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2.7: Opportunity

  • Page ID
    308796
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    In the U.S. and throughout the world there are rich and poor families. Your social class has a great deal to do with who you were born to or adopted by. Where you end up in your economic standing has a great deal to do with how you act, given your own set of life chances. As identified by Max Weber, life chances are access to basic opportunities and resources in the marketplace. Some of you are paying for college on your own and take the bus to school while others have a new car, the latest cell phone, and don't have to worry how much your books cost because your parents are footing the bill. Life chances can also be applied to the quality of your own marriage and family. If you came from a highly shaming family culture, then you are more likely to develop an addiction. If you came from a family where the parents divorced, then you are more likely to divorce. If you were born to a single mother you are more likely to become a single mother or father. These are known correlates but not causes. In other words you may be slightly disadvantaged because of the difficult family circumstances you were born in, but you are by no means doomed to repeat the patterns of your family of origin (the family into which you were born) in your family of procreation (the family you create by marriage, child birth, adoption).

    Understanding life chances simply raises your awareness by demonstrating trends from the larger social picture that might well apply to you in your personal level.


    2.7: Opportunity is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.