For this article, you will need to include interviews of two people who differ in their race, gender, and class. Since this class is focused on the working poor, consider people who may be in the working poor or have come from the lower class in society. Think about how race, gender, and class intersect and how this is reflected in the people you choose to interview.
• Provide an overview of the role of race and gender in determining social status in American society.
• Explain the difference between individual discrimination, institutionalized discrimination, and reverse discrimination.
• Interview two people. Do they differ in their race, gender, and class? Focus on the following in your interviews:
o Using a sociological perspective, that is thinking critically, determine how the two people you interviewed have been affected by their ascribed traits. In other words, be objective and ask questions about race, class, gender, and age.
o Ask probing questions about each person’s educational opportunities and career choices.
o Inquire about their inherited social status, and how their own personal social status differs (or not) from their parents’ social status.
o Ask if they see themselves as having experienced any form of discrimination.
o Ask what they see as solutions to discrimination and social disparities based on race, gender, or discrimination.
o Compare each person’s responses to your own observations; do you observe anything that he or she does not?
o What differences do you observe between the ascribed traits versus achieved (or earned) traits?
• Summarize your findings by explaining whether race, gender, and any form of discrimination have played a role in the social status of your interviewees.
• Include in your summary ideas for reducing any form of discrimination in determining someone’s social status
Interview questions:
1.Gender:
2. Age:
3. Race/Ethnicity:
4.Marital Status
5.Occupation
6.Highest level of education
7.Parent level of education
8.Where are you from/ what is your neighborhood like?
9.How would you describe your social class?
10.Do you think it’s easier for one to come from a higher class or for one to move up to a higher class?
