Please write a paper analyzing the film using the concepts from Chapter 14 on Health Care – Chapter 8 and 10 This is the film: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/title/… I’ve attached the question and I would like to solve it using text book

20181203173604questions 20181203173552rubric 20181203173603chapter_10 20181203173604chapter_14_on_health_care 20181203230429film_paper__1 x20181203173601chapter_8

Please write a paper analyzing the film using the concepts from Chapter 14 on Health Care – Chapter 8 and 10

This is the film:

https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/title/…

I’ve attached the question and I would like to solve it using text book as one and only resource

Textbook name : Sociology the essentials 9th edition

Please note that i’m an international student and my English level is 6/10 so it shouldn’t so it shouldn’t be a professional English vocabulary but the idea should be delivered correctly,

Make sure : the answers shouldn’t be an essay. answers each one separately

Also I’ve attached the rubric and everything should match proficient required from the rubric

Note : use the same format of the file that I’ve attached called “Film Paper 1#”

Scanned with CamScanner

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Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

227

You might expect a society based on the values of freedom and equality, such as the United States, not to be deeply afflicted by racial–ethnic conflict, but
think of the following situations:

● In 2009, James von Brunn, an eighty-eight-year-old self-
proclaimed White supremacist, gunned down and killed
a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, DC. Federal authorities knew James von
Brunn was affiliated with various hate groups. The shooter
left an anti-Semitic letter in his car parked outside the
museum, charging that “Obama was created by Jews.” The
guard who was shot and killed, Stephen T. Johns, was a
thirty-nine-year-old African American guard who worked
at the museum.

● A sorority at a major East Coast university posted a photo
of their group dressed in sombreros, ponchos, and fake
mustaches, also carrying signs that said, “Will mow lawn
for weed and beer.” Such denigrating and offensive “racial
theme parties” are common on college campuses (Cabrera
2014), including the March 2015 event in which a chapter
of Sigma Alpha Epsilon at the University of Oklahoma was
closed after a busload of fraternity brothers chanted a
highly racist tune: “There will never be a ni**** at SAE. You
can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me.
There will never be a ni**** at SAE” (cnn.com).

● A thirty-eight-year-old American man of East Indian
descent and vice president of a major bank was attacked
on a Lake Tahoe beach as his attackers called him a “ter-
rorist,” “relative of Osama bin Laden,” and “Indian garbage.”
The attack broke his eye socket and he will have dizzy spells
for the rest of his life.

These are all ugly incidents. They all have one thing in
common—racial–ethnic prejudice and overt racism. Race and
ethnicity have fundamental importance in human social inter-
action and are integral parts of the social institutions in the
United States. Unfortunately, ethnic prejudice and racism are
also integral to American society.

Of course, racial and ethnic groups do not always interact
as enemies, and interracial tension is not always obvious. It can
be as subtle as a White person who simply does not initiate

Race and Ethnicity
Race and Ethnicity 228

Racial Stereotypes 232

Prejudice and Discrimination 234

Racism 236

Theories of Prejudice
and Racism 238

Diverse Groups, Diverse
Histories 240

Attaining Racial and Ethnic
Equality: The Challenge 247

Chapter Summary 250

● Define race as a social
construction

● Define and give examples of
stereotype interchangeability

● Understand the difference
between prejudice and racism

● Define and distinguish the
different forms of racism

● Show how sociological theory
broadens our understanding
of prejudice and discrimination

● Discuss at least one common
thread present in the histories
of Blacks, Mexican Americans,
and Japanese Americans in
the United States

● Compare and contrast the
different social change
strategies toward the
attainment of racial–ethnic
equality and freedom in the
United States

in this chapter, you will learn to:

2 2 8 CHA PT ER 10

interactions with African Americans and Latinos, or an elderly White man who almost imperceptibly
leans backward at a cocktail party as a Japanese American man approaches him.

In everyday human interaction, as African American philosopher Cornel West has cogently argued,
race matters and still matters a lot (West 2004; 1994). What is race, and what is ethnicity? Why does
society treat racial and ethnic groups differently, and why is there social inequality—stratification—
between these groups? Racial and ethnic inequality is so strong and persistent in American society
that sociologists reject the notion that we are a “postracial” society. As this chapter will show, race and
ethnicity remain two of the most important axes of social stratification in the United States.

Race and Ethnicity
Within sociology, the terms ethnicity, race, minority,
and dominant group have very specific meanings, dif-
ferent from their meanings in common usage. These
concepts are important in developing a sociological
perspective on race and ethnicity.

Ethnicity
An ethnic group is a social category of people who share
a common culture, for example, a common language
or dialect, a common nationality, a common religion,
and common norms, practices, customs, and history.
Ethnic groups have a consciousness of their com-
mon cultural bond—a “consciousness of kind.” Italian
Americans, Japanese Americans, Arab Americans, Polish
Americans, Greek Americans, Mexican Americans, and
Irish Americans are all examples of ethnic groups in
the United States. Ethnic groups are also found in other
societies, such as the Pashtuns in Afghanistan or the
Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq, whose ethnicity is based on
religious differences.

An ethnic group does not exist only because of
the common national or cultural origins of a group,
however. Ethnic groups develop also because of their
unique historical and social experiences. These experi-
ences become the basis for the group’s ethnic identity,
meaning the definition the group has of itself as sharing
a common cultural bond. Prior to immigration to the
United States, Italians, for example, did not necessarily
think of themselves as a distinct group with common
interests and experiences. Originating from different
villages, cities, and regions of Italy, Italian immigrants
identified themselves by their family background and
community of origin. However, the process of immigra-
tion and the experiences Italian Americans faced as a
group in the United States, including discrimination,
created a new identity for the group, who subsequently
began to define themselves as “Italians” (Waters and
Levitt 2002; Alba 1990; Waters 1990).

The social and cultural basis of ethnicity allows
ethnic groups to develop more or less intense ethnic

identification at different points in time. Ethnic iden-
tification may grow stronger when groups face preju-
dice or hostility from other groups. Perceived or real
threats and perceived competition from other groups
may unite an ethnic group around common politi-
cal and economic interests, which as you may recall
was an idea advanced by early sociological theo-
rist Emile Durkheim (see Chapter 1). Ethnic unity
can develop voluntarily, or it may be involuntarily
imposed when more powerful groups exclude ethnic
groups from certain residential areas, occupations, or
social clubs. Exclusionary practices strengthen ethnic
identity.

Defining Race
Like ethnicity, race is primarily, though not exclu-
sively, a socially constructed category. A race is a group
treated as distinct in society based on certain charac-
teristics, some of may be biological, that have been
assigned or attributed social importance. Because of
presumed biologically or culturally inferior character-
istics (as defined by powerful groups in society), a race
is often singled out for differential and unfair treat-
ment. It is not the biological characteristics per se that
define racial groups but how groups have been treated
and labeled historically and socially (Higginbotham
and Andersen 2012).

Society assigns people to racial categories, such as
Black, White, and so on, not because of science, logic,
or fact, but because of opinion and social experience.
In other words, how groups are defined racially is a
social process. This is what is meant when one says that
race is “socially constructed.” Although the meaning of
race begins with alleged biological/genetic differences
between groups (such as differences in physical char-
acteristics like skin color, lip form, and hair texture), on
closer examination, the assumption that racial differ-
ences are purely biological breaks down. In fact, biolo-
gists have pointed out that there is little correspondence
between races as defined biologically/genetically and
the actual naming of the races (Taylor 2012; Morning
2011; Ledger 2009; Lewontin 1996).

RACE AND ETH N ICI TY 2 2 9

DEBUNKING Society’s Myths←
Myth: Racial differences are fixed, biological categories.
Sociological Perspective: Race is a social construct,
one in which certain physical or cultural characteris-
tics take on social meanings that become the basis for
racism and discrimination. The definition of race varies
across cultures within a society, across different societ-
ies, and at different times in the history of a given society
(Graves 2004).

The social categories used to divide groups into
races are not fixed. They vary from society to society and
at different times in the history of a given society (Morn-
ing 2011, 2008; Washington 2011). Within the United
States, laws defining who is Black have historically var-
ied from state to state. North Carolina and Tennessee
law historically defined people as Black if they have
even one great-grandparent who was Black (thus being
one-eighth Black—called “octoroon” in the 1890 Cen-
sus; see Table 10.1). In other southern states, having any
Black ancestry at all defined one as a Black person—the
so-called one-drop rule, that is, one drop of Black blood
(Washington 2011; Broyard 2007; Malcomson 2000).
This one-drop rule still applies to a great extent today in
the United States, even though its use for defining one’s
race has eroded somewhat.

This is even more complex when we consider the
meaning of race in other countries. In Brazil, a light-
skinned Black person could well be considered White,
especially if the person is of high socioeconomic sta-
tus. This demonstrates that one’s race in Brazil is in
part actually defined by one’s social class. Thus, in
parts of Brazil, it is often said that “money lightens” (o
dinheiro embranquence). In this sense, a category such
as social class can become racialized. In fact, people in
Brazil are considered Black only if they are clearly of
African descent and have little or no discernible White
ancestry at all. A large percentage of U.S. Blacks would
not be considered Black in Brazil (Telles et al. 2011;
Telles 2004). Although Brazil is often touted as being
a utopia of race “mixing” and racial social equality,
nonetheless, as sociologist Edward Telles notes, light-
skinned Brazilians continue to be privileged and con-
tinue to hold a disproportionate share of the wealth
and power. Brazilians of darker skin color have signifi-
cantly lower earnings, occupational status, and lower
access to education (Telles et al. 2011; Villareal 2010;
Telles 2004, 1994).

Racialization is a process whereby some social
category, such as a social class or nationality, takes
on what society perceives to be racial characteristics
(Omi and Winant 2014; Harrison 2000; Malcomson
2000). The experiences of Jewish people provide a good

example of what it means to say that race is a socially
constructed category. Jews are more accurately called
an ethnic group because of common religious and cul-
tural heritage, but in Nazi Germany, Hitler defined Jews
as a “race.” An ethnic group thus became racialized. Jews
were presumed to be biologically inferior to the group
Hitler labeled the Aryans—white-skinned, blonde,
tall, blue-eyed people. On the basis of this definition—
which was supported through Nazi law, taught in Nazi
schools, and enforced by the Nazi military—Jewish
people were brutally mistreated. They were segregated,
persecuted, and systematically murdered in what has
come to be called the Holocaust during the Second
World War.

Mixed-race people defy the biological categories
that are typically used to define race. Is someone
who is the child of an Asian mother and an African
American father Asian or Black? Reflecting this issue,
the U.S. Census’s current practice is for people to have
the option of checking several racial categories rather
than just one, thus defining one’s self as “biracial”
or “multiracial” (Spencer 2011; Waters 1990). As
◆ Table 10.1 shows, the decennial U.S. census (taken
every ten years) has dramatically changed its racial and
ethnic classifications since 1890, reflecting the fact that
society’s thinking about racial and ethnic categoriza-
tion has not remained constant through time (Spencer
2012; Saulny 2011; Washington 2011; Rodriguez 2000;
Lee 1993).

Opposition to the multiple categorization of races
has arisen upon both scholarly and political grounds.
Some (Spencer 2012) have argued that advocating
simultaneous multiple categorization of races tends
to downplay the rich cultural traditions in the case of
Blacks in the United States, including but not limited
to language (“Ebonics”), music (jazz, blues, rock, hip-
hop, and so on), dance, a vast literature, and many,
many others. Some people have argued that multira-
cial classification will ultimately lead to a “postracial”
society and thus a solution of sorts to race problems in
the United States. Wiping out single-race categorization
will not, and has not, however, led to less discrimina-
tion against minorities of color.

The “postracial dream” conflicts with the hard
realities of housing discrimination, higher foreclo-
sure rates during the recession, racial discrimination
in education and in standardized testing, differential
access to medical care, a lower life expectancy, and
many other forms of discrimination (Bobo 2012; Rugh
and Massey 2010). Some of these forms of racial dis-
crimination actually increased even within the last
decade! At least one sociological analyst concluded
that “Those who proclaim that multiracial identity will
destroy racial distinctions are living a lie” (Spencer
2012: 70).

23 0 CHA PTER 10

The Significance of Defining Race. The biologi-
cal characteristics that have been used to define dif-
ferent racial groups vary considerably both within and
between groups. Many Asians, for example, are actu-
ally lighter skinned than many Europeans and White
Americans but, regardless of their skin color, have been
defined in racial terms as “yellow.” Some light-skinned
African Americans are also lighter in skin color than
some White Americans. Developing racial categories
overlooks the fact that human groups defined as races
are—biologically speaking—much more alike than they
are different (Graves 2004).

The biological differences that are presumed to
define different racial groups are somewhat arbitrary.
Why, for example, do we differentiate people based
on skin color and not some other characteristic such
as height or hair color? You might ask yourself how
a society based on the presumed racial inferiority
of red-haired people would compare to other racial
inequalities in the United States. The likelihood is that
if a powerful group defined another group as infe-
rior because of some biological characteristics and
they used their power to create social institutions that
treated this group unfairly, a system of racial inequal-
ity would result. In fact, very few biological differences
exist between racial groups. As we already noted, most
of the variability in almost all biological characteristics,
even blood type and various bodily chemicals, is within
and not between racial groups.

Different groups use different criteria to define
racial groups. To American Indians, being classified
as an American Indian depends upon proving one’s

◆ Table 10.1 Comparison of U.S. Census Classifications, 1890–2010

Census Date White African American Native American Asian American Other Categories

1890 White Black, Mulatto,
Quadroon, Octoroon

Indian Chinese, Japanese

1900 White Black Indian Chinese, Japanese

1910 White Black, Mulatto Indian Chinese, Japanese Other

1990 White Black or Negro Indian (American)
Eskimo
Aleut

Chinese, Japanese,
Filipino, Korean, Asian,
Indian, Vietnamese

Hawaiian, Guamanian,
Samoan, Asian or Pacific
Islander, Other

2000 and
2010a, b

White Black or African
American

American Indian,
Alaskan Native

Chinese, Japanese,
Filipino, Korean, Asian,
Indian, Vietnamese

Native Hawaiian, Pacific
Islander, Other

a In 2000, for the first time ever, and again in 2010, individuals could select more than one racial category. In 2010, only 5 percent actually did so.
b Hispanics were included under “Other” in 1910 and 1920. In 1930 and subsequent years, the category “Mexican” was listed in addition to the
category “Other.”

Sources: Lee, Sharon. 1993. “Racial Classification in the U.S. Census: 1890–1990.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 16(1): 75–94; U.S. Census Bureau.
2003. “Racial and Ethnic Classification Used in Census 2000 and Beyond.” Rodriguez, Clara E. 2000. Changing Race: Latinos, the Census,
and the History of Ethnicity. New York: New York University Press; Silver, Alexandra. 2010. “Brief History of the U.S. Census.” Time (February 8):
16; Washington, Scott. 2011. “Who Isn’t Black? The History of the One-Drop Rule.” PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, Princeton
University, Princeton, NJ.

This is Barack Obama, the first African American ever to
be elected U.S. president, and for two terms. His father is
Black African (Kenyan) and his mother is White American.
Why is his race African American?

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Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

RACE AND ETH N ICI TY 23 1

ancestry, but this proof varies considerably from nation
to nation. Among some American Indians, one must
be able to demonstrate at least 75 percent American
Indian ancestry to be recognized as such; for other
American Indians, demonstrating 50 percent American
Indian ancestry is sufficient.

It also matters who defines racial group member-
ship. The government makes tribes prove themselves
as tribes through a complex set of federal regulations
(called the “federal acknowledgment process”); very few
are actually given this official status, and the criteria for
tribal membership as well as definition as “Indian” or
“Native American” have varied considerably through-
out American history. Thus, as with African Americans,
it has been the state or federal government, and not so
much the racial or ethnic group itself, that has defined
who is a member of the group and who is not!

Official recognition by the government matters. For
example, only those groups officially defined as Indian
tribes qualify for health, housing, and educational
assistance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (the BIA) or
are allowed to manage the natural resources on Indian
lands and maintain their own system of governance
(Locklear 1999; Brown 1993; Snipp 1989).

This definition of race emphasizes that in addition
to physical and cultural differences, race is created and
maintained by the most powerful in society. Again, this
is what is meant by the social construction of race. Who
is defined as a race can be as much a political question
as a biological or cultural one. For example, although
they probably did not think of themselves as a race,
Irish Americans in the early twentieth century were
defined by more powerful White groups as a “race” that
was inferior to White people. This was an example of the
racialization of an ethnic or nationality group. At that
time, Irish people were not considered by many even to
be White (Ignatiev 1995)! In fact, a century ago, the Irish
were called “negroes/coloreds/Blacks/niggers turned
inside out,” and Negroes (Black people) were called
“smoked Irish” (Malcomson 2000).

The social construction of race has been elabo-
rated in an insightful perspective in sociology known as
racial formation theory (Omi and Winant 2014; Brodkin
2006). Racial formation is the process by which a
group comes to be defined as a race. This definition
is supported through official social institutions such
as the law and the government. This concept empha-
sizes the importance of social institutions in producing
and maintaining the meaning of race; it also connects
the process of racial formation to the exploitation of
so-called racial groups. A good example comes from
African American history. During slavery, an African
American was defined as being three-fifths of a person
(equivalently, as “divested two-fifths the man”) for the
purposes of deciding how slaves would be counted for
state representation in the new federal government
and how they would be defined for purposes of taxa-
tion. Defining slaves in this way served the purposes of
White Americans, not slaves themselves. It linked the
definition of slaves as a race to the political and eco-
nomic needs of the most powerful group in society
(A. L. Higginbotham 1978).

“Whiteness” is also a social construction. This only
underscores the importance of social constructionism
in the definition of race in addition to biological crite-
ria. A new field of “Whiteness studies” has developed,
showing how racial formation works in defining who
is “White” (Painter 2011). Early on, Anglo-Saxons were
defined as the “true Whites” and thus superior to other
White groups (Irish, Germans, Polish, and Italians, for
example).

Racial formation theory also explains how groups
such as Asian Americans, American Indians, and Lati-
nos have been defined as races, despite the different
experiences and nationalities of the groups compos-
ing these three categories. Race, like ethnicity, lumps
groups together that may have very different histori-
cal and cultural backgrounds, but once they are so
labeled, the groups are perceived as a single entity. All
members of any out-group are perceived to be similar

Most people still think race is a strictly
physical, biological category of humans.
This is not correct. The notion of race
is more social construction than biol-
ogy. Race is, in part, perceived physical
attributes such as skin color, hair texture,
lip form, eye form, and so on, but it in
greater part is defined by social and

What Exactly Is “Race” Anyway?
cultural attributes. In fact, any biologi-
cal category of “race” is not a socially
identifiable category at all without the
social and cultural attributes that society
assigns to the various “race” labels.
Hence, the notion of race is strongly
rooted in society and has taken on its
meaning only as people were treated

differently throughout time. Up until the
1950s in the United States, the races
were defined as strict physical/biological
categories, as follows: Negro (Black),
Caucasian (White), Asian (Yellow),
American Indian (Red), and finally
“Australoid” (Brown). Virtually all the
colors of the spectrum! There are still
people to this day who define “race” in
terms of this archaic color spectrum.

what would a sociologist say?

232 CHAPTER 10

or even identical to each other, and differences among
them are perceived to be minor or nonexistent. This
has recently been the case in the United States with
Middle Easterners: Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians, Saudi
Arabians, Iranians, Iraqis, Jordanians, Afghans, and
many others are classified as one group and called
Middle Easterners, or simply “Arabs.”

Minority and Dominant Groups
Minorities are racial or ethnic groups, but not all racial
or ethnic groups are always considered minorities.
Irish Americans, for instance, are no longer thought of
as minorities, although they certainly were in the early
part of the twentieth century. A minority group is any
distinct group in society that shares common group
characteristics and is forced to occupy low status in
society because of prejudice and discrimination. The
group that assigns a racial or ethnic group to subordi-
nate status in society is called the dominant group.

A group may be classified as a minority on the
basis of ethnicity, race, sexual preference, age, class
status, and even gender. A minority group is not nec-
essarily a numerical minority but is a group that holds
low social status in relation to other groups in society,
regardless of the size of the group. In South Africa,
Blacks outnumber Whites ten to one, but Blacks have
been viciously oppressed and politically excluded
first under the infamous apartheid (pronounced
“aparthate” or “apart hite”) system of government. In
general, a racial or ethnic minority group has the fol-
lowing characteristics:

1. The minority group possesses characteristics (such
as race, ethnicity, sexual preference, age, religion,
or gender) that are regarded as different from those
of the dominant group.

2. The minority group suffers prejudice and discrimi-
nation by the dominant group.

3. Membership in the group is frequently ascribed
rather than achieved, although either form of status
can be the basis for being identified as a minority.

4. Members of a minority group feel a strong sense
of group solidarity. There is a “consciousness of
kind” or “we” feeling. This bond grows from com-
mon cultural heritage and the shared experience of
being a recipient of prejudice and discrimination.

DEBUNKING Society’s Myths←
Myth: Minority groups are those with the least numerical
representation in society.
Sociological Perspective: A minority group is any group,
regardless of size, that is singled out in society for unfair
treatment and that generally occupies a lower status in
the society.

Racial Stereotypes
Racial and ethnic inequality in society produces racial
stereotypes, and these stereotypes become the lens
through which members of different groups perceive
one another. Over time, these stereotypes may become
more rigid and unchangeable. A stereotype is an over-
simplified set of beliefs about members of a social
group or social stratum. It is based on the tendency of
humans to categorize a person based on a narrow range
of perceived characteristics. Stereotypes are presumed
to describe the “typical” member of some social group.
They are usually, but not always, incorrect.

Stereotypes and Salience
In everyday social interaction, people tend to catego-
rize other people. Fortunately or unfortunately, we all
do this. The most common bases for such categoriza-
tions are race, gender, and age. A person immediately
identifies a stranger as Black, Asian, Hispanic, White,
and so on; as a man or woman; and as a child, teen-
ager, adult, or elderly person. Quick and ready cat-
egorizations help people process the huge amounts of
information they receive about people with whom they
come into contact. People quickly assign others to a few
categories, saving themselves the task of evaluating and
remembering every little discernible detail about a per-
son. People may be taught from childhood to treat each
person as a unique individual, but clearly they do not,
as research shows. Instead, people routinely categorize
others in some way or another. We process information
about others quickly, assigning certain characteristics
to them with little actual knowledge of them.

Stereotypes based on race or ethnicity are called
racial–ethnic stereotypes. Here are some common
examples of racial–ethnic stereotypes: Asian Americans
have been stereotyped as overly ambitious to a fault,
and academically successful; African Americans often
bear the stereotype of being loud and lazy; Hispanics
are stereotyped as lazy, oversexed, and for Hispanic
men, macho; Jews have been perceived as overly mate-
rialistic. Such stereotypes, presumed to describe the
“typical” members of a group, are factually inaccurate for
the vast majority of members of a group. No group in
U.S. history has escaped the process of categorization
and stereotyping, not even White groups. For example,
Italians have been stereotyped as overly emotional and
prone to crime, the Irish as heavy drinkers and political,
and so on for virtually any group in U.S. history.

The categorization of people into groups and the
subsequent application of stereotypes is based on
the salience principle, which states that we categorize
people on the basis of what appears initially prominent
and obvious—that is, salient—about them. Skin color is
a salient characteristic; it is one of the first things that

RACE AN D E THN ICI TY 233

we notice about someone. Because skin color is so obvi-
ous, it becomes a basis for stereotyping. Gender and
age are also salient characteristics of an individual and
thus serve as notable bases for group stereotyping.

→THINKING Sociologically
Observe several people on the street. What are the
first things you notice about them (that is, what is
salient)? Make a short list of these things. Do these
lead you to stereotype these people? On what are your
stereotypes based?

The choice of salient characteristics is culturally
determined. In the United States, skin color, hair tex-
ture, nose form and size, and lip form and size have
become salient characteristics, and these characteris-
tics determine whether we perceive someone as “intel-
ligent” or “stupid,” as “attractive” or “unattractive,” or
even “trustworthy” or “untrustworthy.” This was shown
in a clever experiment by R. Hunt, who had people rate
photographs of other people for trustworthiness (Hunt
2005). People with darker skin were rated as less trust-
worthy than lighter-skinned people; people with kinky
hair (regardless of their skin color) were rated as less
trustworthy; and people with thick lips (regardless of
skin color and hair texture) were rated as less trustwor-
thy than people with thin lips.

Clearly, we use salient features to categorize people
in our minds, including on the basis of race. In other cul-
tures, religion may be far more salient than skin color.
In the Middle East, whether one is Muslim or Christian
is far more important than skin color.

The Interplay among Race, Gender,
and Class Stereotypes
Alongside racial and ethnic stereotypes, gender, social
class, and age are among prominent features by which
people are categorized. In our society, there is a com-
plex interplay among racial or ethnic, gender, and class
stereotypes.

Among gender stereotypes, those based on a person’s
gender, the stereotypes about women are more likely to
be negative than those about men. The “typical” woman
has been traditionally stereotyped as subservient, overly
emotional and talkative, inept at math and science, and
so on. These stereotypes are conveyed and supported
by the cultural media—music, TV, magazines, art, and
literature—and also by one’s family. Men, too, are
painted in crude strokes, although usually not as nega-
tively as women. Men in the media are stereotyped as
macho, insensitive, and pigheaded and are portrayed in
situation comedies as inept and bumbling. Stereotypes
of men vary, however, depending on their race and class.

Social class stereotypes are based on assumptions
about social class status. First of all, people use a variety
of visual (salient) clues to categorize a person by social
class: Speech, mannerisms, dress, and so on serve as
such salient (though not always accurate) clues. Then,
upper-class people are stereotyped (by middle- and
working-class people) as snooty, aloof, condescend-
ing, and phony. Some of the stereotypes held about the
middle class (by both the upper class and the working
class) are that they are overly ambitious, striving, and
obsessed with “keeping up with the Joneses.” Finally,
stereotypes about working-class people abound: They
are perceived by the upper and middle classes as dirty,
lazy, unmotivated, violent, and so on. These stereo-
types are then used (by the upper and middle classes)
as presumed explanations of why those perceived are
“lower” in their social class, bad citizens, unsuccessful,
and so on.

The principle of stereotype interchangeability
holds that stereotypes, especially negative ones,
are often interchangeable from one social class to
another, from one racial or ethnic group to another,
from a racial or ethnic group to a social class, or from
a social class to a gender. Stereotype interchangeabil-
ity is sometimes revealed through humor. Ethnic jokes
often interchange different groups as the butt of the
humor, stereotyping them as dumb and inept. Take
the stereotype of African Americans as inherently lazy.
This stereotype has also been applied in recent history
to Hispanic, Polish, Irish, Italian, and other groups
(illustrating interchangeability from one racial–ethnic
group to another). It has even been applied to those
people perceived as lower class (showing interchange-
ability from a racial–ethnic group to a social class). In
fact, “laziness” is often used to explain why someone is
working class or poor.

The same kinds of stereotypes have historically
been applied to women. Many of the stereotypes
applied to women in literature and the media—they are
childlike, overly emotional, unreasonable, bad at math-
ematics, and so on—have also been applied to African
Americans, working-class people, the poor, and Chi-
nese Americans earlier in the twentieth century. This
shows stereotype interchangeability among gender,
racial groups, and social classes. A common theme is
apparent: Whatever group occupies lower social sta-
tus in society at a given time (whether racial or ethnic
minorities, women, or the working class), that group
is negatively stereotyped. Often the same negative ste-
reotypes are used between and among these groups.
The stereotype is then used as an “explanation” for the
observed behavior of a stereotyped group’s members to
justify their lower status in society. This in turn subjects
the stereotyped group to prejudice, discrimination, and
racism—topics to which we now turn, after first dis-
cussing the notion of stereotype threat.

23 4 CHA PT ER 10

Can stereotypes affect the actual behavior of the
stereotyped individual? Can stereotypes about stereo-
typed individuals become internalized by those indi-
viduals and thus affect their actual behavior?

An answer of sorts has been provided in the lengthy
ongoing research by the social psychologist Claude
Steele and colleagues on the principle of stereotype
threat (Steele 2010, 1997; Steele and Aaronson 1995).
Recently, stereotype threat has become one of the most
studied and researched topics in the field of social
psychology. In experimental settings, if African Ameri-
cans are given instructions by a prestigious expert say-
ing that African Americans are less intelligent than
Whites, African Americans then perform less well than
equally matched Whites who were told the same thing.
To date, a large number of studies have confirmed this
kind of effect. Other studies have also shown that ste-
reotype threat can result in memory loss in African
Americans as well as in women.

Prejudice and
Discrimination
Many people use the terms prejudice, discrimination,
and racism loosely, as if they were all the same thing.
They are not. Typically, in common parlance, people
also think of these terms as they apply to individuals, as
if the major problems of race are the result of individual
people’s bad will or biased ideas. This ignores the social
structural and institutional levels of race in the United
States. Sociologists use more refined concepts to under-
stand race and ethnic relations, distinguishing carefully
between prejudice, discrimination, and racism.

Prejudice
Prejudice is the evaluation of a social group and the
individuals within it, based on conceptions about the
social group that are held despite facts that disprove
them; the beliefs involve both prejudgment and mis-
judgment (Jones et al. 2013; Allport 1954). Prejudices
are usually defined as negative predispositions or
as evaluations that are rarely positive. Thinking ill of
people only because they are members of group X is
prejudice.

A negative prejudice against someone not in one’s
own group is often accompanied by a positive prejudice
in favor of someone who is in one’s own group. Thus the
prejudiced person will have negative attitudes about a
member of an out-group (any group other than one’s
own) and positive attitudes about someone simply
because he or she is in one’s in-group (any group a per-
son considers to be one’s own).

Most people disavow racial or ethnic prejudice, yet
the vast majority of us carry around some prejudices,
whether about racial–ethnic groups, women and men,

old and young, upper class and lower class, or straight
and gay. Virtually no one is free of prejudice—of both
harboring it and being the recipient of it. Decades of
research have shown definitively that people who are
more prejudiced are also more likely to stereotype and
categorize others by race or ethnicity or by gender than
those who are less prejudiced (Taylor et al. 2013; 2014;
Adorno et al. 1950).

Prejudice based on race or ethnicity is called racial
or ethnic prejudice. If you are Latino and dislike Anglos
only because they are White, then this constitutes preju-
dice: It is a negative judgment or prejudgment based on
race and ethnicity and very little else. If a Latino individ-
ual attempts to justify these feelings by arguing that “all
Whites have the same bad character,” then the Latino is
using a stereotype as justification for the prejudice. Note
that any group can hold prejudice against another group.

Prejudice is also revealed in the phenomenon of
ethnocentrism, which was examined in Chapter 2 on
culture. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s group is
superior to all other groups. Ethnocentric people feel
that their own group is moral, just, and right, and that an
out-group—and thus any member of that out-group—is
immoral, unjust, wrong, distrustful, or criminal. Ethno-
centric individuals use their own in-group as the stan-
dard against which all other groups are compared.

People are not born with stereotypes and preju-
dices. Research shows that prejudiced attitudes are
learned and internalized through socialization, includ-
ing from family, peers, teachers, and the media, among
some places. Children imitate the attitudes of their
parents, peers, and teachers. If a parent complains
about “Japs taking away jobs from Americans,” then the
child grows up thinking negatively about the Japanese,
including Japanese Americans. Attitudes about race are
formed early in childhood, at about age 3 or 4 (Feagin
2000; Van Ausdale and Feagin 1996; Allport 1954). The
more ethnically or racially prejudiced the parent, the
more ethnically or racially prejudiced the child will be.
This is even true for individuals who insist that they can
think for themselves, and who think they are not influ-
enced by their parents’ prejudice (Taylor et al. 2013).

As we saw in Chapter 2, the media outlets are major
vehicles for communicating racial–ethnic attitudes. For
many decades, African Americans, Hispanics, Native
Americans, and Asians were rarely represented in the
media and then only in negatively stereotyped roles.
Now, although images in the media have improved,
there are still rampant stereotypical images in the media
(Dirks and Mueller 2010).

Discrimination
Different from prejudice, which is an attitude, dis-
crimination is behavior. Discrimination is overt nega-
tive and unequal treatment of members of some social

RACE AND E THN IC ITY 235

group or stratum solely because of their membership in
that group or stratum. Prejudice is an attitude; discrimi-
nation is overt behavior. Racial–ethnic discrimination is
unequal treatment of a person on the basis of race or
ethnicity.

Discrimination occurs in many sites and it can be
seen in studies. Audit studies take two people identi-
cal in nearly all respects (age, education, gender, social
class, and other characteristics) who then present
themselves as potential tenants or employees. If one is
White and the other is a minority, the minority person
will often be refused housing or employment by land-
lords and employers. Audit studies have found that
discrimination occurs far more frequently than most
people imagine (Feagin 2007).

The discrimination affecting the nation’s minori-
ties takes a number of forms—for example, income dis-
crimination, as you can see in ▲ Figure 10.1. Although
the median income of Black and Hispanic families
has increased since 1970, the size of the income gap
between these two groups and Whites has remained
much the same over time.

Median income figures tell only part of the story
though. In addition to annual income, the net worth of
White families has consistently grown faster than that
of Black families (Oliver and Shapiro 2008). Net worth
may well be a better indicator of economic inequality
than annual income. Poverty among Blacks has also
decreased since the 1950s, but is now close to the same
level as in 1970. As ▲ Figure 10.2 shows, the current pov-
erty rate is highest for African Americans and Hispanics
compared with Whites or Asians. Note that it is greater
for Asians than for Whites. In all these racial groups,
children have the highest rate of poverty.

Discrimination is illegal under U.S. law. Nonethe-
less, for many years, various discriminatory processes
have continued. Take housing as an example. Even very

recently, banks and mortgage companies have withheld
mortgage loans from minorities based on “redlining,”
an illegal practice in which entire minority neighbor-
hoods are designated as “ineligible for loans.” Racial
segregation may also be fostered by gerrymandering,
the calculated redrawing of election districts, school
districts, and similar political boundaries to maintain
racial segregation.

Segregation is the spatial and social separation of
racial and ethnic groups. Although desegregation has
been mandated by law (thus eliminating de jure seg-
regation, or legal segregation), de facto segregation—
segregation in fact—still exists, particularly in housing
and education. Segregation has contributed to the cre-
ation of an urban underclass, a grouping of people,
largely minorities and the poor, who live at the absolute
bottom of the socioeconomic ladder in urban areas

$80,000

$67,469

$40,205

$33, 295

$57, 880

$70,000

$60,000

$50,000

$40,000

$30,000

$20,000

$10,000

1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2013

White, not-Hispanic Black Hispanic Asian American

▲ Figure 10.1 The Income Gap
by Race, 1970–2013 Be careful about
interpreting this chart. The U.S. Census
Bureau changed how it counted different
racial–ethnic groups over this period of time.
Asian Americans, for example, included Pacific
Islanders prior to 2002, which inflates the
overall median income. Nonetheless, you can
observe persistent gaps in median income
by looking at the income status of these
different groups over time. Note, however,
that with the changing way that the census
counted race and ethnicity, data are not avail-
able for some groups at earlier points in time.
Source: DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, and Bernadette
Proctor. 2014. Income and Poverty in the United
States: 2013. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.
www.census.go

9.6%

0.0%

5.0%

20.0%

15.0%

10.0%

5.0%
0.0%

White, not-
Hispanic

Black Asian Hispanic (any
race)

27.2%

10.5%

23.5%

▲ Figure 10.2 People in Poverty by Race, 2013
This shows the overall percentage of people living below
the official poverty line in 2013. Given what you learned in
Chapter 8 about how poverty is measured, what might you
conclude from this chart?
Source: DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, and Bernadette Proctor. 2014. Income
and Poverty in the United States: 2013. Washington, DC: U.S. Census
Bureau. www.census.gov

23 6 CHA PTER 10

formally nonsegregated places. As a consequence, in
restaurants as an example, both White and Black
patrons recognize—only semiconsciously—that certain
seating sections are “for Blacks.” As a result, such areas
tend to be avoided by White patrons and even actively
sought out by Black patrons (Anderson 2011).

Racism
Racism includes both attitudes and behaviors. A nega-
tive attitude taken toward someone simply because he
or she belongs to a racial or ethnic group is a prejudice,
as has already been discussed. Racism is the perception
and treatment of a racial or ethnic group, or member
of that group, as intellectually, socially, and culturally
inferior to one’s own group. It is more than an attitude;
it is institutionalized in society.

There are different forms of racism. Researchers
have often called obvious, overt racism, such as physical
assaults, lynchings, and overt expressions of prejudice,

The term apartheid was used to
describe the society of South Africa
prior to the election of Nelson Mandela
in 1994. It refers to the rigid separation
of the Black and White races. Socio-
logical researchers Massey and Denton
argue that the United States is now
under a system of apartheid and that it is
based on a very rigid residential segrega-
tion in the country.

Research Question: What is the current
state of residential segregation? Massey
and Denton note that the terms segre-
gation and residential segregation prac-
tically disappeared from the American
vocabulary in the late 1970s and early
1980s. These terms were spoken little
by public officials, journalists, and even
civil rights officials. This was because the
ills of race relations in the United States
were at the time attributed, though
erroneously, to other causes such as a
“culture of poverty” among minorities,
or inadequate family structure among
Blacks, or too much welfare for minority
groups. The Fair Housing Act was passed
in 1968, and the problem of segrega-
tion and discrimination in housing was

American Apartheid
declared solved. Yet nothing could be
farther from the truth.

Research Methods and Results:
Researchers Massey and Denton
amassed a large amount of survey
data demonstrating that residential
segregation not only has persisted in
American society but also that it has
actually increased since the 1960s. Most
Americans vaguely realize that urban
America is still residentially segregated,
but few appreciate the depth of Black
and Hispanic segregation or the degree
to which it is maintained by ongoing
institutional arrangements and contem-
porary individual actions. Urban society is
thus hypersegregated, or characterized
by an extreme form of residential and
educational segregation.

Conclusions and Implications: Massey
and Denton find that most people think
of racial segregation as a faded notion
from the past, one that is decreasing
over time. Today, theoretical con-
cepts such as the culture of poverty,
institutional racism, and welfare are
widely debated, yet rarely is residential

segregation considered to be a major
contributing cause of urban poverty
and the underclass. Massey and Denton
argue that their purpose is to redirect
the focus of public debate back to race
and racial segregation.

Questions to Consider
1. Think about the degree of residen-

tial segregation in the neighborhood
in which you grew up. How racially
and/or ethnically segregated was
it? If it was segregated at all, what
racial–ethnic groups were living
there?

2. Do you think the problem of racial–
ethnic residential segregation in the
United States is largely “solved”?
How so or why not?

3. What are the consequences of resi-
dential segregation—for example,
for education? For employment?

Sources: Massey, Douglas S., and Nancy
A. Denton. 1993. American Apartheid:
Segregation and the M.aking of the Under-
class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press; Massey, Douglas S. 2005. Strangers
in a Strange Land: Humans in an Urbanizing
World. New York: Norton; Rugh, Jacob
S., and Douglas S. Massey. 2010. “Racial
Segregation and the American Foreclosure
Crisis.” American Sociological Review 75 (5):
629–651.

doing sociological research

(Wilson 2009, 1987; Massey and Denton 1993). Indeed,
the level of housing segregation is so high for some
groups, especially poor African Americans and Latinos,
that it has been termed hypersegregation, referring to a
pattern of extreme segregation (Rugh and Massey 2010;
Massey 2005; Massey and Denton 1993). Currently,
the rate of segregation of Blacks and Hispanics in U.S.
cities is actually increasing, thus allowing for less and
less interaction between White and Black children and
White and Hispanic children (Schmitt 2001; Massey and
Denton 1993; see the box “Doing Sociological Research:
American Apartheid”). In education, the extraordinary
realization is that schools are also becoming more seg-
regated, a phenomenon called resegregation, because
American schools are now more segregated than they
were even in the 1980s (Frankenberg and Lee 2002).

Residential segregation and other forms of spe-
cial segregation are so pervasive that people have psy-
chologically internalized notions of “the White space”
in neighborhoods, workplaces, restaurants, and other

RACE AND ETH N ICI TY 237

Jim Crow racism. This form of racism has declined
somewhat in our society since the 1950s, though it cer-
tainly has not disappeared (Bobo 2004).

Racism can also be subtle, covert, and nonobvi-
ous; this is known as aversive racism (Jones et al.
2013). Consistently avoiding interaction with someone
of another race or ethnicity is an example of aversive
racism. This form of racism is quite common and has
remained at roughly the same level for more than sixty
years, with perhaps a slight increase (Jones et al. 2013).
Even when overt forms of racism dissipate, aversive
racism tends to persist, because it is less visible than
overt racism; people can believe racism has diminished
when it has not (Gaertner and Dovidio 2005).

Another subtle nonobvious form of racism, akin to
aversive racism, is what researcher Jennifer Eberhardt
calls implicit bias. It is a largely nonconscious form of
racism, where individuals make unconscious associa-
tions, say between race and crime. Culture forces such
associations on individuals. Starting with childhood
socialization, Blackness is mentally associated with
criminality; Whiteness is not. Eberhardt’s research con-
cretely demonstrates that the association between race
and crime directly impacts how individuals behave and
make decisions (Eberhardt 2010).

Eberhardt’s research finds, for example, that in a
court trial, holding other things constant, a defendant’s
skin color and hair texture correlate with the sentenc-
ing decisions of jurors: Black defendants are more likely
to receive the death penalty than are otherwise similar
White defendants. Eberhardt attributes such findings
to implicit bias, a subtle form of racism that individuals
internalize and carry with them always. This bias also
carries over to police officers, who mistakenly identify
Black faces as “criminal faces” relative to White faces.

Laissez-faire racism is another form of racism
(Bobo 2006). Laissez-faire racism includes several
elements:

1. The subtle but persistent negative stereotyping of
minorities, particularly Black Americans, espe-
cially in the media

2. A tendency to blame Blacks themselves for the
gap between Blacks and Whites in socioeconomic
standing, occupational achievement, and educa-
tional achievement

3. Clear resistance to meaningful policy efforts (such
as affirmative action, discussed later) designed to
ameliorate racially oppressive social conditions
and practices in the United States.

A close relative of laissez-faire racism is Eduardo
Bonilla-Silva’s (2013) concept of color-blind racism—
so named because individuals affected by this type of
racism prefer to ignore legitimate racial–ethnic, cul-
tural, and other differences and insist that the race
problems in the United States will go away if only race

is ignored altogether. Accompanying this belief is the
opinion that race differences in the United States are
merely an illusion and that race is not real. Simply refus-
ing to perceive any differences at all between racial
groups (thus being color-blind) is in itself a form of rac-
ism (Bonilla-Silva 2013; Gallagher 2013; Bonilla-Silva
and Baiocchi 2001). This will come as a surprise to
many. Here is an example of color-blind racism: Have
you heard someone say, as they attempt to show that
they are “not racist”: “I don’t care if you are white, black,
yellow, or green! I am not prejudiced!”

Such people insist that they are only objective and
fair people, people who do not notice skin color. By def-
inition, this is color-blind racism—a form of racism, for
sure. This ignores the reality of race and its significance
in society.

Color-blindness hides what is called White
privilege behind a mask: It allows Whites to define
themselves as politically and racially tolerant as they
proclaim adherence to a belief system that does not see
or judge individuals by “the color of their skin.” They
think of skin color as irrelevant, but it is not “irrelevant.”
Racial domination—that is, white privilege, is struc-
tured into society. Color-blind racism gives the false
impression that racial barriers have fallen when they
have not (Gallagher 2013; Kristof 2008).

Institutional racism as a form of racism is the
negative treatment and oppression of one racial or
ethnic group by society’s existing institutions based on
the presumed inferiority of the oppressed group. Insti-
tutional racism exists at the level of social structure. In
Durkheim’s sense, it is external to individuals—thus
institutional. It is then possible to have “racism with-
out racists,” as sociologist Bonilla-Silva has shown
(Bonilla-Silva 2013). It is a purely sociological notion:
Institutional racism can exist apart from the individual
personality or personalities. Key to understanding insti-
tutional racism is seeing that dominant groups have the
economic and political power to subjugate the minor-
ity group, even if they do not have the explicit intent of
being prejudiced or discriminating against others.

Racial profiling is an example of institutional rac-
ism in the criminal justice system. African American
and Hispanic people are arrested—and serve longer
sentences—considerably more often than are Whites
and Asians. In fact, an African American or Hispanic
wrongdoer is more likely to be arrested than a White
person who commits the exact same crime, even when
the White person shares the same age, socioeconomic
environment, and prior arrest record as the Black or
Hispanic. These kinds of disparities are very promi-
nent in traffic arrests, where police officers often report
that the arrested person “fit the profile” (Doermer and
Demuth 2010; Eberhardt 2010).

As most people now know, in a heavily Black sub-
urb of St. Louis, in Ferguson, Missouri, a Black teenager,

23 8 CHA PTER 10

Michael Brown, was shot and killed in the summer of
2014 by a White policeman (Darren Wilson) for alleg-
edly physically attacking Wilson. Massive public dem-
onstrations followed. Many Black observers of the
shooting reported that Brown did not attack Wilson, was
unarmed, and had his hands up. “Hands up/don’t shoot”
became a rallying cry of the public demonstrations.

The institutional racism in this incident is shown by
the data. Ferguson, Missouri, is a predominantly Black
suburb (55 percent Black), yet 90 percent of all traffic
arrests are of Black people. Second, Blacks in Fergu-
son were more likely than Whites to say that race was
definitely a factor in Wilson’s fatal shooting of Michael
Brown: Eighty percent of a total of Blacks interviewed
in a later survey thought so, whereas only 23 percent of
Whites interviewed thought so (Pew Research Center
2014). The cry of Whites that “race had nothing to do
with it” is all too familiar in such situations.

Consider this: Even if every White person in the
country lost all of his or her personal prejudices, and
even if he or she stopped engaging in individual acts of
discrimination, institutional racism would still persist
for some time. Over the years, it has become so much
a part of U.S. institutions (hence, the term institutional
racism) that discrimination can occur even when no
single person is deliberately causing it. To sum up, rac-
ism is a characteristic of the institutions and not nec-
essarily of the individuals within the institution. This is
why institutional racism can exist even without preju-
dice being the cause.

DEBUNKING Society’s Myths←
Myth: The primary cause of racial inequality in the United
States is the persistence of prejudice.
Sociological Perspective: Prejudice is one dimension
of racial problems in the United States, but institutional
racism can flourish even while prejudice is on the decline.
Prejudice is an attribute of the individual, whereas institu-
tional racism is an attribute of social structure.

Theories of Prejudice
and Racism
Why does racial inequality persist? Sociological theory
provides insight into this question.

Assimilation theory examines the process by
which a minority becomes socially, economically, and
culturally absorbed within the dominant society. This
theory assumes that to become fully fledged members
of society, minority groups must adopt as much of the
dominant society’s culture as possible, particularly its
language, mannerisms, and goals for success, and thus
give up much of its own culture. Assimilation stands
in contrast to racial cultural pluralism—the separate
maintenance and persistence of one’s culture, lan-
guage, mannerisms, practices, art, and so on.

Many Americans believe that with enough hard
work and loyalty to the dominant White culture of the
country, any minority can make it and thus “assimilate”
into American society. It is the often heard argument
that African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Ameri-
cans need only to pull themselves up “by their own
bootstraps” to become a success.

→THINKING Sociologically
Write down your own racial–ethnic background and list
one thing that people from this background have positively
contributed to U.S. society or culture. Also list one experi-
ence (current or historical) in which people from your
group have been victimized by society. Discuss how these
two things illustrate the fact that racial–ethnic groups have
both been victimized and have made positive contributions
to this society. Share your comments with others: What
does this reveal to you about the connections between
different groups of people and their experiences as racial–
ethnic groups in the United States?

Assimilationists believe that to overcome adversity
and oppression, minority people need only imitate the
dominant White culture as much as possible. In this
sense, minorities must assimilate “into” White culture
and White society. The general assumption is that with

Minorities are more likely to be arrested than Whites
for the same offense. Does this reflect institutional racism
in addition to possible individual prejudice of the arresting
police officer?

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RACE AND ETH N ICI TY 23 9

each new generation, assimilation becomes more and
more likely. One of the questions asked in this perspec-
tive is to what extent groups can maintain some of their
distinct cultural values and still be incorporated into
the society to which they have moved. One could argue,
for example, that the Irish have been able to assimilate
quite fully into American culture while still maintain-
ing an ethnic identity—one that is particularly salient
around Saint Patrick’s Day!

Many Asian American groups have followed this
pattern and have thus been called by some the “model
minority,” but this label ignores the fact that Asians
are still subject to considerable prejudice, discrimi-
nation, racism, and poverty (Ngai 2012; Ling 2009;
Woo 1998).

There are problems with the assimilation approach.
First, it fails to consider the time that it takes certain
groups to assimilate. Those from rural backgrounds
(Native Americans, Hispanics, African Americans, White
Appalachians, and some White ethnic immigrants) typi-
cally take much longer to assimilate than those from
urban backgrounds.

Second, the histories of Black and White arrivals are
very different, with lasting consequences. Whites came
voluntarily; Blacks arrived in chains. Whites sought rel-
atives in the New World; Blacks were sold and separated
from close relatives. For these and other reasons, the
experiences of African Americans and Whites as new-
comers can hardly be compared, and their assimilation
is unlikely to follow the same course.

Third, although White ethnic groups did indeed
face prejudice and discrimination when they arrived
in the United States, many entered at a time when the
economy was growing rapidly and their labor was in

high demand. Thus they were able to attain education
and job skills. In contrast, by the time Blacks arrived
during the Great Migration to northern industrial
areas from the rural South, Whites had already estab-
lished firm control over labor and used this control
to exclude Blacks from better-paying jobs and higher
education.

Fourth, assimilation is more difficult for people of
color because skin color is an especially salient char-
acteristic, ascribed and relatively unchangeable. White
ethnic group members can change their names, which
many did (for example, from Levine to Lane; from Bel-
litto to Bell; many other examples exist), but people of
color cannot easily change their skin color.

The assimilation model raises the question of
whether it is possible for a society to maintain cultural
pluralism, which is defined as different groups in soci-
ety maintaining their distinctive cultures, while also
coexisting peacefully with the dominant group. Recent
theorists note that achievement of cultural pluralism
involves a degree of mutually formative two-way inter-
section of immigration and race (Kibria et al. 2013).

Some groups have explicitly practiced cultural
pluralism: The Amish people of Lancaster County in
Pennsylvania and of north-central Ohio—who travel by
horse and buggy; use no electricity; and run their own
schools, banks, and stores—constitute a good example
of a relatively complete degree of cultural pluralism. A
somewhat lesser degree of cultural pluralism, but still
present, is maintained by “Little Italy” neighborhoods
in some U.S. cities and also by certain Black Muslim
groups in the United States.

Symbolic Interaction Theory. Symbolic interac-
tion theory addresses two issues: first, the role of social
interaction in reducing racial and ethnic hostility, and
second, how race and ethnicity are socially constructed.
Symbolic interactionism asks: What happens when two
people of different racial or ethnic origins come into
contact with each other, and how can such interracial
or interethnic contact reduce hostility and conflict?
Contact theory, which originated with the psychologist
Gordon Allport (Cook 1988; Allport 1954), argues that
interaction and contact between two groups will reduce
prejudice within both groups—but only if three condi-
tions are met:

1. The contact must be between individuals of equal
status; the parties must interact on equal ground.
A Hispanic cleaning woman and a wealthier White
woman who employs her may interact, but their
interaction will not reduce prejudice. Instead, their
interaction is more likely to perpetuate stereotypes
and prejudices on the part of both.

2. The contact between equals must be sustained;
short-term contact will not decrease prejudice.

Neighborhoods such as this one in Manhattan, New York,
are indicative of residential segregation.

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24 0 CHA PT ER 10

3. Social norms favoring equality must be agreed
upon by the participants. Having African Americans
and White skinheads interact on a TV talk show, as
once done on the Jerry Springer Show, will proba-
bly not decrease prejudice; such interaction might
well increase it for both groups.

Conflict Theory. The basic premise of conflict the-
ory is that class-based conflict is an inherent and fun-
damental part of social interaction. To the extent that
racial and ethnic conflict is tied to class conflict, conflict
theorists argue that class inequality must be reduced to
lessen racial and ethnic conflict in society.

The “class versus race” controversy in sociology
concerns the question of whether class or race is more
important in explaining racial inequality. Sociologist
William Julius Wilson (2009, 1996, 1987, 1978) argues
that class and changes in the economic structure are
sometimes more important than race in shaping the life
chances of different groups. Wilson argues that being
disadvantaged in the United States is more a matter of
class, although he sees this clearly linked to race. Oth-
ers argue that race has been and continues to be more
important than class—though class is still important—
in explaining and accounting for inequality and con-
flict in society (Bonilla-Silva 2013; Bonilla-Silva and
Baiocchi 2001; Feagin 2000; Bonilla-Silva 1997; Willie
1979; see ◆ Table 10.2). Wilson has consistently argued,
however, that group race differences are clearly causally
related to class differences, and that, in addition, race
has an effect independent of class.

Wilson (1987) attributes the causes of the urban
underclass to economic and social structural defi-
cits in society. The problems of the inner city, such as
joblessness, crime, teen pregnancy, and violence, are
seen as arising from social class inequalities, that is,
inequalities in the structure of society. These inequali-
ties have dire behavioral consequences at the indi-
vidual level, in the form of drug abuse, violence, and

lack of education (Wilson 2009, 1996, 1987; Sampson
1987). Despite these disadvantages, many minority
individuals nonetheless manage to achieve upward
occupational and economic mobility (Newman 1999).
Wilson argues that the civil rights agenda needs to
be expanded to address the problems of the under-
class, especially joblessness. This does not mean
that race is unimportant, rather that the influence of
class is increasing, even though race still continues
to remain extremely important, and may be increas-
ing in importance. In numerous studies, scholars find
that race, in and of itself, still influences such things as
income, wealth holdings, occupational prestige, place
of residence, educational attainment, and numerous
other measures of socioeconomic well-being (Pattillo
McCoy 2013; Bobo 2012; Oliver and Shapiro 2006;
Brown et al. 2005).

The “class versus race” controversy is connected
to theories of intersectionality. The intersection
perspective argues that class, race, and gender com-
bine (or “intersect”) to create a matrix of domination
(Andersen and Collins 2013; Collins 1990). Intersec-
tional theory points out that people are socially located
in positions that simultaneously involve race, class, and
gender. Looking at only one of them is incomplete. The
effects of gender and race are intertwined, and both are
intertwined with class.

Diverse Groups, Diverse
Histories
The different racial and ethnic groups in the United
States have arrived at their current social condi-
tion through histories that are similar in some ways,
yet quite different in other respects. Their histories
are related because of a common experience of
White supremacy, economic exploitation, and politi-
cal disenfranchisement.

◆ Table 10.2 Comparing Sociological Theories of Race and Ethnicity

Functionalism Conflict Theory Symbolic Interaction

The Racial Order Has social stability when diverse
racial and ethnic groups are
assimilated into society

Is intricately intertwined with
class stratification of racial
and ethnic groups

Is based on social construction that
assigns groups of people to diverse
racial and ethnic categories

Minority Groups Are assimilated into dominant
culture as they adopt cultural
practices and beliefs of the
dominant group

Have life chances that result
from the opportunities formed
by the intersection of class,
race, and gender

Form identity as the result of socio-
historical change

Social Change Is a slow and gradual process
as groups adapt to the social
system

Is the result of organized social
movements and other forms of
resistance to oppression

Is dependent on the different
forms of social interaction that
characterize intergroup relations

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RACE AND E THN IC ITY 24 1

Native Americans: The First
of This Land
The exact size of the indigenous population in North
America at the time of the Europeans’ arrival with
Columbus in 1492 has been estimated at anywhere
from one million to ten million people. Native Ameri-
cans were here tens of thousands of years before they
were “discovered” by Europeans. Discovery quickly
turned to conquest, and in the course of the next three
centuries, the Europeans systematically drove the
Native Americans from their lands, destroying their
ways of life and crushing various tribal cultures. Native
Americans were subjected to an onslaught of Euro-
pean diseases. Lacking immunity to these diseases,
Native Americans suffered a population decline, con-
sidered by some to have been the steepest and most
drastic of any people in the history of the world. Native
American traditions have survived in many isolated
places, but what is left is only an echo of the original
500 nations of North America (Snipp 2007, 1989; Nagel
1996; Thornton 1987).

At the time of European contact in the 1640s, there
was great linguistic, religious, governmental, and eco-
nomic heterogeneity among Native American tribes.
Most historical accounts have underestimated the
degree of cultural and social variety, however. Between
the arrival of Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492 and
the establishment of the first thirteen colonies in North
America in the early 1600s, the ravages of disease and
the encroachment of Europeans caused a considerable
degree of social disorganization.

By 1800, the number of Native Americans had been
reduced to a mere 600,000, and wars of extermination
against the Indians were being conducted in earnest.
Fifty years later, the population had fallen by another
half. Indians were killed defending their land, or died
of hunger and disease when taking refuge in inhospi-
table country. In 1834, 4000 Cherokee died on a forced
march from their homeland in Georgia to reservations
in Arkansas and Oklahoma, a trip memorialized as the
Trail of Tears. Today, about 55 percent of all American
Indians live on or near a reservation, which is land set
aside by the U.S. government for their exclusive use. The
other 45 percent live in or near urban areas (U.S. Census
Bureau 2012a; Snipp 1989). The reservation system
has served the Indians poorly. Many Native Americans
now live in conditions of abject poverty, deprivation,
lack of educational opportunity, and alcoholism. They
suffer massive unemployment (currently more than
50 percent among males—extraordinarily high). They
are at the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder, with
the highest poverty rate. The first here in this land are
now last in status, a painful irony of U.S. history.

African Americans
The development of slavery in the Americas is related
to the development of world markets for sugar and
tobacco. Slaves were imported from Africa to provide
the labor for sugar and tobacco production and to
enhance the profits of slaveholders. An estimated
twelve million Africans were transported under appall-
ing conditions to the Americas, about a quarter of whom
came to the mainland United States (TransAtlantic
Slave Trade Database 2014).

Slavery evolved as a form of stratification called a
caste system (see Chapter 8). Slaveholders profited from
the labor of a caste, the slaves. Central to the operation
of slavery was the principle that human beings could
be chattel (or property). Slavery was based on the belief
that Whites are superior to other races, coupled with a
belief in a patriarchal social order. The social distinc-
tions maintained between Whites and Blacks were
caste-like, with rigid categorization and prohibitions,
rather than merely class-like, which suggests more pli-
ant social demarcations. Vestiges of this caste system
remain in the United States to this very day.

The slave system also involved the domination of
men over women—another aspect of the caste sys-
tem. In this combination of patriarchy and White
supremacy, White males presided over their “property”
of White women as well as their “property” of Black
men and women. This in turn led to gender stratifica-
tion among the slaves themselves, reflecting the White
slaveholders’ assumptions about the relative roles of
men and women. Black women performed domestic
labor for their masters and their own families. White

The opening of the National Museum of the American
Indian (part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
DC) was cause for celebration among diverse groups of
Native Americans, as well as others.

Ja
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Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

24 2 CHA PT ER 10

men further exerted their authority in demanding
sexual relations with Black women (White 1999). The
predominant attitude of Whites toward Blacks was
paternalistic. Whites saw slaves as childlike and inca-
pable of caring for themselves. The stereotypes of
African Americans as “childlike” are directly traceable
to the system of slavery.

Slaves struggled to preserve both their culture
and their sense of humanity and to resist, often by
open conflict, the dehumanizing effects of a system
that defined human beings as mere property (Myers
1998; Blassingame 1973). Slaves revolted against the
conditions of enslavement in a variety of ways, from
passive means such as work slowdowns and feigned ill-
ness to more aggressive means such as destruction of
property, escapes, and outright rebellion. To this day
the extent and frequency of slave rebellions has been
underestimated.

After slavery was ended by the Civil War
(1861–1865) and the Emancipation Proclamation
(1863), Black Americans continued to be exploited for
their labor. In the South, the system of sharecropping
emerged, an exploitative system in which Black fami-
lies tilled the fields for White landowners in exchange
for a share of the crop. With the onset of the First World
War and the intensified industrialization of society
came the Great Migration of Blacks from the South
to the urban north. This massive movement, lasting from
the late 1800s through the 1920s, significantly affect ed
the status of Blacks in society because there was now a
greater potential for collective action (Marks 1989).

In the early part of the century, the formation of
Black ghettos victimized Black Americans with grim
urban conditions at the same time that it encouraged
the development of Black resources, including volun-
teer organizations, settlement houses, social move-
ments, political action groups, and artistic and cultural
achievements. During the 1920s, Harlem in New York
City became an important intellectual and artistic oasis
for Black America, known as the Harlem Renaissance.

The Harlem Renaissance gave the nation great
literary figures, such as Langston Hughes, Jessie Fauset,
Alain Locke, Arna Bontemps, Zora Neale Hurston,
Countee Cullen, Wallace Thurman, and Nella Larsen
(Marks and Edkins 1999; Gates et al. 1997; Rampersad
1988, 1986; Bontemps 1972). At the same time, many
of America’s greatest musicians, entertainers, and art-
ists came to the fore, such as musicians Duke Elling-
ton, Count Basie, Benny Carter, Billie Holiday, Cab
Calloway, and Louis Armstrong, and painters Hale
Woodruff and Elmer Brown. The end of the 1920s and
the stock market crash of 1929 brought everyone down
a peg or two, Whites as well as Blacks, although in the
words of Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes,
Black Americans at the time “had but a few pegs to fall”
(Hughes 1967).

Latinos
Latinos have recently surpassed African Americans as
the largest minority group population in the United
States; the largest increase among Mexican Americans.
Latinos include Chicanos and Chicanas, Mexican
Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other recent
Latin and Central American immigrants to the United
States. They also include Latin Americans who have
lived for generations in the United States; many are
not immigrants but very early settlers from Spain and
Portugal in the 1400s. The terms Hispanic and Latino or
Latina mask the great structural and cultural diversity
among the various Hispanic groups.

Diverse Latino groups have been forced by institu-
tional procedures to cause the public to perceive them
“as one,” for example, by the media, by political lead-
ers, and by the U.S. Census categories (Mora 2009).
The use of such inclusive terms also ignores important
differences in their respective entries into U.S. society:
Chicanos/as through military conquest of the Mexican–
American War (1846–1848); Puerto Ricans through war
with Spain in the Spanish–American War (1898); and
Cubans as political refugees fleeing since 1959 from
the communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro, which the
U.S. government vigorously opposed (Telles et al. 2011;
Glenn 2002; Bean and Tienda 1987).

Mexican Americans. Before the Anglo (White) con-
quest, Mexican colonists had formed settlements and
missions throughout the West and Southwest. In 1834,
the U.S. government ordered the dismantling of these
missions, bringing them under tight governmental con-
trol and creating a period known as the Golden Age of
the Ranchos. Land then became concentrated into the
hands of a few wealthy Mexican ranchers, who had
been given large land grants by the Mexican govern-
ment. This created a class system within the Chicano
community, consisting of the elite ranchers, mission
farmers, and government administrators at the top;
mestizos, who were small farmers and ranchers, as the
middle class; a third class of skilled workers; and a bot-
tom class of manual laborers, who were mostly Indians
(Maldonado 1997; Mirandé 1985).

With the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848,
Chicanos lost claims to huge land areas that ultimately
became Texas, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado,
Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and California. White cattle ranch-
ers and sheep ranchers enclosed giant tracts of land,
thus cutting off many small ranchers, both Mexican and
Anglo. Thus began a process of wholesale economic and
social exclusion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans
from U.S. society, much of which continues to this day,
generation after generation (Telles and Ortiz 2008).

It was at this time that Mexicans, as well as early
U.S. settlers of Mexican descent, became defined as an

RACE AND E THN IC ITY 243

inferior race that did not deserve social, educational, or
political equality. This is an example of the racial forma-
tion process, as noted earlier in this chapter (Omi and
Winant 2014). Anglos believed that Mexicans were lazy,
corrupt, and cowardly, yet violent, which launched ste-
reotypes that would further oppress Mexicans. These
stereotypes were used to justify the lower status of
Mexicans and Anglo control of the land that Mexicans
were presumed to be incapable of managing (Telles and
Ortiz 2008; Moore 1976).

During the twentieth century, advances in agricul-
tural technology changed the organization of labor in
the Southwest and West. Irrigation allowed year-round
production of crops and a new need for cheap labor to
work in the fields. Migrant workers from Mexico were
exploited as a cheap source of labor. Migrant work was
characterized by low earnings, poor housing condi-
tions, poor health, and extensive use of child labor. The
wide use of Mexican migrant workers as field workers,
domestic servants, and other kinds of poorly paid work
continues, now throughout the United States.

Puerto Ricans. The island of Puerto Rico was ceded
to the United States by Spain in 1898. In 1917, the Jones
Act extended U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans, although
it was not until 1948 that Puerto Ricans were allowed

to elect their own governor. In 1952, the United States
established the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, with
its own constitution. Following the Second World War,
the first elected governor launched a program known
as Operation Bootstrap, which was designed to attract
large U.S. corporations to the island of Puerto Rico by
using tax breaks and other concessions. This program
contributed to rapid overall growth in the Puerto Rican
economy, although unemployment remained high and
wages remained low. Seeking opportunity, unemployed
farmworkers began migrating to the United States.
These migrants were interested in seasonal work, and
thus a pattern of temporary migration characterized the
Puerto Ricans’ entrance into the United States (Amott
and Matthaei 1996; Rodriguez 1989).

Unemployment in Puerto Rico became so severe
that the U.S. government even went so far as to attempt a
reduction in the population by some form of population
control. Pharmaceutical companies experimented with
Puerto Rican women in developing contraceptive pills,
and the U.S. government actually encouraged the steril-
ization of Puerto Rican women. More than 37 percent of
the women of reproductive age in Puerto Rico had been
sterilized by 1974 (Roberts 1997). More than one-third
of these women have since indicated that they regret
sterilization because they were not made aware at the
time that the procedure was irreversible.

Cubans. Cuban migration to the United States is recent
in comparison with the many other Hispanic groups.
The largest migration has occurred since the revolu tion
led by Fidel Castro in 1959. Between then and 1980, more
than 800,000 Cubans—one-tenth of the entire island
population—migrated to the United States. The U.S. gov-
ernment defined this as a political exodus, facilitating
the early entrance and acceptance of these migrants.
Many of the first migrants had been middle- and upper-
class professionals and landowners under the prior
dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, but they had lost their
land during the Castro revolution. In exile in the United
States, some worked to overthrow Castro, often with
the support of the U.S. federal government. Many other
Cuban immigrants were of more modest means who,
like other immigrant groups, came seeking freedom
from political and social persecution and an escape
from poverty.

A second wave of Cuban immigration came in
1980, when the Cuban government, still under Castro,
opened the Port of Mariel to anyone who wanted to
leave Cuba. In the five months following this action,
125,000 Cubans came to the United States—more than
the combined total for the preceding eight years. The
arrival of people from Mariel has produced debate
and tension, particularly in Florida, a major cen-
ter of Cuban migration. The Cuban government had
previously labeled the people fleeing from Mariel as

Activities such as this Puerto Rican Day Parade in New
York City reflect pride in one’s group culture and result
in greater cohesiveness of the group.

AP
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Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

24 4 CH A PTER 10

“undesirable”; some had been incarcerated in Cuba
before leaving. They were actually not much differ-
ent from previous refugees such as the “golden exiles,”
who were professional and high-status refugees
(Portes and Rumbaut 1996). But because the refu-
gees escaping from Mariel had been labeled (stereo-
typed) as undesirables, and because they were forced
to live in primitive camps for long periods after their
arrival, they have been unable to achieve much social
and economic mobility in the United States—thus
ironically reinforcing the initial perception that they
were “lazy” and “undesirable.” In contrast, the earlier
Cuban migrants, who were on average more educated
and much more settled, have enjoyed a fair degree of
success (Portes and Rumbaut 2001, 1996; Amott and
Matthei 1996; Pedraza 1996).

Asian Americans
Like Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans are from
many different countries and diverse cultural back-
grounds; they cannot be classified as the single
cultural rubric of Asians. Asian Americans include
migrants from China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea,
and Vietnam, as well as more recent immigrants from
Southeast Asia.

Chinese. Attracted by the U.S. demand for labor, Chi-
nese Americans began migrating to the United States
during the mid-nineteenth century. In the early stages
of this migration, the Chinese were tolerated because
they provided cheap labor. They were initially seen as
good, quiet citizens, but racial stereotypes turned hos-
tile when the Chinese came to be seen as competing
with White California gold miners for jobs. Thousands
of Chinese laborers worked for the Central Pacific Rail-
road from 1865 to 1868. They were relegated to the most
difficult and dangerous work, worked longer hours than
the White laborers, and for a long time were paid con-
siderably less than the White workers.

The Chinese were virtually expelled from rail-
road work near the turn of the twentieth century (in
1890–1900) and settled in rural areas throughout the
western states. As a consequence, anti-Chinese sen-
timent and prejudice ran high in the West. This eth-
nic antagonism was largely the result of competition
between the White and Chinese laborers for scarce jobs.
In 1882, the federal government passed the Chinese
Exclusion Act, which banned further immigration of
unskilled Chinese laborers. Like African Americans, the
Chinese and Chinese Americans were legally excluded
from intermarriage with Whites (Takaki 1989). During
this period, several Chinatowns were established by
those who had been forcibly uprooted and who found
strength and comfort within enclaves of Chinese people
and culture (Nee 1973).

Japanese. Japanese immigration to the United States
took place mainly between 1890 and 1924, after which
passage of the Japanese Immigration Act forbade fur-
ther immigration. Most of these first-generation immi-
grants, called issei, were employed in agriculture or in
small Japanese businesses. Many issei were from farm-
ing families and wished to acquire their own land, but
in 1913, the Alien Land Law of California stipulated
that Japanese aliens could lease land for only three
years and that lands already owned or leased by them
could not be bequeathed to heirs. The second genera-
tion of Japanese Americans, or nisei, were born in the
United States of Japanese-born parents. They became
better educated than their parents, lost their Japanese
accents, and in general became more “Americanized,”
that is, culturally assimilated. The third generation,
called sansei, became even better educated and assim-
ilated, yet still met with prejudice and discrimination,
particularly where Japanese Americans were present
in the highest concentrations, as on the West Coast
from Washington to southern California (Takaki 1989;
Glenn 1986).

The Japanese suffered the complete indignity of
having their loyalty questioned when the federal gov-
ernment, thinking they would side with Japan after the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941,
herded them into concentration camps. By executive
order of president Franklin D. Roosevelt, much of the
West Coast Japanese American population (a great
many—perhaps most—of them loyal second- and
third-generation Americans) had their assets frozen
and their real estate confiscated by the government. A
media campaign immediately followed, labeling Japa-
nese Americans “traitors” and “enemy aliens.” Virtually

During World War II, Japanese Americans, who were full
American citizens, were forced into concentration camps. A
noon food (“mess”) line at one of these camps, Manzanar, is
shown here.

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RACE AND E THN IC ITY 24 5

all Japanese Americans in the United States had been
removed from their homes by August 1942, and some
were forced to stay in relocation camps until as late as
1946. Relocation destroyed numerous Japanese fami-
lies and ruined them financially (Takaki 1989; Glenn
1986; Kitano 1976).

In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Japanese
Americans the right to file suit for monetary repara-
tions. In 1987, legislation was passed, awarding $20,000
to each person who had been relocated and offering an
official apology from the U.S. government. One is moti-
vated to contemplate how far this paltry sum and late
apology could go in righting what many have argued
was the “greatest mistake” the United States has ever
made as a government.

Filipinos. The Philippine Islands in the Pacific Ocean
fell under U.S. rule in 1899 as a result of the Spanish-
American War, and for a while Filipinos could enter
the United States freely. By 1934, the islands became a
commonwealth of the United States, and immigration
quotas were imposed on Filipinos. More than 200,000
Filipinos immigrated to the United States between 1966
and 1980, settling in major urban centers on the West
and East Coasts. More than two-thirds of those arriv-
ing were professional workers; their high average lev-
els of education and skill have eased their assimilation.
By 1985, more than one million Filipinos were in the
United States. They are now the second largest Asian
American population.

Koreans. Many Koreans entered the United States
in the late 1960s, after amendments to the immigra-
tion laws in 1965 raised the limit on immigration from
the Eastern Hemisphere. The largest concentration of
Koreans is in Los Angeles. As much as half of the adult
Korean American population is college educated, an
exceptionally high proportion. Many of the immigrants
were successful professionals in Korea; upon arrival in
the United States, though, they have been forced to take
on menial jobs, thus experiencing downward social
mobility and status inconsistency. This is especially true
of those Koreans who migrated to the East Coast. How-
ever, nearly one in eight Koreans in the United States
today owns a business; many own small greengrocer
businesses. Many of these stores are located in pre-
dominantly African American communities and have
become one among several sources of ongoing conflict
between some African Americans and Koreans. This has
fanned negative feeling and prejudice on both sides—
among Koreans against African Americans and among
African Americans against Koreans (Chen 1991).

Vietnamese. Among the more recent groups of
Asians to enter the United States have been the South

Vietnamese, who began arriving following the fall of
South Vietnam to the communist North Vietnamese at
the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. These immigrants,
many of them refugees who fled for their lives, num-
bered about 650,000 in the United States in 1975. About
one-third of the refugees settled in California. Many
faced prejudice and hostility, resulting in part from
the same perception that has dogged many immigrant
groups before them—that they were in competition
for scarce jobs. A second wave of Vietnamese immi-
grants arrived after China attacked Vietnam in 1978.
As many as 725,000 arrived in the United States, only
to face discrimination in a variety of locations. Ten-
sions became especially heated when the Vietnamese
became a substantial competitive presence in the fish-
ing and shrimping industries in the Gulf of Mexico on
the Texas shore. Since that time, however, many com-
munities have welcomed them, and many Vietnamese
heads of households have become employed full-time
(Kim 1993; Winnick 1990).

Middle Easterners
Since the mid-1970s, immigrants from the Middle East
have been arriving in the United States. They have come
from countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran,
and more recently, especially Iraq. Contrary to popular
belief, the immigrants speak no single language and fol-
low no singular religion and thus are ethnically diverse.
Some are Catholic, some are Coptic Christian, and many
are Muslim. Many are from working-class backgrounds,
but many were professionals—teachers, engineers, sci-
entists, and other such positions—in their homelands.
About 65 percent of those residing in this country were
born outside the United States; about half are college-
educated (Kohut 2007). Like immigrant populations
before them, Middle Easterners have formed their own
ethnic enclaves in the cities and suburbs of this country
as they pursue the often elusive American dream (Abra-
hamson 2006).

Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Cen-
ter and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, many
male Middle Easterners of several nationalities have
become unjustly suspect in this country and are sub-
jected to severe harassment; racially motivated physi-
cal attacks; and as already noted, out-and-out racial
profiling, if only because they had dark skin and—as
with some—wore a turban of some sort on their heads.
Most of these individuals, of course, probably had no
discernible connection at all with the terrorists. A sur-
vey shows that most Muslims in this country believe
that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were
indeed the cause of subsequent increased racial harass-
ment and violence against them (Kohut 2007). Finally,
the U.S. wars with Iraq and Afghanistan have not
helped in easing tensions between White Americans

24 6 CH APT ER 10

and Middle Easterners, nor have the recent genuinely
terrorist attacks of ISIS against Middle Easterners and
some Anglos in Mid-East locations.

White Ethnic Groups
The story of White ethnic groups in the United States
begins during the colonial period. White Anglo Saxon
Protestants (WASPs), who were originally immigrants
from England and to some extent Scotland and Wales,
settled in the New World (what is now North America).
They were the first ethnic group to come into contact—
most often hostile contact—on a large scale with those
people already here, namely, Native American Indians.
WASPs came to dominate the newly emerging society
earlier than any other White ethnic group.

In the late 1700s, the WASPs regarded the later
immigrants from Germany and France as “foreigners”
with odd languages, accents, and customs, and applied
derogatory labels (“krauts” for Germans; “frogs”
for the French) to them. Again, this demonstrates
that virtually every immigrant group, except WASPs
themselves, was discriminated against and subject to
racist name-calling. Tension between the “old stock”
and the “foreigners” continued through the Civil War
era until around 1860, when the national origins of
U.S. immigrants began to change (Kibria et al. 2013;
Handlin 1951).

Of all racial and ethnic groups in the United States
during that time and since, only WASPs do not think
of themselves as an ethnic nationality. The WASPs
came to think of themselves as the “original” Americans
despite the prior presence of Native American Indians,
whom the WASPs in turn described and stereotyped as
savages. As immigrants from northern, western, east-
ern, and southern Europe began to arrive, particularly
during the mid- to late-nineteenth century, WASPs
began to direct prejudice and discrimination against
many of these newer groups.

There were two waves of migration of White eth-
nic groups in the mid- and late-nineteenth century.
The first stretched from about 1850 through 1880, and
included northern and western Europeans: English,
Irish, Germans, French, and Scandinavians. The second
wave of immigration occurred from 1890 to 1914, and
included eastern and southern European populations:
Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, and other eastern
Europeans, in addition to more Irish. The immigration
of Jews to the United States extended for well over a
century, but the majority of Jewish immigrants came to
the United States during the period from 1880 to 1920.

The Irish arrived in large numbers in the mid-
nineteenth century and after, as a consequence of
food shortages and massive starvation in Ireland. Dur-
ing the latter half of the nineteenth century and in the
early twentieth century, the Irish in the United States

were abused, attacked, and viciously stereotyped. It
is instructive to remember that the Irish, particularly
on the East Coast and especially in Boston, under-
went a period of ethnic oppression of extraordinary
magnitude. A frequently seen sign posted in Boston
saloons during that time proclaimed “no dogs or Irish
allowed.” The sign was not intended as a joke. German
immigrants were similarly stereotyped, as were the
French and the Scandinavians. It is easy to forget that
virtually all immigrant groups have gone through
times of oppression and prejudice, although these
periods were considerably longer for some groups
than for others. As a rule, where the population den-
sity of an ethnic group in a town, city, or region was
greatest, so too was the amount of prejudice, negative
stereotyping, and discrimination to which that group
was subjected.

More than 40 percent of the world’s Jewish popu-
lation lives in the United States, making it the largest
community of Jews in the world. Most of the Jews in the
United States arrived between 1880 and the First World
War, originating from the eastern European countries
of Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, and Roma-
nia. Jews from Germany arrived in two phases; the
first wave came just prior to the arrival of those from
eastern Europe, and the second came as a result of
Hitler’s ascension to power in Germany during the late
1930s. Because many German Jews were professionals
who also spoke English, they assimilated more rapidly
than those from the eastern European countries. Jews
from both parts of Europe underwent lengthy peri-
ods of anti-Jewish prejudice, anti-Semitism (defined
as the hatred of Jewish people), and discrimination,
particularly on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Sig-
nificant anti-Semitism still exists in the United States
(Ferber 1999; Essed 1991). In 1924, the National Origins

Jewish immigrants were questioned, sometimes brutally,
at Ellis Island, the point of entry to the United States for
many early European immigrants.

Be
ttm

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n/

Co
rb

is
Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

RACE AND E THN ICI TY 247

Quota Act was passed, one of the most discriminatory
legal actions ever taken by the United States in the
area of immigration. By this act, the first real establish-
ment of ethnic quotas in the United States, immigrants
were permitted to enter the country only in proportion
to their numbers already existing in the United
States. Thus ethnic groups who were already here in
relatively high proportions (English, Germans, French,
Scandinavians, and others—mostly White western
and northern Europeans) were allowed to immigrate
in greater numbers than were those from southern and
eastern Europe, such as Italians, Poles, Greeks, and
other eastern Europeans. Hence, the act discriminated
against southern and eastern Europeans in favor of
western and northern Europeans. It has been noted that
the European groups who were discriminated against
by the National Origins Quota Act tended to be those
with darker skins on average, even though they were
White and European.

The act barred anyone who was classified as a con-
vict, lunatic, “idiot,” or “imbecile” from immigration.
On New York City’s Ellis Island, non-English-speaking
immigrants, many of them Jews, were given the 1916
version of the Stanford Binet IQ test and literacy tests
in English (Kamin 1974). Obviously, non-English-
speaking people taking this test were unlikely to score
high. On the basis of this grossly biased test, govern-
mental psychologist H. H. Goddard classified fully
83 percent of Jews, 80 percent of Hungarians, and
79 percent of Italians as “feebleminded.” It did not dawn
on Goddard or the U.S. government that the IQ test, in
English, probably did not measure something called
“intelligence,” as intended, but instead simply mea-
sured the immigrant’s mastery of the English language
(Gould 1999; Taylor 1980; Kamin 1974).

Attaining Racial
and Ethnic Equality:
The Challenge
Race and ethnic relations in the United States have
posed a major challenge for the nation, one that is
becoming even more complex as the racial–ethnic pop-
ulation becomes more diverse (see ■ Map 10.1). Even
though the nation elected its first African American
president in 2008, racial inequalities persist.

Intergroup contact has been both negative and
positive, obvious and subtle, tragic and helpful. How
can the nation respond to its new diversity as well as
to the issues faced by racial and ethnic minorities that
have been present since the nation’s founding? This
question engages significant sociological thought and
attention to the nation’s record of social change with
regard to race and ethnic groups.

The Civil Rights Movement
A major force behind social change in race relations has
been the civil rights movement. The civil rights move-
ment is probably the single most important source for
change in race relations in the twentieth century.

The civil rights movement was initially based on the
passive resistance philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr.,
learned from the philosophy of Satyagraha (“soul firm-
ness and force”) of the East Indian Mahatma (meaning
“leader”) Mohandas Gandhi. This philosophy encour-
aged resistance to segregation through nonviolent
techniques, such as sit-ins, marches, and appealing
to human conscience in calls for brotherhood, justice,
and equality. Although African Americans had worked
for racial justice and civil rights long before this his-
toric movement, the civil rights movement has brought
greater civil rights under the law to many groups:
women, disabled people, the aged, and gays and lesbi-
ans (Andersen 2004).

The major civil rights movement in the United
States intensified shortly after the 1954 Brown v. Board
of Education decision, the famous Supreme court case
that ruled that “separate but equal” in education was
unconstitutional. In 1955, African American seam-
stress and NAACP secretary Rosa Parks made news in
Montgomery, Alabama. By prior arrangement with the
NAACP, Parks bravely refused to relinquish her seat
in the “White-only” section on a segregated bus when
asked to do so by the White bus driver. At the time,
the majority of Montgomery’s bus riders were African
American, and the action of Rosa Parks initiated the
now-famous Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by the young
Martin Luther King Jr. The boycott, which took place
in many cities beyond Montgomery, was successful in
desegregating the buses. It got more African American
bus drivers hired and catapulted Martin Luther King Jr.
to the forefront of the civil rights movement.

Impetus was given to the civil rights movement
by the murder of Emmett Till, a Black teenager from
Chicago, who was brutally killed in Mississippi in 1954,
merely for whistling at a White woman in a store. After
he did so, a group of White men rousted Till from his
bed at the home of a relative and beat him until he
was dead and unrecognizable as a human being. They
then tied a heavy cotton gin fan around his neck, and
dumped him into the nearest river. Later, his mother
in Chicago allowed a picture of his horribly misshapen
head and body in his casket to be published (in Jet mag-
azine) so that the public could contemplate the horror
vested upon her son. No one was ever prosecuted for
the Till murder.

The civil rights movement produced many epi-
sodes of both tragedy and heroism. In a landmark 1957
decision, President Dwight D. Eisenhower called out
the National Guard—after initial delay—to assist the

24 8 CHA PTER 10

entrance of nine Black students into Little Rock Central
High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Sit-ins followed
throughout the South in which White and Black stu-
dents perched at lunch counters until the Black students
were served. A number of these people, both Black and
White, were beaten bloody for merely attempting this
nonviolent protest. This was followed by the famous
“Selma to Montgomery” march across the infamous
Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965 to protest seg-
regation. Alabama Sheriff James N. Clark and his offi-
cers mercilessly beat the protesters during this march,
beatings so severe that many marchers, both Black and
White, suffered fractures and major lacerations.

Organized bus trips from the North to the South,
“freedom rides,” forged on and promoted civil rights
despite the murders of freedom riders Viola Liuzzo,
a White Detroit housewife; Andrew Goodman and

Michael Schwerner, two White students; and James
Chaney, a Black student. The murders of civil rights
workers—especially when they were White—galvanized
public support for change.

The Black Power Movement
While the civil rights movement developed throughout
the late 1950s and 1960s, a more radical philosophy of
change also developed, as more militant leaders grew
increasingly disenchanted with the limits of the civil
rights agenda, which was perceived as moving too
slowly. The militant Black Power movement, taking its
name from the book Black Power (1967) by political
activist Stokely Carmichael, later Kwame Touré, and
Columbia University political science professor Charles
V. Hamilton, had a more radical critique of race relations

0.0–3.3
3.4–7.9
8.0–14.8
15.0–24.4
26.0–63.1

Data Classes
Percent

Percent of Total Population Foreign-Born

Mapping America’s Diversity: Foreign-Born Population
This map shows the total number
of foreign-born residents per state.
Foreign-born includes legal residents
(immigrants), temporary migrants
(such as students), refugees, and illegal
immigrants—to the extent they can

be known. Some states have a high
number of foreign-born (for example,
California, Florida, and New York), and
other states have fewer (for example,
Wyoming, South Dakota, and Vermont).
Where does your region fall in the

number of foreign-born to the total
population?
Data: U.S. Census Bureau. 2010. 2005–2009
American Community Survey. ACS Maps.
www.census.gov

map 10.1

RACE AND ETHN I CI TY 24 9

in the United States. The Black Power movement saw
inequality as stemming not just from moral failures but
also from the institutional power that Whites had over
Black Americans (Carmichael and Hamilton 1967).

Before breaking with the Black Muslims (the Black
Nation of Islam in the United States) and his religious
mentor Elijah Muhammad, and prior to his assassina-
tion in 1965, Malcolm X advocated a form of plural-
ism, demanding separate business establishments,
banks, churches, and schools for Black Americans.
He echoed an earlier effort of the 1920s led by Marcus
Garvey’s Back-to-Africa movement, the Universal Negro
Improvement Association (UNIA).

The Black Power movement of the late 1960s
rejected assimilation and instead demanded pluralism
in the form of self-determination and self-regulation
of Black communities. Militant groups such as the
Black Panther Party advocated fighting oppression with
armed revolution. The U.S. government acted quickly,
imprisoning members of the Black Panther Party and
similar militant revolutionary groups, in some cases
killing them outright (Brown 1992).

The Black Power movement also influenced the
development of other groups who were affected by the
analysis of institutional racism that the Black Power
movement developed, as well as by the assertion of
strong group identity that this movement encouraged.
Groups such as La Raza Unida (“The Race United”),
a Chicano organization, encouraged “brown power,”
promoting solidarity and the use of Chicano power to
achieve racial justice.

Likewise, the American Indian Movement (AIM)
used some of the same strategies and tactics that the
Black Power movement had encouraged, as have
Puerto Rican, Asian American, and other racial pro-
test groups. Elements of Black Power strategy were also
borrowed by the developing women’s movement, and
Black feminism was developed upon the realization
that women, including women of color, shared in the
oppressed status fostered by institutions that promoted
racism (Collins 1998, 1990). Overall, the Black Power
movement dramatically altered the nature of political
struggle, and race and ethnic relations in the United
States. It, and the other movements it inspired, changed
the nation’s consciousness about race and forced even
academic scholars to develop a deeper understanding
of how fundamental racism is to U.S. social institutions
(Branch 2006; Morris 1984).

The Contemporary Challenge: Race-Specific
versus Race-Blind Policies. A continuing question
from the dialogue between a civil rights strategy and
more radical strategies for change is the debate between
race-specific versus color-blind programs for change.
Color-blind policies are those advocating that all groups

be treated alike, with no barriers to opportunity posed
by race, gender, or other group differences. Equal
opportunity is the key concept in color-blind policies.

Race-specific policies are those that recognize the
unique status of racial groups because of the long his-
tory of discrimination and the continuing influence of
institutional racism. Those advocating such policies
argue that color-blind strategies will not work because
Whites and other racial–ethnic groups do not start from
the same position.

The “Tax” on Being a Minority in America:
Give Yourself a True–False Test
(An Illustration of White Privilege)
On the following test, give yourself one point for each
statement that is true for you personally. When you are
done, total up your points. The higher your score (the more
points you have), the less “minority tax” you are paying in
your own life:

1. My parents and grandparents were able to purchase
a house in any neighborhood they could afford.

2. I can take a job in an organization with an affirmative
action policy without people thinking I got my job
because of my race.

3. My parents own their own home.
4. I can look at the mainstream media and see people who

look like me represented in a wide variety of roles.
5. I can choose from many different student organizations

on campus that reflect my interests.
6. I can go shopping most of the time pretty well assured

that I will not be followed or harassed when I am in
the store.

7. If my car breaks down on a deserted stretch of road,
I can trust that the law enforcement officer who shows
up will be helpful.

8. I have a wide choice of grooming products that
I can buy in places convenient to campus and/or
near where I live as a student.

9. I never think twice about calling the police when
trouble occurs.

10. The schools I have attended teach about my race
and heritage and present it in positive ways.

11. I can be pretty sure that if I go into a business or other
organization (such as a university or college) to speak
with the “person in charge,” I will be facing a person
of my race.

Your total points:
Your racial identity:
Your gender:
How would you describe your social class?

Now gather results from some of your classmates and see
if their total points vary according to their own race, gender,
and/or social class.

Source: Adapted from the Discussion Guide for Race: The Power
of an Illusion. www.pbs.org

25 0 CHA PT ER 10

being considered and quotas are not used. This had
been upheld in at least two U.S. Supreme Court cases:
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)
and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). Various legal challenges
have been made to constitutional law on affirmative
action, but to date the principles articulated in the
Bakke and Grutter cases are the law of the land.

All told, the challenge of race in the United States
remains one that continues to affect the distribution
of social, economic, and political resources. No single
strategy is likely to solve this complex social issue. How
will the nation continue to address persistent racial
and ethnic inequality? Debates about racial and eth-
nic inequality and how to fix them rage on—in dinner
conversations, courtrooms, college classrooms, and the
U.S. Supreme Court.

Affirmative action is an example of a race-specific
policy for reducing job and educational inequality. Affir-
mative action means two things: First, it means recruit-
ing minorities from a wide base to ensure consideration
of groups that have been traditionally overlooked,
while not using rigid quotas based on race or ethnicity.
Second, affirmative action can mean taking race into
account as one factor among others that can be used
in such things as hiring decisions or college admis-
sions. Despite public misunderstandings about affir-
mative action, establishing specific quotas for minority
representation via affirmative action has been ruled
unconstitutional.

The practice of affirmative action had, at least until
now, been upheld as constitutional in the law—that is,
at least as long as the use of race is not the sole factor

How are race and ethnicity defined?
In virtually every walk of life, race matters. A race is a
social construction based loosely on physical criteria,
whereas an ethnic group is a culturally distinct group. A
group is minority not on the basis of their numbers in a
society but on the basis of which group occupies lower
average social status.

What are stereotypes, and how are they
important?
Stereotyping and stereotype interchangeability rein-
force racial and ethnic prejudices and thus cause them
to persist in the maintenance of inequality in society.
Racial and gender stereotypes have similar dynamics in
society, and both racial and gender stereotypes receive
ongoing support in the media. Stereotypes serve to jus-
tify and make legitimate the oppression of groups based
on race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Stereotypes, such
as “lazy,” support attributions made to minorities and
to working-class people and attempt to cast blame on
the minority in question, thus removing blame from the
social structure. Via the principle of stereotype threat,
stereotypes can affect the actual behavior of stereo-
typed individuals.

What are the differences between prejudice,
discrimination, and racism?
Prejudice is an attitude usually involving nega-
tive prejudgment on the basis of race or ethnicity.
Discrimination is overt, actual behavior involving
unequal treatment. Racism involves both attitude and
behavior.

What different forms does racism take?
Racism can take on several forms, such as overt preju-
dice, aversive (subtle) racism, implicit (unconscious)
racism, laissez-faire racism, color-blind racism (which
masks White privilege), and institutional racism. Insti-
tutional racism is unequal treatment, carrying with it
notions of cultural inferiority of a minority, which has
become firmly ingrained into the economic, politi-
cal, and educational institutional structure of society.
Institutional racism is a property of the social struc-
ture, less a property of the individual person, hence
Bonilla-Silva’s phrase “racism without racists.” Racial
profiling by the police is an example of institutional
racism.

Do all minority groups have different histories,
or are they similar?
Historical experiences show that different groups have
unique histories, although they are bound together by
some similarities in the prejudice and discrimination
they have experienced.

What are the challenges in attaining racial and
ethnic equality?
Not all immigrant groups and minority groups assimi-
late at the same rate, and some groups (U.S. Black Mus-
lims, the Amish) maintain cultural pluralism. Cultural
pluralism is tied to immigration. An urban underclass
remains entrenched in the United States, and cities
remain hypersegregated on the basis of race and eth-
nicity. All this means that, contrary to wishful thinking

Chapter Summary

RACE AND ETHN I CI TY 251

of some journalists, the United States is by no means
headed toward a “postracial” society.

What are some of the approaches to attaining
racial and ethnic equality?
Approaches include Reverend Martin Luther King’s
nonviolent civil rights strategy, radical social change,

and movements such as the Black Power movement,
La Raza Unida, and the American Indian Movement
(AIM), all of which directly addressed institutional
racism. Affirmative action policies, which are race-
specific rather than race-blind programs, continue
to be changed and modified through Supreme Court
cases.

affirmative action 250
anti-Semitism 246
assimilation theory 238
aversive racism 237
color-blind racism 237
contact theory 239
discrimination 234
dominant group 232
ethnic group 228

ethnocentrism 234
hyper

segregation 236

implicit bias 237
institutional racism 237
intersection

perspective 240
laissez-faire racism 237
minority group 232
pluralism 238

prejudice 234
race 228
racial formation 231
racial profiling 237
racialization 229
racism 236
residential

segregation 236

salience principle 232
segregation 235
stereotype 232
stereotype

interchangeability 233
stereotype threat 234
urban underclass 235
White privilege 237

Key Terms

Ch 10: Race and Ethnicity

Race and Ethnicity
Racial Stereotypes
Prejudice and Discrimination
Racism
Theories of Prejudice and Racism
Diverse Groups, Diverse Histories
Attaining Racial and Ethnic Equality: The Challenge
Chapter Summary

E DUCATION AND HEALTH CAR E 351

Despite assertions by politicians that this law has

had a positive and “dramatic” effect, the results have
shown that wide gaps persist in verbal and math test
scores. The gap has actually widened under the NCLB
law. Some of the gap in test scores, as we have seen,
can be attributed to poor measurement and cultural
bias in the tests, but the problems in the education
system run deep and cannot be measured by test
scores alone.

Other federal initiatives focus on school reform,
with little success. Political controversy centers on how
to fund education, where best to spend tax dollars, and
what policies would be most successful. Key issues in
the education debate are:

1. adopting standards and assessments that will pre-
pare students to succeed in college and the work-
place and to compete in a global economy;

2. developing good measures of student success that
can be used to inform teachers and administrators
about improving instruction;

3. recruiting, rewarding, and retaining the best teach-
ers and principals; and

4. improving the lowest-achieving schools.

Educational reform is difficult to implement. Educa-
tional reform must begin with a clear understanding
of education as an institution, including how schools
create and reinforce inequality. Continued research
and governmental commitment will help create a more
balanced, fair, and successful model for educating
Americans.

Health Care
in the United States
Like education, health care in the United States is also
an institution. The United States still has some of the
most sophisticated health care treatment in the world,
but is it affordable? Who has access? Why are costs for
medical insurance so high? Why are some Americans
at greater risk for illness than others? What role should
the government play in providing health care to its citi-
zens? These questions are at the core of current political
struggles about health care, but they are also informed
by sociological research and theory.

Generally speaking, the citizens of the United
States are quite healthy in relation to the rest of the
world. As we will see, there are very great discrepan-
cies among people within the United States in terms
of how healthy they are and their access to health care.
Although health is a physiological phenomenon, it has
social dimensions. The field of medical sociology stud-
ies these social dimensions of health and illness, the
social organization of health care institutions, and the
inequality of access to quality health care.

Health and Illness
Illness and how to treat disease have advanced greatly
over the course of American history. Scientific break-
throughs in the natural sciences have brought us to a
remarkable time in Western medicine when Ameri-
cans have access to diagnosis, treatment, and cures
for so many diseases once believed to be fatal. Under-
developed countries are far behind American medi-
cal schools and hospitals in availability of treatments,
diagnostic tests, and social support for the sick. In many
ways, the modern American system of health care and
medicine is a model of success.

There are, however, problems in the U.S. health
care system. Much like our education, medical institu-
tions are social structures that create different experi-
ences for different groups of people. The system is not
perfect. The issue largely revolves around unequal
access to good health care. The debate over affordable
health care and equality of care has dominated the
recent political landscape.

Another problem for U.S. health care is the overall
model of how we treat disease. Because of technologi-
cal advances in science, the assumption is that the most
up-to-date treatments are better for patients and have
better success. In many cases, this is true. It is better to
put antibiotic cream on an open wound, than “bleed” it
with an unsterile cut. Non-Western techniques, however,
are not entirely without merit. There are examples of
people traveling to India to practice yoga to cure nerve
disorders. Right here in the United States acupunctur-
ists are successfully treating people for everything from
chronic back pain to breach pregnancies. One complaint
of our health care system is that these alternative medical
practices are not always endorsed by physicians and are
rarely paid for by insurance. The most recent survey finds
that Americans paid at least $34 billion in one year on
complementary and alternative medicine—that is, things
such as herbal supplements, chiropractic, yoga, medita-
tion, acupuncture, and other products and services that
are not part of traditional medicine (Valles 2014; National
Institutes of Health 2007).

Critics of the health care system also contend that
there is a lack of emphasis on prevention. Medicine in
this country follows mostly a disease model in which
patients are first diagnosed and then treated for the
illness. Despite evidence that prevention of many ill-
nesses is possible, the system is structurally set up for
treatment rather than prevention. Most health insur-
ance does not, for example, reimburse a health club or
gym membership for someone at high risk for diabetes.
The cost of managing diabetes far outweighs the cost of
supporting an active lifestyle to prevent diabetes.

If health care institutions turned attention to pre-
vention, several costly and difficult health problems
could be significantly reduced in the United States.

352 CH APT ER 14

Obesity is a major health concern in the United States,
and a contributing factor for heart disease, stroke,
diabetes, and some cancers. Recently, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention classified obesity as an
ep idemic, with about 35 percent of adults and 17 percent
of children aged 2 through 19 classified as obese (Ogden
et al. 2014). Obesity occurs when more calories are
consistently ingested than are burned through physi-
cal activity. The epidemic of obesity, costing the United
States nearly $150 billion annually, is a social problem
well beyond the scope of individual behavior (Centers
for Disease Control 2011). Individuals do not simply
lack self-control when eating. Instead, environmental
factors have created a society focused on food, where
what we eat, when we eat, and how much we eat are
contributing to Americans’ obesity.

One environmental factor is the unavailability of
fresh, affordable, and healthy foods for many. Many peo-
ple in low-income inner-city neighborhoods, for exam-
ple, have to go miles before reaching a grocery store with
fresh, affordable produce. Convenience stores, vending
machines, and fast-food restaurants dominate the city
landscape, certainly in poorer areas. These places pro-
vide inexpensive, calorie-rich foods that fill people up.
Unfortunately, these foods are also rich in fat and lack
key nutrients needed for healthy bone development
and childhood growth. The racial and socioeconomic
characteristics of these neighborhoods mean that some
racial groups are more likely than others to be obese,
especially among children (see ▲ Figure 14.4). A steady
diet of high-fat, high-sugar, and highly processed foods
increases the likelihood of obesity.

Scientific knowledge provides the know-how to
battle obesity. Health professionals are aware of the
benefits of healthy foods and physical activities, and
more emphasis is being placed on staying physically

fit and eating well. Given the social and cultural
dimensions of overeating, however, the struggle to
reduce the number of obese Americans is still chal-
lenging. New governmental guidelines for nutrition,
state and federal initiatives for physical activity, and
media emphasis on weight loss are all part of a good
start for reversing the obesity trend. Health care insti-
tutions can also be part of the solution by includ-
ing healthy eating and exercise as part of an overall
prevention-focused medical plan.

The Social Organization
of Health Care
Health care is now a vast institution, including not only
hospitals and doctors but also many auxiliary sectors,
such as nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, drop-in
clinics, and various “alternative” health care services,
such as homeopathy, wellness centers, and even exer-
cise and nutrition centers. The colossal factors in the
organization of health care institutions are the for-profit
insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Health is big
business. The connection between for-profit compa-
nies, the government, and health care lies at the heart
of current debates about health care.

The United States is one of the few industrialized
nations that does not provide universal health care to
its citizens. The 2012 passing of the Affordable Care Act
(referred to as Obamacare) aimed to address the prob-
lem of too many uninsured Americans. Health care in
the United States is a labyrinth of health care deliver-
ers, for-profit insurance companies, and government
programs that provide health care for the aged and for
the poor. Entitlement programs like Medicare (which
provides health insurance to older Americans) and

0
5

10
15
20
25
30

35
Percent

17.9

White Black Mexican

17.8
22 23.7

20.2

GirlsBoys

▲ Figure 14.4 Percent of Children Aged 12–19
Who Are Obese, 2009–2012 Obesity among children is
health problem in America, especially among minorities.
Source: Centers for Disease Control. 2013. Health United States 2013.
Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus13

Supersized food is contributing to the problem of obesity.

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EDUCATION AN D HE ALTH CAR E 353

Medicaid (which provides health insurance to poor
Americans) remain the subject of political debate, as
does the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act works through a market-
place of health insurance exchanges that vary state to
state. People obtain coverage through competing health
care providers, enrolling during periods of open enroll-
ment. The key provisions of the Affordable Care Act are:

1. expansion of the availability of health care insur-
ance to all Americans;

2. insurance companies may not deny coverage to
children (under age 19) because of preexisting
conditions;

3. elimination of lifetime coverage limits on insurance
coverage, although there can be annual limits;

4. insurance plans must cover preventative care,
such as mammograms and colonoscopies, without
charging deductibles and co-pays;

5. young adults are allowed to stay on parents’ plan
until age 26;

6. early retirees keep their employer-sponsored ben-
efits until they are eligible for Medicare.

Early reports show that, on that last goal, the
Affordable Care Act is helping minimize the number of

uninsured people. Fewer Americans are without health
insurance (across all race groups; see ▲ Figure 14.5).
According to the official website of the Affordable Care
Act, over eleven million people signed up for health
insurance through the government marketplace in 2015.

The critics of the Affordable Care Act claim that
insurance costs will rise for companies that employ
workers, leading them to cut back on jobs and force
many companies to fail. Another analysis argues that,
under the new policy, physicians will be unable to col-
lect payment for much of their work, leading to fewer
quality doctors in practice. Despite the passing of the
new law, debate continues in the political arena and
among health care professionals over how to best pro-
vide care for people in the United States.

The American health care system has been com-
pared to those of other Western countries and revealed
some clear differences. For example, in European coun-
tries like France and Germany, health care is much
more unified in approach, allowing patients to experi-
ence more cohesive care from diagnosis to treatment
to cure (Reid 2010). In the United States, a specialist, a
doctor who concentrates on one specific area of medi-
cal care, is desirable for almost any illness. Primary care
physicians are not expected to treat disease, but rather

How does one best care for a dying
family member? The current health
care system has few options for end-
of-life care. Because the disease model
currently in place in the United States
emphasizes treatment, few doctors
will guide patients through the end
of life. Insurance companies often

When Should Treatment Stop?: Issues
for End-of-Life Care

do not cover the cost of palliative
care (not to cure or fix, but simply to
keep comfortable) or hospice care
(to keep comfortable through the
dying process). Less than one-third of
Americans die in hospitals. Most people
prefer to die at home with family
around them (Ko et al. 2013). Caring

for the elderly typically falls to women
(Jordan and Cory 2010), and clear
cultural differences among different
American families should be consid-
ered when reforming end-of-life care
(Ko et al. 2013; Cravey and Mitra 2011).
Sociologists examine the cultural
expectations and structural inequality
in caring for dying family members.
At what point are doctors and hospitals
no longer needed?

what would a sociologist say?

0
5
10
15
20
25
30

12.1

White Black Asian Hispanic

10.5

18.9

13.7 13.8
11.6

30.3
26.2

35
Percent

20142013

▲ Figure 14.5 People without Health Insurance
Coverage, 2013–2014 This chart shows the declin-
ing percentage of people in different race groups who
did not have health insurance from 2013 before the
Affordable Care Act to January through June 2014,
after the Affordable Care Act. Given what you see, who
benefitted the most?
Source: Martinez, Michael E., and Robin A. Cohen. 2014. Health
Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates from National
Health Interview Survey, January–June 2014. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, National Center for Health Statistics. www.cdc.gov/nchs
/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur201412

354 CH APTER 14

to simply manage good health and then refer patients to
a specialist when needed. This contributes to the confu-
sion, the high cost, and the ineffectiveness of American
health care. Patients often complain that diagnostic test
results are not shared between doctors or are not done
at all. Multiple doctors may be involved in diagnosis
and treatment, and they are not in agreement or are not
communicating effectively with one another.

The confusion and frustration in managing care is
challenging even in the best of cases. For fully insured
Americans with high education and good incomes, navi-
gating through the health care system is often complicated
and difficult. For the millions of Americans who are not
insured, have less education, and are financially vulner-
able, an illness can be devastating in more ways than one.

→ SEE for YOURSELF ←
Mapping Food
Identify two neighborhoods in your community that differ
by their social class and/or racial composition. Draw a map
of each neighborhood and then take a drive through each
with your map in hand. Mark every place where you see
some kind of food outlet, and mark whether it is a major
grocery chain, a convenience store, fast-food outlet, or
other provider of meals. You might also note what kind
of transportation is needed to get to each location. When
you have finished, what patterns do you see about the
availability of healthy food in each neighborhood? If you
lived in either, how far would you have to go to purchase
fresh, good-quality food? Can you get there without a car?
What does your experiment suggest about class and race
disparities in health outcomes?

Health and Inequality
Medical options are not equally available to all
Americans. Health care institutions re-create the struc-
tural inequality of society. Prominent problem areas in
the U.S. health care system include the following:

● Unequal distribution of health care by race–
ethnicity, social class, or gender. Health care
is more readily available and more readily deliv-
ered to White people than to others. Yet, as late as
2012, 19 percent of White adults still had no usual
source of health care. This compares to 22 percent of
African Americans, 21 percent of Asian Americans,
24 percent of American Indians and Alaska natives,
and 34 percent of Hispanics. Men are less likely than
women to have a source of health care (Centers for
Disease Control 2013).

● Unequal distribution of health care by region.
Each year, many in the United States die because
they live too far away from a doctor, hospital, or

emergency room. Doctors and hospitals are concen-
trated in cities and suburbs; they are much less likely
to be situated in isolated rural areas (Hartley 2014).

● Inadequate health education of inner-city and
rural parents. Many inner-city and rural parents do
not understand the importance of immunizing their
children against smallpox, tuberculosis, and other
illnesses, and they are often suspicious of immuni-
zation programs. This hesitancy is reinforced by the
depersonalized and inadequate health care that resi-
dents of low-income communities often encounter
when care is available at all.

DEBUNKING Society’s Myths←
Myth: The health care system works with the best inter-
ests of clients in mind.
Sociological Perspective: The health care system is
structured along the same lines as other social institu-
tions, thus reflecting similar patterns of inequality in
society (Barr 2014).

Race and Health Care
Racial disparities in health mean that African Americans
are more likely than Whites to fall victim to various dis-
eases, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, and dia-
betes. Although the occurrence of breast cancer is lower
among African American women than White women,
the mortality rate (death rate) for breast cancer in
African American women is considerably higher than it
is for White women (Centers for Disease Control 2013).

Hispanics, like African Americans, Native Ameri-
cans, and other minorities, are also significantly less
healthy than Whites (Centers for Disease Control 2013).
Hispanics contract tuberculosis at a rate seven times
that of Whites. Other indicators of health, such as infant
mortality, reveal a picture for Hispanics similar to that
of African Americans and Native Americans.

Although differences in culture, diet, and lifestyle
account for some of the racial disparities in health care,
it is well established in study after study that African
Americans and Latinos simply do not receive medical
attention as early as Whites. When they do get treat-
ment, the stage of their illness is often more advanced
and the treatment they receive is not of the same qual-
ity. African Americans and Hispanics, especially when
they are poor, are less likely than Whites to have a regu-
lar source of medical care (see Figure 14.5). When they
do, it is likely to be a public health facility or an out-
patient clinic. Because of language barriers as well as
other cultural differences, Hispanics are less likely than
other minority groups to use available health services,
such as hospitals, doctors’ offices, and clinics (National
Center for Health Statistics 2013).

E DUCATION AND HEALTH CAR E 355

Social Class and Health Care
In the United States, social class has a pronounced
effect on health and the availability of health services.
The lower the social class status of a person or fam-
ily, the less access available to adequate health care
(National Center for Health Statistics 2013). Conse-
quently, the lower one’s social class, the less long one
will live. People with higher incomes who are asked to
rate their own health tend to rate themselves higher
than people with lower incomes. The effects of social
class are nowhere more evident than in the distribution
of health and disease, showing up dramatically in the
rates of infant mortality, stillbirths, tuberculosis, heart
disease, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, and a variety of other
illnesses. The reasons lie partly in personal habits that
are themselves partly dependent on one’s social class.
For example, those with lower socioeconomic status
smoke more often, and smoking is the major cause of
lung cancer and a significant contributor to cardiovas-
cular disease (Centers for Disease Control 2013).

Social circumstances also have an effect on health.
Poor living conditions, elevated levels of pollution
in low-income neighborhoods, and lack of access to
health care facilities all contribute to the high rate of
disease among low-income people. Another contrib-
uting factor is the stress caused by financial troubles.
Research has consistently shown correlations between
psychological stress and physical illness (Taylor 2010).
The poor are more subject to psychological stress than
the middle and upper classes, and it shows up in their
comparatively high level of illness.

Medicaid is the government program that provides
medical care in the form of health insurance for the
poor, welfare recipients, and the disabled. The program
is funded through tax revenues. The costs covered per
individual vary from state to state because the state
must provide funds to the individual in addition to the
funds that are provided by the federal government.
Medicaid, Medicare, and now the Affordable Care Act
are as close as the United States has come to the ideal of
universal health insurance.

Gender and Health Care
Although women live longer on average than men,
national health statistics show that hypertension is
more common among men than women until age 55,
when the pattern reverses. This may reflect differences
in the social environment men and women experience,
with women finding their situation to be more stress-
ful as they advance toward old age (National Center for
Health Statistics 2013).

Health and Disability
The disability rights movement, a movement that has
defined disabled people as a social group with rights

similar to other minority groups in society, has trans-
formed how people think about disability, challenging
many preconceived ideas. For example, within a social
context, there is a tendency for people to see someone
with a disability solely in terms of that social status—
what sociologists call a stigma. A stigma is a social iden-
tity that develops when a person is socially devalued
by others because of some identifiable characteristic.
When someone is stigmatized, that identity tends to
override all other identities, and the person is treated
accordingly.

Understanding the social dynamics associated
with disabilities has resulted from the efforts of the
disability rights movement. The movement has called
attention to the social realities of disabilities, even
questioning the very language used to identify people
with disabilities—for example, using the term physi-
cally challenged rather than the more negative conno-
tation of disabled.

One of the most significant achievements of the
disability rights movement is the Americans with Dis-
abilities (ADA) Act, passed by Congress in 1990. This
law prohibits discrimination against people with dis-
abilities. The ADA legislates that people with disabilities
may not be denied access to public facilities—thus the
presence of such things as ramps, wheelchair access on
buses and stairways, handicapped parking spaces, and
chirping sounds in crosswalk lights for blind pedestri-
ans, all social changes that are now so prevalent that you
might even take them for granted. They have resulted,
however, from the social mobilization of those who saw
a need for social change.

The Americans with Disabilities Act also requires
employers and schools to provide “reasonable accom-
modations” such that those with disabilities are not
denied access to employment and education. For

The disability rights movement has opened up new
opportunities for those who face the challenge of disability.

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356 CH APT ER 14

many students with various learning disabilities, this
has meant making accommodations for taking tests
with extended time or in settings where the test taker
is not subject to as much distraction as in a crowded
classroom. The increased awareness of disability rights
has transformed society in ways that have opened up
new opportunities for those who, years ago, would
have found themselves with less access to education
and jobs and, therefore, more isolated in society.

Age and Health Care
As people age, their health care needs are no doubt
likely to increase. Until recently, many of the nation’s
elderly were also likely to be low income. Although
class status varies among the nation’s elderly, all older
people at this point are beneficiaries of the national
Medicare program. Medicare was begun in 1965, under
the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. It
provides medical insurance, including hospital care,
prescription drug plans, and other forms of medical
care for all individuals age 65 or older. The Affordable
Care Act also aims to strengthen Medicare benefits.

Medicare is partially funded through payroll taxes
whereby both employees and employers pay a small
percentage of employee wages to cover some of the cost
of this large (and costly) federal program. But, with so
many people in the population now living longer, and
with the now aging baby boomer population being such
a large share of the total population, many wonder if
Medicare can be sustained in the near future. With the
number of workers paying payroll taxes shrinking, the
elderly population growing, and the cost of health care
rising, there is a looming fear that Medicare simply can-
not be financially sustained. Though not the sole basis for
the nation’s challenges in health care, the health needs
of the older population are clearly a major challenge.

Theoretical Perspectives
of Health Care
The sociology of health is anchored in the same major
theoretical perspectives that we have studied through-
out this book: functionalist theory, conflict theory, and
symbolic interaction theory (see ◆ Table 14.3).

Functionalist Theory
Functionalism argues that any institution, group, or
organization can be interpreted by looking at its posi-
tive and negative functions in society. Positive func-
tions contribute to the harmony and stability of society.
The positive functions of the health care system are the
prevention and treatment of disease. Ideally, this would
mean the delivery of health care to the entire popula-
tion without regard to race, ethnicity, social class, gen-
der, age, or any other characteristic. At the same time,
the health care system is notable for a number of nega-
tive functions, those that contribute to disharmony and
instability of society.

Functionalism also emphasizes the systematic
way that various social institutions are related to each
other, together forming the relatively stable char-
acter of society. You can see this with regard to how
the health care system is entangled with government
through such things as federal regulation of new
drugs and procedures. The government is also deeply
involved in health care through scientific institutions
such as the National Institutes of Health, a huge gov-
ernment agency that funds new research on various
matters of health and health care policy. As a social
institution, health care is also one of the nation’s larg-
est employers and thus is integrally tied to systems of
work and the economy.

◆ Table 14.3 Theoretical Perspectives on the Sociology of Health

Functionalism Conflict Theory Symbolic Interaction

Central point The health care system has
certain functions, both posi-
tive and negative.

Health care reflects the inequalities
in society.

Illness is partly socially constructed.

Fundamental prob-
lem uncovered

The health care system
produces some negative
functions.

Excessive bureaucratization of the
health care system and privatization
lead to excess cost.

Patients and health professionals
serve specific roles. What is deter-
mined as illness is specific to
cultural context.

Policy implications Policy should decrease nega-
tive functions of health care
system for minority groups,
the poor, and women.

Policy should improve access to
health care for minority racial–ethnic
groups, the poor, and women.

Determining something as disease
will make insurance reimbursement
more likely.

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EDUCATION AN D HEALTH CAR E 357

Conflict Theory
Conflict theory stresses the importance of social struc-
tural inequality in society. From the conflict perspec-
tive, the inequality inherent in our society is responsible
for the unequal access to medical care. Minorities, the
lower classes, and the elderly, particularly elderly
women, have less access to the health care system in
the United States than Whites, the middle and upper
classes, and the middle-aged. Restricted access is fur-
ther exacerbated by the high costs of medical care.

Excessive bureaucratization is another affliction
of the health care system that adds to the alienation of
patients. The U.S. health care system is burdened by
endless forms for both physicians and patients, includ-
ing paperwork to enter individuals into the system,
authorize procedures, dispense medicines, monitor
progress, and process payments. Long waits for medical
attention are normal, even in the emergency room. Pro-
longed waits have reached alarming proportions in the
emergency rooms of many urban hospitals in the United
States and can only deepen the alienation of patients.

Symbolic Interaction Theory
Symbolic interaction theory holds that illness is partly
(although obviously not totally) socially constructed
(Armstrong 2003). The definitions of illness and well-
ness are culturally relative—the social context of a con-
dition partly determines whether or not it is sickness.
Consider the example of alcoholism and other addic-
tions. During the era of prohibition, people who drank
were considered deviants and lacking moral fortitude.
Now, however, alcoholism is a diagnosable disease,
listed in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual as an illness.
The medicalization of alcoholism refers to how Ameri-
cans culturally and socially label abuse of alcohol as a
disease that requires treatment. This has profound con-
sequences for how people with alcoholism are treated.
People who are ill receive more sympathy and more
care than those who are labeled deviant.

Symbolic interaction also highlights the roles
played within the health care institution. There is a hier-
archy that puts medical doctors at the top and medical
assistants, nursing staff, and orderlies at the bottom.
Patients take on the role of a child, with little agency
in how treatment is administered. The diagnosis, the
treatment plan, and the prognosis are managed with
little input from the patient. Insurance companies and
pharmaceutical companies play an entirely different
role, one that oversees the availability of medical care
by determining what procedures or treatments will be
financially covered.

The symbolic interaction approach to study-
ing health care institutions focuses on the roles of the
patient and medical professionals and on the cultural

context within which disease is labeled and treated.
Table 14.3 outlines the theoretical perspectives of
health care and illness.

Health Care Reform
Currently, the cost of medical care in the United States
is approximately 18 percent of our gross domestic
product, making health care the nation’s third leading
industry. The United States tops the list of all countries
in per person expenditures for health care (The World
Bank 2014a). Other countries spend considerably less
money and deliver a level of health care at least as
good. For example, Sweden and the United Kingdom
spend roughly half as much per capita as the United
States, and Turkey spends a bit more than one-third
as much.

The Cost of Health Care
One of the challenges of health care is sheer cost. Most
health care is provided by a fee-for-service principle
in which patients are responsible for paying the fees
the health care provider charges. Patients with health
insurance are able to pass on health expenses, either in
full or partially, to the insurance company, but the cost
for health care services is high, in some cases, astro-
nomically expensive. Hospital care can cost thousands,
even millions, of dollars for any extended stay. Sophis-
ticated procedures require expensive machinery and
technicians, and the nation needs to invest in medical
research that allows practitioners to stay abreast of new

Medical technologies add to the quality of health care, but
also to the cost.

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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

35 8 CHAPTER 14

technologies and new treatments for a wide array of
medical conditions.

Most sectors of the health care system (hospitals,
pharmaceutical companies, even physician’s office
practices) are structured as for-profit businesses. Physi-
cians, for example, may have to raise their rates to cover
the high cost of malpractice insurance where annual
insurance premiums (costs) have skyrocketed. The cost
of these insurance premiums is passed along to con-
sumers (patients) and has contributed to the rise in the
overall cost of health care.

Adding to the high cost of health care is the role
of big pharmaceutical companies. Spending for pre-
scription drugs in the United States has increased from
$40 billion in 1990 to a whopping $326 billion in 2013
(Schumock et al. 2014)! There is little sign that this
spending will do anything but go further up. Prescrip-
tion drugs are one of the fastest-growing components
of health care costs. The rise in spending on drugs is
partially attributed to increased use, but other factors
include the actual cost of the drugs, the availability of
new drugs for various maladies, and, without ques-
tion, the cost of advertising directly to the public. The
money spent on advertising directly to consumers has
doubled since 1999 (Kaiser Family Foundation 2010).
You can see this yourself as hardly an hour goes by on
television without an advertisement for some kind of
prescription drug.

The health care crisis in the United States is largely
a question of cost, but it also entails a debate over the
nation’s responsibility for the health of its citizens.
Who should pay for the soaring costs of health care?
Who receives the benefits of such sophisticated medi-
cine? Should there be universal health care for all, like
we are seeing through the Affordable Care Act? These

questions are at the heart of the current national debate
about health care reform.

Health Care for All?
Despite the success of the Affordable Care Act in get-
ting many more Americans health insurance, there is
strong opposition to the program. Many in Congress
are working to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Why
are so many in the United States resistant to provid-
ing health care to its citizens in line with other Western
nations? Sociologists offer several explanations. First,
there is an antigovernment attitude among many in the
United States that fuels resistance to a national health
care system. The argument in Congress is that the gov-
ernment should not force people to spend money on
health insurance. Second, analysts argue that, unlike in
other Western nations, there is a relatively weak labor
movement in the United States, resulting in more lim-
ited state-based benefits for workers. Third, racial poli-
tics have also shaped the nation’s health care system;
federal social welfare programs are associated in many
people’s minds with racial groups, and this, too, fuels
the politics of health care reform. Finally, the health
care system in this country is fundamentally structured
on private, for-profit interests (Quadagno 2005).

Without the Affordable Care Act, millions more
Americans will be uninsured. This creates vulnerabil-
ity for people, especially people in poor communities,
when they get sick. For Americans without insurance,
the main source for medical care is a hospital emer-
gency room, often called the “doctor’s office of the
poor.” This is a very expensive way to deliver routine
health care—and there is rarely any follow-up care or
comprehensive and preventative treatment.

Many uninsured people wait in long lines to sign up for
government-run health and medical plans.

The high cost of prescription drugs is indicative of the
problems generated by a profit-based health care system.

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EDUCATION AN D HE ALTH CAR E 35 9

→ SEE for YOURSELF ←
Youth and Health insurance
Identify a group of young people you know and ask them
if they are covered by health insurance. If they are insured,
where does their insurance come from? Who pays? Did
they use the Affordable Care Act marketplace to find
insurance? If they are not insured, ask them why not and
whether they think this is important. Do they support a
national health insurance program?

Having conducted your interviews, ask yourself how
social factors such as the age, race, ethnicity, gender, and
educational/occupational status of those you interviewed
might have affected what people say about their insur-
ance. Do you think any or all of these social characteristics
are related to the likelihood that people are covered by
health insurance and whether these characteristics are
related to their attitudes about coverage? What are the
implications of your results for public support for new
health care policies?

What is the importance of the education
institution?
Education is the social institution that is concerned
with the formal transmission of society’s knowledge. It
is therefore part of the socialization process. Although
the U.S. education system has long produced students
at the top of the world’s educational achievements, the
United States is falling behind other nations on stan-
dardized test scores.

How does sociological theory inform our
understanding of education?
Functionalism interprets education as having various
purposes for society, such as socialization, occupational
training, and social control. Conflict theory emphasizes
the power relationships within educational institutions,
as well as how education serves the powerful interests
in society. Symbolic interaction theory focuses on the
subjective meanings that people hold. These meanings
influence educational outcomes.

How does education link to social mobility?
The number of years of formal education for individuals
has important effects on their ultimate occupation and
income. Social class origin affects the extent of educa-
tional attainment (the higher the social class origins, the
more education is ultimately attained), as well as occupa-
tion and income (higher social class origin likely means a
more prestigious occupation and more income).

Does the educational system perpetuate or reduce
inequality?
Although the education system in the United States has
traditionally been a major means for reducing racial,
gender, and class inequalities among people, the edu-
cation institution has perpetuated these inequalities.
Segregation of schools and communities keep minor-
ity and poor children in schools that lack resources for
success.

What current reforms are guiding education?
The No Child Left Behind Act program emphasized
accountability in the schools, largely through testing.
Current educational reforms focus on achieving educa-
tional standards, assessing school progress, and devel-
oping strong measures of student and teacher success.
Free community college is also an educational reform
idea.

How does the United States compare to other
nations in the area of health care?
The United States is only recently providing universal
health care for its citizens, through the Affordable Care
Act. Despite disagreement with this program, more
Americans now have health care insurance. The health
care system is organized according to social patterns,
including that disease itself is influenced by social facts,
such as race, gender, and social class.

Chapter Summary
B

Ch
ris

to
ph

er
/A

la
m

The Affordable Care Act was finally passed into law in
June 2012, after the Supreme Court ruled it did not violate
the Constitution. The debate over whether or not to
appeal “Obamacare” continues.

3 60 CH APTER 14

How does sociological theory inform our
understanding of health and health care?
Functionalism interprets the health care system in
terms of the systematic way that health care institutions
are related to each other. Conflict theory addresses the
inequalities that occur within the health care system.
Symbolic interaction analyzes the interpretations that
can affect people’s health care, such as the tendency to
place patients in a sick role and label some ailments as
disease and others not.

What is the health care crisis in the United
States?
High costs and questions about universal health care
have created a policy crisis today in the U.S. health
care system. The Affordable Care Act addresses some
of the problems on universal health care, but the
policy remains controversial.

achievement test 343
Affordable Care Act 352
Brown v. Board of

Education 341

cultural capital 348
individualized education

programs 349
Medicaid 353

Medicare 352
schooling 340
self-fulfilling

prophecy 344

stigma 355
teacher expectancy

effect 342
tracking 349

Key Terms

Ch 14: Education and Health Care

Health Care in the United States
Health and Inequality
Theoretical Perspectives of Health Care
Health Care Reform
Chapter Summary

Q1:

‘Don’t panic, How to End Poverty’ is a documentary film that has been produced b Wingspan Productions for This World on BBC. In this hopeful and anticipative presentation, Hans Rosling educates and entertains the public on the weighty topic of extreme poverty. He delivers this stimulating lecturer in a simple entertaining manner in this captivating film, Statician Rosling explains how humanity is capable of eradicating extreme poverty within a generation. He offers hope to the society that they can end poverty successfully even though one billion people still survive in extreme poverty. To present data in this film, Rosling employed the use of holographic projection technology to assess how the world will end poverty by 2030.

Q2:

1. Social Stratification

This is a fixed hierarchical arrangement in a society through which different groups get access to power, resources and perceived social worth. It is a system of structured social inequality. For example, a sport is a system of social stratification since the organization is arranged in a hierarchy such that some people have more power and resources than others. This system is made up of groups who include fans who contribute funds that are essential to the growth of the team, sponsors who are the economic engines, owners who own the club and control most resources and the players who earn the highest salaries.

2. Modernization Theory

This is a theory of global stratification that interprets the economic development of various countries as growing from technological change. This theory explains that a country increases modernization through technological development and it views economic development as a process through which traditional societies increase their complexity. According to this theory, countries must adjust their traditional values, attitudes, and institutions for economic development to take place. It is a result of culture and traditional customs that keep a nation from developing.

3. Dependency Theory

This theory explains that poverty of low-income countries as a result of economic and political dependence on wealthy nations. Dependency theory explains that poverty experienced in many developing countries is due to exploitation by powerful, wealthy countries. Although various market-oriented theories explain why some countries are successful, they don’t explain the reason behind poverty in most developing countries.

4. Worlds Systems Theory

This theory is established on the premise that no nation in the world is deliberated in isolation. This is because; every country is tied to other countries in the world in many ways. According to this theory, the world economic system should be understood as a single unit and not as a group or an individual country.

Q3:

Hans Rosling’s hopeful interpretation has changed my perspective on life significantly. His conclusion that it is possible to end poverty in the world, something that seems almost impossible is an uplifting thought. His interpretation has made complex things to appear simple, fun and achievable. This has changed my perspective on life by making me understand that it is possible to make everything happen with the right attitude.

Q4:

Looking at the explanations outlined in this film, eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. This movie has shone a ray of light on the remarkably emerging countries by providing reliable statistics which can be followed through to achieve poverty eradication. It has also pointed out the cause of the poor state among these nations which will help take the necessary precautions. Filled with evidence-based research and statistics, I would recommend this life-saving film to anyone.

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Social Differentiation and Social
Stratification 17

The Class Structure of the United
States: Growing Inequality 173

The Distribution of Income
and Wealth 17

Analyzing Social Class 179

Social Mobility: Myths and
Realities 185

Why Is There Inequality? 187

Poverty 190

Chapter Summary 197

One afternoon in a major U.S. city, two women go shop-ping. They are friends—wealthy, suburban women who shop for leisure. They meet in a gourmet res-
taurant and eat imported foods while discussing their chil-
dren’s private schools. After lunch, they spend the afternoon
in exquisite stores—some of them large, elegant department
stores; others, intimate boutiques where the staff knows them
by name. When one of the women stops to use the bathroom
in one store, she enters a beautifully furnished room with an
upholstered chair, a marble sink with brass faucets, fresh flow-
ers on a wooden pedestal, shining mirrors, an ample supply of
hand towels, and jars of lotion and soaps. The toilet is in a pri-
vate stall with solid doors. In the stall, there is soft toilet paper
and another small vase of flowers.

The same day, in a different part of town, another woman
goes shopping. She lives on a marginal income earned as a
stitcher in a textiles factory. Her daughter badly needs a new
pair of shoes because she has outgrown last year’s pair. The
woman goes to a nearby discount store where she hopes to
find a pair of shoes for under $15, but she dreads the experi-
ence. She knows her daughter would like other new things—a
bathing suit for the summer, a pair of jeans, and a blouse. But
this summer, the daughter will have to wear hand-me-downs
because bills over the winter have depleted the little money
left after food and rent. For the mother, shopping is not rec-
reation but a bitter chore reminding her of the things she is
unable to get for her daughter.

While this woman is shopping, she, too, stops to use the
bathroom. She enters a vast space with sinks and mirrors lined
up on one side of the room and several stalls on the other.
The tile floor is gritty and gray. The locks on the stall doors are
missing or broken. Some of the overhead lights are burned
out, so the room has dark shadows. In the stall, the toilet
paper is coarse. When the woman washes her hands, she
discovers there is no soap in the metal dispensers. The mirror
before her is cracked. She exits quickly, feeling as though she
is being watched.

Social Class and Social
Stratification

● Explain how class is a
social structure

● Describe the class structure
of the United States

● Identify the different
components of class
inequality

● Analyze the extent of social
mobility in the United States

● Compare and contrast
theoretical models of class
inequality

● Investigate the causes
and consequences of
U.S. povert

in this chapter, you will learn to:

1 70 CHA PTER 8

Social Differentiation
and Social Stratification
All social groups and societies exhibit social differentia-
tion. Status, as we have seen earlier, is a socially defined
position in a group or society. Different statuses develop
in any group, organization, or society. Think of a sports
organization. The players, the owners, the managers,
the fans, the cheerleaders, and the sponsors all have a
different status within the organization. Together, they
constitute a whole social system, one that is marked by
social differentiation.

Two scenarios, one society. The difference is the mark of a society built upon class inequality. The
signs are all around you. Think about the clothing you wear. Are some labels worth more than others? Do
others in your group see the same marks of distinction and status in clothing labels? Do some people you
know never seem to wear the “right” labels? Whether it is clothing, bathrooms, schools, homes, or access
to health care, the effect of class inequality is enormous, giving privileges and resources to some and
leaving others struggling to get by.

Great inequality divides society. Nevertheless, most people think that equal opportunity exists for
all in the United States. The tendency is to blame individuals for their own failure or attribute success to
individual achievement. Many think the poor are lazy and do not value work. At the same time, the rich
are admired for their supposed initiative, drive, and motivation. Neither is an accurate portrayal. There are
many hardworking individuals who are poor, but they seldom get credit for their effort. At the same time,
many of the richest people have inherited their wealth or have had access to resources (such as the best
schools or access to elite networks) that others can barely imagine.

Observing and analyzing class inequality is fundamental to sociological study. What features of soci-
ety cause different groups to have different opportunities? Why is there such an unequal allocation of
society’s resources? Sociologists respect individual achievements but have found that the greatest cause
for disparities in material success is the organization of society. Instead of understanding inequality as the
result of individual effort, sociologists study the social structural origins of inequality.

→ SEE for YOURSELF ←
Take a shopping trip to different stores and observe the
appearance of stores serving different economic groups.
What kinds of bathrooms are there in stores catering to
middle-class clients? The rich? The working class? The
poor? Which ones allow the most privacy or provide the
nicest amenities? What fixtures are in the display areas?
Are they simply utilitarian with minimal ornamentation, or
are they opulent displays of consumption? Take detailed
notes of your observations, and write an analysis of what
this tells you about social class in the United States.

Social class differences make it seem as if some people are living in two different societies.

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Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 7

Status differences can become organized into a
hierarchical social system. Social stratification is a
relatively fixed, hierarchical arrangement in society by
which groups have different access to resources, power,
and perceived social worth. Social stratification is a sys-
tem of structured social inequality. Again using sports
as an example, you can see that many of the players earn
extremely high salaries, although most do not. Those
who do are among the elite in this system of inequality,
but the owners control the resources of the teams and
hold the most power in this system. Sponsors (includ-
ing major corporations and media networks) are the
economic engines on which this system of stratification
rests. Fans are merely observers who pay to watch the
teams play, but the revenue they generate is essential
for keeping this system intact. Altogether, sports are sys-
tems of stratification because the groups that constitute

the organization are arranged in a hierarchy where
some have more resources and power than others.
Some provide resources; others take them. Even within
the field of sports, there are huge differences in which
teams—and which sports—are among the elite.

All societies seem to have a system of social strati-
fication, although they vary in the degree and complex-
ity of stratification. Some societies stratify only along a
single dimension, such as age, keeping the stratification
system relatively simple. Most contemporary societies
are more complex, with many factors interacting to cre-
ate different social strata. In the United States, social
stratification is strongly influenced by class, which is in
turn influenced by matters such as one’s occupation,
income, and education, along with race, gender, and
other influences such as age, region of residence, eth-
nicity, and national origin (see ◆ Table 8.1).

Sports are a huge part of American cul-
ture. Whether you are an athlete, a fan,
or just an observer, sports are a window
into how social class shapes some of our
most popular activities.

Start with the ideas of functionalism
and the work of classical theorist Emile
Durkheim. Durkheim was interested in
the cultural symbols and events that bind
people together. Think of how many
sports symbols, such as jerseys, hats,
and bumper stickers, are common sights
in everyday life. These symbols project
an identity to others that make a claim
about being part of a collective group,

Social Class and Sports
but sometimes, they reflect social class
locations, too. Rich people, for example,
are not likely to be wearing NASCAR
caps, but may well have yacht club logos
on their polo shirts and ties.

As Max Weber would point out, class,
power, and prestige are all tangled up in
sports. There are significant class differ-
ences associated with different sports,
some having more prestige than others.
Prestige is also interwoven with power,
as you can see during political elections,
where you see politicians all over the
place—at tailgate parties and hanging out
in the expensive box seats. Beyond the

connection between power, politics, and
prestige, sports is big business.

Corporate profits and sponsorship are
very apparent, even in college sports. Look
at the advertisements on most college
scoreboards. Various plays in a football
game might be featured as an “AT&T All-
America Play of the Week!” Think of how
much money is spent on commercials.

Social class in the world of sports is
everywhere, even though the workers
who help put on events are often invisible.
Some of the athletes are very highly paid,
but working-class people serve the food in
stadiums, clean up after the fans leave, and
take out all the trash. Sports are an amaz-
ing example of a class-based social system.

what would a sociologist say?

◆ Table 8.1 Inequality in the United States
● One in five children (19.5 percent) in the United States lives in poverty, including 38 percent of African American children,

30 percent of Hispanic children, 11 percent of White (not Hispanic) children, and 9.8 percent of Asian American children
(DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014).

● The rate of poverty among people in the United States has been increasing since 2000 (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014).

● Among women heading their own households, one-third live below the poverty line (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014).

● One percent of the U.S. population controls 38 percent of the total wealth in the nation; the bottom half hold none or are
in debt (Mishel et al. 2012).

● Most American families have seen their net worth decline, largely because of declines in the value of housing. Households
at the bottom of the wealth distribution lost the largest share of their wealth; those at the top, the least (Pfeffer et al. 2014).

● The average CEO of a major company has a salary of $13 million per year; workers earning the minimum wage make
$15,080 per year if they work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks and hold only one job (www.aflcio.org).

1 72 CHA PT ER 8

Estate, Caste, and Class
Stratification systems can be broadly categorized into
three types: estate systems, caste systems, and class
systems. In an estate system of stratification, the
ownership of property and the exercise of power are
monopolized by an elite class who have total control
over societal resources. Historically, such societies were
feudal systems where classes were differentiated into
three basic groups—the nobles, the priesthood, and
the commoners. Commoners included peasants (usu-
ally the largest class group), small merchants, artisans,
domestic workers, and traders. The nobles controlled
the land and the resources used to cultivate the land,
as well as all the resources resulting from peasant labor.

Estate systems of stratification are most common in
agricultural societies. Although such societies have been
largely supplanted by industrialization, some societies
still have a small but powerful landholding class rul-
ing over a population that works mainly in agricultural
production. Unlike the feudal societies of the European
Middle Ages, however, contemporary estate systems
of stratification display the influence of international
capitalism. The “noble class” comprises not knights who
conquered lands in war, but international capitalists or
local elites who control the labor of a vast and impover-
ished group of people, such as in some South American
societies where landholding elites maintain a dictator-
ship over peasants who labor in agricultural fields.

In a caste system, one’s place in the stratification
system is an ascribed status (see Chapter 5), meaning it
is a quality given to an individual by circumstances of
birth. The hierarchy of classes is rigid in caste systems
and is often preserved through formal law and cultural
practices that prevent free association and movement
between classes. The system of apartheid in South Africa
was a stark example of a caste system. Under apartheid,
the travel, employment, associations, and place of resi-
dence of Black South Africans were severely restricted.
Segregation was enforced using a pass system in which
Black South Africans could not be in White areas unless
for purposes of employment. Those found without passes
were arrested, often sent to prison without ever see-
ing their families again. Interracial marriage was illegal.
Black South Africans were prohibited from voting; the
system was one of total social control where anyone who
protested was imprisoned. The apartheid system was
overthrown in 1994 when Nelson Mandela, held prisoner
for twenty-seven years of his life, was elected president of
the new nation of South Africa. A new national constitu-
tion guaranteeing equal rights to all was ratified in 1996.

In class systems, stratification exists, but a per-
son’s placement in the class system can change accord-
ing to personal achievements. That is, class depends to
some degree on achieved status, defined as status that
is earned by the acquisition of resources and power,

regardless of one’s origins. Class systems are more open
than caste systems because position does not depend
strictly on birth. Classes are less rigidly defined than
castes because class divisions are blurred when there is
movement from one class to another.

Despite the potential for movement from one class
to another, in the class system found in the United States,
class placement still depends heavily on one’s social back-
ground. Although ascription (the designation of ascribed
status according to birth) is not the basis for social stratifi-
cation in the United States, the class a person is born into
has major consequences for that person’s life. Patterns of
inheritance; access to exclusive educational resources;
the financial, political, and social influence of one’s
family; and similar factors all shape one’s likelihood of
achievement. Although there are not formal obstacles to
movement through the class system, individual achieve-
ment is very much shaped by one’s class of origin.

In common terms, class refers to style or sophisti-
cation. In sociological use, social class (or class) is the
social structural position that groups hold relative to
the economic, social, political, and cultural resources
of society. Class determines the access different peo-
ple have to these resources and puts groups in different
positions of privilege and disadvantage. Each class has
members with similar opportunities who tend to share
a common way of life. Class also includes a cultural
component in that class shapes language, dress, man-
nerisms, taste, and other preferences. Class is not just
an attribute of individuals; it is a feature of society.

The social theorist Max Weber described the conse-
quences of stratification in terms of life chances, mean-
ing the opportunities that people have in common by
virtue of belonging to a particular class. Life chances
include the opportunity for possessing goods, having
an income, and having access to particular jobs. Life
chances are also reflected in the quality of everyday life.
Whether you dress in the latest style or wear another
person’s discarded clothes, have a vacation in an exclu-
sive resort, take your family to the beach for a week, or
have no vacation at all, these life chances are the result
of being in a particular class.

Class is a structural phenomenon; it cannot be
directly observed. Nonetheless, you can “see” class
through various displays that people project, often unin-
tentionally, about their class status. Do some objects
worn project higher-class status than others? How about
cars? What class status is displayed through the car you
drive or, for that matter, whether you even have a car or
use a bus to get to work? In myriad ways, class is projected
to others as a symbol of presumed worth in society.

Social class can be observed in the everyday hab-
its and presentations of self that people project. Com-
mon objects, such as clothing and cars, can be ranked
not only in terms of their economic value but also in
terms of the status that various brands and labels carry.

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 73

The interesting thing about social class is that a particu-
lar object may be quite ordinary, but with the right
“label,” it becomes a status symbol and thus becomes
valuable. Take the example of Vera Bradley bags. These
paisley bags are made of ordinary cotton with batting.
Not long ago, such cloth was cheap and commonplace,
associated with rural, working-class women. If such a
bag were sewn and carried by a poor person living on a
farm, the bag (and perhaps the person!) would be seen
as ordinary, almost worthless. Transformed by the right
label (and some good marketing), Vera Bradley bags have
become status symbols, selling for a high price (often a
few hundred dollars—a price one would never pay for
a simple cotton purse). Presumably, having such a bag
denotes the status of the person carrying it. (See also the
box “See for Yourself: Status Symbols in Everyday Life.”)

The early sociologist Thorstein Veblen described the
class habits of Americans as conspicuous consumption,
meaning the ostentatious display of goods to define
one’s social status. Writing in 1899, Veblen said, “con-
spicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means
of respectability to the gentleman of leisure” (Veblen
1953/1899: 42). Although Veblen identified this behav-
ior as characteristic of the well-to-do (the “leisure class,”
he called them), conspicuous consumption today marks
the lifestyle of many. Indeed, mass consumerism is a
hallmark of both the rich and the middle class, and even
of many working-class people’s lifestyles. What exam-
ples of this do you see among your associates?

→ SEE for YOURSELF ←
Status Symbols in Everyday Life
You can observe the everyday reality of social class by
noting the status that different ordinary objects have
within the context of a class system. Make a list of every
car brand you can think of—or, if you prefer, every cloth-
ing label. Then rank your list with the highest status brand
(or label) at the top of the list, going down to the lowest
status. Then answer the following questions:

1. Where does the presumed value of this object come
from? Does the value come from the actual cost of
producing the object or something more subjective?

2. Do people make judgments about people wearing or
driving the different brands you have noted? What
judgments do they make? Why?

3. What consequences do you see (positive and
negative) of the ranking you have observed? Who
benefits from the ranking and who does not?

What does this exercise reveal about the influence of
status symbols in society?

Because sociologists cannot isolate and measure
social class directly, they use other indicators to serve

as measures of class. A prominent indicator of class is
income. Other common indicators are education, occu-
pation, and place of residence. These indicators alone do
not define class, but they are often accurate measures of
the class standing of a person or group. We will see that
these indicators tend to be linked. A good income, for
example, makes it possible to afford a house in a prestig-
ious neighborhood and an exclusive education for one’s
children. In the sociological study of class, indicators such
as income and education have had enormous value in
revealing the outlines and influences of the class system.

The Class Structure
of the United States:
Growing Inequality
People think of the United States as a land of oppor-
tunity where one’s class position matters less than
individual effort. According to a recent survey, almost
three-quarters of Americans think that hard work is the
key to getting ahead in life. Compared to those in other
countries, Americans are far more likely to believe in
the importance of individual effort, a reflection of the
cultural belief in individualism (Pew Research Global
Attitudes Project 2014).

Despite these beliefs, class divisions in the United
States are real, and inequality is growing. Perhaps this
has become more apparent to people in recent years
as the nation experienced a recession and a very frag-
ile economic situation. Millions lost their homes and
retirement savings and other investments. Many in
the middle and working class feel that their way of life
is slipping away. For the first time in our nation’s his-
tory, only 17 percent of the public thinks that children

College graduates who are facing an uncertain job market
are experiencing some of the consequences of growing
inequality in the United States.

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1 74 CHAPTER 8

today will be better off than their parents; two-thirds no
longer believe this (Pew Research Global Attitudes Pro-
ject 2014; Rasmussen Reports 2009).

Even aside from the economic recession, the gap
between the rich and the poor in the United States is
greater than in other industrialized nations, and it is
larger than at any time in the nation’s history. Many
analysts argue that this gap is the central problem of
the age—contributing to crime and violence, political
division, threats to democracy, and increased anxiety
and frustration felt by large segments of the population
(Piketty 2014; Noah 2012; Reich 2010).

Many factors have contributed to growing inequal-
ity in the United States, including the profound effects
of national and global economic changes. Many think
of the economic problems of the nation as stemming
from individual greed on Wall Street, and this likely
plays a role, but social inequality stems from systemic—
that is, social structural—conditions, particularly what
is called economic restructuring.

Economic restructuring refers to the decline of
manufacturing jobs in the United States, the transfor-
mation of the economy by technological change, and
the process of globalization. We examine economic
restructuring more in Chapter 15 on the economy, but
the point here is that these structural changes are hav-
ing a profound effect on the life chances of people in
different social classes. Many in the working class, for
example, once largely employed in relatively stable
manufacturing jobs with decent wages and good ben-
efits, now likely work, if they work at all, in lower-wage
jobs with fewer benefits, such as health care and pen-
sions. Middle-class families have amassed large sums
of debt, sometimes to support a middle-class lifestyle,
but also perhaps to pay for their children’s education.

The economic problems that produce inequality are
not, however, purely economic: They are social, both in
their origins and their consequences. Home ownership
provides an example. For most Americans, owning one’s
own home is the primary means of attaining economic
security—a central part of the American dream. Owning
a home is also the key to other resources—good schools,
cleaner neighborhoods, and an investment in the future.
Similarly, losing your home is more than just a financial
crisis—it reverberates through various aspects of your
life. The odds of having a home—indeed, the odds of
losing your home—are profoundly connected to social
factors, such as your race and your gender.

Housing foreclosure is a trauma for anyone who
experiences it, but foreclosure has hit some groups
especially hard. The racial segregation of Hispanic and,
especially, African American neighborhoods is a major
contributing cause to the high rate of mortgage foreclo-
sures (Rugh and Massey 2010). African Americans are
almost twice as likely to experience foreclosure as White
Americans (Bocian et al. 2010). Moreover, women are
32 percent more likely than men to have subprime mort-
gages (that is, mortgages with an interest rate higher than
the prime lending rate). Black women earning double
the region’s median income were nearly five times more
likely to receive subprime mortgages than White men
with similar incomes (Fishbein and Woodall 2006).

Some might argue that foreclosures occur because
individual people have made bad decisions—buying
homes beyond their means. But, institutional lending
practices also target particular groups, making them more
vulnerable to the economic forces that can shatter individ-
ual lives. Lenders may see African Americans as a greater
credit risk, but they also know that the value of real estate
is less in racially segregated neighborhoods. Discrimina-
tory practices in the housing market have also been well
documented (Squires 2007; Oliver and Shapiro 2006).

The sociological point is that economic problems
have a sociological dimension and cannot be explained
by individual decisions alone. Economic policies also
have different effects for different groups—sometimes

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The class structure in the United States means very
different living conditions for those of vast wealth and
everyone else.

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATI F I CATIO N 1 75

intended, sometimes not. Wealthy people, as an exam-
ple, typically pay a far lower tax rate than the middle
class, because much of their money comes from invest-
ments, not income, and income is taxed at a much
higher rate than investment income. Various tax loop-
holes (such as home mortgage deductions, tax shelters
on real estate investments, or even offshore banking
deposits) also significantly reduce the tax burden by
those with the most resources.

Corporations benefit the most from the tax struc-
ture. The corporate tax rate in the United States is the
highest in the world (35 percent), but many corporations
pay much less than that, given the various loopholes,
offshore investments, and tax subsidies that lessen one’s
tax obligation. A study of the Fortune 500 companies
(those companies with the highest gross revenue in a
given year) has found that most paid only about 20 per-
cent in taxes. Many of these big companies paid no tax at
all in some years (McIntyre et al. 2014).

The Distribution of Income
and Wealth
Understanding inequality requires knowing some basic
economic and sociological terms. Inequality is often
presented as a matter of differences in income, one
important measure of class standing. In addition to
income inequality, there are vast inequalities in who
owns what—that is, the wealth of different groups.

Income is the amount of money brought into a
household from various sources (wages, investment
income, dividends, and so on) during a given period. In
recent years, income growth has been greatest for those
at the top of the population; for everyone else, income

(controlling for the value of the dollar) has either been
relatively flat or grown at a far lesser rate. Inequality
becomes even more apparent, however, when you con-
sider both wealth and income.

Wealth is the monetary value of everything one
actually owns. Wealth is calculated by adding all finan-
cial assets (stocks, bonds, property, insurance, savings,
value of investments, and so on) and subtracting debts,
resulting in one’s net worth. Wealth allows you to accu-
mulate assets over generations, giving advantages to
subsequent generations that they might not have had
on their own. Unlike income, wealth is cumulative—
that is, its value tends to increase through investment.
Wealth can also be passed on to the next generation,
giving those who inherit wealth a considerable advan-
tage in accumulating more resources.

To understand the significance of wealth com-
pared to income in determining class location, imagine
two college students graduating in the same year, from
the same college, with the same major and same grade
point average. Imagine further that both get jobs with
the same salary in the same organization. In one case,
parents paid all the student’s college expenses and gave
her a car upon graduation. The other student worked
while in school and graduated with substantial debt
from student loans. This student’s family has no money
with which to help support the new worker. Who is bet-
ter off? Same salary, same credentials, but wealth (even
if modest) matters, giving one person an advantage that
will be played out many times over as the young worker
buys a home, finances her own children’s education,
and possibly inherits additional assets.

Where is all the wealth? The wealthiest 1 percent
own 35 percent of all net worth; the bottom half hold only
1.1 percent of all wealth (see ▲ Figure 8.1; Levine 2012).

Each horizontal
band represents an
equal fifth of the
nation’s people

Richest

Poorest

9.4% of income

2.8% of income

.2% of income

2 1.2% of income

88.9% of income

▲ Figure 8.1 Distribution of Wealth
in the

United States

Source: Mishel, Lawrence, Josh Bivens, Elise Gould,
and Heidi Shierholz. 2012. The State of Working
America, 12th Edition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press/Economic Policy Institute.

1 76 CHAPTER 8

Moreover, there has been an increase in the concen-
tration of wealth since the 1980s, making the United
States one of the most unequal nations in the world. The
growth of wealth by a select few, though long a feature
of the U.S. class system, has also reached historic levels.
As just one example, John D. Rockefeller is typically
heralded as one of the wealthiest men in U.S. history.
Comparing Rockefeller with Bill Gates, controlling for
the value of today’s dollars, Gates has far surpassed
Rockefeller’s riches.

In contrast to the vast amount of wealth and
income controlled by elites, a very large proportion of
Americans have hardly any financial assets once debt
is subtracted. Figure 8.4 shows the net worth of differ-
ent parts of the population, and you can see that most
of the population has very low net worth. One-fifth of
the population has zero or negative net worth, usually
because their debt exceeds their assets. The American
dream of owning a home, a new car, taking annual vaca-
tions, and sending one’s children to good schools—not
to mention saving for a comfortable retirement—is
increasingly unattainable for many. When you see the
amount of income and wealth a small segment of the
population controls, a sobering picture of class inequal-
ity emerges. Students themselves may be experiencing
this burden, as levels of debt from student loans have
escalated in recent years.

Despite the prominence of rags-to-riches stories
in American legend, much of the wealth in this society

“It’s a dog’s life,” or so the saying goes, but even dogs have their experiences shaped by the realities of social class.

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SO CIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 7 7

Numerous recent reports show that
students are struggling over rising levels
of debt from student loans. A record one
in five households in the United States
now has outstanding student debt. Not
only is the number of those with student
debt increasing, but so is the size of the
indebtedness (see ▲ Figures 8.2 and
8.3 below; Lee 2013; Fry 2012). Leaving
college or graduate school with large
amounts of debt impedes one’s ability to
get financially established.

All students are at risk of accruing
debt, given the rising cost of educa-
tion and the higher interest rates now

The Student Debt Crisis
associated with student loans. Some
groups though are more vulnerable
than others, adding to the inequalities
that accrue across different groups.
Among those in the bottom fifth of
income earners, student debt, on
average, takes up 24 percent of all
income; for the top fifth of earners,
only 9 percent of income. For those in
the middle, student debt consumes
12 percent of income (Fry 2012).

The highest amount of student
debt is also among those under 35,
those who are just beginning careers
and, possibly, families. Race also

matters. Black students are more likely
to borrow money for college than
other groups—and to borrow more;
80 percent of Black students have
outstanding student loans, compared
to 65 percent of Whites, 67 percent
of Hispanics, and 54 percent of Asian
students. Moreover, levels of debt are
highest among Blacks—an average of
$28,692, compared to $24,772 for
Whites, $22,886 for Hispanics, and
$21,090 for Asians (Demos 2014).

How does this reality of student debt
influence the experience of those you
see in your own environment? What are
the sociological causes of this significant
social problem?

understanding diversity

1989 1992 1995 1998

Percent with debt

2001 2004 2007 20

9%
11% 11%

12% 1

13% 13%

19%

▲ Figure 8.2 Households with Outstanding
Student Debt
Source: Pew Research Center, Social and Demographic Trends Project.
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/09/26/. Released September 26,
2012. A Record One-in-Five Households Now Owe Student Loan Debt
Burden Greatest on Young, Poor by Richard Fry.

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

19921989 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010

$9,634

$11,086
$11,714

$17,942

Average amount of debt

$17,562

$20,022 $23,349

$26,682

▲ Figure 8.3 Average Amount of Household
Student Debt
Source: Pew Research Center, Social and Demographic Trends Project.
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/09/26/. Released September 26,
2012. A Record One-in-Five Households Now Owe Student Loan Debt
Burden Greatest on Young, Poor by Richard Fry.

is inherited. In recent years, more of those who are very
rich are “self-made”—that is, starting from modest ori-
gins: Bill Gates, a Harvard dropout; Mark Zuckerberg,
founder of Facebook; and Oprah Winfrey come to mind.
Such examples exist, although for many, if you scratch
the surface of the rags-to-riches theme, you will find that
they had a significant leg up. Among the now very rich, it
has become more common for some to become amaz-
ingly rich, even though coming from modest origins. The
technology boom has certainly helped, showing again
how the historical context of one’s life course can matter.

For most people, however, dramatically moving up
in the class system remains highly likely. Children from
low-income families have less than a 1 percent chance
of reaching the top 5 percent of earners (T. Hertz 2006).
Recently, even the modest wealth of those in the middle
class has been significantly eroded by the impact of the
recent economic recession; young and minority house-
holds have been especially hard hit by these changes, in
large part because of being highly “leveraged”—that is,
holding too much debt on their homes (Wolff 2014;
Kochhar et al. 2011).

1 78 CHA PTER 8

The hallmark of the middle class in the
United States is its presumed stability.
Home ownership, a college education
for children, and other accoutrements
of middle-class status (nice cars, annual
vacations, an array of consumer goods)
are the symbols of middle-class prosper-
ity. The American middle class is not as
secure as it has been presumed to be.

Personal bankruptcy has risen
dramatically with more than a million
nonbusiness filings for bankruptcy per
year recently. How can this be happening
in such a prosperous society? Sociolo-
gists Teresa Sullivan, Elizabeth Warren,
and Jay Lawrence Westbrook have
studied bankruptcy, and their research
shows the fragility of the middle class in
recent times.

Research Question: What is causing the
rise of bankruptcy?

Research Method: This study is
based on an analysis of official records
of bankruptcy in five states, as well as
on detailed questionnaires given to
individuals who filed for bankruptcy.

Research Results: The research find-
ings of Sullivan and her colleagues
debunk the idea that bankruptcy is most
common among poor people. Instead,
they found bankruptcy is mostly a

The Fragile Middle Class
middle-class phenomenon represent-
ing a cross-section of those in this class
(meaning that those who are bankrupt
are matched on the demographic
characteristics of race, age, and gender
with others in the middle class). They
also debunk the notion that bankruptcy
is rising because it is so easy to file.
Rather, they found many people in the
middle class so overwhelmed with debt
that they cannot possibly pay it off.
Most people often file for bankruptcy
as a result of job loss and lost wages.
But divorce, medical problems, housing
expenses, and credit card debt also drive
many to bankruptcy court.

Conclusions and Implications: Sullivan
and her colleagues explain the rise of
bankruptcy as stemming from structural
factors in society that fracture the stabil-
ity of the middle class. The volatility of
jobs under modern capitalism is one of
the biggest factors, but add to this the
“thin safety net”—no health insurance
for many, but rising medical costs. Also,
the American dream of owning one’s
own home means many are “mortgage
poor”—extended beyond their ability to
keep up.

The United States is also a credit-
driven society. Credit cards are rou-
tinely mailed to people in the middle

class, encouraging them to buy beyond
their means. You can now buy virtually
anything on credit: cars, clothes, doc-
tor’s bills, entertainment, groceries.
You can even use one credit card to
pay off other credit cards. Indeed, it is
difficult to live in this society without
credit cards. Increased debt is the
result. Many are simply unable to keep
up with compounding interest and
penalty payments, and debt takes on
a life of its own as consumers cannot
keep up with even the interest pay-
ments on debt.

Sullivan, Warren, and Westbrook
conclude that increases in debt and
uncertainty of income combine to
produce the fragility of the middle class.
Their research shows that “even the
most secure family may be only a job
loss, a medical problem, or an out-of-
control credit card away from financial
catastrophe” (2000: 6).

Questions to Consider
1. Have you ever had a credit card? If

so, how easy was it to get? Is it pos-
sible to get by without a credit card?

2. What evidence do you see in your
community of the fragility or stability
of different social class groups?

Source: T. A. Sullivan, E. Warren, and
J. L. Westbrook, The Fragile Middle Class:
Americans in Debt. Copyright © 2000 by
Yale University Press.

doing sociological research

Race also influences the pattern of wealth distri-
bution in the United States. For every dollar of wealth
White Americans hold, Black Americans have only
26 cents. At all levels of income, occupation, and edu-
cation, Black families have lower levels of wealth than
similarly situated White families (see ▲ Figure 8.4).

Being able to draw on assets during times of eco-
nomic stress means that families with some resources
can better withstand difficult times than those with-
out assets. Even small assets, such as home ownership
or a savings account, provide protection from crises
such as increased rent, a health emergency, or unem-
ployment. Because the effects of wealth are intergen-
erational—that is, they accumulate over time—just
providing equality of opportunity in the present

does not address the differences in class status that
Black and White Americans experience (Oliver and
Shapiro 2006).

What explains the disparities in wealth by race?
Wealth accumulates over time. Thus government poli-
cies in the past have prevented Black Americans from
being able to accumulate wealth. Discriminatory
housing policies, bank lending policies, tax codes, and
so forth have disadvantaged Black Americans, result-
ing in the differing assets Whites and Blacks in general
hold now. Even though some of these discriminatory
policies have ended, many continue. Either way, their
effects persist, resulting in what sociologists Melvin
Oliver and Thomas Shapiro call the sedimentation of
racial inequality.

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATI F I CATIO N 1 79

Understanding the significance of wealth in shap-
ing life chances for different groups also shows how
important it is to understand diversity within the differ-
ent labels used to define groups. Among Hispanics, for
example, Cuban Americans and Spaniards are similar
to Whites in their wealth holdings, whereas Mexicans,
Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and other Hispanic groups
more closely resemble African Americans in measures
of wealth and class standing. Without significant wealth
holdings, families of any race are less able to transmit
assets from previous generations to the next generation,
one main support of social mobility (discussed later in
the chapter).

Analyzing Social Class
The class structure of the United States is elaborate, aris-
ing from the interactions of race and gender inequality
with class, the presence of old mixed with new wealth,
the income and wealth gap between the haves and
have-nots, a culture of entrepreneurship and individu-
alism, and in recent times, accelerated globalization
and high rates of immigration. Given this complexity,
how do sociologists conceptualize social class?

Class as a Ladder
One way to think about the class system is as a ladder,
with different class groups arrayed up and down the
rungs, each rung corresponding to a different level in
the class system. Conceptualized this way, social class
is the common position groups hold in a status hier-
archy (Lucal 1994; Wright 1979); class is indicated by
factors such as levels of income, occupational stand-
ing, and educational attainment. People are relatively
high or low on the ladder depending on the resources
they have and whether those resources are education,
income, occupation, or any of the other factors known

to influence people’s placement (or ranking) in the
stratification system. Indeed, an abundance of socio-
logical research has stemmed from the concept of status
attainment, the process by which people end up in a
given position in the stratification system. Status attain-
ment research describes how factors such as class ori-
gins, educational level, and occupation produce class
location.

The laddered model of class suggests that stratifica-
tion in the United States is hierarchical but somewhat
fluid. That is, the assumption is that people can move up
and down different “rungs” of the ladder—or class sys-
tem. In a relatively open class system such as the United
States, people’s achievements do matter, although the
extent to which people rise rapidly and dramatically
through the stratification system is less than the popu-
lar imagination envisions. Some people move down in
the class system, but as we will see, most people remain
relatively close to their class of origin. When people rise
or fall in the class system, the distance they travel is usu-
ally relatively short, as we will see in a later section on
social mobility.

The image of stratification as a laddered system,
with different gradients of social standing, emphasizes
that one’s socioeconomic status (SES) is derived from
certain factors. Income, occupational prestige, and
education are the three measures of socioeconomic sta-
tus that have been found to be most significant in deter-
mining people’s placement in the stratification system.

The median income for a society is the midpoint
of all household incomes. Half of all households earn
more than the median income; half earn less. In 2013,
median household income in the United States was
$51,939 (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014). To many,
this may seem like a lot of money, but consider these
facts: American consumers spend about one-third of
their household budgets on housing; almost another
18 percent on transportation; 13 percent on food; and

$120,000

60,000

80,000

$100,000

40,000

$20,000

White, not
Hispanic

Black Hispanic

Asian

Median income Net worth

$58,270

$110,500

$34,598
$40,963

$89,329

$67,065

$7,683$6,314

▲ Figure 8.4 Median Income
and Net Worth by Race
Note: Income data for 2013; net worth from
2011.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. 2011. Net Worth
and Asset Ownership of Households: 2011,
Table 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau;
DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, and Bernadette Proctor.
2014. Income and Poverty in the United States:
2013. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau.
www.census.gov

1 80 CH APT ER 8

11 percent on insurance and pensions (Bureau of Labor
Statistics 2014a). If you do the calculations based on the
median income level, you will see there is very little left
for other living expenses (clothing, education, taxes,
communication, entertainment, and so forth)—less
than $1000 per month for all other expenses—hardly a
lavish income, especially when you consider that half
of Americans have less than this, given the definition of
a median. (See also the “See for Yourself ” exercise on
household budgets later in this chapter.) Those bunched
around the median income level are considered middle
class, although sociologists debate which income
brackets constitute middle-class standing because the
range of what people think of as “middle class” is quite
large. Nonetheless, income is a significant indicator of
social class standing, although not the only one.

→ SEE for YOURSELF ←
Income Distribution: Should Grades
Be the Same?
▲ Figure 8.5 shows the income distribution within the
United States. Imagine that grades in your class were
distributed based on the same curve. Let’s suppose that
after students arrived in class and sat down, different
groups received their grades based on where they were
sitting in the room and in the same proportion as the U.S.
income distribution. Only students in the front receive A’s;
the back, D’s and F’s. The middle of the room gets the B’s
and C’s. Write a short essay answering the following ques-
tions based on this hypothetical scenario:

1. How many students would receive A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s,
and F’s?

2. Would it be fair to distribute grades this way? Why or
why not?

3. Which groups in the class might be more likely to sup-
port such a distribution? Who would think the system
of grade distribution should be changed?

4. What might different groups do to preserve or
change the system of grade distribution? What if
you really needed an A, but got one of the F’s? What
might you do?

5. Are there circumstances in actual life that are beyond
the control of people and that shape the distribution
of income?

6. How is social stratification maintained by the beliefs
that people have about merit and fairness?

Adapted from: Brislen, William, and Clayton D. Peoples. 2005. “Using
a Hypothetical Distribution of Grades to Introduce Social Stratification.”
Teaching Sociology 33 (January): 74–80.

Occupational prestige is a second important indica-
tor of socioeconomic status. Prestige is the value others
assign to people and groups. Occupational prestige is
the subjective evaluation people give to jobs. To deter-
mine occupational prestige, sociological researchers typi-
cally ask nationwide samples of adults to rank the general
standing of a series of jobs. These subjective ratings pro-
vide information about how people perceive the worth of
different occupations. People tend to rank professionals,
such as physicians, professors, judges, and lawyers highly,
with occupations such as electrician, insurance agent,
and police officer falling in the middle. Occupations with
low occupational prestige are maids, garbage collectors,
and shoe shiners. These rankings do not reflect the worth
of people within these positions but are indicative of the
judgments people make about the worth of these jobs.

The final major indicator of socioeconomic sta-
tus is educational attainment, typically measured as
the total years of formal education. The more years of

F D

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15%

10%

5%
0%

24.0%

29.5%

4.8%

17.7%

24.0%

Un
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00

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00
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99
9

$1
00

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00

–$
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9,
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$2
00

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00

a
nd

m
or

▲ Figure 8.5 Income Distribution in the
United States This graph shows the per-
centage of the total population that falls into
each of five income groups. Would it be fair if
course grades were distributed by the same
percentages?
Source: DeNavas-Walt, Carmen and Bernadette Proctor.
2014. Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013.
Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. www.census.gov

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATI F I CATIO N 1 81

education attained, the more likely a person’s class sta-
tus. The prestige attached to occupations is strongly tied
to the amount of education the job requires (Ollivier
2000; Blau and Duncan 1967).

Taken together, income, occupation, and education
are good indicators of people’s class standing. Using the
laddered model of class, you can describe the class sys-
tem in the United States as being divided into several
classes: upper, upper middle, middle, lower middle,
and lower class. The different classes are arrayed up and
down, like a ladder, with those with the most money,
education, and prestige on the top rungs and those with
the least at the bottom.

In the United States, the upper class owns the major
share of corporate and personal wealth (see ▲ Figure 8.6).
The upper class includes those who have held wealth for
generations as well as those who have recently become
rich. Only a very small proportion of people actually
constitute the upper class, but they control vast amounts
of wealth and power in the United States. Those in this
class are elites who exercise enormous control through-
out society. Some wealthy individuals can wield as much
power as entire nations (Friedman 1999).

Even the term upper class, however, can mask the
degree of inequality in the United States. You might con-
sider those in the top 10 percent as upper class, but within
this class are the superrich, or those popularly known
as the “one percent,” so labeled by the Occupy America
movement, in contrast to the remaining 99 percent. Since
about 1980, the share of income (not to mention wealth)
going to the top one percent has increased to levels not
seen in the United States since 1920, a time labeled as the
“Gilded Age” because of the concentration of wealth and
income in the hands of a few. Income distribution now
matches that of the Gilded Age and, given the trends, may
well come to exceed it. Sociological research finds that
this new concentration of income among the superrich is
the result of several trends, including the lowest tax rates
for high incomes, a more conservative shift in Congress,
diminishing union membership, and asset bubbles in

the stock and housing markets (Saez and Zucman 2014;
Volscho and Kelly 2012).

How rich is rich? Each year, the business magazine
Forbes publishes a list of the 400 wealthiest families and
individuals in the country. By 2014, you had to have at
least $1.5 billion to be on the list! Bill Gates and War-
ren Buffet are the two wealthiest people on the list—
Gates with an estimated worth of $79.4 billion; Buffet,
$67 billion. Even in the face of the massive economic
downturn for so many in the United States, only two
people in the top twenty of the group had less money
than the year before. A substantial portion of those on
the list describe themselves as “self-made,” that is, living
the American dream, but most of these were still able
to borrow from parents, in-laws, or spouses. Although
they may have built their fortunes, they did so with a
head start on accumulation (Kroll and Dolan 2012). The
best predictor of future wealth still remains the family
into which you are born (McNamee and Miller 2009).

The upper class is overwhelmingly White, con-
servative, and Protestant. Members of this class exer-
cise tremendous political power by funding lobbyists,
exerting their social and personal influence on other
elites, and contributing heavily to political campaigns
(Domhoff 2013). They travel in exclusive social net-
works that tend to be open only to those in the upper
class. They tend to intermarry, their children are likely
to go to expensive schools, and they spend their leisure
time in exclusive resorts.

Those in the upper class with newly acquired wealth
are known as the nouveau riche. Luxury vehicles, high-
priced real estate, and exclusive vacations may mark the
lifestyle of the newly rich. Larry Ellison, who made his
fortune as the founder of the software company Oracle,
is the third wealthiest person in the United States. Ellis
has a megayacht that is 482 feet long, five stories high,
with 82 rooms inside. The megayacht also includes an
indoor swimming pool, a cinema, a space for a private
submarine, and a basketball court that doubles as a
helicopter launch pad.

Top fifth
Second to top fifth
Middle fifth
Second to bottom fifth
Bottom fifth

$200,000

$300,000

$400,000

$500,000

$600,000

$700,000

$100,000
$0

2 $100,000

$205,985

$68,839

2 $6,029

$7,263

$630,754

▲ Figure 8.6 Median Net Worth by
Income Quintile Recall that one’s net
worth is the value of everything owned
minus one’s debt. A quintile is one-fifth of
a population, shown here for five different
income brackets. You can see here the
vast differences in wealth holdings by
those in these different income brackets.
How would one’s wealth holdings affect
your ability to withstand some sort of
emergency—an illness, unemployment,
a recession, and so forth?
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. 2012. Wealth and
Asset Ownership, 2011: Table A1. Washington,
DC: U.S. Census Bureau. www.census.gov

1 82 CH APTER 8

The upper-middle class includes those with high
incomes and high social prestige. They tend to be well-
educated professionals or business executives. Their
earnings can be quite high indeed, even millions of
dollars a year. It is difficult to estimate exactly how many
people fall into this group because of the difficulty of
drawing lines between the upper, upper-middle, and
middle classes. Indeed, the upper-middle class is often
thought of as “middle class” because their lifestyle sets
the standard to which many aspire, but this lifestyle is
actually unattainable by most. A large home full of top-
quality furniture and modern appliances, two or three
relatively new cars, vacations every year (perhaps a
vacation home), high-quality college education for one’s
children, and a fashionable wardrobe are simply beyond
the means of a majority of people in the United States.

The middle class is hard to define in part because
being “middle class” is more than just economic posi-
tion. Half of all Americans identify themselves as mid-
dle class (Morin and Motel 2012), even though they vary
widely in lifestyle and in resources at their disposal. The
idea that the United States is an open class system leads
many to think that the most have a middle-class life-
style. The “middle class” is the ubiquitous norm, even
though many who consider themselves middle class
have a tenuous hold on this class position.

The lower-middle class includes workers in the
skilled trades and low-income bureaucratic workers,
some who may actually think of themselves as mid-
dle class. Also known as the working class, this class
includes blue-collar workers (those in skilled trades
who do manual labor) and many service workers, such
as secretaries, hairstylists, food servers, police, and fire-
fighters. A medium to low income, education, and occu-
pational prestige define the lower-middle class relative
to the class groups above it. The term lower in this class
designation refers to the relative position of the group in
the stratification system, but it has a pejorative sound to

many people, especially to people who are members of
this class, many who think of themselves as middle class.

The lower class is composed primarily of displaced
and poor. People in this class tend to have little formal
education and are often unemployed or working in min-
imum-wage jobs. People of color and women make up a
disproportionate part of this class. The poor include the
working poor—those who work at least twenty-seven
hours a week but whose wages fall below the federal pov-
erty level. Four percent of all people working full-time
and 16 percent of those working part-time live below the
poverty line, a proportion that has increased over time.
Although this may seem a small number, it includes
9.1 million adults. Black and Hispanic workers are twice
as likely to be among the working poor as White or Asian
workers, and women are more likely than men to be so
(U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2014 d).

The concept of the urban underclass has been
added to the lower class (W. Wilson 1987). The under-
class includes those who are likely to be permanently
unemployed and without much means of economic
support. The underclass has little or no opportunity for
movement out of the worst poverty. Rejected from the
economic system, those in the underclass may become
dependent on public assistance or illegal activities.
Structural transformations in the economy have left
large groups of people, especially urban minorities, in
these highly vulnerable positions. The growth of the
urban underclass has exacerbated the problems of
urban poverty and related social problems (Wilson 2009,
1996, 1987).

Class Conflict
A second way of conceptualizing the class system is
conflict theory. Conflict theory defines classes in terms
of their structural relationship to other classes and their
relationship to the economic system. The analysis of

M
2

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ot

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Social class influences many things, including the leisure time people experience. Few can even imagine having something like the
yacht pictured on the left, owned by Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle.

Se
an

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ar

ns
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or
th

y/
Ph

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is
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es
Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 83

class from this sociological perspective interprets ine-
quality as resulting from the unequal distribution of
power and resources in society (see Chapter 1). Sociolo-
gists who work from a conflict perspective see classes as
facing off against each other, with elites exploiting and
dominating others. Related to the work of Karl Marx
(discussed in Chapter 1), the key idea in the conflict
model of class is that class is not simply a matter of
what individuals possess in terms of income and pres-
tige. Class is, instead, defined by the relationship of the
classes to the larger system of economic production
(Vanneman and Cannon 1987; Wright 1985).

From a conflict perspective, the middle class, or
the professional–managerial class, includes managers,
supervisors, and professionals. Members of this group
have substantial control over other people, primar-
ily through their authority to direct the work of others,
impose and enforce regulations in the workplace,
and determine dominant social values. Marx argued
that the middle class is controlled by the ruling class,
but tends to identify with the interests of the elite. The
professional–managerial class, however, is caught in a
contradictory position between elites and the working
class. Those in this class have some control over others,
but like the working class, they have minimal control
over the economic system (Wright 1979). Marx argued
that as capitalism progresses, more and more of those in
the middle class drop into the working class as they are
pushed out of managerial jobs into working-class jobs

or as professional jobs become organized more along
the lines of traditional working-class employment.

Has this happened? Not to the extent Marx pre-
dicted. He thought that ultimately there would be only
two classes—the capitalist and the proletariat. To some
extent, however, this is occurring. Classes have become
more polarized, with the well-off accumulating even
more resources and the middle class seeing their income
as either flat or falling, measured in constant dollars.
Rising levels of debt among the middle class have con-
tributed to this growing inequality. Many now have a
fragile hold on being middle class: The loss of a job, a
family emergency, such as the death of a working par-
ent, divorce, disability, or a prolonged illness can quickly
leave middle- and working-class families in a precarious
financial state. At the same time, high salaries for CEOs,
tax loopholes that favor the rich, and sheer greed are
concentrating more wealth in the hands of a few.

Members of the working class have little control
over their own work lives; instead, they generally have
to take orders from others. This concept of the work-
ing class departs from traditional blue-collar defini-
tions of working-class jobs because it includes many
so-called white-collar workers (secretaries, salespeo-
ple, and nurses), any group working under the rules
imposed by managers. The middle class may exercise
some autonomy at work, but the working class has lit-
tle power to challenge decisions of those who supervise
them, except insofar as they can organize collectively,
as in unions, strikes, or other collective work actions.

Whether you see the class system as a ladder or as
a system of conflict, you can see that the class structure
in the United States is hierarchical. Class position gives
different people access to jobs, income, education,
power, and social status, all of which bestow further
opportunities on some and deprive others of success.
The class structure is a system with boundaries built
into it, generating class conflict. The middle and work-
ing classes shoulder much of the tax burden for social
programs, producing resentment by these groups
toward the poor. At the same time, corporate taxes have
declined and tax loopholes for the rich have increased,
an indication of the privilege that is perpetuated by the
class system. Whatever features of the class system dif-
ferent sociologists study, they see class stratification
as a dynamic process—one involving the interplay of
access to resources, judgments about different groups,
and the exercise of power by a few.

Diverse Sources of Stratification
Class is only one basis for stratification in the United
States. Factors such as age, ethnicity, and national ori-
gin have a tremendous influence on stratification. Race
and gender are two primary influences in the stratifica-
tion system in the United States. Analyzing class without

Ji
m

W
es

t/
Th

e
Im

ag
e

W
or

Labor unions, traditionally dominated by White men in the
skilled trades, are not only more diverse but also represent
workers in occupations typically thought of as “white-
collar” work.

1 84 CH A PTER 8

including race and gender can actually be misleading.
Race, class, and gender, as we are seeing throughout this
book, are overlapping systems of stratification that people
experience simultaneously. A working-class Latina, for
example, does not experience herself as working class at
one moment, Hispanic at another moment, and a woman
the next. At any given point in time, her position in society
is the result of her race, class, and gender status. In other
words, class position is manifested differently depending
on one’s race and gender, just as gender is experienced
differently depending on one’s race and class, and race is
experienced differently depending on one’s gender and
class. Depending on one’s circumstances, race, class, or
gender may seem particularly salient at a given moment
in a person’s life. A Black middle-class man stopped and
interrogated by police when driving through a predomi-
nantly White middle-class neighborhood may at that
moment feel his racial status as his single most outstand-
ing characteristic, but at all times his race, class, and gen-
der influence his life chances. As social categories, race,
class, and gender shape all people’s experience in this
society, not just those who are disadvantaged (Andersen
and Collins 2013).

Class also significantly differentiates group experi-
ence within given racial and gender groups. Latinos, for
example, are broadly defined as those who trace their ori-
gins to regions originally colonized by Spain. The ancestors
of this group include both White Spanish colonists and
the natives who were enslaved on Spanish plantations.
Today, some Latinos identify as White, others as Black,
and others by their specific national and cultural origins.

The very different histories of those categorized as Latino
are matched by significant differences in class. Some may
have been schooled in the most affluent settings; others
may be virtually unschooled. Those of upper-class stand-
ing may have had little experience with prejudice or dis-
crimination. Others may have been highly segregated into
barrios and treated with extraordinary prejudice. Latinos
who live near each other geographically in the United
States and who are the same age and share similar ances-
try may have substantially different experiences based on
their class standing. Neither class, race, nor gender alone
can be considered an adequate indicator of different
group experiences. As you can see in ▲ Figure 8.7, even
one’s household status affects class standing.

The Race–Class Debate. The relationship between
race and class is much debated among sociologists. The
Black middle class goes all the way back to the small
numbers of free Blacks in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries (Frazier 1957), expanding in the twentieth
century to include those who were able to obtain an
education and become established in industry, busi-
ness, or a profession. Although wages for Black middle-
class and professional workers never matched those
of Whites in the same jobs, the Black middle class has
had relatively high prestige within the Black commu-
nity. Many sociologists conclude that the class structure
among African Americans has existed alongside the
White class structure—separate and different.

In recent years, both the African American and
Latino middle classes have expanded, primarily as the

90,000

30,000
40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000
20,000
10,000
0
White, not
Hispanic

Black Asian Hispanic

Married-couple family

Female householder,
no spouse present

Male householder,
no spouse present

▲ Figure 8.7 Median Annual Income by Race and Household Status, 2013 As illustrated in this
graph, married-couple households have the highest median income in all racial–ethnic groups; female-
headed households, the least , except among Asians. Which groups reach median income status ($51,939
for households in 2013), and what does this tell you about the combined influence of family type, gender,
and race/ethnicity?
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. 2012. Current Population Survey, Table HINC-01. Selected Characteristics of Households by
Total Money Income in 2013, Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. www.census.gov

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 85

result of increased access to education and middle-class
occupations for people of color (Pattillo 2013; Lacy 2007).
Although middle-class Blacks and Latinos may have
economic privileges that others in these groups do not
have, their class standing does not make them immune
to the negative effects of race. Asian Americans also have
a significant middle class, but they have also been ste-
reotyped as the most successful minority group because
of their presumed educational achievement, hard work,
and thrift. This stereotype is referred to as the myth of
the model minority and includes the idea that a minor-
ity group must adopt alleged dominant group values to
succeed. This myth about Asian Americans obscures the
significant obstacles to success that Asian Americans
encounter, and it ignores the hard work and educational
achievements of other racial and ethnic groups. The
idea that Asian Americans are the “model minority” also
obscures the high rates of poverty among many Asian
American groups (Lee 2009; Chou and Feagin 2008).

Despite recent successes, many in the Black mid-
dle class have a tenuous hold on this class status.
The Black middle class remains as segregated from
Whites as the Black poor, and continuing racial seg-
regation in neighborhoods means that Black middle-
class neighborhoods are typically closer to Black poor
neighborhoods than the White middle-class neighbor-
hoods are to White poor ones. This exposes many in the
Black middle class to some of the same risks as those
in poverty. This is not to say that the Black middle class
has the same experience as the poor, but it challenges
the view that the Black middle class “has it all” (Pattillo
2013; Lacy 2007). Black Americans are still much more
likely to be working class than middle class; they are
also more likely to be working class than are Whites
(Horton et al. 2000).

The Influence of Gender and Age. Despite decades
of legislation in place to protect women from discrimi-
nation and to provide equal pay for equal work, women’s
median income still lags behind that of men. The median
income for women, even among those employed full-
time, is far below the national median income level. In
2013, when median income for men working year-round
and full-time was $50,033, the median income of women
working year-round, full-time was $39,157—78 percent
of men’s income (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014).
This is largely because most women work in gender-
segregated jobs, a phenomenon we will explore further
in Chapter 11 on gender inequality.

Age, too, is a significant source of stratification.
Children are the most likely age group to be poor. A
whopping 20 percent of children live in poverty in the
United States—almost 15 million children! Although
many elderly people are now poor (9.5 percent of those
age 65 and over), far fewer in this age category are poor
than was the case not many years ago (see ▲ Figure 8.8;
DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014). This shift reflects the
greater prosperity of the older segments of the popu-
lation—a trend that is likely to continue as the current
large cohort of middle-class baby boomers grows older.
This cohort of older Americans is also largely White—
unlike the more diverse racial–ethnic composition of
young people.

Social Mobility: Myths
and Realities
Popular legends extol the possibility of anyone becom-
ing rich in the United States. The well-to-do are admired
not just for their style of life but also for their supposed

Percent in poverty

25
20

10
5
0

1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2013

Children under 18
People 65 and over

▲ Figure 8.8 Poverty among the Old
and the Young, 1965–2013
Source: DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, and Bernadette
D. Proctor. 2014. Income and Poverty in the United
States: 2013. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Commerce. www.census.gov

1 8 6 CHAPT ER 8

drive and diligence. The admiration for those who rise
to the top makes it seem like anyone who is clever
enough and works hard can become fabulously rich.
The assumption is that the United States class system is
a meritocracy—that is, a system in which one’s status
is based on merit or accomplishments, not other social
characteristics. As the word suggests, people in a meri-
tocracy move up and down through the class system
based on merit, not based on other characteristics. Is
this the case in the United States?

Defining Social Mobility
Social mobility is a person’s movement over time from
one class to another. Social mobility can be up or down,
although the American dream emphasizes upward
movement. Mobility can be either intergenerational,
occurring between generations, as when a daughter
rises above the class of her mother or father, or intra-
generational, occurring within a generation, as when a
person’s class status changes as the result of business
success (or disaster).

Societies differ in the extent to which social mobil-
ity is permitted. Some societies are based on closed class
systems, in which movement from one class to another
is virtually impossible. In a caste system, for exam-
ple, mobility is strictly limited by the circumstances of
one’s birth. At the other extreme are open class systems,
in which placement in the class system is based on
individual achievement, not ascription. In open class

systems, there are relatively loose class boundaries,
high rates of class mobility, and weak perceptions of
class difference.

The Extent of Social Mobility
Does social mobility occur in the United States? Social
mobility is much more limited than people believe.
Success stories of social mobility do occur, but research
finds that experiences of mobility over great distances
are rare, certainly far less than believed. Most people
remain in the same class as their parents. What mobil-
ity exists is typically short in distance, and some people
actually drop to a lower status, referred to as downward
social mobility.

The fact is that those born at both the top and bot-
tom end of the income ladder are very likely to remain
there (Economic Mobility Report 2012). Moreover, con-
trary to popular opinion, social mobility in the United
States is actually lower than in either Canada or western
Europe (Jäntti et al. 2006). Research finds that rates of
upward social mobility are highest among White men,
followed by White women, then Black men, and finally,
Black women (Mazumder 2008).

Social mobility is influenced most by factors that
affect the whole society, not just by individual charac-
teristics. Just being born in a particular generation can
have a significant influence on one’s life chances. The
fears of today’s young, middle-class people that they
will be unable to achieve the lifestyles of their parents

The media have a substantial impact on
how people view the social class system
and different groups within it. Especially
because people tend to live and associ-
ate with people in their own class, how
they see others can be largely framed by
the portrayal of different class groups in
the media. Research has found this to
be true and, in addition, has found that
mass media have the power to shape
public support for policies on public
assistance.

To begin with, the media overrepre-
sent the lifestyle of the most comfort-
able classes. Rare are the families that
can afford the home decor and fashion
depicted in soap operas, ironically most
likely watched by those in the working

Reproducing Class Stereotypes
class. Media portrayals, such as those
found on television talk shows as well
as sports, tend to emphasize stories of
upward mobility. When the working class
is depicted, it tends to be shown as devi-
ant, reinforcing class antagonism and giv-
ing viewers a sense of moral superiority
(Grindstaff 2002).

Content analyses of the media also
find that the poor are largely invisible in
the media (Mantsios 2010). Those poor
people who are depicted in television
and magazines are more often portrayed
as Black than is actually the case, lead-
ing people to overestimate the actual
number of Black poor. The elderly and
working poor are rarely seen. Repre-
sentations of welfare overemphasize

themes of dependency, especially when
portraying African Americans. Women
are also more likely than men to be
represented as dependent (Misra et al.
2003). How might people understand
class inequality if the media routinely
presented the social structural context
of class differences?

Sources: Mantsios, Gregory. 2010. “Media
Magic: Making Class Invisible.” Pp. 386–394
in Race, Class, and Gender: An Anthology,
edited by Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia
Hill Collins. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth; Grindstaf,
Laura. 2002. The Money Shot, Trask, Class,
and the Making of TV Talk Shows. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 269–296; Misra,
Joy, Stephanie Moller, and Marina Karides.
2003. “Envisioning Dependency: Changing
Media Depictions of Welfare in the 20th
Century.” Social Problems 50 (November):
482–504. See also the film, Class Dismissed:
How TV Frames the Working Class, Media
Education Foundation. www.mediaed.org

a sociological eye on the media

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATI F I CATIO N 1 87

show the effect that being in a particular generation
can have on one’s life chances. When mobility occurs,
it is usually because of societal changes that create or
restrict opportunities, including such changes as eco-
nomic cycles, changes in the occupational structure,
and demographic factors, such as the number of college
graduates in the labor force (Beller and Hout 2006). Yet,
mobility in the United States is not impossible. Indeed,
many have immigrated to this nation with the knowl-
edge that their life chances are better here than in their
countries of origin. The social mobility that does exist
is greatly influenced by education. In sum, however,
social mobility is much more limited than the American
dream of mobility suggests.

Class Consciousness
Because of the widespread belief that mobility is pos-
sible, people in the United States, compared to many
other societies, tend not to be very conscious of class.
Class consciousness is the perception that a class
structure exists along with a feeling of shared identi-
fication with others in one’s class—that is, those with
whom you share life chances (Centers 1949). Notice
that there are two dimensions to class consciousness:
(1) the idea that a class structure exists; and (2) one’s
class identification.

There has been a long-standing argument that
Americans are not very class conscious because of the
belief that upward mobility is possible and because of
the belief in individualism that is part of the culture.
Images of opulence also saturate popular culture, mak-
ing it seem that such material comforts are available to
anyone. The faith that upward mobility is possible ironi-
cally perpetuates inequality because, if people believe
that everyone has the same chances of success, they are
likely to think that whatever inequality exists must be
fair or the result of individual success and failure.

Class inequality in any society is usually buttressed
by ideas that support (or actively promote) inequal-
ity. Beliefs that people are biologically, culturally, or
socially different can be used to justify the higher posi-
tion of some groups. If people believe these ideas, the
ideas provide legitimacy for the system. Karl Marx used
the term false consciousness to describe the class con-
sciousness of subordinate classes who had internalized
the view of the dominant class. Marx argued that the
ruling class controls subordinate classes by infiltrating
their consciousness with belief systems that are consist-
ent with the interests of the ruling class. If people accept
these ideas, which seem to justify inequality, they need
not be overtly coerced into accepting the roles desig-
nated for them by the ruling class.

There have been times when class consciousness
was higher, such as during the labor movement of the
1920s and 1930s. Then working-class people had a very

high degree of class consciousness and mobilized on
behalf of workers’ rights. We see this happening again
with the downturn in the U.S. economy and the stag-
nation in income for many. Half of all Americans say
that they are now not moving forward, and one-third
say they have fallen further back (Acs and Zimmerman
2008). Indeed, one-third of the public now say they are
lower class, compared to 25 percent only a few years
ago (Morin and Motel 2012).

The formation of a relatively large middle class and
a relatively high standard of living mitigates class dis-
content. Racial and ethnic divisions also make strong
alliances within various classes less stable. Growing
inequality could result in a higher degree of class con-
sciousness, but this has not yet developed into a signifi-
cant class-based movement for change.

Why Is There Inequality?
Stratification occurs in all societies. Why? This ques-
tion originates in classical sociology in the works of Karl
Marx and Max Weber, theorists whose work continues
to inform the analysis of class inequality today.

Karl Marx: Class and Capitalism
Karl Marx (1818–1883) provided a complex and pro-
found analysis of the class system under capitalism—an
analysis that, although more than 100 years old, con-
tinues to inform sociological analyses. Marx defined
classes in relationship to the means of production,
defined as the system by which goods are produced
and distributed. In Marx’s analysis, two primary classes
exist under capitalism: the capitalist class, those who
own the means of production, and the working class
(or proletariat), those who sell their labor for wages.
There are further divisions within these two classes: the
petty bourgeoisie, small business owners and managers
(those whom you might think of as middle class) who
identify with the interests of the capitalist class but do
not own the means of production, and the lumpenpro-
letariat, those who have become unnecessary as work-
ers and are then discarded. (Today, these would be the
underclass, the homeless, and the permanently poor.)

Marx thought that with the development of capi-
talism, the capitalists and working class would become
increasingly antagonistic (something he referred to as
class struggle). As class conflicts became more intense,
Marx predicted that the two classes would become
more polarized, with the petty bourgeoisie becoming
deprived of their property and dropping into the work-
ing class. Marx would see now that his analysis was cor-
rect as classes are becoming more polarized with an
increasing gap between the very rich and everyone else.

In addition to the class struggle that Marx thought
would characterize the advancement of capitalism,

1 8 8 CHAPT ER 8

he also thought that capitalism was the basis for other
social institutions. To Marx, capitalism is the infrastruc-
ture of society, with other institutions (such as law,
education, the family, and so forth) reflecting capitalist
interests. According to Marx, the law supports the inter-
ests of capitalists; the family promotes values that social-
ize people into appropriate work roles; and education
reflects the interests of the capitalist class. Over time,
Marx argued, capitalism would increasingly penetrate
society. This can be clearly seen in the way that the profit
motive permeates contemporary institutions, such as in
how profits of the pharmaceutical industry permeate
the delivery of health care (see also Chapter 14). You
might ask yourself where you see the values of capital-
ism permeating other social institutions.

Why do people support such a system? Here is
where ideology plays a role. Ideology refers to belief
systems that support the status quo. According to
Marx, the ruling class produces the dominant ideas of
a society. Through their control of the communications
industries in modern society, the ruling class is able to
produce ideas that buttress their interests.

Much of Marx’s analysis boils down to the conse-
quences of a system based on the pursuit of profit. If
goods were exchanged at the cost of producing them,
no profit would be produced. Capitalist owners want
to sell commodities for more than their actual value—
more than the cost of producing them, including mate-
rials and labor. Because workers contribute value to the
system and capitalists extract value, Marx saw capitalist
profit as the exploitation of labor. Marx believed that as
profits became increasingly concentrated in the hands
of a few capitalists, the working class would become
increasingly dissatisfied. The basically exploitative
character of capitalism, according to Marx, would ulti-
mately lead to its destruction as workers organized to
overthrow the rule of the capitalist class. Class conflict
between workers and capitalists, he argued, was ines-
capable, with revolution being the inevitable result.
Perhaps the class revolution that Marx predicted has
not occurred, but the dynamics of capitalism that he
analyzed are unfolding before us.

At the time Marx was writing, the middle class was
small and consisted mostly of small business owners
and managers. Marx saw the middle class as depen-
dent on the capitalist class, but exploited by it, because
the middle class did not own the means of production.
He saw middle-class people as identifying with the
interests of the capitalist class because of the similar-
ity in their economic interests and their dependence
on the capitalist system. Marx believed that the middle
class failed to work in its own best interests because it
falsely believed that it benefited from capitalist arrange-
ments. Marx thought that in the long run, the middle
class would pay for their misplaced faith when profits
became increasingly concentrated in the hands of a

few and more and more of the middle class dropped
into the working class. Because he did not foresee the
emergence of the large and highly differentiated middle
class we have today, not every part of Marx’s theory has
proved true. Still, his analysis provides a powerful por-
trayal of the forces of capitalism and the tendency for
wealth to belong to a few, whereas the majority work
only to make ends meet. Marx has also influenced the
lives of billions of people under self-proclaimed Marxist
systems that were created in an attempt, however unre-
alized, to overcome the pitfalls of capitalist society.

Max Weber: Class, Status,
and Party
Max Weber (1864–1920) agreed with Marx that classes
were formed around economic interests and that eco-
nomic forces have a powerful effect on people’s lives.
He disagreed with Marx, however, that economic forces
are the primary dimension of stratification. Weber saw
three dimensions to stratification:

● class (the economic dimension);
● status (or prestige, the cultural and social dimen-

sion); and,
● party (or power, the political dimension).

Weber is thus responsible for a multidimensional view
of social stratification because he analyzed the connec-
tions between economic, cultural, and political sys-
tems. Weber pointed out that, although the economic,
social, and political dimensions of stratification are
usually related, they are not always consistent. Some-
one could be high on one or two dimensions, but low on
another. A major drug dealer is an example: high wealth
(economic dimension) and power over others (politi-
cal dimension) but low prestige (social dimension), at
least in the eyes of the mainstream society, even if not
in other circles.

Weber defined class as the economic dimension of
stratification—how much access to the material goods
of society a group or individual has, as measured by
income, property, and other financial assets. A family
with an income of $200,000 per year clearly has more
access to the resources of a society than a family living
on an income of $50,000 per year. Weber understood
that a class has common economic interests and that
economic status is the basis for one’s life chances. But,
in addition, he thought that people were also stratified
based on their status and power differences.

Status, to Weber, is the prestige dimension of
stratification—the social judgment or recognition given
to a person or group. Weber understood that class dis-
tinctions are linked to status distinctions. That is, those
with the most economic resources tend to have the
highest status in society, but not always. In a local com-
munity, for example, those with the most status may be

SO CIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 89

those who have lived there the longest, even if newcom-
ers arrive with more money. Although having power is
typically related to also having high economic standing
and high social status, this is not always the case, as you
saw with the example of the drug dealer.

Finally, party (or what we would now call power)
is the political dimension of stratification. Power is the
capacity to influence groups and individuals even in the
face of opposition. Power is also reflected in the abil-
ity of a person or group to negotiate their way through
social institutions. An unemployed Latino man wrongly
accused of a crime, for instance, does not have much
power to negotiate his way through the criminal justice
system. By comparison, business executives accused of
corporate crime can afford expensive lawyers and thus
frequently go unpunished or, if they are found guilty,
serve relatively light sentences in comparatively pleasant
facilities. Again, Weber saw power as linked to economic
standing, but he did not think that economic standing
was always the determining cause of people’s power.

Marx and Weber explain different features of
stratification. Both understood the importance of the
economic basis of stratification, and they knew the sig-
nificance of class for determining the course of one’s
life. Marx saw people as acting primarily out of eco-
nomic interests. Weber refined the sociological analy-
ses of stratification to account for the subtleties that
can be observed when you look beyond the sheer eco-
nomic dimension to stratification, stratification being
the result of economic, social, and political forces.

Together, Marx and Weber provide compelling theoreti-
cal grounds for understanding the contemporary class
structure.

Functionalism and Conflict Theory:
The Continuing Debate
Marx and Weber were trying to understand why dif-
ferences existed in the resources that various groups
in society hold. The question persists of why there
is inequality. Two major frameworks in sociological
theory—functionalist and conflict theory—take quite
different approaches to understanding inequality (see
◆ Table 8.2).

The Functionalist Perspective on Inequality.
Functionalist theory views society as a system of institu-
tions organized to meet society’s needs (see Chapter 1).
The functionalist perspective emphasizes that the parts
of society are in basic harmony with each other; soci-
ety is held together by cohesion, consensus, coopera-
tion, stability, and persistence (Eitzen and Baca Zinn
2012; Merton 1957; Parsons 1951a). Different parts of
the social system complement one another. To explain
stratification, functionalists see the roles filled by the
upper classes—such as governance, economic innova-
tion, investment, and management—are essential for
a cohesive and smoothly running society. The upper
classes are then rewarded in proportion to their contri-
bution to the social order (Davis and Moore 1945).

◆ Table 8.2 Functionalist and Conflict Theories of Stratification

Interprets Functionalism Conflict Theory

Inequality The purpose of inequality is to motivate people
to fill needed positions in society.

Inequality results from a system where those with
the most resources exploit and control others.

Reward system Greater rewards are attached to higher posi-
tions to ensure that people will be motivated to
train for functionally important roles in society.

Inequality prevents the talents of those at the
bottom from being discovered and used.

Classes Some groups are rewarded because their work
requires the greatest degree of talent and
training.

Classes conflict with each other as they vie
for power and economic, social, and political
resources.

Elites The most talented are rewarded in proportion to
their contribution to the social order.

The most powerful reproduce their advantage
by distributing resources and controlling the
dominant value system.

Class consciousness/
ideology

Beliefs about success and failure confirm the
status of those who succeed.

Elites shape societal beliefs to make their unequal
privilege appear to be legitimate and fair.

Poverty Poverty serves economic and social functions
in society.

Poverty is inevitable because of the exploitation
built into the system.

Social policy Because the system is basically fair, social
policies should only reward merit.

Because the system is basically unfair, social
policies should support disadvantaged groups.

1 9 0 CHA PT ER 8

According to the functionalist perspective, social
inequality serves an important purpose in society: It
motivates people to fill the different positions in soci-
ety that are needed for the survival of the whole. Func-
tionalists think that some positions in society are more
important than others and require the most talent and
training. The rewards attached to those positions (such
as higher income and prestige) ensure that people will
make the sacrifices needed to acquire the training for
functionally important positions (Davis and Moore
1945). Higher class status thus comes to those who
acquire what is needed for success (such as education
and job training). In other words, functionalist theorists
see inequality as based on a reward system that moti-
vates people to succeed.

The Conflict Perspective on Inequality. Conflict
theory also sees society as a social system, but unlike
functionalism, conflict theory interprets society as
being held together through conflict and coercion.
From a conflict-based perspective, society comprises
competing interest groups, some with more power than
others. Groups struggle over societal resources and
compete for social advantage. Conflict theorists argue
that those who control society’s resources also hold
power over others. The powerful are also likely to act
to reproduce their advantage and try to shape societal
beliefs to make their privileges appear to be legitimate
and fair. In sum, conflict theory emphasizes the friction
in society rather than the coherence, and sees society as
dominated by elites.

From the perspective of conflict theory, social strat-
ification is based on class conflict and blocked oppor-
tunity. Conflict theorists see stratification as a system
of domination and subordination in which those with
the most resources exploit and control others. They also
see the different classes as in conflict with each other,
with the unequal distribution of rewards reflecting the
class interests of the powerful, not the survival needs of
the whole society (Eitzen and Baca Zinn 2012). Accord-
ing to the conflict perspective, inequality provides
elites with the power to distribute resources, make and
enforce laws, and control value systems. Elites then use
these powers to reproduce their own advantage. Others
in the class structure, especially the working class and
the poor, experience blocked mobility.

From a conflict point of view, the more stratified a
society, the less likely that society will benefit from the
talents of its citizens. Inequality limits the life chances
of those at the bottom, preventing their talents from
being discovered and used.

The Debate between Functionalist and Conflict
Theories. Implicit in the argument of each perspec-
tive is criticism of the other perspective. Functionalism

assumes that the most highly rewarded jobs are the
most important for society, whereas conflict theorists
argue that some of the most vital jobs in society—those
that sustain life and the quality of life, such as farmers,
mothers, trash collectors, and a wide range of other
laborers—are usually the least rewarded. Conflict theo-
rists also criticize functionalist theory for assuming that
the most talented get the greatest rewards. They point
out that systems of stratification tend to devalue the
contributions of those left at the bottom and to under-
utilize the diverse talents of all people (Tumin 1953). In
contrast, functionalist theorists contend that the con-
flict view of how economic interests shape social orga-
nization is too simplistic. Conflict theorists respond by
arguing that functionalists hold too conservative a view
of society and overstate the degree of consensus and
stability that exists.

The debate between functionalist and conflict the-
orists raises fundamental questions about how people
view inequality. Is inequality inevitable? How is ine-
quality maintained? Do people basically accept it? This
debate is not just academic. The assumptions made
from each perspective frame public policy debates.
Whether the topic is taxation, poverty, or homelessness,
if people believe that anyone can get ahead by ability
alone, they will tend to see the system of inequality as
fair and accept the idea that there should be a differ-
ential reward system. Those who tend toward the con-
flict view of the stratification system are more likely to
advocate programs that emphasize public responsibil-
ity for the well-being of all groups and to support pro-
grams and policies that result in more of the income
and wealth of society going toward the needy.

Poverty
Despite the relatively high average standard of living
in the United States, poverty afflicts millions of people.
There are now more than 45 million poor people in the
United States—a whopping 14.5 percent of the popula-
tion. Even more startling is the large number of people
living in very deep poverty, or what experts define as
extreme poverty (the U.S. measure being living on two
dollars or less per day; the world measure of extreme pov-
erty is $1.25 per day or less; see also Chapter 9). Extreme
poverty in the United States includes 3.5 million children
who are living with virtually no income—a shocking fact
for such a rich nation (Shaefer and Edin 2014).

Poverty deprives people of basic human needs—
food, shelter, and safety from harm. It is also the basis
for many of our nation’s most intractable social prob-
lems. Failures in the education system; crime and vio-
lence; inadequate housing and homelessness; poor
health care—all are related to poverty. Who is poor, and
why is there so much poverty in an otherwise affluent
society?

SO CIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 91

Defining Poverty
The federal government has established an official
definition of poverty used to determine eligibility for
government assistance and to measure the extent of
poverty in the United States. The poverty line is the
amount of money needed to support the basic needs of
a household, as determined by government; below this
line, one is considered officially poor. To determine the
poverty line, the Social Security administration takes
a low-cost food budget (based on dietary information
provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture) and
multiplies it by a factor of three, assuming that a family
spends approximately one-third of its budget on food.
The resulting figure is the official poverty line, adjusted
slightly each year for increases in the cost of living.
In 2013, the official poverty line for a family of four
(including two children) was $23,624. Although a cutoff
point is necessary to administer antipoverty programs,
this definition of poverty can be misleading. A person or
family earning $1 above the cutoff point would not be
officially categorized as poor.

There are numerous problems with the official def-
inition of poverty. To name a few, it does not account
for regional differences in the cost of living; it does not
reflect changes in the cost of housing nor changes in the
cost of modern standards of living that were not imag-
ined in the 1930s, when the definition was established
(Meyer and Sullivan 2012). Experts have argued that the
government should develop alternative poverty meas-
ures, such as shelter poverty—a measure that would
account for the cost of housing in different regions
(Stone 1993). To date, Congress has resisted changing
the official definition of poverty—a change that would
likely increase the reported rate of poverty and poten-
tially increase the cost of federal antipoverty programs.

→ SEE for YOURSELF ←
Using the current federal poverty line ($23,264 for a
family of four, including two children), develop a monthly
budget that does not exceed this income level and that
accounts for all of your family’s needs. Base your budget
on the actual costs of such things in your locale (rent, food,
transportation, utilities, clothing, and so forth). Don’t for-
get to account for taxes (state, federal, and local), health
care expenses, your children’s education, and so on. What
does this exercise teach you about those who live below
the poverty line?

Who Are the Poor?
After the 1950s, poverty declined in the United States.
The poverty rate has generally been increasing since
2000, from about 11 to nearly 15 percent of the popula-
tion. The majority of the poor are White, although there

are disproportionately high rates of poverty among
Asian Americans, Native Americans, Black Americans,
and Hispanics. Of those considered poor, 27 percent
are Native Americans, 27.2 percent are African Ameri-
cans, 23.5 percent are Hispanics, 10.5 percent are Asian
Americans, and 9.6 percent are non-Hispanic Whites
(DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014; McCartney et al.
2013). Among Hispanics, there are further differences
among groups. Puerto Ricans—the Hispanic group
with the lowest median income—have been most likely
to suffer increased poverty, probably because of their
concentration in the poorest segments of the labor
market and their high unemployment rates (Hauan
et al. 2000; Tienda and Stier 1996). Asian American pov-
erty has also increased substantially in recent years,
particularly among the most recent immigrant groups,
including Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Chinese,
and Korean immigrants; Filipino, Japanese, and Asian
Indian families have lower rates of poverty (White
House 2012).

The vast majority of the poor have always been
women and children, but the percentage of women
and children considered to be poor has increased in
recent years. The term feminization of poverty refers
to the large proportion of the poor who are women and
children. This trend results from several factors, includ-
ing the dramatic growth of female-headed households,
a decline in the proportion of the poor who are elderly
(not matched by a decline in the poverty of women and
children), and continuing wage inequality between
women and men. The large number of poor women
is associated with a commensurate large number
of poor children. By 2013, 20 percent of all children
in the United States (those under age 18) were poor,

Child poverty in the United States is higher than one would
expect for such an otherwise materially well-off nation.

St
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e
De

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np

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Ge
tty
Im
ag
es
Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.

1 92 CHA PT ER 8

including 9.9 percent of non-Hispanic White children,
36.7 percent of Black children, 30 percent of Hispanic
children, and 9.4 percent of Asian American children
(DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014).

One-third of all families headed by women are
poor (see ▲ Figure 8.9). In recent years, wages for
young workers have declined; because most unmarried
mothers are quite young, there is a strong likelihood
that their children will be poor. Because of the divorce
rate and generally little child support provided by men,
women are also increasingly likely to be without the
contributing income of a spouse and for longer peri-
ods of their lives. Women are more likely than men to
live with children and to be financially responsible for
them. However, women without children also suffer a
high poverty rate, compounded in recent times by the
fact that women now live longer than before and are
less likely to be married than in previous periods.

DEBUNKING Society’s Myths←
Myth: Marriage is a good way to reduce women’s depend-
ence on welfare.
Reality: Although it is true that married-couple house-
holds are less likely to be poor than single-headed
households, forcing women to marry encourages women’s
dependence on men and punishes women for being
independent. Research indicates that poor women place
a high value on marriage and want to be married, but
also understand that men’s unemployment and instability
makes their ideal of marriage unattainable. In addition,
large numbers of women receiving welfare have been vic-
tims of domestic violence (Edin and Kefalas 2005; Scott
et al. 2002).

15
20
25
30
35
40

10
5
0

White, non
Hispanic

Black

Percent in poverty

AsianHispanic

Married couples

Female head of household
Male head of household

▲ Figure 8.9 Poverty Status by Family
Type and Race
Note: Families with children under 18 present.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. 2014. Historical Income
Tables, Table POV-02, People in Families, by Family
Structure, Age, and Sex, Iterated by Income-to-Poverty
Ratio and Race: 2013. Washington, DC: U.S. Census
Bureau. www.census.gov

The poor are not a one-dimensional group. They
are racially diverse, including Whites, Blacks, Hispanics,
Asian Americans, and Native Americans. They are
diverse in age, including not just children and young
mothers, but also men and women of all ages, and
especially a substantial number of the elderly, many
of whom live alone. The poor are also geographically
diverse, to be found in areas east and west, south and
north, urban and rural.

As ■ Map 8.1 shows, poverty rates are gener-
ally higher in the South and Southwest. What the
map cannot show, however, is concentrated poverty.
Concentrated poverty means that there are areas of
counties, cities, or states where larger percentages
of people are poor. Such areas then have higher

Although most people associate poverty with urban areas,
poverty rates outside of metropolitan areas are actually
higher than you might expect.

M
ar

io
T

am
a/

SO CIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 93

Population in Poverty
(Percent)

Poverty in the United States by County, 2010

17.0–19.9
20.0–29.9
30.0–50.1

12.0–16.9
00.0–11.9

Poverty by Rural, Suburban,
& Urban Location

Urban

Rural &
Small Town

United States

Suburban
& Exurban

0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%

Percent in Poverty

17.0%

10.1%

16.1%

13.5%

Mapping America’s Diversity: Poverty in the United States
This map shows regional differences
in poverty rates (that is, the percent-
age of poor in different counties). As
you can see, poverty is highest in the
South, Southwest, and some parts
of the upper Midwest. This reflects

the higher rates of poverty among
Native Americans, Latinos, and African
Americans, especially in rural areas.
What the map does not show is the
concentration of poverty in particular
urban areas. According to this map,

how much poverty is there in your
region? Is there poverty that the map
does not show?
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. 2010. “Poverty in
the United States.” www.census.gov

map 8.1

rates of crime, poor schools, few job opportunities,
poor health and housing, and less access to ser-
vices. Concentrated poverty is highest among African
Americans and American Indians (including Alaska
natives). Among these groups, 10 percent of people
live in areas where 40 percent or more of the popu-
lation is poor, compared to 3 percent of poor White
Americans and 7 percent of Hispanics (Bishaw 2011).

One marked change in poverty is the growth of
poverty in suburban areas. One-third of the nation’s
poor are now found in suburbs where poverty is grow-
ing twice as fast as in center cities (Kneebone and
Holmes 2014). Rural poverty also persists in the United
States, even though people tend to think of poverty as
an urban phenomenon. The truth is that the poverty
rate is actually higher outside of metropolitan areas
than inside (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014).

Despite the idea that the poor “milk” the sys-
tem, government supports for the poor are limited.
So-called welfare is now largely in the form of food
stamps, not cash assistance. Half of households receiv-
ing food stamps are those with children present ; one-
fifth of recipients are disabled, and 17 percent are
elderly people. Considering that the average monthly
coupon value is $134, it is hard to understand why fed-
eral support is reviled as overly generous (U.S. Census
Bureau 2012a).

Among the poor are thousands of homeless.
Depending on how one defines and measures home-
lessness, estimates of the number of homeless people
vary widely. If you count the number of homeless on any
given night, there may be anywhere between 444,000 to
842,000; over an entire year, estimates are that between
2.3 and 3.5 million people experience homelessness,

1 94 CH APT ER 8

though not necessarily for an entire year (National Coa-
lition for the Homeless 2014). The transient nature of
this population makes accurate estimates of the extent
of homelessness impossible.

Whatever the actual numbers of homeless peo-
ple, there has been an increase in homelessness over
the past two decades. Families are the fastest-growing
segment of the homeless—40 percent—and, children
are also 40 percent of the homeless. Moreover, half of
the women with children who are homeless have fled
from domestic violence (National Coalition against
Domestic Violence 2001; Zorza 1991). A shocking num-
ber of the homeless are veterans (about 11 percent),
including those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan
(National Coalition for the Homeless 2014; see also
▲ Figure 8.10).

There are many reasons for homelessness. The
great majority of the homeless are on the streets
because of a lack of affordable housing and an increase
in poverty, leaving many people with no choice but to
live on the street. Add to that problems of inadequate
health care, domestic violence, and addiction, and you
begin to understand the factors that create homeless-
ness. Some of the homeless have mental illness (about
16 percent of single, homeless adults); the movement
to relocate patients requiring mental health care out
of institutional settings has left many without mental
health resources that might help them (National Coali-
tion for the Homeless 2014).

Causes of Poverty
Most agree that poverty is a serious social problem.
There is far less agreement on what to do about it. Pub-
lic debate about poverty hinges on disagreements about
its underlying causes. Two points of view prevail: Some
blame the poor for their own condition, and some look
to social structural causes to explain poverty. The first
view, popular with the public and many policymakers,
is that poverty is caused by the cultural habits of the
poor. According to this point of view, behaviors such as
crime, family breakdown, lack of ambition, and educa-
tional failure generate and sustain poverty, a syndrome
to be treated by forcing the poor to fend for themselves.
The second view is more sociological, one that under-
stands poverty as rooted in the structure of society, not
in the morals and behaviors of individuals.

DEBUNKING Society’s Myths←
Myth: The influx of unskilled immigrants raises the
poverty level by taking jobs away from U.S. citizens who
would otherwise be able to find work and lift themselves
from poverty.
Sociological Perspective: A state-by-state analysis of
poverty and immigration in recent years finds that immi-
grants actually improve local economies by increasing
the supply of workers, generating labor market expan-
sion, and promoting entrepreneurship—in other words,
stimulating the economy. In some regions, immigration
has actually lessened poverty (Peri 2014).

Blaming the Victim: The Culture of Poverty.
Blaming the poor for being poor stems from the myth
that success requires only individual motivation and
ability. Many in the United States adhere to this view
and hence have a harsh opinion of the poor. This atti-
tude is also reflected in U.S. public policy concerning
poverty, which is rather ungenerous compared with
other industrialized nations. Those who blame the poor
for their own plight typically argue that poverty is the
result of early childbearing, drug and alcohol abuse,
refusal to enter the labor market, and crime. Such think-
ing puts the blame for poverty on individual choices,
not on societal problems. In other words, it blames the
victim, not the society, for social problems (Ryan 1971).

The culture of poverty argument attributes the
major causes of poverty to the absence of work values
and the irresponsibility of the poor (Lewis 1969, 1966).
In this light, poverty is seen as a dependent way of life
that is transferred, like other cultural values, from gener-
ation to generation. Policymakers have adapted the cul-
ture of poverty argument to argue that the actual causes
of poverty are found in the breakdown of major institu-
tions, including the family, schools, and churches.

NOTE: The percentages add to more than
100 percent because some groups may fall into
more than one race.

Asian

White
African American

Native American
Hispanic

20%

38%

42%

▲ Figure 8.10 Who Are the Homeless?
Source of data: National Coalition for the Homeless. 2014.
www.nationalhomeless.org

SO CIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 95

Is the culture of poverty argument true? To answer
this question, we might ask: Is poverty transmitted
across generations? Researchers have found only mixed
support for this assumption. Many of those who are
poor remain poor for only one or two years; only a small
percentage of the poor are chronically poor. More often,
poverty results from a household crisis, such as divorce,
illness, unemployment, or parental death. People tend
to cycle in and out of poverty. The public stereotype that
poverty is passed through generations is thus not well
supported by the facts.

A second question is: Do the poor want to work?
The persistent public stereotype that they do not is cen-
tral to the culture of poverty thesis. This attitude pre-
sumes that poverty is the fault of the poor, that poverty
would go away if they would only change their values
and adopt the American work ethic. What is the evi-
dence for these claims?

Detailed studies of the poor simply find no basis for
the assumption that the poor hold different values about
work compared to every one else (Lakso 2013; Lee and
Anat 2008). They simply find that work is difficult to find.
Several other facts also refute this popular claim.

Most of the able-bodied poor do work, even if only
part-time. As we saw previously, the number of workers
who constitute the working poor has actually increased.
You can see why this is true when you calculate the
income of someone working full-time for minimum
wage. Someone working forty hours per week, fifty-two
weeks per year, at minimum wage will have an income
far below the poverty line. This is the major reason that
many have organized a living wage campaign, intended
to raise the federal minimum wage to provide workers
with a decent standard of living.

Current policies that force those on welfare to work
also tend to overlook how difficult it is for poor people
to retain the jobs they get. Prior to welfare reform in
the mid-1990s, poor women who went off welfare to
take jobs often found they soon had to return to welfare
because the wages they earned were not enough to sup-
port their families. Leaving welfare often means losing
health benefits, yet incurring increased living expenses.
The jobs that poor people find often do not lift them out
of poverty. In sum, attributing poverty to the values of the
poor is both unproven and a poor basis for public policy.

Structural Causes of Poverty. From a sociological
point of view, the underlying causes of poverty lie in the
economic and social transformations taking place in
the United States. Careful scholars do not attribute pov-
erty to a single cause. There are many causes. Two of the
most important are: (1) the restructuring of the econ-
omy, which has resulted in diminished earning power
and increased unemployment; and, (2) the status of
women in the family and the labor market, which has
contributed to women being overrepresented among

the poor. Add to these underlying conditions the fed-
eral policies in recent years that have diminished social
support for the poor in the form of welfare, public hous-
ing, and job training. Given these reductions in federal
support, it is little wonder that poverty is so widespread.

The restructuring of the economy has caused the
disappearance of manufacturing jobs, traditionally an
avenue of job security and social mobility for many
workers, especially African American and Latino work-
ers (Wilson 1996). The working class has been especially
vulnerable to these changes. Economic decline in those
sectors of the economy where men have historically
received good pay and good benefits means that fewer
men are the sole support for their families. Most fami-
lies now need two incomes to achieve a middle-class
way of life. The new jobs that are being created fall pri-
marily in occupations that offer low wages and few ben-
efits; they also tend to be filled by women, especially
women of color, leaving women poor and men out of
work. Such jobs offer little chance to get out of poverty.
New jobs are also typically located in neighborhoods far
away from the poor, creating a mismatch between the
employment opportunities and the residential base of
the poor.

Declining wage rates caused by transformations
taking place within the economy fall particularly hard
on young people, women, and African Americans and
Latinos, the groups most likely to be among the work-
ing poor. The high rate of poverty among women is also
strongly related to women’s status in the family and the
labor market. Divorce is one cause of poverty, because
without a male wage in the household, women are
more likely to be poor. Women’s child-care responsi-
bilities make working outside the home on marginal
incomes difficult. Many women with children cannot
manage to work outside the home, because it leaves
them with no one to watch their children. More women
now depend on their own earnings to support them-
selves, their children, and other dependents. Whereas
unemployment has always been considered a major
cause of poverty among men, low wages play a major
role for women.

The persistence of poverty also increases tensions
between different classes and racial groups. William
Julius Wilson, one of the most noted analysts of poverty
and racial inequality, has written, “The ultimate basis for
current racial tension is the deleterious effect of basic
structural changes in the modern American economy
on Black and White lower-income groups, changes that
include uneven economic growth, increasing technol-
ogy and automation, industry relocation, and labor
market segmentation” (1978: 154). Wilson’s comments
demonstrate the power of sociological thinking by con-
vincingly placing the causes of both poverty and racism
in their societal context, instead of the individualistic
thinking that tends to blame the poor for their plight.

1 9 6 CHA PT ER 8

Welfare and Social Policy
The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation (PRWOR) Act governs current welfare
policy. This federal policy eliminated the long-standing
welfare program titled Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC), which was created in 1935 as part of
the Social Security Act. Implemented during the Great
Depression, AFDC was meant to assist poor mothers
and their children. This program acknowledged that
some people are victimized by economic circumstances
beyond their control and deserve assistance. For much
of its lifetime, this law supported mostly White mothers
and their children. Not until the 1960s did welfare come
to be identified with Black families.

The new welfare policy gives block grants to states
to administer their own welfare programs through
the program called Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF). TANF stipulates a lifetime limit of
five years for people to receive aid and requires all wel-
fare recipients to find work within two years—a policy
known as workfare. Those who have not found work
within two years of receiving welfare can be required to
perform community service jobs for free.

In addition, welfare policy denies payments to
unmarried teen parents under age 18 unless they stay in
school and live with an adult. It also requires unmarried
mothers to identify the fathers of their children or risk
losing their benefits (Edin and Kefalas 2005; Hays 2003).
These broad guidelines are established at the federal
level, but individual states can be more restrictive, as
many have been. At the heart of public beliefs about
support for the poor is the idea that public assistance
creates dependence, discouraging people from seeking
jobs. The very title of current welfare policy emphasizes
“personal responsibility and work,” suggesting that
poverty is the fault of the poor. Low-income women, for
example, are stereotyped as just wanting to have babies
to increase the size of their welfare checks. Low-income
men are also stereotyped as shiftless and irresponsible,
even though research finds no support for either idea
(Edin and Nelson 2013; Edin and Kefalas 2005).

Is welfare reform working? Many claim that welfare
reform is working because, since passage of the new
law, the welfare rolls have shrunk. Since 1996, the year
that welfare reform was passed, the number receiving
welfare support has declined from twelve million to
four million (U.S. Census Bureau 2012a). Having fewer
people on welfare does not, however, mean that pov-
erty is reduced. In fact, as we have seen, extreme pov-
erty has actually increased since passage of welfare
reform. Having fewer people on the rolls can simply
mean that people are without a safety net. Holes in the
safety net makes those already vulnerable to economic
distress even more so. Although not limited to them,
single women with children and people of color have
been those most negatively affected by the 1996 welfare
reforms (Shaefer and Edin 2014).

Research done to assess the impact of a changed
welfare policy is relatively recent. Politicians brag that
welfare rolls have shrunk, but reduction in the welfare
rolls is a poor measure of the true impact of welfare
reform because this would be true simply if people are
denied benefits. Because welfare has been decentral-
ized to the state level, studies of the impact of current
law must be done on a state-by-state basis. Such stud-
ies are showing that those who have gone into workfare
programs most often earn wages that keep them below
the poverty line. Although some states report that fam-
ily income has increased following welfare reform, the
increases are slight. More people have been evicted
because of falling behind on rent. Families also report
an increase in other material hardships, such as phones
and utilities being cut off. Marriage rates among former
recipients have not changed, although more now live
with nonmarital partners, most likely as a way of shar-
ing expenses. The number of children living in fami-
lies without either parent has also increased, probably
because parents had to relocate to find work. In some
states, the numbers of people neither working nor
receiving aid also increased (Acker et al. 2002; Bernstein
2002). Many studies also find that low-wage work does
not lift former welfare recipients out of poverty (Shaefer
and Edin 2014; Hays 2003). Forcing welfare recipients

Is It True?*

True False

1. Income growth has been greatest for those in the middle class in recent years.

2. The average American household has most of its wealth in the stock market.

3. Social mobility is greater in the United States than in any other Western nation.

4. Poor teen mothers do not have the same values about marriage as middle-class people.

5. Old people are the most likely to be poor.

6. Poverty in U.S. suburbs is increasing.

*The answers can be found at the end of this chapter.

SOCIAL CLASS AND SOCIAL STRATIF I CATIO N 1 97

to work provides a cheap labor force for employers and
potentially takes jobs from those already employed.

The public debate about welfare rages on, often in the
absence of informed knowledge from sociological research
and almost always without input from the subjects of the
debate, welfare recipients themselves. Although stigma-
tized as lazy and not wanting to work, those who have
received welfare actually believe that it has negative con-
sequences for them, but they say they have no other viable
means of support. They typically have needed welfare
when they could not find work or had small children and
needed child care. Most were forced to leave their last job
because of layoffs or firings or because the work was only
temporary. Few left their jobs voluntarily.

Welfare recipients also say that the welfare system
makes it hard to become self-supporting because the
wages one earns while on welfare are deducted from
an already minimal subsistence. Furthermore, there
is not enough affordable day care for mothers to leave
home and get jobs. The biggest problem they face in
their minds is lack of money. Contrary to the popular
image of the conniving “welfare queen,” welfare recipi-
ents want to be self-sufficient and provide for their fam-
ilies, but they face circumstances that make this very
difficult to do. Indeed, studies of young, poor mothers
find that they place a high value on marriage, but they

do not think they or their boyfriends have the means
to achieve the marriage ideals they cherish (Edin and
Kefalas 2005; Hays 2003).

Another popular myth about welfare is that people
use their welfare checks to buy things they do not need.
Research finds that when former welfare recipients find
work, their expenses actually go up. Although they may
have increased income, their expenses (in the form
of child care, clothing, transportation, lunch money,
and so forth) increase, leaving them even less dispos-
able income. Moreover, studies find that low-income
mothers who buy “treats” for their children (brand-
name shoes, a movie, candy, and so forth) do so because
they want to be good mothers (Edin and Lein 1997).

Other beneficiaries of government programs have
not experienced the same kind of stigma. Social Secu-
rity supports virtually all retired people, yet they are
not stereotyped as dependent on federal aid, unable to
maintain stable family relationships, or insufficiently
self-motivated. Spending on welfare programs is also a
pittance compared with the spending on other federal
programs. Sociologists conclude that the so-called wel-
fare trap is not a matter of learned dependency, but a
pattern of behavior forced on the poor by the require-
ments of sheer economic survival (Edin and Kefalas
2005; Hays 2003).

What different kinds of stratification systems exist?
Social stratification is a relatively fixed hierarchical
arrangement in society by which groups have different
access to resources, power, and perceived social worth.
All societies have systems of stratification, although
they vary in composition and complexity. Estate systems
are those in which a single elite class holds the power
and property; in caste systems, placement in the strati-
fication is by birth; in class systems, placement is deter-
mined by achievement.

How do sociologists define class?
Class is the social structural position that groups hold
relative to the economic, social, political, and cultural
resources of society. Class is highly significant in deter-
mining one’s life chances.

How is the class system structured
in the United States?
Social class can be seen as a hierarchy, like a ladder,
where income, occupation, and education are indica-
tors of class. Status attainment is the process by which
people end up in a given position in this hierarchy.
Prestige is the value others assign to people and groups
within this hierarchy. Classes are also organized

around common interests and exist in conflict with
one another.

Is there social mobility in the United States?
Social mobility is the movement between class posi-
tions. Education gives some boost to social mobility, but
social mobility is more limited than people believe; most
people end up in a class position very close to their class
of origin. Class consciousness is both the perception that
a class structure exists and the feeling of shared identi-
fication with others in one’s class. The United States has
not been a particularly class-conscious society because
of the belief in upward mobility.

What analyses of social stratification do
sociological theorists provide?
Karl Marx saw class as primarily stemming from eco-
nomic forces; Max Weber had a multidimensional view
of stratification, involving economic, social, and politi-
cal dimensions. Functionalists argue that social ine-
quality motivates people to fill the different positions
in society that are needed for the survival of the whole,
claiming that the positions most important for society
require the greatest degree of talent or training and
are thus most rewarded. Conflict theorists see social

Chapter Summary

1 9 8 CHAPT ER 8

stratification as based on class conflict and blocked
opportunity, pointing out that those at the bottom of
the stratification system are least rewarded because
they are subordinated by dominant groups.

How do sociologists explain why there is poverty
in the United States?
Culture of poverty is the idea that poverty is the result of
the cultural habits of the poor that are transmitted from
generation to generation, but sociologists see poverty as

caused by social structural conditions, including unem-
ployment, gender inequality in the workplace, and the
absence of support for child care for working parents.

What current policies address the problem
of poverty?
Current welfare policy, adopted in 1996, provides
support through individual states, but recipients are
required to work after two years of support and have a
lifetime limit of five years of support.

caste system 172
class consciousness 187
class system 172
concentrated poverty 192
conspicuous

consumption 173
culture of poverty 194
economic

restructuring 174

educational
attainment 180

estate system 172
false consciousness 187
feminization of

poverty 191
ideology 188
income 175
life chances 172

median income 179
meritocracy 186
net worth 175
occupational prestige 180
poverty line 191
prestige 180
social class 172
social mobility 186
social stratification 171

socioeconomic status
(SES) 179

status attainment 179
Temporary Assistance

for Needy Families
(TANF) 196

urban underclass 182
wealth 175

Key Terms

Is It True? (Answers)

1. FALSE. Income growth has been highest in the top 5 percent of income groups (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014).

2. FALSE. Eighty percent of all stock is owned by a small percentage of people. For most people, home ownership is the most
common financial asset (Oliver and Shapiro 2006).

3. FALSE. The United States has lower rates of social mobility than Canada, Sweden, and Norway, and ranks near the middle in
comparison to other Western nations (Jäntti 2006).

4. FALSE. Research finds that poor teen mothers value marriage and want to be married, but associate marriage with eco-
nomic security, which they do not think they can achieve (Edin and Kefalas 2005).

5. FALSE. Although those over age 65 used to be the most likely to be poor, poverty among the elderly has declined; the most
likely to be poor are children (DeNavas-Walt and Proctor 2014).

6. TRUE. Although most of the poor live inside metropolitan areas, poverty in the suburbs has been increasing (DeNavas-Walt
and Proctor 2014).

Ch 8: Social Class and Social Stratification

Social Differentiation and Social Stratification
The Class Structure of the United States: Growing Inequality
The Distribution of Income and Wealth
Analyzing Social Class
Social Mobility: Myths and Realities
Why is There Inequality?
Poverty
Chapter Summary

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