Week 3 Expectations

1. Who occupies higher/lower positions?
   People with greater wealth, education, status, and political or social power tend to occupy higher positions. Because they have more resources and influence, they often have a greater ability to shape which issues receive attention.

2. What resources/opportunities come with those positions?
   Higher social positions can provide better education, healthcare, financial security, connections, and opportunities for upward mobility. These advantages can also be passed from parents to children, allowing inequality to reproduce across generations.

3. How much control does an individual have over changing position?
   Individuals can change their position through education, work, and achievement, but their starting resources and broader social structures affect how easy that is. This connects to Monopoly: if players start with unequal resources and the rules continue to advantage those who accumulate wealth, it raises the question of whether unequal outcomes reflect the players’ choices or the structure of the game itself.

The main idea I’d bring into class:

People with more resources tend to have more influence over what society considers important. Therefore, inequality can affect not only who has power, but also whose problems get recognized as “social problems” in the first place.

Answer these questions as well:

1. Who has greater access to money, education, status, and power?

2. How does someone's position in society shape their life chances?

3. What makes social mobility easier for some people and harder for others?

4. How might inequality affect whose concerns get heard and taken seriously?

5. Who benefits when something is not defined as a social problem?

Absolutely — I’d answer them in a way that directly connects social stratification to power, voice, and the Monopoly analogy:

1. Who has greater access to money, education, status, and power?
   People in higher social classes generally have greater access to wealth, education, social status, and political influence. These resources give them more control over their own lives and greater influence over others.

2. How does someone's position in society shape their life chances?
   A person’s social position affects their access to resources such as education, healthcare, financial security, and opportunities. Someone born into a higher socioeconomic position may have advantages that make future success and mobility easier.

3. What makes social mobility easier for some people and harder for others?
   Education, financial resources, family support, and access to opportunities can make mobility easier. People who begin with fewer resources may face greater barriers, meaning individual effort alone does not determine social mobility.

4. How might inequality affect whose concerns get heard and taken seriously?
   People with more wealth, status, and power generally have greater influence over institutions and decision-making. This can make their concerns more visible and influential, while people with fewer resources may have less ability to make their concerns heard.

5. Who benefits when something is not defined as a social problem?
   Those who benefit from the existing system can benefit when an issue is treated as an individual problem rather than a structural one. If inequality is blamed on individuals instead of the rules or structures producing it, the people who have advantages within that system have less pressure to change it.

The Monopoly connection: The key question is whether someone who ends up losing simply “played badly,” or whether the rules and unequal starting conditions helped determine the outcome. That same question applies to social stratification: Are unequal outcomes primarily the result of individual choices, or are they produced by the structure people are playing within?