To identify modern society, I have decided to begin with determining existing class, race, and gender division. While it is easy with defining the gender of the individuals I would choose for my interview on society today (two men and two women), it is more difficult to decide on their class and especially race. It is complicated to identify person’s class as in different communities various levels of income are associated with various classes. According to Marx, citizen’s social class is defined as his “relationship to the means of production” (Gabrenya Jr., 2003:2). Based on his theory, I will highlight three classes: capitalists, workers, and bourgeoisie. Today people call them high, low, and middle class respectively. Finally, I have come up with an Asian guy from middle class, black guy from low class, Indian girl from working class, and white American woman from capitalist class.
Social class division has a great impact on the gender and racial differences. Despite all beliefs, minorities nowadays are discriminated less by the representatives of high class. Raised by the owners (capitalists), American girl was not pressed by her parents only because she is a female. She had a right to choose her life path and career. No one blames her when she offers some management ideas. On the opposite, Indian girl was raised by the working class family. She had to contact low and middle class community. Children were making fun of her appearance, and her parents treated her as a human deprived of civil rights due to the fact she is a woman. Kinsey’s study helped to discover that premarital sex has higher chances to occur between the representatives of “lower and middle class respondents than among upper class respondents” (Hatfield, 1996:13). It means that working class of men still underestimates the role of women, treating them mostly as sexual objects and mothers. Asian guy applied for the job in Chinese/Japanese restaurant and got it only because of his appearance. He had to study an art of cooking for a while. The black guy is a professional cooker with more than 3 years of experience, but he was rejected at the same restaurant due to the reason the owner had some problems with people from ghetto. The way each of these persons behaves can tell a lot about how difference in social class and race influence the upbringing. I noticed that working class parents are “more harsh than middle class parents” (Lambert, Hammers,, and Frasure-Smith, 1979).
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Among three known sociological perspectives, I would apply the conflict perspective to the lives of all four interviewees. As all of these people experience most of their life problems mostly because of the difference in social classes, this approach supported by Marx would improve the situation. Society can be determined as a problem-solving entity. The idea is that people struggle against each other as they have various interests and preferences. The majority supports institutions “that promote the interests of a relatively powerful, super ordinate group” (Colomy, 2001:31). At the same time, minorities are ignored. But the balance exists: Kozol (1991) proved that well-to-do suburb schools receive “more support than inner-city schools”.
Interview as a research methodology is a good tool as it measures content of interest, allows asking follow-up questions, presents in-depth information, and has relatively high measurement validity. As for the limitations of this technique, in-person interviews are time-consuming and often require financial expenditures, lack sincerity, interviewees may forget necessary facts, and measures need validation.
Asian and Indian interviewees are less emotional. They respond to the questions like they are watched by someone. They act carefully with respect to society. The black man is acting more cheerfully; he is not frightened to answer any questions. The lady tries to keep her image of businesswoman at the highest possible level. She behaves more like a celebrity who is running a promotional campaign. All four respondents recognize that they live by the standards set by their communities instead of doing whatever they want. It stresses the role of social class, gender, and race peculiarities once again.
References
Colomy, P. (2001). Three Sociological Perspectives . Colorado: Wadsworth:25-32.
Gabrenya Jr., W.K. (2003). Culture and Social Class . Research Skills for Psychology
Majors: Everything You Need to Know to Get Started. Version 1.0.
Hatfield, Elaine; & Rapson, Richard L. (1996). Love and Sex: Cross-cultural
Perspectives . Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Kozol, J. (1991). Savage Inequalities . New York: Harper Collins.
Lambert, W. E., Hamers, J. F., & Frasure-Smith, N. (1979). Child-rearing Values: A
Crossnational Study . New York: Praeger.
