Social Inequality & Minorities
...kinds of social problems in societies around the world and in the United States, such as poverty, social inequality, race and cultural discrimination, gender stratification, environmental damage, population growth, and urbanization. I chose my final essay to be on Social Inequality and Minorities in the United States. For me this subject raises many points of our daily life and brings us to the point of reality in our world. My paper will discuss why is deviance found in all societies? How does who and what are defined as deviant reflect social inequality? What effect has punishment had in reducing crime in the United States?
Let’s start off with what are social inequities and what is minorities? Social inequality refers to a lack of social equality, where individuals in a society do not have equal social status. Areas of potential social inequality include voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, the extent of property rights and access to education, health care and other social goods.
Inequality is socially created by matching two different kinds of processes. “The social roles in society are first matched to ‘reward packages’ of unequal value and individual members of society are then allocated to the positions so defined and rewarded” Social inequality is different from economic inequality but the two inequalities are linked. Economic inequality refers to disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income. While economic inequality is caused by the unequal distribution of wealth, social inequality exists because the lack of wealth in certain areas prohibits these people from obtaining the same housing, health care, etc. as the wealthy in societies where access to these social goods depends on wealth. “The degree of inequality in a given reward or asset depends, of course, on its dispersion or concentration across the individuals in...
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