首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
"Layers of Social Class" Taken together, income, occupation, and education are good measures of people’s social standing. U
"Layers of Social Class" Taken together, income, occupation, and education are good measures of people’s social standing. U
admin
2012-01-14
29
问题
"Layers of Social Class"
Taken together, income, occupation, and education are good measures of people’s social standing. Using a layered model of stratification, most sociologists describe the class system in the United States as divided into several classes: upper, upper middle, middle, lower middle, and lower class. Each class is defined by characteristics such as income, occupational prestige, and educational attainment. The different groups are arrayed along a continuum with those with the most money, education, and prestige at the top and those with the least at the bottom.
In the United States, the upper class owns the major share of corporate and personal wealth; it includes those who have held wealth for generations as well as those who have recently become rich. Only a very small proportion of people actually constitute the upper class, but they control vast amounts of wealth and power in the United States. They exercise
enormous
control throughout society. Most of their wealth is inherited.
→
Despite social myths to the contrary, the best predictor of future wealth is the family into which you are born.
Each year, the business magazine Forbes publishes a list of the "Forbes 400"—the four hundred wealthiest families and individuals in the country. Of all the wealth represented on the Forbes 400 list, more than half is inherited. Those on the list who could be called "self-made" were not typically of modest origins; most inherited significant assets (Forbes, 1997; Sklar and Collins,1997). Those in the upper class with newly acquired wealth are known as the nouveau riche. Although they may have vast amounts of money, they are often not accepted into "old rich" circles.
→ The upper middle class includes those with high incomes and high social prestige. They tend to be well-educated professionals or business executives. Their earnings can be quite high indeed--successful business executives can earn millions of dollars a year. It is difficult to estimate exactly how many people fall into this group because of the difficulty of drawing lines between the upper, upper middle, and middle class. Indeed, the upper middle class is often thought of as "middle class" because their lifestyle sets the standard to which many aspire, but this lifestyle is simply beyond the means of a majority of people in the United States.
→ The middle class is hard to define; in part, being "middle class" is more than just economic position. By far the majority of Americans identify themselves as middle class even though they vary widely in lifestyle and in resources at their disposal. But the idea that the United States is an open-class system leads many to think that the majority have a middle-class lifestyle because, in general, people tend not to want to recognize class distinctions in the United States. Thus, the middle class becomes the ubiquitous norm even though many who call themselves middle class have a tenuous hold on this class position.
In the hierarchy of social class, the lower middle class includes workers in the skilled trades and low-income bureaucratic workers, many of whom may actually define themselves as middle class. Examples are blue-collar workers (those in skilled trades who do manual labor) and many service workers, such as secretaries, hairdressers, waitresses, police, and firefighters. Medium to low income, education, and occupational prestige define the lower middle class relative to the class groups above it. The term "lower" in this class designation refers to the relative position of the group in the stratification system, but it has a pejorative sound to many people, especially to people who are members of this class.
→ The lower class is composed
primarity
of the displaced and poor. People in this class have little formal education and are often unemployed or working in minimum-wage jobs.A Forty percent of the poor work; 10 percent work year- round and full time—a proportion that has generally increased over time. Recently, the concept of the underclass has been added to the lower class.B The underclass includes those who have been left behind by
Contemporary
economic developments.C Rejected from the economic system, those in the underclass may become dependent on public assistance or illegal activities.D
According to paragraph 7, why has the underclass emerged?
选项
A、The new term was necessary because the lower class enjoyed a higher lifestyle than it had previously.
B、The increase in crime has supported a new class of people who live by engaging in illegal activities.
C、Changes in the economy have caused an entire class of people to survive by welfare or crime.
D、Minimum-wage jobs no longer support a class of people at a standard level in the economic system.
答案
C
解析
"The underclass includes those who have been left behind by contemporary economic developments... the underclass may become dependent on public assistance or illegal activities." Choices A and D may be true, but they are not mentioned in the passage. Choice B is not correct because the illegal activities cause the increase in crime, not the opposite.
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/NnlYFFFM
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Youshouldspendabout20minutesonQuestions27-40,whicharebasedonReadingPassage3below.Thegr
Youshouldspendabout20minutesonQuestions1-13,whicharebased,onReadingPassage1below.Canani
Completeeachsentencewiththecorrectending,A-E,below.Writethecorrectletter,A-E,inboxes33-37onyouranswersheet.
Lookatthefollowingopinionsordeeds(Questions9-13)andthelistofpeoplebelow.Matcheachopinionordeedwiththecorre
TheConstructionEducationCentrehasexistedfor______.Equipmentisavailablefor______days.
Thestudentsayssheis______whensheisstudyingathome.Theadvisersuggests______withanotherstudentafterlectureso
Whereisthestudentfrom?Whatdoestheadvisersuggestthestudentcreatetomanagehertime?
environmentalissues
Completethenotesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTWOWORDSforeachanswer.AgricultureandEnvironment(31)productio
ThepassagefocusesoncometsprimarilyintermsoftheirItcanbeinferredfromthepassagethatthenucleusofacometism
随机试题
A、可可豆脂B、PoloxamerC、甘油明胶D、半合成脂肪酸甘油酯E、聚乙二醇类多用作阴道栓剂基质
《侵权责任法》中将医疗行为引发的民事责任定名为
把下属分出“圈里人”和“圈外人”的领导理论是()。
某大中型企业的下列经济业务事项中,不违背可比性要求的有()。
13岁的梅梅,母亲因病去世3年了,父亲经常酗酒抽大麻。有一次,父亲在家里喝得醉醺醺的,并端着一杯白酒强行灌到梅梅口中,还嚷嚷着让女儿陪他一起吃喝玩乐。情急之中,梅梅跑出家门,打电话向警察和学校老师求助。警察带走了父亲,学校社工也把梅梅带走送到集体宿舍居住一
李老师经常以班级的名义从个体书店以优惠价购买各科课程学习辅导资料,然后以全价卖给学生,几乎是人手一套。同时,他向学生家长暗示或明要礼物、礼品或礼金,特别是在节日的时候。此外,他还私下到本市“小博士家教辅导中心”等处兼课。在学校讲课时“留有一手”,只讲基本内
Sincethebeginningofhumanevolution,menhavemigrated(迁移)acrosscontinentsinsearchoffood,shelter,safety,andcomforta
看书时用红笔画出重点,便于重新阅读,是利用了知觉的()
下列有关天文知识的表述,正确的是()。
Mostpeoplemanagetoreturnfromtheirholidayswithacoupleofamusinganecdotes.Notmanywilladmitthey’vehadabadtime.
最新回复
(
0
)