Social Structure and Class Structure

1. What is the function of social class structure?
   • Separation of social class
2. What conflict naturally exists between social class structures?
   • The oppressors control the oppressed and it’s difficult to change your social status
3. What symbols do we associate with the various social class structures in our society?
   • Climbing the ladder, food, champagne
4. How would you change the social class structure?
   • Make it more equal

1. What is the difference between ascribed and achieved status as discussed in this video?
   • Your ascribed status is what you are born with and your achieved status are all of the things you can achieve
2. For each of the following class distinctions, give examples from the video that define each class. Then remark if those characteristics are still true for 2013.
   a. Upper Class- better paying jobs, bigger houses, more educated
   b.  Middle Class- steady paying job, pretty well educated
   c.  Lower Class-not very good paying jobs, less educated

-All of these are pretty relevant to the classes today, they probably always will be as long as the class system exists, and most people never venture too far from the class they were born into.

Hillary Clinton E-mail Scandal

            While serving as secretary of state Hillary Clinton was caught using a private server to send emails instead of her government email. For the four years she was secretary of state, Clinton never used an official state.gov email address. Instead, she relied on a private email account on her own personal server. It went unnoticed, until this last summer. Clintons excuse was that she didn’t want to carry around two smartphones, which is interesting because earlier that year she said she lugs around a BlackBerry, an iPhone, an iPad, and an iPad Mini in her purse all the time. When she was asked to turn the emails over, she deleted 31830 emails that she didn’t feel were relevant and selectively picked over the ones to turn in. Investigators said they searched a small sample of 40 emails and found four that contained government secrets. Many politicians are demanding her to immediately turn over her email account. They are viewing her as a threat to our national security. It is said that there were emails on her account exchanged between her and foreign leaders and government officials outside the State Department. Her private emailing probably would still be continuing if it wasn’t for a house committee investigating Clinton’s involvement in the Benghazi attack.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/politics/hillary-clinton-email-classified-information-inspector-general-intelligence-community.html?_r=0

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/08/20/hillary_clinton_email_scandal_explained.html

White Ghetto

What does the average coal miner make (wages per hour)?

$25 an hour

Who are some types of people a person might find in the big, “White Ghetto.”

-Very poor families

-old drunk men

-under educated people

- people with a love of scenery

Why do you think the author calls it the “Big White Ghetto.”

It is extremely comparable to the “ghettos” we see in larger cities except its almost all white people who live there

What does the author suggests “keeps the underclass in place?”

Welfare

The author suggests that “poverty is the natural condition ____  _______  ________ _______.”

Of the human animal

How does Pepsi play into this?

They are aware of what people are doing with their products, but they let it happen.

List five things/facts you took away from this article.

1. The unemployment rate in Owsley county is extremely high
2. People in the area are extremely dependent of welfare
3. Most of the people who receive benefits are misusing them
4. People who live there are poor and drunk
5. Living there you will likely die sooner because of health and nutrition factors