I've wanted to create my own blog for some time now. After several fruitless accounts and bouts of indecision over the past few years, I thought I might finally give it a try today.
In my academic life (and, admittedly, social life, too), one of the biggest issues I struggle with is indecision. As I get older, it seems to be getting worse. I try to take in as much information as possible, but I rarely, if ever, act. Or, at the very least, attempt to connect the various bits and pieces of information I've stored together.
I'm hoping that contributing to this blog on a regular basis will help me better organize my thoughts on society and social science research. More specifically, on social class research and findings, an area that I am most interested in as a social scientist pursuing my graduate degree.
Why social class?
Social class isn't something that has been overlooked in research. Researchers control for it in nearly every study on human behavior, construct numerous subjective and objective hierarchies to measure it, and analyze the vast array of ways that it informs our values, opinions, and behaviors.
So, again, why social class?
As someone who has eagerly consumed (and is still very much in the process of consuming) the wealth of information that exists on social class, I'm still left feeling as if my curiosity has not been sated. If social class does indeed play the influential and decisive role that we know it does in people's lives--if social class virtually determines life outcomes--why does it still seem so... muddled and subjective, once you step outside of academia? Furthermore, if the correlation between social class and political ideologies is one that is so well-established, how come there is no viable way to counteract--or at the very least, mitigate--the effects of class?
While these questions aren't the only ones that have been left unanswered, they are the ones I am the most interested in pursuing, from a sociological, psychological, and political standpoint.
