Question

Common wisdom tells us, “Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps”—that is, work hard, earn an education, and you will attain wealth and success. Use your sociological imagination and the theories from this chapter to challenge or support common wisdom.

Answer 1

People are the products of their environment such as, parenting, family, friends, education, employment and more specifically culture and religion. This would mean that it’s true that if one works hard and stay focused one would achieve success but it would take one’s socio-economic status such as, accumulated advantage in terms of race, religion or culture that would play a big role in one’s success. Conflict theory suggests that the society is in a perpetual conflict for the limited resources available where social order is maintained not through consensus but through domination. This would mean that the majority and the power elites would control the society leaving limited resources for those minority people. this would mean the common sense wisdom would be wrong in suggesting just the hard work and education alone to attain success. This is because of the discrimination present in the society that prevents people of color from accessing quality education and employment thus leaving them fighting for their rights. The sense of belongingness would prevent people from viewing the social problems as a third person because they would identify themselves with their groups and their problems in the society.

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