Social Mobility In Tammy's Story

Throughout Tammy’s Story, the poverty level of the family is clearly shown. In the beginning, Tammy lived in a trailer park with her two sons without a car. Without her car, Tammy had to walk to her job at Burger King. While watching this video, this family did not have a lot of social mobility, as social mobility is the “movement of individuals or groups from one position in a society’s stratification system to another” (Schaefer, 195). Tammy held an intragenerational horizontal social mobility, whereas one son held intergenerational vertical and the other held intergenerational horizontal. Tammy’s family fits the description of a culture of poverty theory. The Crabtree family depicts the culture of poverty theory for the reason that it states “the poor hold values that keep them from becoming successful” (Schaefer, 194). Tammy had been working at Burger King for over ten years, which expresses that she has a poor work ethic. Although she had held her job, she did not improve the job she had. If Tammy had gone to a college to get a degree that would increase her chance of upward …show more content…
A closed system is when there is “little to no possibility of social mobility” (Schaefer, 196). Tammy was first living in a trailer park with her sons, and she would walk to work on a daily basis to get to Burger King. During her walks, people would call her white trash. She was below a poverty line and was known to be poor within town. Tammy’s situation in life best fits with an intragenerational horizontal social mobility. Intragenerational horizontal is “when a person holds similar class positions over the course of their lifetime” (Schaefer, 197). If Tammy was to go to college to become a teacher, it would be less likely to happen because of her age. Social mobility is easier to achieve at a young age. Employers want new people, instead of older people who will be there less of a time and still receive