Culture is more inevitable in this world that is culturally and socially diverse with various social stratification in every society. People are classified into different strata according to their race, gender, economic class, level of education and a person’s demographic background different demographic setting (Kendall, 2015). The presented factor affect people’s behavior, and their attitude is towards a society which other may be done consciously or unconsciously. This social stratification demonstrates how people interact thus shaping up people’s character and shows their perspective on their knowledge about life. It is quite easier to identify a person’s stratification through visible aspects and their impact on people in their daily life with their physical expression of their behavior (Lawler, 2015). Using an example of a black person with difficulties in airing their views among the white people fearing that they would be discriminated racially. While other social stratification effects cannot be witnessed physically since one has to interact with another person for this effect to be felt (Lupton, 2012). In this case interviewing people personally from different strata with an objective of understanding how class, gender, and race affect each one of them in their daily lives. A done analysis was conducted from the lesson presents and interviews from two people are fully discussed below.
Edi Githegi, an African American actor with a Kenyan descent, was the first person in the interview. The actor rose into fame over the last decade having premiered in several highs profiled movies like X-Men First Class, The Twilight Saga, CSI, Beauty and the Beast, Into the Badlands, Crank, and Death sentence with many others. This interview was conducted after seeking assistance from a friend happens to be related to Edi since it was difficult for me to reach him because of his busy schedule. Edi having been born in Eastleigh, an estate in Nairobi city with people living in the middle lower class, he referred to himself having experienced high social mobility. His acting career started after having a knee injury that would see him not feature in University of California basketball team. The intergenerational mobility brings a change in a person’s position in the society throughout their life as stated by (Lawler, 2015). When applying this concept to Gathegi has seen him develop from low class, all the way to middle where he started acting and right now he is seen as one of the upper-class United States citizens. According to (Kendall, 2015) she considered career independence, university education and high income are some of the major factors that place high-class people in their strata.
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The success of Gathegi comes through his race which gave him important roles in acting. Even though his Kenyan background did not help him much in creating his career, his race has helped him win fit naturally into his roles in acting. In his way of talking he unconsciously shows that he is proud to be black as he repeatedly says “we guys always find our way out. We survive.” He added that as he arrived in America at the age of 12, he was aware of racial discrimination, but he was determined to work through the challenges. He further states in his industry gender does not play a much big role in success, but he virtually agrees that male black might experience less racial discrimination in the American community as compared black females. According to the African American communities men where emphasized to study while the female was encouraged to be acquiescent and groom their husband’s marriage life. He added that the setup encourages men to receive high-quality education and sponsorship for further studies. Also currently, Gathegi is high confident since his at an upper class thus getting more respect
The conflict perspective best describes edi Gathegi's life. This perspective majorly addresses the constantly changing nature of the society that creates a new environment that was initially dominated by white. Despite the avoidance of social change by the functionalists, Edi Gathegi proves that he can face any challenge in the society despite his race and advance into highest socio-economic status through his personal belief and hard work and personal effort everything is possible to change.
Prof. Brian Rolland was the second person to be interviewed, he is a senior lecturer of Literature at the University of Idaho, heading the literature department. He considers himself while American citizen even though he admits being a Hispanic; “there is Hispanic or Latino blood but too long ago to be noticed through his physical appearance now.” Rolland parents both worked in the university as assistant lecturers in the same university and the same department of literature which implies that he had an obligation to take over after his parents willingly in regards to his professional life personally. He often recalls his parents telling him “We cannot be very good at Literature and allow you to be dismal.” At first, he used to reject his parents wish course but later came to love the literature world pursuing it basing on his parents as the role model for him. According to the society, Prof. Rolland is regarded to be in upper class looking at his education level, income status, and job position.
He accepts that his race; being white might have assisted so much in social life since he encounters a few challenges when he wished to access social amenities and using the provided various resources and added that he had not faced any form of racial discrimination. For him, being a white man helped him acquire the respect he needed in the society, and he could get in any position he wanted easily and whenever we wished to be since most people listened to him and considered his ideas as useful. Prof. Rolland added that there were some colleague females friends with a lot of talent together with knowledge, but they were denied chances simply because they were female/women. Unlike the white men, both the white and black women had to struggle and prove themselves for them to acquire the available chances thus Prof. Rolland society had negative social stratification against women regardless of their race. He says his high social class made him earn respect as he introduces himself among his peers and other people anywhere he went.
The social change being experienced through various generation as intergenerational mobility including the social status of children and relations between the children as compared to their parents (South University Online, 2015). Looking at Prof. Rolland’s parents who were assistant lecturers influenced their son thus he ended up being a lecturer with a bigger position and a higher salary. Also, while in his social class he behaves in an appropriate way making him known for example; he likes to observe and respect his time as he kept reminding me to give him a brief interview since he had a various issue to handle thus showing his discipline in time.
Regarding the sociological perspectives, Prof. Rolland would be placed in a class of conflict perspective with very little form symbolism used in interactionism. Applying conflict perspective in Prof. Rolland’s life, he appeared to have followed his parent’s authority of the people from above thus imposing an upper class into him at an early age by making study literature thus he ended up in the same profession as his parents. Also, his parents act as a symbol of Prof. Rolland’s life (Lupton, 2012) since he explained that his parents turned out to be his role models which present symbolic interactionist perspective. Most of Prof. Rolland’s life revolved around symbolism. As the perspective suggests, a person tends to behave and interpret the world using a symbol taught to him with an attached meaning thus shaping up the into successful people (Kendall, 2015). This theory was successfully applied to Prof. Rolland since he had a strong attachment to his parents thus modeling him into a similar person to his parents in career-wise.
A very good report can comply with interview method as a most reliable technique used in collection firsthand information and data for research purposes. Similarly, the interview has an advantage and disadvantage of any information collecting method. One of the advantages of interviews is the development of personal touch with the interviewee as there is a face to face encounter with an interviewer (Doody and Noonan, 2013). Also, the data source of information is reliable and authentic since the interviewer and the interviewee are together. Also, the interview questions can be altered during the interview by the interviewer with an aim to get more information from the respondent. Unlikely, interviews have demerits, like its more time consuming as one needs to find time to interview the respondent which takes planning and movement thus wasting a lot of time. Also, planning and organizing of interviews can be more expensive and time-costly way of obtaining information. While conducting interviews, limit objectivity may occur in an interview conversation thus distorting the interview totally (Doody and Noonan, 2013).
Finally in social diversity a social stratification in an obvious situation across the globe. Also, the way of people’s life and relations are affected by decisions they make due to factors like economic class, race, and gender and among others. Social stratification can be explained best by a sociological perspective which affects people’s behavior and perception. Through the two interview, it is easy to establish insight factors that affect people’s lives in different ways.
Reference List
Doody, O., & Noonan, M. (2013). Preparing and conducting interviews to collect data. Nurse Researcher , 20 (5), 28-32.
Kendall, D. (2015). Sociology in Our Times. Tenth Edition. Cengage Learning. Retrieved from https://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/#/books/9781305450387/pages/111567106
Lawler, S. (2015). Identity: sociological perspectives . John Wiley & Sons.
Lupton, D. (2012). The quantified self-movement: some sociological perspectives. This Sociological Life .
South University Online. (2015). Course ID: Introduction to Sociology: Week 5: Paradigm Explanations of Stratification. Retrieved from myeclassonline.com
