Socioeconomic Discrimination Running head: SOCIOECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION

Take Home Final Exam On the Covert Salience of Socioeconomic Discrimination Moran He The Pennsylvania State University

On the Covert Salience of Socioeconomic Discrimination

Socioeconomic Discrimination

In the social justice discourse, racial and ethnic prejudice has received considerable attention. The important element of social class has been largely excluded from social and psychological studies. In this opinion paper, I argue that people are more likely to be discriminated based on their socioeconomic status (SES) than other biological and basic social status variables such as race, ethnicity, gender, and disability status. Specifically, economic discrimination is structuralized in the system of education, health care, court, and so on as well as individually expressed in peoples everyday life (Pincus, 2000). Empirical Findings Education. Structured discrimination on the basis of family income continues to persist in the U.S. education system. The Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (ACSFA, 2006) investigated the college access and attrition rates of low- and moderate-income, collegequalified high school graduates based on the analysis of data collected by the Education Department, primarily through the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1998, the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, and the National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey. ACSFA reported that 1.4 million to 2.4 million bachelors degrees will be lost this decade as financial concerns prevent academically qualified students from the lowest income bracket from attending college. Among 8th graders in 1998, only 16 percent of low-income students attained a bachelors degree by the year 2000. Another analysis of three decades of data from national samples of entering college freshmen reveals that American higher education is more socioeconomically stratified today than at any time during the past three decades (Astin & Oseguera, 2004). Astin and Oseguera specifically examined the access to elite institutions among students from the lower socioeconomic strata. By 2000, high-income students represented 55 percent of the entering first-year students in elite

Socioeconomic Discrimination institutions, compared to the 13 percent representation of low-income students. In addition, standard tests such as Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATS) and AP tests are class-biased because students who attend poorly funded schools in poor neighborhoods are less likely to learn and prepare for the tests (Chancer & Watkins, 2006). Attempting to testify in court about the psychological and academic impact of structural

economic discrimination on working-class students who attending plaintiff schools of Williams v. California, Fine and her colleagues (2004) conducted focus group interviews with 101 poor and working-class youth from one elementary, one middle, and nine high schools in California. The interviewees reported structural disrepair, high rates of unqualified teachers, high teacher turnover rates, and inadequate instructional materials in the schools. The evidence suggested that these schools not only systematically under-educated poor and working-class youth, and youth of color, but they taught working-class students a civic lesson to learn to feel powerless, alienated, shameful, angry and betrayed (p. 2218). They reported that some students had tried to speak out about these discriminative structures in school, only to be ignored again. Similarly, studies have compared the access to educational and technological resources among different age, gender, family income, and ethnicity groups. For instance, Calvert and her colleagues (2005) found that families with higher incomes and higher education levels were more likely to own computers and to have Internet access from home, which were perceived more favorably for childrens learning. The foregoing evidence has suggested that the working poor are denied the best educational resources, the best educational experience, and thus the best graduate study and employment opportunities. Health Care. Research in social studies has historically documented the disparities in medical treatment in the U.S. Numerous studies have examined variables including age, race

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and ethnicity, gender, and disability as determinants of the perceived discrimination in the health care system (e.g., LaVeist, Rolley, & Diala, 2003; Tello et al., 2005). Among these variables, financial barriers have significantly limited the access to care and access to information for patients of the working class. Additionally, health care providers bias and stereotypes based on patients socioeconomic status partially account for differential treatment and assessment (Van Ryn & Burke, 2000). Empirical evidence also suggests that differences in socioeconomic status are critical to the racial disparities in health care. For instance, Becker and Newsom (2003) reported on findings from a qualitative study of 60 middle-income and low-income African Americans who had one or more chronic illnesses. The main objective of their study was to compare satisfaction with health care by patients categorized as low income with those categorized as middle income. The respondents ranged from those who were middle class, worked as professionals, were home owners, and had medical insurance to those who were poor and unemployed, lived in public housing, and had no medical insurance. Becker and Newsom concluded that, compared to middle-income patients, low-income patients spent much greater portions of time dealing with the health care bureaucracy. All but eight percent of the low-income patients saw their health care as being second-rate. In addition, a higher level of mistrust was reported by low-income respondents who questioned whether various health encounters were signs of discrimination. A few unemployed, uninsured respondents reported that they felt they were treated like secondclass citizens. They identified discriminative encounters including physician reluctance to try different medications or treat a condition more aggressively, indifferent care, and waiting for hours in emergency rooms to be seen.

Socioeconomic Discrimination Similar pattern of socioeconomic discrimination persists in womens health care. Using nationally representative date on adult women from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, Sambamoorthi and McAlpine (2003) assessed whether differences in socioeconomic status may

explain racial and ethnic differences in the use of preventive services among women of different age groups. The results suggested that low socioeconomic status, lack of insurance, and lack of a usual source of care caused significant barriers to preventive care for adult women across racial groups. Legal System. When members of the upper class have predominated over the working poor in politics, the every content of law and the jury system are likely to be discriminative against the poor and working class (Chancer & Watkins, 2006). For example, gun control legislations in many states in the 1990s indicated a contemporary intent to keep guns away from lower socioeconomic groups (Funk, 1995). Funk further explained that setting a high minimum price or minimum melting-point for handguns deprived the poor, especially the non-White poor, of the right to bear arms for self-preservation whereas they are more likely to become the victims of violence. Fukurai (1996) studied the discrimination in jury selection based on criteria such as race, ethnicity, and social class positions. In this study, community research survey was sent to more than 1,000 potential jurors randomly selected from a California County master key list. The dichotomous probit analyses revealed that prospective jurors in lower social classes were consistently underrepresented in most federal and state court jury pools and venires. In contrast, there was a significant overrepresentation of minority jurors who had greater annual incomes and jobs of higher prestige (co-efficient of -.151 and -.016 for income and occupation, respectively). Fukurai concluded from the findings that jurors social class status (e.g., occupational prestige,

Socioeconomic Discrimination annual income, and managerial authority at work place) are important determinants of discriminations in jury selection, even more so than the racial and ethnic backgrounds of potential jurors.

Neighborhood. Low-income persons are also discriminated against in middle- or upper-class neighborhoods. Concerns about depreciating property values, increasing crime rates, and lack of pride and decency have long been cited as reasons for objection to having low-income persons moving into middle- or upper-class neighborhoods (Kirby, 1999). It is not clear whether such class prejudice is just a cover-up for racial discrimination. Kirby conducted two quantitative studies on the effect of income source and race on the objection to potential neighbors among homeowners and college students. The purpose of the studies were to determine whether race and class interacted or functioned separately and whether one variable was more primary than the other in determining the expressed attitudes. In both studies, African American, European American, and Hispanic American participants were asked to express their race and economic class prejudice toward prospective new neighbors described in vignettes. Cross-factor ANOVA analyses of the data generated significant evidence that people openly and without compunction used economic class as a factor in making judgments of others, independent of the race of the described person in the vignettes (p.1508). Kirby pointed out that, there was a clear distinction between class bias and race bias. She further contended that class, and not race, was the primary characteristic of prejudice. She also questioned the assertion that, in the United States, race was still more influential than class. Self-Perceived Prejudice. Kuran and McCaffery (2004) conducted 749 telephone interviews and 1,045 web surveys to investigate peoples perceptions of discrimination beyond the domains of race and ethnicity. They found that people considered discrimination based more often on

Socioeconomic Discrimination socioeconomic status than on ethnicity. For instance, results of the web survey indicated that

53.7 percent of the respondents reported of having been victimized infrequently or frequently by socioeconomic discrimination, as in contrast to the 34.9 percent of the respondents who reported ethnic discrimination. The same pattern was confirmed when an analysis controlled for respondent characteristic variables including age, gender, race, and level of education. Similar to the results of the abovementioned studies, the findings of this study contrasted with the far greater attention received by ethnic discrimination. Still other empirical studies have examined the socioeconomic discrimination that exists in the media and the produce aisle in supermarket (e.g., Sizemore & Milner, 2004; Topolski et al., 2003). The interplay of economic discrimination and discrimination based on disability might be one of the few areas of prejudice studies that have not received much attention. Discussion The empirical findings, cited herein, certainly speak to the pervasive existence of the socioeconomic discrimination, at the institutional, structural, and individual level. Therefore, I contend that socioeconomic discrimination is more salient than other types of discrimination in many domains of our personal and social life. But a question remains to be answered, Is it the more primary source of discrimination than other race- or gender-related sources? The question is difficult to clarify because African Americans, Non-White Hispanic Americans, and women constitute the majority of the population living with low socioeconomic status and poverty. Consequently, discrimination, when its origin is economic, is addressed in terms of race and gender. Another question to ask is, Can we deal away with the racial or gender discrimination without dealing with the economic piece? Most probably not. Yet, it seems that addressing the ideological foundation of discrimination is more convenient, less radical, and thus is more

Socioeconomic Discrimination favored, and more engaging than changing the economic infrastructure of the nation. I believe that the primary problem of African American people is not about color but about poverty. There are sound reasons to expand discrimination studies beyond color. Likewise in the realm of counseling, when working with the minority population, it is

important for me to understand the interaction of different origins of discrimination, not to ignore the powerful effect of economic discrimination, and not to make assumptions based on the visibility of color, sex, and disability. Liu et al. (2004) presented an insightful framework to understand social class in counseling, a case analysis, and implications for work with clients from the working class. I learned from this article the importance to be aware of my own bias against the poor and understand how the internalized classism might affect low SES clients. In addition, the traditional counseling theories offered by training programs were developed out of class bias as a result of the invisibility of working-class people in the utilization of the services and in the creation of knowledge. More often, counselors are left to their own to get to know the clients with low socioeconomic status and to understand their worldview. I need to develop sensitivity to financial, familiar pressures the clients face. In college counseling particularly, I need to be aware of the challenges that students from low socioeconomic families might face as they go to college and start their journey of moving upward to the middle class. They might need to pick up a new way of talking, making sense, and to redefine relationship with family and friends. Along the same line, the traditional assessment may not be hastily applied to the working poor until I have gained insight into their manner of life.

Socioeconomic Discrimination References Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. (2006). Mortgaging our future: How financial barriers to college undercut Americas global competitiveness. Washington, D. C.: Author. Astin, A. W., & Oseguera, L. (2004). The declining equity of American higher education. Review of Higher Education, 27 (3), 321-342. Becker, G., & Newsom, E. (2003). Socioeconomic status and dissatisfaction with health care

among chronically ill African Americans. American Journal of Public Health, 93 (5), 742748. Calvert, S. L. (2005). Age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic patterns in early computer use. American Behavioral Scientist, 48 (5), 590-607. Chancer, L. S., & Watkins, B. X. (2006). Gender, race, and class: An overview. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Fine, M., Burns, A., Payne, Y. A., & Torre, M. E. (2004). Civic lessons: The color and class of betrayal. Teachers College Record, 106 (11), 2193-2223. Fukurai, H. (1996). Race, social class, and jury participation: New dimensions for evaluating discrimination in jury service and jury selection. Journal of Criminal Justice, 24 (1), 71-88. Funk, T. M. (1995). Gun control and economic discrimination: The melting-point case-in-point. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 85 (3), 764-806. Kirby, B. J. (1999). Income source and race effects on new-neighbor evaluations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29 (7), 1497-1511. Kuran, T., & McCaffery, E. J. (2004). Expanding discrimination research: Beyond ethnicity and to the web. Social Science Quarterly, 85 (3), 713-730.

Socioeconomic Discrimination 10 LaVeist, T. A., Rolley, N. C., & Diala, C. (2003). Prevalence and patterns of discrimination among U.S. health care consumers. International Journal of Health Services, 33 (2), 331344. Liu, W. M. et al. (2004). A new framework to understand social class in counseling: The social class worldview model and modern classism theory. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 32, 96-121. Pincus, F. L. (2000). Discrimination comes in many forms: Individual, institutional, and structural. In M. Adams et al. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice, pp. 31-35. New York: Routledge. Sambamoorthi, U., & McAlphine, D. D. (2003). Racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and access disparities in the use of preventive services among women. Preventive Medicine: An International Journal Devote to Practice and Theory, 37 (5), 475-484. Sizemore, D. S., & Milner, W. T. (2004). Hispanic media use and perceptions of discrimination: Reconsidering ethnicity, politics, and socioeconomics. The Sociology Quarterly, 45 (4), 765-784. Tello, J. et al. (2005). A census-based SES index as a tool to examine the relationship between mental health services use and deprivation. Social Science and Medicare, 61(10), 20962105. Topolski, B. et al. (2003). Grape of wrath: Discrimination in the produce aisle. Analysis of Social Issues and Public Policy, 3 (1), 111-119. Van Ryn, M., & Burke, J. (2000). The effect of patient race and socio-economic status on physicians perception of patients. Social Science and Medicare, 50, 813-828.

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