SOC-1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Elite, Working Poor, Social Mobility

• School: Vanderbilt University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC-1010
• Professor: William Hale

Document Summary

Social inequality--a disparity in income, wealth, power, prestige, and other resources. Social levels are closed, individuals remain at the social level of their birth throughout life: based on personal characteristics present at birth, mobility virtually impossible, ascribed rather than achieved. Social mobility allows someone to change their socioeconomic position: class--a person"s economic position in society associated with differences in income, wealth, and occupation. Socioeconomic status--refers to an individual"s position in a stratified social order: modern capitalist society is teardrop-shaped (underclass, working poor, working class, middle class, upper middle class, capitalist class) Successful achievement of political goals: c. wright mills" power elite, political, military, and corporate elites, consensus on major decisions. [decision-making power of international and national interest remain with the power elite] Food deserts--sites bereft of places selling competitively prices, healthy, fresh food: neighborhood poverty, poor neighborhoods: more negative social, economic, and educational effects than in a mixed-income area.