Question

How do major social institutions contribute to the creation and preservation of race, gender and social class status arrangements? How do institutions interpret and apply laws and policies that systematically disadvantage people by race and/or gender, and reproduce social class disparities?

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) Throughout history, it has been observed that class was a creation of society through elements like “blood-line” and observable genetic differences. This means that class was a divide that was created on the basis of an individual’s name and/ or their genetics. However, in the 21^st century, there is a new factor that describes the class and stratum of individuals – their economic standing in society.

The greatest factor that implies class in the society today is simply the amount of money one might have. Leaders of society have even taken a step further to create boundaries for individuals of certain ethnicities to not be able to use the tools that might help them achieve such a social standing.

The division of class is therefore maintained through what might be called “gated-communities.” The poorer individuals might not be allowed to go to a better school and be forced to go to a free public school that is perhaps inadequate for academic growth. These children may not receive the education they need in order to earn a scholarship to an expensive university that can be afforded only by the rich of the community. Furthermore, the deprived youth then become unable to acquire executive positions in the workplace because of their inadequate education. Furthermore, these gated communities exist at high-priced residential areas, coveted jobs and at high places of most industries.

A particular race, ethnicity or gender that might be designed to stay out of these high-profile communities may end up being completely deprived. This is probably because the lower classes have the inability of produce individuals who are capable of causing great social change simply because of the inadequate facilities that they grew up with. This makes the economic class system a vicious cycle that needs to be broken.