1. The main concept of this chapter discusses mobility throughout the history of America in areas such as occupations, status attainment, education, and mobility for minorities such as women and blacks vs. white men (Hurst, Chp 14, 2013).
2. The main points of this chapter include the mobility for minorities in America as well as the different types and areas of mobility, including education, occupations, socioeconomic status; and how discrimination plays a role in mobility for minorities. For example, women struggle with upward mobility due to the household responsibilities that are perceived as woman duties. If a woman has a child, this takes her away from work and thus affects her mobility to move up. Another example is the lack of mobility for blacks due to their life circumstances. “Blacks themselves feel that their path to occupational attainment is made more difficult by the lack of decent available jobs for which they are qualified, the concentrated poverty of their neighborhoods, and their lack of social contacts in the inner city” (Hurst, Pg. 347, 2013). Lastly, the text points out how most individuals who are born poor, stay poor. They follow in their parents footsteps and even sometimes go into the same occupations as their parents. Individuals who are born wealthy have a much higher chance of becoming
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This topic connects with me because of the city and family I grew up in. I can evidently see the kids whom I went to high school with who have stayed in the same socioeconomic status group as their parents. Luckily, when my parents raised me we were not poor nor were we rich. I would say we were middle working class. This has allowed me to follow my dreams, go to college, and obtain a better paying job. However, I still think I am considered working class today, I do find that I make more money than what my parents did. I also had to join the military in order to get my college paid for and had to move out of state in order to find a better paying