In the seventeen years between 2000 and 2017, the homelessness rate in the US has declined from 10.5% to 8.5%. In this essay, the following three of the ten sociological ideas are used to interpret this decline in the US homelessness rate: (1) social and structural influences, (2) social and cultural capitals, and (3) consensus and conflict perspectives.
Firstly, the decline of US homelessness rate is the result of individual, social and structural influences. The nature theory in Sociology states that individuals can improve their economic and sociological status by making the appropriate behavior changes. In the case of homelessness, individuals are more likely to move away from homelessness by finding a more efficient way of earning …show more content…
Social capital is actual and virtual resources obtained to an individual or group by possessing a relationship network. Individuals are more likely to move away from homelessness if they possess effective social networks and support systems. In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich’s coworkers were able to navigate their difficult financial situations and avoid becoming homeless by rooming together, helping one another at work, and providing moral supports to each other. By encouraging and help developing such network for homeless individuals, more will be able to break up from being homelessness while bring down the national homelessness rate. On the other hand, cultural capital is the broad range of knowledge about the world in which an individual lives. In the reading Moving up from the Working Class, although the interviewed sociologists lived in financially disadvantaged households in their childhoods, they had often received substantial amount of cultural capital from the community and their culture traditions. This availability in cultural capital eventually helped these sociologists to move up the social ladder. In the same sense, developments in public libraries and community educational programs, such as adult school and work training sessions, in disadvantaged neighborhoods can potentially motivated and enable more homeless or close to homeless individuals …show more content…
According to the consensus theory, the society is fundamentally fair. An explanation offers be consensus theory can be that in the early 2000s the underprivileged groups in the US experienced financial and social difficulties due to some temporary economical and social disturbances in the US society, yet the society has eventually moved passed such disturbance and back to its more harmonious states by the year of 2017. This recovery to equilibrium state results in the decline of the national homelessness rate. Meanwhile, labeling theory from the conflict perspective can also explain the decline of homelessness rate. The labeling theory states that arbitrarily assigned labels on individuals and groups by the society lead to inequality against the labeled individuals and groups. In the reading the Saints and the Roughnecks, the Roughnecks, a group of high school delinquents from economically disadvantaged families, were seen as dangerous future criminals by their teachers, neighbors and the police, while their counterparts, the Saints, from middle class families were seen as “just being teenage boys”. This labeling against the Roughnecks then became a self-fulfilled prophecy for the Roughnecks and led them to futures of poverty and criminal activities. It can be argued that in the past seventeen years, because more and more people were educated about the
Firstly, the decline of US homelessness rate is the result of individual, social and structural influences. The nature theory in Sociology states that individuals can improve their economic and sociological status by making the appropriate behavior changes. In the case of homelessness, individuals are more likely to move away from homelessness by finding a more efficient way of earning …show more content…
Social capital is actual and virtual resources obtained to an individual or group by possessing a relationship network. Individuals are more likely to move away from homelessness if they possess effective social networks and support systems. In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich’s coworkers were able to navigate their difficult financial situations and avoid becoming homeless by rooming together, helping one another at work, and providing moral supports to each other. By encouraging and help developing such network for homeless individuals, more will be able to break up from being homelessness while bring down the national homelessness rate. On the other hand, cultural capital is the broad range of knowledge about the world in which an individual lives. In the reading Moving up from the Working Class, although the interviewed sociologists lived in financially disadvantaged households in their childhoods, they had often received substantial amount of cultural capital from the community and their culture traditions. This availability in cultural capital eventually helped these sociologists to move up the social ladder. In the same sense, developments in public libraries and community educational programs, such as adult school and work training sessions, in disadvantaged neighborhoods can potentially motivated and enable more homeless or close to homeless individuals …show more content…
According to the consensus theory, the society is fundamentally fair. An explanation offers be consensus theory can be that in the early 2000s the underprivileged groups in the US experienced financial and social difficulties due to some temporary economical and social disturbances in the US society, yet the society has eventually moved passed such disturbance and back to its more harmonious states by the year of 2017. This recovery to equilibrium state results in the decline of the national homelessness rate. Meanwhile, labeling theory from the conflict perspective can also explain the decline of homelessness rate. The labeling theory states that arbitrarily assigned labels on individuals and groups by the society lead to inequality against the labeled individuals and groups. In the reading the Saints and the Roughnecks, the Roughnecks, a group of high school delinquents from economically disadvantaged families, were seen as dangerous future criminals by their teachers, neighbors and the police, while their counterparts, the Saints, from middle class families were seen as “just being teenage boys”. This labeling against the Roughnecks then became a self-fulfilled prophecy for the Roughnecks and led them to futures of poverty and criminal activities. It can be argued that in the past seventeen years, because more and more people were educated about the