Video and Multimedia

Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Audio Resources

Audio Link 7.1: Get Rich Quick

Description: Stories of people trying to get rich quick or otherwise make something for nothing. As everyone knows, there's no such thing as something for nothing. You always pay a price.

Learning Objective: 7.1: Describe what social stratification means for individuals and groups.

Audio Link 7.2: Money and Behavior

Description: This podcast examines what happens when you suddenly strike it rich and the power money has over our lives, for good and bad.

Learning Objective: 7.1: Describe what social stratification means for individuals and groups.

Audio Link 7.3: Wealth Gap

Description: This podcast examines the pay gap between minorities in Boston.

Learning Objective: 7.4: Explain what affects your chances for social mobility.

Video Resources

Video Link 7.1: Social Class

Description: Filmed over three years (1999–2002), “Country Boys” tracks the dramatic stories of Chris and Cody from ages 15 to 18. David Sutherland's film bears witness to the two boys' struggles to overcome the poverty and family dysfunction of their childhood in a quest for a brighter future.

Learning Objective: 7.3: Explain how achieved and ascribed characteristics impact individuals’ life chances.

Video Link 7.2: Rebuilding the Middle Class

Description: Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, newly appointed by former President Obama to set up the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, outlines what is wrong with today's financial markets and how to help the middle class rebound from the recession in this 2010 address at UC Berkeley.

Learning Objective: 7.6: Discuss inequality and poverty from a sociological perspective.

Video Link 7.3: America in Recession

Description: Producer Ofra Bikel chronicles how the middle class is faring during the recession through the stories of the people who she’s come to know at the hair salon she’s frequented for the past twenty years. The film reveals the struggles of a small business owner to stay afloat, her sister’s risk of imminent foreclosure on her Florida home, and the various clients whose lives intersect at this New York City salon—from well-to-do bankers to struggling actors, each with a story to tell about how they’re getting by in turbulent times.

Learning Objective: 7.1: Describe what social stratification means for individuals and groups.

Web Resources

Web Link 7.1: World Internet Usage

Description: This article examines the impact that the internet has on the Global South.

Learning Objective: 7.7: Illustrate how the digital divide helps stratify people.

Web Link 7.2: Lower-Income Families

Description: This article from Contexts Magazine focuses on assistance that is available from the Internal Revenue Service for lower-income families.

Learning Objective: 7.4: Explain what affects your chances for social mobility.

Web Link 7.3: Global Poverty Rates

Description: Global poverty rates have actually been on the decline since 1990 — the World Bank calculates that 1.1 billion people escaped extreme poverty between 1990 and 2013. This chart illustrates these trends.

Learning Objective: 7.6: Discuss inequality and poverty from a sociological perspective.