Social stratification
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Sociology |
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Social stratification refers to a society's
In modern Western societies, social stratification is defined in terms of three social classes: an upper class, a middle class, and a lower class; in turn, each class can be subdivided into an upper-stratum, a middle-stratum, and a lower stratum.[4] Moreover, a social stratum can be formed upon the bases of kinship, clan, tribe, or caste, or all four.
The categorization of people by social stratum occurs most clearly in complex
Stratification can yield various consequences. For instance, the stratification of neighborhoods based on spatial and racial factors can influence disparate access to mortgage credit.[7]
Overview
Definition and usage
"Social stratification" is a concept used in the social sciences to describe the relative social position of persons in a given
The concept of social stratification is often used and interpreted differently within specific theories. In
Four underlying principles
Four principles are posited to underlie social stratification. First, social stratification is socially defined as a property of a society rather than individuals in that society. Second, social stratification is reproduced from generation to generation. Third, social stratification is universal (found in every society) but variable (differs across time and place). Fourth, social stratification involves not just quantitative inequality but qualitative beliefs and attitudes about social status.[6]
Complexity
Although stratification is not limited to complex societies, all complex societies exhibit features of stratification. In any complex society, the total stock of valued goods is distributed unequally, wherein the most
Social mobility
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, social groups or categories of people between the layers or within a stratification system. This movement can be intragenerational or intergenerational. Such mobility is sometimes used to classify different systems of social stratification. Open stratification systems are those that allow for mobility between, typically by placing value on the achieved status characteristics of individuals. Those societies having the highest levels of intragenerational mobility are considered to be the most open and malleable systems of stratification.[6] Those systems in which there is little to no mobility, even on an intergenerational basis, are considered closed stratification systems. For example, in caste systems, all aspects of social status are ascribed, such that one's social position at birth persists throughout one's lifetime.[8]
Karl Marx
In Marxist theory, the modern
Marx also described two other classes, the petite bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat. The petite bourgeoisie is like a small business class that never really accumulates enough profit to become part of the bourgeoisie, or even challenge their status. The lumpenproletariat is the underclass, those with little to no social status. This includes prostitutes, street gangs, beggars, the homeless or other untouchables in a given society. Neither of these subclasses has much influence in Marx's two major classes, but it is helpful to know that Marx did recognize differences within the classes.[10]
According to
The counter-argument to Marxist's conflict theory is the theory of structural functionalism, argued by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, which states that social inequality places a vital role in the smooth operation of a society. The Davis–Moore hypothesis argues that a position does not bring power and prestige because it draws a high income; rather, it draws a high income because it is functionally important and the available personnel is for one reason or another scarce. Most high-income jobs are difficult and require a high level of education to perform, and their compensation is a motivator in society for people to strive to achieve more.[15]
Max Weber
Weber derives many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the social structure of
- Class: A person's economic position in a society, based on birth and individual achievement.[17] Weber differs from Marx in that he does not see this as the supreme factor in stratification. Weber notes how corporate executives control firms they typically do not own; Marx would have placed these people in the proletariat despite their high incomes by virtue of the fact they sell their labor instead of owning capital.
- Status: A person's prestige, social honor, or popularity in a society. Weber notes that political power is not rooted in capital value solely, but also in one's individual status. Poets or saints, for example, can have extensive influence on society despite few material resources.
- Power: A person's ability to get their way despite the resistance of others, particularly in their ability to engage social change. For example, individuals in government jobs, such as an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or a member of the United States Congress, may hold little property or status but still wield considerable social power.[18]
C. Wright Mills
Mills explains that the power elite embody a privileged class whose members are able to recognize their high position within society.
The upper class individuals who receive elite educations typically have the essential background and contacts to enter into the three branches of the power elite: The political leadership, the military circle, and the corporate elite.[19]
- The Political Leadership: Mills held that, prior to the end of World War II, leaders of corporations became more prominent within the political sphere along with a decline in central decision-making among professional politicians.[19]
- The Military Circle: During the 1950s-1960s, increasing concerns about warfareresulted in top military leaders and issues involving defense funding and military personnel training becoming a top priority within the United States. Most of the prominent politicians and corporate leaders have been strong proponents of military spending.
- The Corporate Elite: Mills explains that during the 1950s, when the military emphasis was recognized, corporate leaders worked with prominent military officers who dominated the development of policies. Corporate leaders and high-ranking military officers were mutually supportive of each other.[19][20][pp. 274–276]
Mills shows that the power elite has an "inner-core" made up of individuals who are able to move from one position of institutional power to another; for example, a prominent military officer who becomes a political adviser or a powerful politician who becomes a corporate executive.[19] "These people have more knowledge and a greater breadth of interests than their colleagues. Prominent bankers and financiers, who Mills considered 'almost professional go-betweens of economic, political, and military affairs,' are also members of the elite's inner core.[19][20][pp. 288–289]
Anthropological theories
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Anthropology of kinship |
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Social anthropology Cultural anthropology |
Most if not all
Kinship-orientation
Anthropologists identify egalitarian cultures as "kinship-oriented", because they appear to value social harmony more than wealth or status. These cultures are contrasted with economically oriented cultures (including states) in which status and material wealth are prized, and stratification, competition, and conflict are common. Kinship-oriented cultures actively work to prevent social hierarchies from developing because they believe that such stratification could lead to conflict and instability.[22] Reciprocal altruism is one process by which this is accomplished.
A good example is given by Richard Borshay Lee in his account of the Khoisan, who practice "insulting the meat". Whenever a hunter makes a kill, he is ceaselessly teased and ridiculed (in a friendly, joking fashion) to prevent him from becoming too proud or egotistical. The meat itself is then distributed evenly among the entire social group, rather than kept by the hunter. The level of teasing is proportional to the size of the kill. Lee found this out when he purchased an entire cow as a gift for the group he was living with, and was teased for weeks afterward about it (since obtaining that much meat could be interpreted as showing off).[23]
Another example is the Australian Aboriginals of Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island, off the coast of Arnhem Land, who have arranged their entire society—spiritually and economically—around a kind of gift economy called renunciation. According to David H. Turner, in this arrangement, every person is expected to give everything of any resource they have to any other person who needs or lacks it at the time. This has the benefit of largely eliminating social problems like theft and relative poverty. However, misunderstandings obviously arise when attempting to reconcile Aboriginal renunciative economics with the competition/scarcity-oriented economics introduced to Australia by European colonists.[24]
Variables in theory and research
The social status variables underlying social stratification are based in social perceptions and
Economic
Strictly
Social
Social variables, both quantitative and
Social scientists are sometimes interested in quantifying the degree of economic stratification between different social categories, such as men and women, or workers with different levels of education. An index of stratification has been recently proposed by Zhou for this purpose.[29]
Gender
Gender is one of the most pervasive and prevalent social characteristics which people use to make social distinctions between individuals. Gender distinctions are found in economic-, kinship- and caste-based stratification systems.
Race
Racism consists of both
Ethnicity
Ethnic prejudice and discrimination operate much the same as do racial prejudice and discrimination in society. In fact, only recently have scholars begun to differentiate race and ethnicity; historically, the two were considered to be identical or closely related. With the scientific development of
Global stratification
Like a stratified class system within a nation, looking at the
Core nations receive the greatest share of surplus production, and periphery nations receive the least. Furthermore, core nations are usually able to purchase raw materials and other goods from noncore nations at low prices, while demanding higher prices for their exports to noncore nations.[41] A global workforce employed through a system of global labor arbitrage ensures that companies in core countries can utilize the cheapest semi-and non-skilled labor for production.
Today we have the means to gather and analyze data from economies across the globe. Although many societies worldwide have made great strides toward more equality between differing geographic regions, in terms of the standard of living and life chances afforded to their peoples, we still find large gaps between the wealthiest and the poorest within a nation and between the wealthiest and poorest nations of the world.[42] A January 2014 Oxfam report indicates that the 85 wealthiest individuals in the world have a combined wealth equal to that of the bottom 50% of the world's population, or about 3.5 billion people.[43] By contrast, for 2012, the World Bank reports that 21 percent of people worldwide, around 1.5 billion, live in extreme poverty, at or below $1.25 a day.[44] Zygmunt Bauman has provocatively observed that the rise of the rich is linked to their capacity to lead highly mobile lives: "Mobility climbs to the rank of the uppermost among coveted values – and the freedom to move, perpetually a scarce and unequally distributed commodity, fast becomes the main stratifying factor of our late modern or postmodern time."[45]
See also
- Age stratification
- Caste system
- Class stratification
- Cultural hegemony
- Dominance hierarchy
- Egalitarianism
- Elite theory
- Elitism
- Gini coefficient
- Globalization
- Intersectionality
- Marxism
- Microinequity
- Rankism
- Religious stratification
- Social class
- Social inequality
- Socioeconomic status
- Social justice
- Systems of social stratification
- The Power Elite
References
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- ^ "6.S: Social Stratification (Summary)". 13 December 2016. Archived from the original on 12 December 2019. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
- ^ "What Is Social Stratification, and Why Does It Matter?". Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-04125-6.
- ^ Toye, David L. (May 2004). "The Emergence of Complex Societies: A Comparative Approach". World History Connected. 11 (2). Archived from the original on 2014-06-27. Retrieved 2014-06-27.
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- ^ a b c Grusky, David B. & Ann Azumi Takata (1992). "Social Stratification". The Encyclopedia of Sociology. Macmillan Publishing Company. pp. 1955–70.
- ^ PMID 35915342. Charted in Leonhardt, David (August 1, 2022). "'Friending Bias' / A large new study offers clues about how lower-income children can rise up the economic ladder". The New York Times. Archivedfrom the original on August 1, 2022.
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- ^ Holborn, M. & Langley, P. (2004) AS & A level Student Handbook, accompanies the Sixth Edition: Haralambos & Holborn, Sociology: Themes and perspectives, London: Collins Educational
- ^ Macionis, Gerber, John, Linda (2010). Sociology 7th Canadian Ed. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Canada Inc. p. 243.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Stark, Rodney (2007). Sociology, Tenth Edition. Thompson Wadsworth.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-205-79241-2.
- ^ a b c d e Mills, Charles W. (1956). The Power Elite. London: Oxford University Press.
- ^ from the original on 7 October 2012. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
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- ^ Lee, Richard B. (1976), Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers: Studies of the !Kung San and Their Neighbors, Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, eds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- ^ Turner, David H. (1999), Genesis Regained: Aboriginal Forms of Renunciation in Judeo-Christian Scriptures and Other Major Traditions, pp. 1–9, Peter Lang.
- ^ Grusky, David B (2011). "The Past, Present and Future of Social Inequality." In Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective (PDF) (Second ed.). Boulder: Westview Press. pp. 3–51. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-10-08.
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- ^ Collins, Patricia Hill (1998). "Toward a new vision: race, class and gender as categories of analysis and connection" in Social Class and Stratification: Classic Statements and Theoretical Debates. Boston: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 231–247.
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- ^ Friedman, Ellen & Jennifer Marshall (2004). Issues of Gender. New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
- ^ Mason, K. & H. Carlsson (2004). "The Impact of Gender Equality in Land Rights on Development". Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement. Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement. New York.
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- ^ Mies, Maria (1999). Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
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- ^ Wallerstein, Immanuel (1974). The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.
- ^ Paul Halsall Modern History Sourcebook: Summary of Wallerstein on World System Theory Archived 2007-10-26 at the Wayback Machine, August 1997
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- ^ "2013 World Population Data Sheet". Population Research Bureau. 2013. Archived from the original on 26 June 2014. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
- ^ Rigged rules mean economic growth increasingly "winner takes all" for rich elites all over world Archived 2014-08-03 at the Wayback Machine. Oxfam. 20 January 2014.
- ^ Olinto, Pedro & Jaime Saavedra (April 2012). "An Overview of Global Income Inequality Trends". Inequalitty in Focus. 1 (1). Archived from the original on 2014-09-01. Retrieved 2014-06-27.
- ^ Bauman, Z. (1988) Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity
Further reading
- Grusky, David B. (2014). Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective (4th ed.). Boulder: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0813346717.
- Solon, Gary (March 2014). "Theoretical models of inequality transmission across multiple generations" (PDF). Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. 35: 13–18. (PDF) from the original on 2020-02-27. Retrieved 2019-09-13.