Multimedia and Discussion Questions

Chapter 10: The Architecture of Stratification: Social Class and Inequality

- Video Links
  - Close to Home
    During the early years of the current recession documentary filmmaker Ofra Bikel brought her cameras and recording equipment to Deborah Hair Design, a salon on the Upper East Side that caters to a relatively affluent population. In this Frontline special she shows how the recession has affected Deborah, the salon owner, as well as the clientele—who are now going longer between appointments and foregoing their regular services in an effort to stretch their budgets.

Discussion Questions:
1. Use each of the three major sociological perspectives—functionalist, conflict, interactionist—to analyze the situations depicted in the film.

2. In what ways do the stories here draw attention to the interconnectedness of society? Did you identify any economic “ripple effects”?

3. Hairstylists and other beauty professionals often say that their salon chairs are similar to confession booths, that their clients often reveal things about themselves and their lives while receiving a treatment that they would not reveal in another setting. Do you have any ideas about why this anecdotal observation might be true?

- The State With The Hungriest Americans
  Brief segment that focuses on the extreme poverty in West Virginia.

Discussion Questions:
1. What is food insecurity?

2. Are you surprised at the level of poverty depicted in this segment?

3. Do you believe that people in other countries would be shocked that this level of poverty exists in the United States.

- Bill Moyers- Expose on the Business of Poverty
  Poverty has become big business in the United States as a number of corporations have found ways to fill the “need” many poor people have for credit/financing. This investigative report describes predatory lending practices that specifically target poor people.

Discussion Questions:
1. How do poor people represent “a massive pool of wealth”?

2. What strategies do car sales agents at J.D. Byrider use? What is “opportunity pricing”?
3. Businesses that make money off of those who are economically marginal have always been around. How have the businesses changed in recent years?

4. What is a “self-pay patient”?

5. Some have said that companies like J.D. Byrider and Complete Care Inter are just “filling a need” and that they must charge high interest rates in order to off-set the risks entailed in lending to poor people. Do you think this is true? Explain your position.

- West Virginia, Still Home
  This short video from the New York Times profiles economically depressed McDowell County, W. Virginia. The area offers few economic opportunities and so its young people are moving away. It depicts an unfortunate cycle that is difficult to halt, much less reverse.

Discussion Questions:
1. What is “brain drain”?

2. How would you explain the problems McDowell is facing?

3. Do you think it is possible for the concerted efforts of determined individuals—like those presented in the video—to influence macro- and micro-level economic forces?

4. What do you think a sociologist would recommend to the residents of McDowell who would like to see their community reinvigorated?

- Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
  This documentary draws attention to the fact that economic inequality, the gap between the richest and poorest Americans, has increased in recent years and explores some of the reasons behind this. It can be best summarized with that cynical variation on the Golden Rule: The one with the gold makes the rules. The documentarians describe how money enables one to make the rules by which everyone will abide and formulate those rules so that they work in their favor, effectively “rigging” the game.

Discussion Questions:
1. Were you surprised by the economic disparities shown? Why or why not?

2. The documentarians seem to believe that the current “system” is unfair. Do you agree? Explain your position.

3. How would a functionalist view the realities presented in this film? A conflict theorist? Which perspective do you find most useful for understanding the phenomena described?

- Audio Links
  - This American Life 331: Habeas Schmabeas 2007
    The right of habeas corpus has been a part of our country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means that our government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody. But now, the War on Terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that prisoners should not be covered by habeas—or even by the Geneva Conventions—because they're the most fearsome enemies we have. But is that true? Is it a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of our mistakes? In Act one, Jack Hitt explains how President Bush's War on Terror changed the rules for prisoners of war and how it is that under those rules, it'd be possible that someone whose classified file declares that they pose no threat to the United States could still be locked up indefinitely—potentially forever!—at Guantanamo. Act two explains that Habeas corpus began in England. And recently, 175 members of the British parliament filed a "friend of the court" brief in one of the U.S. Supreme Court cases on habeas and Guantanamo—apparently, the first time in Supreme Court history that's happened. In their brief, the members of Parliament warn about the danger of suspending habeas: "During the British Civil War, the British created their own version of Guantanamo Bay and dispatched undesirable prisoners to garrisons off the mainland, beyond the reach of habeas corpus relief." In London, reporter Jon Ronson, goes in search of what happened. Act three explains that though more than 200 prisoners from the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay have been released, few of them have ever been interviewed on radio or on television in America. Jack Hitt conducts rare and surprising interviews with two former Guantanamo detainees about life in Guantanamo.

Discussion Questions:
1. How does the class system factor into the situation at Guantanamo Bay?

2. Explain the issue from both a conflict and structural-functionalist perspective.

3. Use this story to explain stratification on a global level?

- This American Life 62: Something for Nothing
  Theoretically, all members of a class system, no matter how destitute they are, can rise to the top. In practice, however, mobility between classes may be difficult for some people. The stories presented in this episode are of people trying to get rich quick, or otherwise make something for nothing. As everyone knows, there's no such thing as something for nothing. You always pay a price.

Discussion Questions:
1. Regardless if it is an attempt to manipulate a lottery system or outlast others in a competition, a story of social class is presented in each of these stories. What do the stories tell us about social class?

2. Compare a structural-functional perspective to a conflict perspective of this episode.

3. Is a sense of false consciousness adopted by the winners of lotteries and car promotions? What might Karl Marx state about that possibility?

- Invisible Workforce: An Undocumented Immigrant Caregiver Shares Her Story
  Many of those who provide home healthcare services are undocumented immigrants. This clip considers the relationship between Josey, a woman from Fiji and Florence, her elderly employer.

Discussion Questions:
1. What is an “invisible” workforce?

2. How would you characterize the relationship between Josey and Florence?

3. Why do you think that such a large portion of the home healthcare provider positions are filled by those without legal documentation?

- Songs of 2012 Mirror Economic Struggle
  This Marketplace segment examines how grim economic realities and financial struggle were reflected in popular music of 2012

Discussion Questions:
1. Neal says that there was “a new take on economic hardship in hip-hop” during 2012. What does he mean?

2. What is “salsa con consciencia”?

3. What songs have you heard, recently, that address the current state of the economy?

- Though Choices: How the Poor Spend Money
  This Marketplace segment examines how those at the economic margins make decisions about how to allocate their scant economic resources.

Discussion Questions:
1. Why do you think that the interviewer was concerned that her observation that the Tinson-Ricardo family’s home did not “look like” the home of a family living in poverty, might be insensitive?

2. Did listening to the stories make you more or less sympathetic to the situation of those living at or near the poverty line?

3. What are some of the difficult choices that these families have to make?

4. What things do you consider “necessities” and what do you consider “luxuries” or “extras”?

5. Why do so many poor children become poor adults?

6. How do these stories highlight the tension between individual decisions and social structure?

- Web Resources
  Professional Resources
  - Sociology of Education
    The study of economic inequality is so fundamental to sociology that there is no American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on economic inequality per se. Many members of the AS
    A Section on Sociology of Education are fundamentally interested in poverty and economic inequality as it is mediated, ameliorated, or reproduced by educational institutions.
  - Race, Gender, and Class
    Connections between race, gender, and class inequality are addressed by the ASA Section Race, Gender, and Class.
  - Marxist Sociologists
    Marxist Sociologists, of course, are greatly concerned with these issues.
  - Journal of Poverty
    Research on economic inequality regularly appears in all general sociology journals. A journal devoted entirely to the issue of poverty is the Journal of Poverty.

> Data Resources

- The National Longitudinal Surveys
  The National Longitudinal Surveys of the U.S. Department of Labor’ s Bureau of Labor Statistics gather detailed information about labor market experiences and other aspects of the lives of American men and women.
- The Department of Health and Human Services
  The Department of Health and Human Services has a Web page on poverty guidelines, research, and measurement, which includes information about how Mollie Orshansky developed the poverty thresholds during the 1960s.
- The Panel Study of Income Dynamics
  The Panel Study of Income Dynamics is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of U.S. men, women, and children and the families in which they reside. Data on employment, income, wealth, health, housing, food expenditures, transfer income, and marital and fertility behavior have been collected annually since 1968.
- The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study
  The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study is a study of the social and economic life course of 10,000 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957, and who have been followed up at ages 25, 36, and 53–54.

> Other Resources

- Michael Kearl’s Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace
  Michael Kearl’s Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace: Social Inequality. This contains more information and links on social inequality than you will be able to handle. Something for everyone. Happy Surfing!
- Inequality
  Does income and wealth inequality matter? Why is it happening? What can be done? Despite the emerging consensus over the fact of rising inequality, there is still wide divergence of opinion over its sources - and potential solutions. Inequality.org was created to serve as a dependable portal of information. Too much inequality, we believe, undermines democracy, community, culture and economic health. Because the problem is so important, accuracy is important, and we are committed to presenting the best and latest information [self-characterization].
- The Stateline.com
  Many objectives of welfare reform are played out on the state and local level. The Stateline.com Web site is devoted to political news on a statewide level. It includes links to political news briefs in each of the 50 states. The welfare reform section at this site provides up-to-date information on the status of hot issues in welfare reform on a statewide level [self-characterization].
- The Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
  The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a non-profit, non-partisan think tank, was created in 1986 to broaden discussions about economic policy to include the needs of low- and middle-income workers. EPI believes every working person deserves a good job with fair pay, affordable health care, and retirement security. To achieve this goal, EPI conducts research and analysis on the economic status of working America. EPI proposes public policies that protect and improve the economic conditions of low- and middle-income workers and assesses policies with respect to how they affect those workers.