Final Summary/Reaction

As the final results of my survey came in, I was able to draw a few conclusions from my data collected. First and foremost, my hypothesis that there is classism in our immediate society was proven correct. About 57% of the survey responders have felt discriminated against and/or judged for their social class. 53% of the people had felt guilty for being more well off than others, 31% have felt inferior due to their low social class, with only 17% of the survey participants feeling neither of these feelings. I noticed that most of the people who said they did not feel like they had an important role in their society were part of the middle to lower annual income range. I had a feeling this would happen, as this is typical to a classist society. I was actually very surprised to see that about 69% of the participants said that they socialize with members of different class members frequently. Being in a not very economically diverse part of the state, it makes me wonder how accurate this number really is and who is it that these people are socializing with that are in a different social class.

Overall, I find classism to be something that is plaguing our society and needs to be stopped. It is widening the divide between social classes, and it isn't fair to discriminate someone based on their class in society. It seems like its going to be really hard to stop though, because it isn't something like racism that everyone talks about. It is more discreet and less well known. It is almost inherent in our human nature and will be very hard to stop. No law will be able to fix it. The way people feel inferior and superior to other people based on social class is something that can only be changed by the people themselves.

11 Research Update

I have put my survey onto facebook about a week ago. I put it in the IHA Class of 2015 facebook group as well as on my own timeline. I have gotten a lot of responses so far and am noticing some patterns already, as well as some early flaws in my survey and research method. First of all, I know right off the bat that the my results are biased. The majority of my responses are from female participants. Second, most of my survey participants are in the upper middle classes, so I really can't get a good representation of the lower classes. I had anticipated this before I sent the survey out though. From what I have seen so far, it seems that there are definite aspects of classism in our society. The results indicate that over half of the survey participants have felt guilty for being "more well off" than those around them. There were people who felt inferior because they aren't as wealthy, but this number was significantly lower, due to the fact that most recipients were in the higher classes. According to my responses so far, although there is classism in my immediate society, it doesn't seem to have negatively affected the majority of my participants. I am surprised to see that almost all of the survey responders responded that they interact with those of a lower/higher social class than them very often. It just didn't seem very likely to me as most of my immediate surroundings are upper and middle class people. I am excited to see what the final responses will show and whether the results will follow the same kind of trends that they have started.

10 Research Plan

For my social class experiment and research, I am going to use a survey that i create using google docs. I would like to ask questions regarding what social class people are in and then ask them questions pertaining to classism. Then, I want to see how the answers correlate to each other.  I'd like to see if classism is active in our immediate society in northern jersey/new york and if it is, how it affects people. I am going to put my survey on facebook. Ideally, I would like to get a wide range of people: people of different ages, genders, and social class. I think that although I am intending to get a wide variety of participants, my results are going to be biased and be mainly from the upper middle class social class, just because of the area I live in. I think that there will definitely be aspects of classism in our society. I think that many people will say that it has both negative and positive affects in their lives. Negative because they are so used to living wealthy lifestyles that they don't know anything else, but positive because usually things in life tend to go their way because they are in a higher social class and their needs and wants are sometimes given preference over a lower class citizen in a classist society.

9 Research Method

For my research, I want to look into the topic of classism.  I want to do an online survey and possibly put it out on Facebook to get responses from all different types of people. I need to figure out what responses to certain questions regarding classism correspond to which social classes those people are in.

8 Conclusion Post

Over the course of this blog, I have looked at many aspects of Social Class. There are obviously many different factors that goes into one's social class, and social class has many effects on someones life and how they develop and find their spot in society. Although here in America, there is no official class system, it is apparent that we have somewhat created our own that everyone has a spot in. In other countries, it is more formal and official. I don't think that the social class system here in America is an inherently bad thing, but it definitely has its flaws. I think that the higher classes tend to think themselves as superior while the lower classes tend to be looked down upon and feel inferior. Also, the upper classes are thought of as more educated, when really there are plenty of lower class citizens that are educated as well. Unfortunately, there are less opportunities for success for the lower class. They have less access to resources to help them in life. This can make it extremely difficult to get out of the spiral of poverty. In reality, social class is an important tool that people use in all aspects of their lives. From choosing where they want to work, learn, and who they want to socialize with, social class is a big factor. People tend to follow what the rest of their class is doing and what the class "norms" are. This I think can cause stereotypes and generalizations to form, because the class tends to be grouped together and referred to as one. In a way though, social classes can be good for people. THey allow people to share a bond of financial status, wealth, image and other factors. Those factors are generally equal in the same social class so people can relate well with each other. There are pros and cons to social classes, but I think the system is definitely here to stay. No matter what, people of the same social and financial status will group together and form an informal kind of class system.

SOCIAL CLASS POST 7

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/social_groups_crime.htm

In this article, it talks about the relationship between social class and crime in England. According to studies done in prisons, a majority of the inmates are from the lower social class. Also, most street crimes are committed by people belonging to the lower class.  The article also goes in depth about how certain crimes are more frequently committed by certain groups of people. For example, young people are more likely to commit street crimes because their lifestyle gives them more of an opportunity to commit crimes. Although being young does not have its own social class, one could argue that young people on their own typically could be considered a part of the lower social class because they usually have no way to support themselves fully without the aid of their parents/guardians.

I think that it kind of makes sense that most street crime is committed by the lower class. Usually, they live in areas where there is abundant crime, and it is almost just a way of life in some parts. In other cases, it is necessary for them to get by. In order to survive, they might need to steal food or money. They just don't have a choice. Also, the lower classes tend to be less educated, which means that they really aren't able to get high status jobs, so they usually earn minimum wage and can't break the cycle of poverty which keeps them in theese bad areas. As for the younger people committing more crimes, that makes sense as well. Young people have less stable lives and often get put or put themselves in risky situations where street crime could easily occur.

SOCIAL CLASS POST 6

ARTICLE: http://www.classism.org/about-class

In this article, they discuss something known as Classism. Classism is when someone is treated better or worse, because of the class that they are in. Or the class that someone THINKS they are in. It is similar to how racism or sexism works, except instead of race and sex, its based on class. Classism is shown institutionally through policies and practices, and culturally through norms and values. According to the article, classism shows itself when a higher class acts superior or arrogant toward lower classes, or when people think of higher classes as more educated or articulate than the lower classes. Because the higher classes have the most influence over society, they somewhat decide what the social "norms"are. Classism shapes the structures of certain institutions, so the higher classes have a lot of benefits. Classism hurts poor and working class people. Classism can lead to neglect to the poor and homelessness, hunger, and disease. Classism can also harm the upper classes. Being treated as superior, given more privileges and being more sheltered from the world can give people in the higher class a false sense of security and not provide them with interaction with the outside world. They might start to feel guilty, thinking that they don't deserve what they have and don't know how to share with others what they have. Classism can contribute to inequality between social classes, because one class can think that they are superior or inferior to another.

I think this article really puts a word to something that goes on almost all the time and nobody ever really knows what to call it. I see this in almost all aspects of life. In retail for example, someone who is perceived to be wealthier and in a higher class will usually get helped first. It isn't discrimination based on race, its based on class. Both are bad, but classism is making assumptions about someones class simply based off of their appearance. I don't think this is good to have in our society. It puts the higher class above everyone and puts an emphasis on having a pristine outer image, to show off your social class. It really isn't promoting equality among social classes.