What problems are associated with trying to measure social class?

The main problem with trying to measure social class is that the term social class is most controversial. Therefore the way in which it is measured will vary according to how it is defined. Many theorists argue that the question of how to measure social class cannot be separated from the question of class-consciousness. Thompson believed that social class would only exist if there were class- consciousness. By this he meant â€Å"class is only class if you believe that you belong to a certain class†. What this meant was that individuals in the same class situation share a sense of their common interest, and thus think or behave in a similar manner. Whereas Marx believed that class was identified according to an individuals relationship to the dominant mode of production. He believed that the â€Å"two great classes† of a capitalist society were the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie were those who were the owners and controllers of the means of production ands the proletariat were those who only had their own labour power, which they were forced to sell in order to survive. This then leads to class inequalities, as the bourgeoisie will aim to maximise production with minimum costs. This would mean that the bourgeoisie make the proletariat work exceptionally hard and pay very little. Marx would argue that these economic inequalities lead to class inequalities. The main way in which individuals are allocated to their â€Å"social class† is via their employment position and the structure of employment has been divided up in various ways in order to generate them. This is know as the employment aggregate approach to class analysis. There are many ways in which class schemes that are available. One of the main schemes is the register general. This scheme has six categories, ranging from professional occupations to unskilled manual workers, which clearly show the hierarchy of occupations advantages and disadvantages. The register generals class scheme show support for Marxist theory of class inequality on the bases of economic factors. As he argued that class division does occur on the bases of the type of employment you are in and the register general's class scheme clearly reflects this. Marx would also go on to argue that those in the lower professions are unable to move up the class structure as it is not in the interest of the bourgeoisie, also they are not given the same life chances as the bourgeoisie, for example the education that those in the top professions receive is argued to be better than those in the lower professions. It has also been argued that even if social mobility does occur its is much harder for the working class to get to the top professions as they are faced with more difficult along the way. However there are a number of problems with using the register generals class scheme to define which social class an individual belongs to. This is because in order to gain the information to categories individuals into their social class the Government produce a census form, which the public must complete. However because it is a questionnaire there are many methodological problems associated with it. The main one being that the public may not be completely honest when completing the form, in fear of being judged or not wanting others to know their personal information. Also the census only requires a simple job description and not detailed information, this can not then be a reliable way in which to categories peoples occupational status. Another problem with using occupational scales to measure social class is that although a certain job may come under the heading of a manual worker the actual job it self may be highly paid and involve a lot of skill, but due to the fact the individual is doing manual work they would still be classified as working class. An example of this would be a builder, their job involves a lot of skill and is highly paid but it is still a manual job, therefore you would be considered working class. Another main problem with using the register generals class scheme is that there are many people who don't classify to any of the categories provided. For example domestic workers and employer don't figure in the scale therefore how can they be allocated to a certain class. Another method for measuring social class is on cultural and political factors. What is meant by this is that the type of lifestyle you lead is a measure for what social class you fit into. For example if an individual wears designer clothes such as Gucci and drives a fashionable car then they would be consider to be middle or even upper class, due to their lifestyle. However if an individual was to elect Labour in the public election then they would be considered to be working class as they are believed to be a working class political party. The problem with using this measure of social class is that it is very subjective and to what one individual would define as middle class another may define as working class. Also another problem is that although a person may have the lifestyle of a middle class person e. g. expensive clothes etc they may have a working class job and therefore work extremely long hours in order to live a life similar to the middle class. Another problem with class measurement is the gender factor, although many theorist consider the topic of class to be gender neutral, it has been argued by many that this is not the case. It has been argued that the class structure for men differs from women's due to employment opportunities. It was not until recently that women were actually able to do the same jobs as men and get equal pay. Therefore this would cause problems when measuring women's class position, because although they were working their income was fairly low compared to men doing the same job. Therefore a man and women who doing similar jobs were unlikely to be measured at the same social class if the cultural method was being used. However if they using the employment aggregated method they would be the same social class. This therefore shows the some of the problems with the different methods available. The other gender problem is that until recently women were not able to get the highly professional and powerful jobs therefore would not have been considered as middle class unless there husbands job was middle class. However once women were able to get the higher positioned jobs their employment still had little effect on the families social position because it was always the males employment that was used even if it was lower than the women's. Therefore having considered the different measures that are available to measure social class I believe that it very difficult to measure a persons class position on just the bases of either their occupation, cultural or political factors. This is because I don't believe a person occupation does necessarily indicate which class a person belongs to. This is because although a person may have a professional job there wealth in terms of assets may be very low. Also an individuals may have a classification of a professional job but their status within that job may be low, that's why I feel that Goldthorpe's class scheme is a more accurate than the register generals. Having brought this discussion to an end I believe that in order to accurately measure an individuals social class position all three dimension should be measure (economic, political and cultural) as this would give a more valid social class position.

Slovin Formula

SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUE Sample ? Is a finite number of an item (or individual) taken from a population having identical characteristics with those of the population from which it was taken. ? A sample is considered biased if one or several of the items (or individuals) in the population are given a consistently better opportunity to be chosen than the others. ? A collection with specified dimension Sample size ? Random sampling, the larger the sample, the more accurately it represents the population from which it was taken. As the sample size decreases, the degree of representativeness becomes less. Size of sample depends on some factors: ? Degree of accuracy required ? Amount of variability inherent in the population from which the sample was taken ? Nature and complexity of the characteristics of the population under consideration Sample Strategy ? Common Misguided Approach ? decide what data to collect ? then undertake survey ? decide what analysis should be done wrong data collected ? data collected on wrong subjects ? insufficient data collected ? Desired analysis may not be possible or effective Key to Good Sampling ? formulate the aims of the study ? decide what analysis is required to satisfy this aims ? decide what data are required to facilitate the analysis ? collect the data required by the study Determine sample size ? Slovin Formula: ? n = N__ ? 1+NE? ? Where: n = sample size ? N = population size E = margin of error * desired Example:What should be the representative sample size if the population from which the sample will be taken is 10,000 and the desired margin of error is 2%? Solution:To determine the sample size, use the formula; n = ___N__ 1+NE? n = 10,000 = 2,000 1+ (10,000) (0. 02)? The sample size is 2,000 This formula in finding the sample size cannot be used when the normal approximation of the population is poor or small. Margins of Error | |Population |Â ± 1% |Â ± 2% |Â ± 3% |Â ± 4% |Â ± 5% |Â ± 10% | |500 |* |* |* |* |222 |83 | |1500 |* |* |638 |441 |316 |94 | |2500 |* |1250 |767 |500 |345 |96 | |3000 |* |1364 |811 |517 |353 |97 | |4000 |* |1538 |870 |541 |364 |98 | |5000 |* |1667 |909 |556 |370 |98 | |6000 * |1765 |938 |566 |375 |98 | |7000 |* |1842 |959 |574 |378 |99 | |8000 |* |1905 |976 |580 |381 |99 | |9000 |* |1957 |989 |584 |383 |99 | |10000 |5000 |2000 |1000 |588 |385 |99 | |50000 |8333 |2381 |1087 |617 |387 |100 | Margin of Error Is the allowable error in percent due to the use of the sample, instead of the population ? * indicate that the assumption of normal approximation is poor and that the sample size formula does not apply. Guidelines with regards to the minimum number of items needed for a representative sample: ? Descriptive studies – a minimum number of 100 ? Co-relational studies – a sample of at least 50 is deemed necessary to establish the existence of a relationship ? Experimental and causal comparative studies – minimum of 30 per group ? Sometimes experimental studies with only 15 items in each group can be defended if they are very tightly controlled ? If the sample is randomly selected and is sufficiently large, an accurate view of the population can be had, provided that no bias enters the selection process Sampling Error ? Is the error attributed to chance that is being made when selecting random samples to represent a given population under consideration. ? It is the expected chance difference, variation or deviation between a random sample and the population. ? Does not result from measurement or computation errors, although these errors also contribute to inaccuracy.

Environmental Discourse Essay

Although environmental concerns have attained increasing currency within society, general coverage by the media fails to recognize that not all environmental discourses are alike. Different ideological strains exist and maintain different assumptions about not just the source of environmental problems, but the kinds of solutions that are necessary to solving environmental problems. In the latter half of the 20th century, when environmentalism arose as a distinct political and social ideology, the form of environmental discourse held by most of its proponents is what is now called deep green environmentalism. Deep green environmentalisms operate under the assumption that the dominant political and social ideologies such as unchecked growth, pervasive consumerism and extreme industrialism and capitalism are inherently flawed and contributive to ecological damage. They believe profound lifestyle changes and a willingness to confront dominant social institutions are needed to keep these problems in check. (Beder, 1991) By contrast, light green environmentalists are more common today: they have a casual concern regarding planetary welfare and do not view environmental protection as a distinct political ideology. They do not seek the political emasculation of industrialism and capitalism but instead emphasize environmentalism as a lifestyle alternative. They choose strategic consumption and a responsible modern living as the means to address environmental issues. As such, light green environmentalists make no pretense of possessing the same subversive aspirations of their dark or deep green counterparts. (Beder, 1991) Today, a new form of environmentalism has emerged: Bright green environmentalism. Bright green environmentalism holds that the guilt of modern living can be reconciled with environmental anxiety and sustainability is possible through tools and technology. The primary assumption is that it is difficult for individuals to go deep green and â€Å"turn their backs† on material luxury, and that the strategic consumption of light greens is ultimately trivial in relation to our ecological problems. To that end, bright green environmentalists embrace new forms of energy production, manufacturing, biotechnology, urban planning and other forms of sustainable design technologies as a means of retrofitting the present capitalist-industrialist mode of life rather than seeking to overthrow it. They celebrate the potential for economic abundance and material plenitude without compromising ecological sustainability. (Steffen, 2006) REFERENCES Beder, S. â€Å"Activism vs. Negotiation: Strategies for the Environment Movement. † Social Alternatives, Vol 10, No 4, pp. 53-56, December 1991. Retrieved on January 26, 2009 from: http://homepage. mac. com/herinst/sbeder/activism. html Steffen, A. (2006, May) â€Å"The Next Green Revolution. † Wired Magazine, 14. 05. Retrieved October 13, 2008 from: http://www. wired. com/wired/archive/14. 05/green. html

Philosophy inquiry- A mini-version of a possible chapter 3 of a Assignment

Philosophy inquiry- A mini-version of a possible chapter 3 of a dissertation proposal - Assignment Example Aristotle refuses to imitate a theory that has been formulated without empirical estimation of regular and in-depth observation of the universal facts and realities (Thomas & Thomas, 1960). Turner opin...... The same is applied to social exchange theory, cognitive development perspective, deviance theories and others. The studies demonstrate various models and paradigms observed and followed by the researchers while developing an outline for conducting a qualitative research. Guba (1990) argues that a paradigm serves as an interpretative framework, which is guided by the set of beliefs and feelings about the world and how it should be understood and studied. In other words, a research paradigm determines and decides the epistemology, ontology and methodology to be applied on the basis of the topic selected for conducting the research work. Epistemology stands for describing the source of knowledge, which includes what is known, and what is going to be explored. The term epistemology has been derived from the Greek notion episteme, which stands for the philosophy of knowledge (Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996). In simple words, epistemology aims to explore the source and origin of some specific k nowledge or information. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge and the process by which knowledge is acquired and validated Epistemology poses the questions including: What is the relationship between the knower and what is known? How do we know what we know? What counts as knowledge? (Krauss, 2005:759). On the other hand, ontology is determined to unveil the realities of the concepts involved in the study. It also discovers the reality about the topic as well as the units of analysis selected for the research. For instance, while discovering the relationship between domestic violence and children’s alienation towards

Movie analysis of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Essay

Movie analysis of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) - Essay Example In the movie, several filming techniques became exemplified for the success of its production. This report seeks to give an analysis and a review of the film â€Å"Bonnie and Clyde† (1967). It will also give an insight of the filming techniques adopted in the movie. Review Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker’s story inspired a debate. This represented a wide spectrum to most people because their characters trended from stealing, to robbery, to killing and committing crime! The film intended to give a romantic and a comic feeling of the violent gangster films. This couple became historical counterpart to their own struggles, To begin with, Bonnie was a waitress, she was so bored with her job. Clyde stole Bonnie’s mother’s car to try and search for quick money. They lived in Texas and decided to run away with the stolen car outside the town. The duo's crime spree gear up once they hooked up with a gas station attendant, C.W. Moss, then with Clyde's brother and hi s wife, a preacher's daughter and decided to go into robbing. The car was parked parallel to the getaway, within a twinkle of an eye Clyde shot the bank manager directly on the face, robbed the bank and sped off unknowingly. The gang found themselves in a hot pursuit by the law enforcement, which included the Texas Ranger. They finally locate Bonnie, Clyde and C.W. of whom they thought they had escaped, not long before, they were found hiding at the house of Ivan Moss. According to Richard Barsam, an author of â€Å"Looking at Movies† he mentions that the film was formally set in the past rather than the present. For most of us, most of the time, movies are a break from daily obligations; it is a form of escape, entertainment, and pleasure. The use of Motion pictures depicts a lot, coherently it shapes the way we view the world. Apparently, there is much more to movies than to meet the casual eye or ear, for that matter, they seem odd and aberrant to the general society (Bars am 146). Analysis Bonnie and Clyde are not only a well-crafted film by a first-time director it also touches on a number of fundamental cinematic elements. The film shows significant social and environmental issues vital to all Americans at the beginning of a new era. Hope, fear, hatred, dread, humor, guilt, and loathing became eminent in this film by using the best filming techniques bearing in mind significant elements concerning cinema. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are lead actors in the film. They play a crucial role by blending in with all the elements. This enables the viewer get the actual essence and better understanding of the film. Camera Movement This film brings about much-needed reform in a nation, but true reform will always require more than Hollywood can offer. Nevertheless, to minimize the power of the mass media to generate sympathy, concerns, and demands for reform are to ignore reality. For that reason alone, it is pertinent to note how the producer of this fil m used camera movement to depict a sense of realism in the film. The film has numerous action scenes and camera movement such as panning which is essential in bringing better acknowledgement of the film. A pan is the horizontal camera movement. When a camera pans, it turns left and right. Panning is normally for a very wide panorama that does not fit with the camera frame. In the first robbery scene of the film, a pan reveals the point of view of lead actors Warren Beatty (Clyde) and Faye Dunaway (Bonnie)

Chose an interesting topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Chose an interesting topic - Essay Example It works, but then the Queen proceeds to order the execution of nearly everyone she comes into contact with that day. This creates a surreal scene that, once again, Alice seems to find herself a part of. These chapters demonstrate the structure of society that is evident in Wonderland. As frustrating and disorganized as the community may seem to be, the reader now discovers that there is a certain order that keeps the people functioning. Alice discovers that Queen of Hearts is the head of this community and that her word is the last say. Alice finds this ludicrous as she is just the head of a pack of cards, and she begins to work to undermine that authority. We begin to see that Alice’s goal is to truly understand the reality of Wonderland. She is desperately trying to make sense of all that is happening around her. By getting close to the Queen and playing silly games with her, the reader catches a glimpse of Alice’s true motive. She wants the people of Wonderland to stand up to the Queen and realize that the way they are currently living their lives is meaningless. By discovering the meaning of Wonderland, Alice hopes to accomplish just

Philosophy topic - Persuation paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Philosophy topic - Persuation paper - Essay Example to meet I Doc and reason with him, heart to heart, with the argument that, â€Å"evil is to be abandoned and slavery holds no purpose or value compared to the good that can be shared in life.† As Doct Man was riding his bike to I Doc’s lair, the evil villain suddenly appeared in his Doc-mobile and swept him off the road, kidnapping him. When Doct Man awoke, he found himself in the I Doc lair with the villain’s own henchmen guarding his prison door. Suddenly, Doct Man heard the door open and the guards appeared, ordering him to march to dinner to be the guest of I Doc. As all in the tri-state region knew of the reasoning and persuasive power of Doct Man, it seemed that I Doc had also heard of his reputation as a philosopher and wanted to see if he could be convinced under threat of torture to join the mayhem as part of his team. Doct Man, however, was certain of his ability to persuade I Doc to the opposite view. As he sat in his chair at the dinner table, I Doc welcomed Doct Man and apologized for the abduction. He explained his plan to conquer and subjugate the tri-state through the I Slave technology. Doct Man replied that, â€Å"I fear not any man, nor any thing in this earth, for I cannot be harmed by evil.† Surprised, I Doc asked him how this is possible. Doct Man replied by saying, â€Å"I am not identified with this body, and this body is not I. As the universe is eternal, a cycle of cycles, so too am I an eternal being, and will survive whatever evil you can muster without wavering in the slightest. My power comes from my Soul, eternal and wise, and this world is but a moment, a blink of the eye, in the context of my Being. You will exhaust yourself within days in your evil plan. The people will rise. Reinforcements will come from abroad. No matter how much you may wish to repress them with your technology, the will of the people is strong. There are billions ready to assist in the war of resistance to I Slave. But I alone come here in peace and tell you