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Minority Studies is a course that deals with the differential and negative treatment of groups (and of individuals as members of groups) who suffer from less wealth, power, (economic, political, social, coercive), and status and less access to wealth, power, and status than other groups in American society. There are racial/ethnic, sex/gender, age, religious, and disabled minorities as well as economic and educational minorities. Furthermore, minority group status may and often does encompass more than one category. Minorities are defined by the dominant group in society and are contrasted to the dominant group in both subtle and obvious ways. A dominant group is positively privileged (Weber) unstigmatized (Rosenblum and Travis) Rosenblum Karen E. and Toni-Michelle C. Travis. The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race Sex and Gender Social Class and Sexual Orientation: Second Edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill. 2000. and generally favored by the institutions of society (Marger) Marger Martin. Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives: Fourth Edition . Wadsworth: Belmont CA: 1996. particularly the social, economic, political, and educational systems. Classical Sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), recognizes several interlinked relational patterns that lead to stratification; whereas Marxists reduce all inequality to economics (the differences in access to and use of wealth—all of one’s financial assets—between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat), Weber expands stratification into three related yet distinct components: Class, Status, and Party.
We may speak of a ‘class’ when (1) a number of people have in common a specific causal component of their life chances, in so far as, (2) this component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods and opportunities for income, and (3) is represented under the conditions of the commodity or labor markets. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology . Edited and translated by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills. Oxford U.P., New York. 1946/1958. p. 151
In other words one’s class situation is based solely on economics—one’s wealth or access to wealth, or, as Weber writes
‘property’ and ‘lack of property’ are therefore, the basic categories of all class situation,Ibid. p. 152 . however, class does not constitute a community or in Marxian terms a “Class for Self.” Weber argues that one’s economic position in society does not necessarily or even usually lead to class-consciousness. Status, however, and status groups are often class conscious. Status is related to social esteem, the honor in which one is held by others
we wish to designate as ‘status situation’ every typical component of the life fate of men that is determined by a specific, positive or negative, social estimation of honor . . .Property as such is not always recognized as a status qualification, but in the long run it is, and with extraordinary regularity.Ibid. p. 187.
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