, many of the countries we are behind are vastly different than America, so our scores seem lower.

These are only a few of the different findings published in that report. There are so many more ways that the distribution of social class affects our educational ranking. I found this article to be very interesting, and I think that social class distribution should be taken into account more, when reporting the ranking of students around the world.

Why "Social Classes"?

Hi! My name is Shannon. I chose the topic of Social Classes, because I have always found the concept of social classes to be really interesting. I think it's interesting to see how certain social classes emerged in history, how they are viewed, and how the classes interact with one another. I can't wait to do more research on this topic!