This week’s chapter outlined 4 different perspectives to analyze social class’s influence: the social-cognitive perspective, the scarcity perspective, the culture perspective, and the life-history strategies perspective. It also pointed out why social class is different than gender, race, and power.
One of the most important points was how not objective, but rather relative SES rank affects people well-being. People compare their status with the ones who surround them and derive their definition of self and self-esteem from this comparison. It once again highlights that people are social beings, and need points of reference to define their status. So, in analysis of social class not only material resources, but also one’s perception of himself in social class hierarchy should be considered.
Considerable part of the chapter focused on drawing the differences between lower class and middle class in terms of cognitive functions and interdependence. Chapter explained the difference through the perspectives outlined before, and the one theory which made sense to me most was the scarcity perspective. I believe that the current situation and preoccupation with financial hardships in the moment affect person’s cognitive functions and decision making skills negatively. Life-history strategies perspective seems to reinforce the stigma that those with low SES are generally less intelligent, and that the mindset people from lower class obtain stays for the lifetime. Arguing that social mobility is nearly impossible adds to the argument that lower level of cognitive performance is rather fixed characteristic of the social class.
Authors do a great job at explaining how social class is different from other dimensions. Interestingly, power depends on the situation. In contrast, experiences associated with social class are relatively stable. It also argues, that compared to gender and race, class signaling is not that obvious and readily definable by other people. I think that it is what makes social class a unique dimension – social class signaling is not strong, and it makes hard for surrounding people adapt their behavior and communication accordingly. Social class, as any other ethnic culture, comes with their values and cultural experience, which makes it important for other people to be aware of distinct values of a social class. This problem was outlined in the context of college education. I think that first generation college students struggled compared to other students, because education system was not synced according to students’ values. First generation college students mostly come from low SES background, which makes them more interdependent, and teaching practices at universities should adapt accordingly.
Discussion about the social class made me think about intersectionality, where individual simultaneously belongs to few groups in terms of social class, race, gender, and cultural group. For example, having higher SES as a white person brings more advantages in terms of social hierarchy, compared to having higher SES as a black person. In terms of interdependence and community values too, groups differ depending on the multiple dimensions. So, although SES plays a great role in individual’s values, other factors, which add to this experience, should not be overestimated. We should be wary of overgeneralizing, like saying that rich people are generally cold and individualistic, while lower class people are highly dependent on society.
In conclusion, social class can be explained by different perspectives and defined in different ways, but it is obvious that like belonging to any other groups, it reinforces differences in people’s perceptions. Important question to answer would be whether the effects of social class are set early in life, and somehow embedded in person’s genetics, or is it free to change regarding the current circumstances.
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