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
83
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
In paragraph 4, the author states that business and professional people with educational advantages are most often members of the
选项
A、lower middle class
B、upper middle class
C、nouveau riche
D、upper class
答案
B
解析
"The upper middle class... tend to be well-educated professionals or business executives." Choice A is not correct because the lower class is composed of the displaced and poor. Choice C is not correct because the term nouveau riche refers to the upper class that has recently acquired money. Choice D is not correct because the upper class is typically a group that has inherited wealth.
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/PJyO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Completethesentencesbelow.ChooseNOMORETHANONEWORDfromthepassageforeachanswer.Writeyouranswersinboxes24-26
Youshouldspendabout20minutesonQuestions14-26,whicharebasedonReadingPassage2below.Questions14-18ReadingPassag
Youshouldspendabout20minutesonQuestions1-13,whicharebased,onReadingPassage1below.Canani
Lookatthefollowingnamesofpeopleororganisations(Questions33-36)andthelistofopinionsbelow.Matcheachnamewithth
Theprofessorsaysthatsuperhighways______.Thestudentthinkspeople______.
A、fromtheLanguageSchool.B、fromtheBusinessSchool.C、randomlyoncampus.C
Thelecturersaysthatanessayislike______toaspecificquestion.【34】
Completethenotesbelow.WriteONEWORDONLYforeachanswer.BusinessCulturesPowercultureCharacteristi
Whydoestheadvisersaythis:
随机试题
材料河南省灵宝市24岁的青年王帅,因为在网上发了一个帖子,批评家乡政府违法占地的问题,被当地公安部门派人到上海“捉拿归案”。在上海和灵宝两地的看守所,他一共被关押了8天。王帅的帖子以讽喻的手法,把灵宝农民毁掉被占耕地上的青苗和果树,戏称
将行政环境划分为自然行政环境和人造行政环境两种基本类型的标准是()
A、七福饮B、归脾汤C、黄连解毒汤D、洗心汤E、通窍活血汤髓海不足型痴呆首选
关于对症选择抗菌药物A、庆大霉素B、氨基糖苷类抗菌药物C、第一代头孢菌素D、第二.代头孢菌素E、第三代头孢菌素对阴性杆菌所致疾病的治疗应选择
设某国一些公司向我国倾销新闻纸,给我国纸业造成严重损害。依我国《反倾销条例》的规定,下列哪项是正确的?()
使用冷粘法、自粘法的环境气温在6℃时,应使用的防水材料为()
简述建立以学生为本的班级管理新机制的要求。
现在,机载雷达和风切变探测器成为飞机的标准配置,先进的气象雷达不仅可以发现恶劣的天气状况,而且可以预测风切变,如果当飞机即将着陆时飞行员看到风切正在逼近,他不能选择立即降落,而是要围绕机场飞行,直到风切变消失,否则会造成空难。由此可以推出:
Planningisaveryimportantactivityinourlivesyetreallysophisticated.Itcangivepleasure,evenexcitement,【C1】______ca
A、StopbytheCareerServicesCenterandaskforhelp.B、Lookforaninternship.C、Changehismajortoaccounting.D、CalltheCa
最新回复
(
0
)