Скачать или смотреть Social Class In America

Continuing the trawl through old films highlighting contemporary social ideas and issues, this one is an interesting little (15 minute) film about social class in America dating from the late 1950’s.

It takes the form of a narrative tracing the social trajectories of three new-born children: one born into an upper class family to “a town’s richest man”, another born into a middle-class family and the third a lower class boy (Americans at this time tended to avoid the term “working class”).

It’s an instructive plot device and one that works well to illustrate a number of class-based concepts (such as vertical and horizontal social mobility and ascribed / achieved status) but the big question is probably: how, if at all, have class based differences changed in the subsequent 80 - 90 years?