This class has focused on the different economic opportunities and social policies that have either supported family stability or presented serious challenges to family survival. We have paid special attention to how gender, class, and race/ethnicity affect opportunities for family stability and individual life chances.
Discuss how your family’s quality of life and, consequently, your own life chances, have been affected by your family’s social location within the larger structure of your home country. Social location refers to one’s place in society as mediated by axes of inequality, 0.e., race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, age as well as your geographic location). In this assignment, we will consider three aspects of social location: the broad social policies that may (or may not) have created resources for your family, the level of resources available in your community of residence, and your family’s private resources. These resources are interdependent, but may be considered separately for clarity. For example, a family’s personal resources may be increased by a variety of factors including a prior generation’s access to affordable college educations, access to reasonable mortgages to buy a home, and access to good public schools. Conversely, a family’s private resources may be decreased if one grew up in a neighborhood that had once been redlined and still faces difficulty getting housing and business loans, if neighborhood public schools were marginal, and if college educations had not been possible for prior generations. In situations with limited private resources, it is often one major resource, (e.g., a college-prep program in high school), that allows an individual to go to college. For American students, both social class and race have influenced the kinds of opportunities that have historically been available to your family.