Social Class a Social Constructed Reality

          We are all born into a social class and most of us don’t realize that we define or categorize who is “one of us” or “one of them.” Social class plays a significant role in what we think and how we feel about ourselves.

         The documentary, “People Like Us: Social Class in America,” reveals that class differences in America is in fact a reality. It shows that the kind of clothes one wears,  the car one drives, the neighborhood or house one lives, the occupation one has, one’s physical appearance, one’s  family background, one’s level of education, earnings and assets are all factors that shapes one social identity and determines one’s social position or status.

         What people do and how much money they make determine where they live and the people who they interact and identify with. Those who share the same social status or identity are similar to one another. They have the same privileges or cultural and economic resources that allow them to have access to private schools and social circles. The documentary highlights that people always want to create a positive impression on others of their self-worth and to accomplish that they endeavor to gain material possessions such as expensive cars, houses, jewelry and clothes so others will perceive them as worthy, sophisticated and successful. According to the documentary, it is not only enough to have material possessions to  be accepted into the upper class society, but it is also necessary to pursue the attitudes, preferences and habits that match the particular class’ “lifestyle.”

        People’s manners and habits, how they speak or talk, what they eat, their preferences, their attitudes, their beliefs, their sense of self, or their “lifestyle,” are influenced by the social context or environment  and circumstances in which they are born and raised. Parents are a crucial agent of socialization and transmit to their children more than beliefs, values, behaviors, and customs; they pass on to their children their social class or “lifestyle” and life chances. Those who have economic resources have the privilege to choose their own “lifestyle,” occupation, neighborhood, academic area of interest, what to wear, what to eat, and what sport to practice and so on.

         A healthy “lifestyle” for the privileged is, in fact, a matter of choice, but not for the poor. In “Cause of Death: inequality,” Alejandro Reuss claims that, although not often acknowledged or reported by                  the mass media, social inequality may be an unobserved or unsuspected killer. He reveals that heart diseases, diabetes, accidental injury, homicide significantly have a tendency to occur more to poor and less educated people than to the rich or highly educated. According to Reuss, mortality probability increases to those who hold lower statuses in the social hierarchy and shorter is their life expectancy.  He also highlights that those less empowered, discriminated or stigmatized suffer more from stress and its related diseases such as high blood pressure.

        The mass media is a crucial agent of socialization in our generation and has the cultural power to inform, to persuade, to entertain, and to define reality. The media is monopolized by corporations that intend to sell and promote products, beliefs, values, and attitudes. In “Media Magic: Making Class Invisible,” Gregory Mantsios argues that although social class divisions determine the quality of  individuals living conditions, education, health care, occupation, and safety, the media promotes a distorted image of an equal society by masquerading poverty and its effect on America. Mantsios remarks that although there are forty million poor people in the nation, the poor people, their misery, their suffering hardly ever receives any attention and thus seem not to exist. And when the media does release a yearly report by the Census Bureau, the coverage is emphasized in the validity of the numbers. She also highlights that the image associated with poverty evokes the idea that the poor are “undeserving,” not that poverty in the United States is a result of major forces such as economic and political policies or unequal distribution of wealth or income.

       Porverty, social inequality and class hierarchy is a socially constructed reality that affects mainly the lives of those on the bottom of the social hierarchy. Is stratification necessary for a society to function or for individuals to co-exist and meet their human needs? Race, ethnicity, gender or social class have been used to categorize or oppress some and benefit others. Equality is still a dream that could become a socially constructed reality.

Labeling and Deviance- Elements of Social Control

What is “normal?” What is “true?” What is “good” or “bad?” What is “beautiful?” What is “success?” What is “moral” or “immoral?”  Everyone seems to have answers for those questions, but how do we know what we know? Different societies and cultures define their realities differently as they hold and conform to different beliefs and values. Individuals who belong to a social group are expected to behave in accordance to, as Emile Durkheim claimed, a “collective conscience.” Anyone whose behaviors and even biological characteristics don’t fit categories of what is judged to be acceptable and desirable are consequently deviant or non-conformist individuals.  A society categorizes individuals who are or aren’t part of it, their behaviors and their characteristics. What is the source of that categorization or labeling or who created it? How does it start and end?  

Through socialization I have developed a sense of self or social identity and learned a “collective conscience.”  I have learned or been conditioned to feel ashamed or embarrassed about myself when my behaviors didn’t measure up to social expectations of what is appropriate. I remember eating in public at a restaurant with my family when I was twelve or thirteen years old. I was hungry and the food looked so delicious and as soon as the waiter put the food on the table, I immediately started to put some food on my plate. My father looked at me with eyes of disapproval and said nothing. The barbecue meat tasted so delicious and as I was eating so enthusiastically, he looked at me again and said “the food is not going to run away, where are your manners? Everyone is looking at you!” He was embarrassed about how I was eating and I felt pretty embarrassed after he spoke to me as well. What is the source of shame or embarrassment?  Is it social disapproval? Why do we care so much about what others think about us? What standards do we use to regulate our behaviors and judge those of others?  

“Labeling Theory” claims that deviance is rooted in how people interpret a behavior and not in the behavior itself. How we perceive or label and treat an individual may lead the individual to internalize the judgment and accept it as a self-identity. Labeling a child or someone can affect and influence how they see and feel about themselves. The labeling may create a self-fulfilling prophecy or influence them to behave in accordance to the internalized belief about who they are and should act like.                            

In my childhood, I used to stutter and going to the playground was not often a joyful or fun experience; the other kids would joke about me and call me a “stutterer.” At school, I experienced the same conflicts and got into many fights as well. My parents were called to go to the school or to talk to the neighbors’ parents very often. My parents always supported me on that matter. They would rather deal with me beating up the other kids than to be beaten up by them and go home crying. They knew that my reaction was based on the labeling and the jokes that the other kids would make about me, but they advised me not to care about what they were thinking or saying, because I was handsome and smart. I didn't understand the extent that I should care about what others were thinking or saying about me. I practiced judo and swimming competitively and my parents would praise me in front of others, telling them that I was a champion. I had excellent grades at school and my parents often received letters of acknowledgment of my academic performance from the school as well, which reinforced my belief that I was smart.

My parents often told me that my stuttering would soon disappear, but decided to take me to see a speech specialist. The speech specialist said that I didn’t have any problem and that my difficulty to articulate and transition from one sound to the other was due to a tension on the muscle of my articulation that everyone experience during anxiety or nervousness.  Why am I sharing that childhood experience? It is a great example of socialization, labeling, and self-identity.  I had supportive parents that praised me and made me to believe that I was a worthy individual. They influenced me to see myself in a positive way when compared to others. They taught me to recognize socially desirable behaviors and characteristics as a way to neutralize the negative impact of any negative labeling such as “the stutter” label and jokes on my sense of self. In that way I didn’t isolate myself and was able to interact with others in socially acceptable ways. As a kid, I wanted to be friends with the other kids, play with them and to enjoy their company. As I grew older, I learned to find something about them to label as well instead of using aggression to gain respect. Sometimes, I would just disregard their jokes and even laugh about them or make fun others as well, but I never appreciated it. My stuttering today is almost not-existent, at least exteriorly, because I have learned to control myself as much as possible to speak deliberately. I have learned to recognize tension and be aware of my emotions so I can regulate them as well to express my thoughts and feelings effectively.

The pressures we all suffer to conform to social standards exert a form of control over our behaviors.  Through socialization we learn the consequences of not conforming to what is expected from us. We learn to regulate our own behaviors to fit the categories of what is acceptable and desirable. For Durkheim, regulating ourselves is necessary for social functioning and for our own life satisfaction. Therefore, to succeed within society we must regulate ourselves.  Most individuals have the goal of financial success within a capitalist society and conform to achieve that goal, but due to lack of resources such as limited higher education and job opportunities prevent them from accomplishing it.  In “Positive Functions of the Undeserving Poor; Used of the Under-class in America,” Herbert J. Gans argues that people who lack economic resources are often categorized as “undeserving”  and consequently not receive public aid in order to maintain themselves and to improve their life conditions. He highlights that even though the effect of a lack of jobs is significantly determined by economic major forces; those people are accused of being lazy, immoral, unmotivated and judged or labeled to be “undeserving.”

According to Gans, undeservingness has positive functions, not for those who lack economic resources, but for people, groups, and institutions which range from a moderate income to a wealthy one. In other words, the wealthy ones benefit from the poor or “undeserving” ones. To stigmatize or label individuals may be a strategy that those who label others use to justify and explain their privileges. They protect their benefits by establishing a moral inequality without relevant evidence. The wealthy are the deserving class and the poor are the undeserving one represents a class hierarchy that serves as “Normative Function” as Gans claims, that justifies the moral legitimacy of those who hold the higher status. Deviance depends on a particular social context and the stratification social system that allows those in positions of power to arbitrarily label a behavior, status, or individual characteristic as unacceptable, undesirable, or deviant. Stigmatized individuals often have to face discrimination, and limited social, economic, and political opportunities.

We have to be aware of the extent that social norms function to control, constrain, and inhibit our actions and why. We have to be aware of how social expectations have conditioned us to think and feel about ourselves and others. A behavior or characteristic is judged to be good or bad, superior or inferior, acceptable or unacceptable, or “normal” when compared to a certain standard which is provided by a culture or dominant ideology.  Rational and conscious deviance like disobedience may also be a powerful force to promote change and innovation.