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.