I need help creating a thesis and an outline on Social Classes and Their Impact on People’s Sense of Self. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. Social class refers to the ranking of people into a hierarchy within a culture. The idea of the social class entered the English lexicon about the 1770s, with no specific originator. Many sociologists and historians see that “higher” classes control subordinate classes. At times, social class can be related to elitism, and those in the higher class are usually known as the “social elite”. This ranking may be legal, as in former Indian castes, or abstract.
Various schools of sociology differ in postulating which social traits are significant enough to define a class. The relative importance and definition of membership in a particular class differ greatly over time and between societies, particularly in societies that have a legal differentiation of groups of people by birth or occupation. In the well-known example of socioeconomic class, many scholars view societies as stratifying into a hierarchical system based on economic status, wealth, or income (“social class.”, 2006).
Based on social anthropology, Warner divided American into three classes (upper, middle, and lower), then further subdivided each of these into an “upper” and “lower” segment, with the following postulates:
To Warner, American social class was based more on attitudes than on the actual amount of money an individual made. For example, the richest people in America would belong to the “lower upper class” since many of them created their own fortunes. one can only be born into the highest class. Nonetheless, members of the wealthy upper-upper class tend to be more powerful, as a simple survey of U.S. presidents may demonstrate (i.e., the Roosevelts. John Kennedy. the Bushes) (Wikipedia, 2006).
When sociologists speak of “class” they usually mean economically based classes in modern or near pre-modern society. The modern usage of the word “class” outside of Marxism generally considers only the relative wealth of individuals or social .groups and not the ownership of the means of production.
