Upper class

Middle class

Working class

Lower class

5% of pop., earn at least $197k/ annually

Upper-uppers: "blue bloods," money based on inheritance "old money," devote time to community activities

Lower-uppers: working rich, "new rich"

More ethnic diversity, 40 to 45% of pop.

Upper-middles: $113 to $197k annual income, education is important, local politics, high occupational prestige

Average-middles: $50 to $112k annual income, less occupational prestige, white collar of high-skilled blue collared jobs, income provides savings

33% of pop., Blue collar, $25 to $50k/annually, "Lower Middle Class," routine jobs with less stratification, 2/3 own their homes, 1/3 children go to college, vulnerable to financial problems b/c of unemployment or illness

37 million Americans, 12.5% of pop., 1/2 complete high school, 1/4 attend college, 45% own their own homes, bad neighborhoods, south

Health: amount and type of health care

Value and Attitudes

Politics: conservative or liberal

Family and Gender: parental involvement

Socialization practices: relationships and responsibilities

Upward: college degree or higher paying job

Downward: drop out of school, losing job, divorce

Strucutural Social Mobility: changes in society or national economic trends

Intragenerational Mobility: change in social position during a persons lifetime

Intergenerational mobility: upward or downward movement that takes place across generations within a family

-has been fairly high

-long term trend has been upward

-intragenerational mobility is small, not dramatic

-social mobility since the 1970's has been uneven

-earnings have stalled for many workers

-more jobs offer little income (industrial jobs have gone overseas)

-young people are staying and returning home (more then half of 18 to 24 yr olds are living at home)

-global economic expansion

-jobs changed from manufacturing to servce work

-creates upward mobility for educated people

-investments for those with money

-downsizing affects average workers

Relative Poverty: deprivation of some people in relation to those who have more

Absolute Poverty: a deprivation of resources that is life threatening

**12.5% of people**

Demographics of Poverty

(who does poverty affect?)

-Age (24 or younger), race and ethnicity (mostly white), gender (56% women) 

-Blame the poor: the poor are responsible for their own poverty

-Blame society: little opportunity for work, (Julius Wilson William said "little work, not enough jobs to support families")

First World: industrial rich countries

Second World: less industrial, socialist countries (After Cold War, 2nd World no longer exists)

Third World: non-industrial, poor countries

High Income: highest standard of living

Middle Income: somewhat poorer nations with economic development typical for the world as a whole

Low Income: nations with lowest productivity and extensive poverty

-First to develope during industrial revolution, 80% of worlds income, control over financial markets and other countries

Ex's: US, W. Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada

-55% of pop. lives in/near urban areas with industrial jobs, 45% live in agricultural areas- lack of schools, medical care and safe water

Ex's: E. Europe, Latin America, African countries

-Mostly poor, rural countries, agrarian with some industry, short lives, hunger, disease.

Ex's: Africa and Asia

100 million children in poor countries are forced to work the streets, 100 million children are orphaned or have left their families and live on the streets, 50 million children street children are found in Latin American cities

-Technology

-Population growth

-Cultural patterns (people resist innovations)

-Social stratification

-Low income countries distribute wealth very unequally

Historical Perspective

(In Modernization Theory)

-Centuries ago, the entire world was poor. --Exploration, trade and the industrial rev. transformed W. Europe and then N. America

Cultural Perspective

(In Modernization Theory)

-Weber: protestant reformation reshaped traditional catholicism

-Individualism replaced the traditional emphasis on family and community

The Role of the Rich Nations

(In Modernization Theory)

-controlling population- birth control

-increasing food production (seeds, chemicals)

-introducing new industrial tech. (machinery)

-providing foreign aid

-fails to recognize how rich nations benefit from the status quo of poor

-fails to see that international relations affect all nations

-ethnocentric: it holds up the richest nations as the standard to judge other societies

-blames global poverty on the poor societies

Historical Perspective

(In Dependency Theory)

Importance of Colonialism

(In Dependency Theory)

-Europeans colonized much of the west, south and east

-African slave trade is most brutal

-Neo-colonials is the "essence" of the modern capitalist world economy

Wallerstein's Ideas

(Three factors)

1- narrow, export-orientated economies: poor countries produce only a few crops

2- lack of industrial capacity: poor countries must sell raw material to rich countries, then buy finished at high prices

3- foreing debt: poor countries owe the rich countries $3 trillion dollars

Critial Evaluation

(Of Wallerstein's Ideas)

-wrongly treats wealth as a zero-sum gaem

-wrong to blame rich nations for global poverty

-too simplistic citing capitalism as the single factor

-represive corrupt regimes

-more protest than policy

Rumor and Gossip

Rumor: unconfirmed information people spread informally, often by word of mouth

-unstable

-hard to stop

Gossip: rumor about people's personal affairs

-spread

-thin line between info and propaganda

-not all propaganda is false

Fashion and Fads

Fashion: a social pattern favored by a large nunber of people

Veblen: buying expensive products to show off wealth

Fads: an unconventional social pattern that people embrace briefly but enthusiastically

Public Opinion: widespread attitudes about controversial issues

Propaganda: info presented with the intention of shaping public opinion

Panic: a form of behavior in which people in one place react to a threat or other stimulus with irrational, frantic, and often self-destructive behavior

Mass Hysteria: a form of dispersed behavior by which people respond to a real or imagined event often with irrational and even frantic fear

An event, generally unexpected, that causes extensive harm to people and damage to property

Erickson's Research:

1. Disasters are social events

2. Social damage is more serious when an act involves a toxic substance

3. Social damage is most serious when other people cause the disaster

Def: activity involving a large # of people that is unplanned, often controversial, ad sometimes dangerous (Ex's: mobs, riots, social movements)

Collective behavior is diverse, variable (some rumors catch on and some don't), and it is transitory (disasters, rumors, come and go quickly)

Def: A large # of people whose minimal interaction occurs in the absence of well-defined and conventional norms

Localized collectivity: people physically close to one another

Dispersed (mass behavior): people who influence one another, despite being spread over a large area

-Collectives are based on limited social interaction (in mobs, etc.)

-Collectives has no clear social boundaries (members share no unity)

-Generate weak and uncoventional norms (act spontaneously)

-Crowds (temp gathering, sharing a common focus of attention)

Blummer's 4 Types of Crowds

(We added a 5th)

1. Casual Crowd: people on a beach

2. Conventional: a college classroom

3. Expressive: a church service

4. Acting: people fleeing from a fire

5. Protest: a college student sit-in

Mob: (Lynch Mob) A highly emotional crowd that has a destructive goal

Riot: A social eruption that is highly emotional, violent, and undirected (sports, race, social injustice riots)

Explaining Crowd Behavior:

Le Bon's Contagion Theory

-Crowd actions result from the intentions and decisions of specific indivs

-Not necessarily irrational

The crowd doesn't generate the action, but rather the members themselves stimulate the action of the crowd

Ex: neighborhood groups concerned about crime and want to do something about it

-Some people do things in a crowd that they would not have the courage to do alone

-Crowds can intensify a sentiment simply by creating a critical mass of like-minded people

Explaining Crowd Behavior:

Turner & Killians Emergent-Norm Theory

-People in crowds have mixed interests

-In less stable crowns (expressive, protests), norms might be vague or changing

1. Campaign: claims making

2. Social Movements Repertoire: rallies, petitions

3. WUNC displays (what they try to display to the general public): worthiness, unity, numbers, commitment

Explaining Social Movements:

Deprivation Theory

Social movements seking change arise among people who feel deprived

Relative Deprivation: A perceived disadvantage arising from some specific comparison

-Theory suffers from circular reasoning

-Focuses exclusively on the cause, telling us little about movements themselves

Explaining Social Movements:

Kornhauser's Mass Society Theory

Social movements attract socially isolated people who feel personally insignificant

-Gives people with social life, a sense of belonging

-No clear standard for measuring the extent to which we live in a mass society

-Explaining social movements in terms of people hungry to belong ignores the social-justice issues that movements address

1. Structural conduciveness

2. Structural strain

3. Growth and spread of an explanation

4. Precipitating factors

5. Mobilization for action

6.  Lack of social control

Explaining Social Movements:

Resource-Mobilization Theory

-Powerless can promote change if they are organized and have committed members

-Overstates the extent to which powerful people are willing to challenge the status quo

Explaining Social Movements:

Culture Theory

Explaining Social Movements:

Political-Ecomony Theory

Explaining Social Movements:

New Social Movements Theory

Recent social movemnets in the postindustrial societies or North America and Western Europe have a new focus:

-Most of todays movements are international

-Tends to focus on cultural change and improving surroundings

-Support from middle/upper class

Stage 1: Emergence (something is wrong)

Stage 2: Coalescence (going public)

Stage 3: Bureaucratization (organizing to get job done)

Stage 4: Decline (success, organization failures, leaders sell out, crushed by repression)

Social Network Analysis:

Basic Ideas

-Social actors are INTERDEPENDENT

-Relationships produce opportunities as well as contraints

-Involves uncovering the links among actors, recurring patterns

Social Network Analysis:

History:   Stanley Milgram "The Small World Problem"

Social Network Analysis:

Centrality

Degree Centrality: # of direct ties to others

Betweenness: # of paths along which one lies

Closeness: avg. distance to others in the network

Eigenvector: how many people you are connected to and how many people they are connected to

Social Network Analysis:

Bridges

Mark Granovetter: "The Strength of Weak Ties"

-Sometimes acquaintances are more valuable than friends (when looking for a job)

-If you connect seperate networks, you have bridging capital

-If you are central to a network, you have bonding capital

Robert Putnam says "Bowling Alone": we no longer trust our neighbor so we have lost our social capital (lost after WWII, television)

John Mohr and Vincent Duquenne: "The Duality of Culture and Practice: Poverty Relief in New York City" (the way we talk about those in need, has changed over time, rise of progressivism)

Katherine Guiffre: "Sandpiles of Opportunity: Success in the Art World" (artists depend on galleries, and galleries depend on artists)