Social Class and Cultural Diversity


Here are some questions to ponder and keep in mind throughout this blogpost. Enjoy (:
How does the family create and/or perpetuate the culture?
Are all cultures equally valid; do they all meet the same purposes with the same effectiveness?
How can one carefully choose the aspects of one's culture to keep, and how do we perpetuate those into coming generations?
What are two aspects of your own culture you'd like to perpetuate, and two you would like to set aside or improve? How can you do that?
Traditions are "inherited patterns of belief or behavior". Which traditions encourage the best in families and individuals, and which might best be discarded?

Do you ever wonder if social class really is a big deal? Or is it just something people talk about? Well social class is a real thing. It is continually something that people in todays world are constantly involved in. The different social classes create factors for families around the world. So, what categorizes people into social classes? Well it could be race/ethnicity, gender, finances, and other factors. The most common is the financial social class. Your average family is a middle-class family. They are all together average in almost every way. They make a certain amount of money and fit into a certain category. There is the lower class, and that is where most poverty and starvation happen. The lower class has little to no income and is constantly struggling to provide the basic necessities for their families. Lastly, we have the upper class. These people are usually categorized as financially well off. These people never struggle with money because of the high income they earn.
If you were to watch the documentary “People Like Us” you would quickly learn quite a bit of information about different social classes in the U.S. This documentary is a great depiction of what it is like to be in the lower class. You really start to sympathize with these families and the documentary creates an understanding of how hard the vicious cycle of the lower class can be. The documentary shows how difficult it is for lower class families to get out of the lower class. It shows how isolated you can be and how hard it is to achieve upper class status when you are stuck within the limiting income of the lower class. For many, obtaining a higher class is nearly impossible.
After studying different social classes, we looked at the relationships within the family. We noticed that upper- and middle-class citizens are more likely to have more children and the divorce rates are lower for them compared to the lower class where there are more children born outside of a marriage relationship. Divorce rates stayed the same because of the instability within the family relationships.
Different factors including same sex marriage, co-parenting relationships, divorced families and others all have different effects on a family. The one thing that always rang true, was that children raised in a family with a mother and a father who are married, and cohabitating are happier and healthier. Studies have shown that their families are more stable, and their children are more likely to be successful and less likely to run into any trouble. Research has proved time and time again that children who are not raised in a family with a mother and a father who are lawfully wed are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, drug use, high crime, unemployment, etc. These factors all add to social class and create a situation for all families to change at any given point.
It is important for all families to work together as a family unit. To love and support one another no matter the social class. Families that work together are more likely to thrive together.

Comments