SOC 12050 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Cultural Capital, World Economy

• School: Kent State University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 12050
• Professor: Allen Lowery

Document Summary

Impact of formal schooling is even greater than that of family background. Richer people live, on average, seven years longer because they eat more nutritious food, live in safer and less stressful environments, and receive better medical care: values. The reverse is true for those people of lower social standing: higher-income people are more likely to vote and join political organizations than people in the lower class, what difference does class make. Life chances: the shrinking middle class, only about 22 percent of american households qualified as middle class in 2006, compared to 28 percent in 1967. About half rose to higher ranking, and half dropped to lower position. Suggests broadly based middle class is being replaced by two growing groups of rich and poor: poverty, defining poverty, absolute poverty: minimum level of subsistence that no family should be expected to live below.