The novel “Women Without class” by Julie Bettie, is a society in which the cultural you come from and the identity that was chosen for you defines who you are. How does cultural and identity illustrate who we are or will become? Julie Bettie demonstrates how class is based on color, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The author describes this by researching her work on high school girls at a Central Valley high school. In Bettie’s novel she reveals different cliques that are associated within the group which are Las Chicas, Skaters, Hicks, Preps, and lastly Cholas and Cholos. The author also explains how race and ethnicity correspondence on how academically well these students do. I will be arguing how Julie Bettie connects her theories of inequality and culture capital to Pierre Bourdieu, Kimberle Crenshaw, Karl Marx and Engels but also how her research explains inequality among students based on cultural capital and identity. Bettie analyzes how cultural capital has it’s advantages …show more content…
Throughout, Bettie research describing how young women experience class differences within their peers and culture depending on living conditions and identity. I think Bettie explained fully how cultural capital can be a privilege but it can also be a reason why their is a huge gap between classes. Not only this but Julie illustrates how women are treated by earning lower wages then men. My favorite part is in the end how women shouldn’t be without class instead to look over how some too are apart of class. Not only that but class shouldn’t be divided upon race, sexuality, and gender but look at the formation evenly among each. Throughout my writing assignment I argued how Bettie’s theories of inequality connect with Pierre Bourdieu, Kimberle Crenshaw, Marx and Engels and the students perspectives towards class difference, race, gender, cultural, and
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Show MoreFiske, R., & Cyrus, V. (2005). Experiencing Race, Class, and Gender in the United States: Fourth Edition. Boston: McGrawHill
I will be analyzing the essay “Class in America --2012”. The topic of this essay is talking about does it matter what your social and economical standings are, and do they play a role in if you succeed in life. I personally agree with this. If someone is hard working and willing to do the job then I feel that they can be successful. Their background, race, and social and economical standings don’t justify everything that they are. Mantsios effectively communicates the phenomenon of stereotyping certain races, genders, and social classes will be more successful than others in America.
Andersen, Margaret L. and Patricia Hill Collins. 2012. Race, Class & Gender: an Anthology, 8th edition. Wadsworth Cengage.
Lacking the necessary support, many start to devalue the importance of doing well in school deciding that perhaps school isn’t part of their identity. In Susan’s case she’s eliciting multiple forms of subordination, and within each dimension she’s being subjective to different types of oppression; racial oppression, gender oppression, and class oppression, she’s experiencing cultural alienation and isolation and is not only based on her ethnicity as a Latina but is also influenced by how she is treated as a female, as a member of a certain socioeconomic class, and in relation to her English language proficiency, and even her perceived immigration status. In this sense, students like Susan experience different forms of discrimination or marginalization that stems from
Teachers tend to disentangle race and culture instead of suture those two. They use “cultural” as a catchall phrase to described cultural students’s misbehavior. In the second piece where it decribes the culture with African American and Whites, Culture and Education. Whites, as political privilege, determine what counts as culture. But, as in the the example that a children from working-class African American was considered as “cultural-deprived.” . In “Whose culture has capital” by Yosso included six types of capital that educational leaders may use to frame their interactions with students. Aspirational capital is defined by Yosso as the “hopes and dreams” students have. She explains that African American and Latina/o students and their families continue to have high educational aspirations despite persistent education inequities. The culture of power as the “norm” as Whites. As Nieto mentioned, “Whites do not experience their culture as a culture, they believe they are “cultureless” because as the sanctioned and high-status culture in which they
According to Anthias (2001), “class approaches have underpinned, however, some of the most influential contributions to the fields of gender and ethnicity/race…Marxist feminist, for example provide a Marxist informed analysis of gendered subordination, often apply Marxist economic categories to what later was acknowledges to be an inappropriate object”(p.372). Anthias (2001) explains the ethnicity and class focus on the correlations of a particular ethnic position and class position. Anthias (2001) notes “ethnicity and class, when twinned together have led problems of reductionism…Marxist approaches may treat it as false consciousness, where the real divisions of class take on symbolic forms. Ethnicity may also be seen as being a way that class organize (not as a disguise but as a vehicle), in order to struggle over economic resources. Anthias (2001) writes that there are three dimension of social stratification the shows class, gender and ethnicity into an approach to social inequality. The first is social stratification is seen as outcomes that relation to life condition, how a person is positioned in a social relations Secondly, there are a set of predisposition that is placed for individual s with different realms of production (class), sexual difference (gender) and collective formations (ethnicity). Lastly, the dimension of collective allegiances that helps
Class for the purpose of this paper is the concept that those who are better off are of what can be considered to be upper class and those that lack financial means are of the lower class. Mantsios says that there is an absence of discussion in reference to the distinctions of classes (697). In a study performed by Susan Ostrander, in regards to the term “upper class” one woman responded “‘I hate to use the word ‘class.’ We are responsible, fortunate people, old families, the people who have something’” (697). Yet it appears to be opposite that those who are in this lower class realize the plight they suffer. As one student from Fremont High School noted, “‘The owners of the sewing factories need laborers. Correct…It’s not going be their own kids… You’re ghetto,’ said Fortino unrelentingly to her. ‘So Sew!’”(Kozol 645). The student who knew that he was more than likely to be stuff in his place was willing to point out this fault of the system. This topic which more than likely the well-off woman would stray from rather because she had life easier than Fortino will in his lifetime.
In our current society, it is acceptable to talk about race or gender. However, when it comes to the subject of class, people tend to tense, and are uncertain as to where they stand. At one time in history money afforded prestige and power, however now, money is a large part of our society and tends to rule many peoples lives. In the book Where We Stand: Class Matters, by bell hooks, she describes a life growing up in a family who had nothing, to now becoming one of America’s most admired writers. She wrote this book because she wanted to write about her journey from a working class world to class-consciousness, and how we are challenged everyday with the widening gap between the rich and the poor. In her book, hook’s describes a life dominated by the haunting issues of money, race, and class.
This essay will be unpacking and analysing the different elements that create my own intersectionality in my life. This essay will be discussing how class, gender/sex and race have influenced who I am and the experiences I have had throughout my life, and how various structures impact these experiences, with reference to the Crenshaw and Dill and Zambara articles, I will connect their thoughts and ideas to the intersectionality of my own life.
Burt, Ronald S. "Structural Holes." The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race, Class, and Gender. Ed. David B. Grusky and Szonja Szelenyi. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2011. 597-601. Print.
Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre, is set in a Victorian England, where social class is a huge factor in life. Brontë is very critical of Victorian England’s strict hierarchy. the main character, Jane, is a governess. Her social position is very complicated in which she has to be sophisticated, educated, intelligent, and soft spoken but she is then talked down to as she is of a lower class. The job of a governess is to teach children, whether it be art, writing or reading english literature. Victorian society is very corrupt and in the novel Brontë truly captures and illustrates the challenges that Jane has to face as a governess. The novel also emphasizes the social gap between individuals and how big it really is. In Victorian society, the rich get the most out of life and life for the poor gets harder. No individual should judge or belittle another due to the very minor factor of social status, but it seems to be very important in Jane’s society. The message that Brontë expresses in the novel is that social class is a meaningless catalyst in the progression of relationships, creating giant gaps between individuals.
Returning to his old high school after having had graduate ten years ago, Shamus Rahman Khan came in with one goal: to study the inequality of a school that claims to be more “diverse.” St. Paul’s School located in Concord, New Hampshire claims to have become more diverse over the years, accepting people of different racial backgrounds and social classes to their prestigious boarding school. However, as described in his book, Khan found that this claim made by the school is false. He also found out that the elite that used to attend his school is not the same as the elite attending it now. Nonetheless, it was the elite that were succeeding because they were the ones who could afford the school, had family linages that already attended the school, and mastered “ease” which made them privileged in society. Separating his book into five different chapters, each focusing on a different topic that helps support his claim, Khan describes this change in elite and the inequality that still accompanies St. Paul’s. In the introduction to Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School, Khan states the three most important points he will refer to during the rest of the book: hierarchies are natural and can be used to one’s advantage, experiences matter more than inherited qualities, and the elite signal their status through ease and openness. These are discussed thoroughly in throughout Privilege.
The analytical lens that will be constructed aims to allow for an interpretation of how students who are attempting to be upwardly-mobile are helped with moving beyond roadblocks that prevent mobility. This is mobility is achieved through a combination of adherence to meritocratic systems and the borrowing of cultural capital. I will argue that reproduction occurs when reliance on meritocracy in the educational system and the limited cultural capital of the student’s working-class parent/s are solely employed. In order to move beyond a mere reproduction of the parent’s social class, I argue that the student must interact with individuals or groups from higher social spheres who know how to activate cultural capital in specific instances
The intersection of dominant ideologies of race, class, and gender are important in shaping my social location and experiences. By exercising my sociological imagination (Mills, 1959), I will argue how my social location as an Asian American woman with a working class background has worked separately and together to influence how I behave, how others treat and view me, and how I understand the world. The sociological imagination has allowed me to understand my own “biography”, or life experiences by understanding the “history”, or larger social structures in which I grew up in (Mills, 1959). First, I will describe my family’s demographic characteristics in relation to California and the United States to put my analysis into context. I will then talk about how my perceptions of life opportunities have been shaped by the Asian-American model minority myth. Then, I will argue how my working class location has impacted my interactions in institutional settings and my middle/upper class peers. Third, I will discuss how gender inequalities in the workplace and the ideological intersection of my race and gender as an Asian-American woman have shaped my experiences with men. I will use Takaki’s (1999) concepts of model minority myth and American identity, Race; The Power of an Illusion (2003), Espiritu’s (2001) ideological racism, People Like Us: Social Class in America (1999) and Langston’s (2001) definition of class to support my argument.
This theory focuses on using multiple factors to conceptualize systems of oppression. Patricia Collins, in her article, “Towards A New Vision” mentions to the reader it is important that we realize race, class, and gender are interlocking categories of analysis that together cultivate profound differences in our personal biographies (Collins,1989). Meaning, it is important to take into account an individual’s identity is more than just being female/male or black/white. Intersectionality allows for multiple factors to be analyzed at a time rather than just analyze dichotomous factors. For example, within intersectionality individuals are allowed to analyze the life of a Hispanic women, living in a low class neighborhood, who has a means of low education. Collins states, “we must re-conceptualize race, class, and gender in order to create new categories of connection and questions how can we transcend these barriers created by our experience with race, class, and gender oppression.” However, intersectionality brings forth many problems in terms of social