How Social Class Affects Life Chances

The first 200 words of this essay...

November 2001 Alfie Stroud 11W

How Social Class Affects Life Chances

The individual in modern western society strives to achieve or obtain the things that are labelled as desirable by their culture. These commodities may be cultural or economic and range from healthcare, education and occupation to holidays, housing and social activities. As with all commodities, these things are rarely distributed equally, and so the struggle to achieve or obtain them can be a difficult one. A person's opportunities to obtain their fair share are known as their life chances.

The German sociologist, Max Weber (1864 - 1920), identified three elements which determine a person's life chances; economic factors, status and power. The healthier your economic situation, the higher your status and the greater your power, the better your life chances. Weber also argued that these three elements do not necessarily go together, and so members of a society may be ranked when each of the three elements is combined. This method of stratification would be altered and adjusted to form various modern day methods of measuring social class. An individual's position on this scale of stratification may influence many aspects of his or her life.