Social Stratification

The perfect amount of money to leave children

is enough money so that they would feel they
could do anything, but not so much that they
could do nothing.

A system by which a society ranks

categories of people in a hierarchy.

Bases of Social Stratification

Bases of Social Stratification

Trait of society, not simply a reflection of

individual differences.

Universal but variable

Carries over from generation to

generation

Involves not just inequality but beliefs as

well

Social mobility

ideology

Set of beliefs that explains and justifies

some actual or potential social
arrangements

Change of position in the

hierarchy

Upward/downward

PLATO

Exchange

MARX

Exchange places

CLOSED SYSTEMS

High level incompetents vs.

low level competents

CASTE SYSTEMS

Social Mobility

Structural mobility

A result of changes in the

structure of the economy.

Intergenerational Mobility

Movement in hierarchy by family

members from one generation to the
next.

Based on ascription

Determines the direction of a

persons life

Marriage

Social interaction

Peacefulness, self-control, austerity,

purity, tolerance, honesty, knowledge,
wisdom and religiousnessthese are the

natural qualities by which the

brahmanas work.

Heroism, power, determination,

resourcefulness, courage in battle,
generosity and leadership are the
natural qualities of work for the
ksatriyas.

However

By following his qualities of work,

every man can become perfect.

By worship of the Lord, who is the

source of all beings and who is allpervading, a man can attain perfection
through performing his own work.
It is better to engage in ones own
occupation, even though one may
perform it imperfectly, than to accept
anothers occupation and perform it
perfectly. Duties prescribed according to
ones nature are never affected by sinful
reactions. (From Bhagavad-gita 18th
chapter)

OPEN SYSTEMS

CLASS SYSTEM

Based both on birth and individual

achievement

OPEN SYSTEMS

STATUS CONSISTENCY

Degree of uniformity in a persons social

standing across various dimensions of
social inequality.

Social stratification based on personal

merit

Knowledge

Abilities

Effort

Wealth

Power

Prestige

Davis-Moore Thesis

Those positions with higher ranks and

rewards have:

The greatest importance for the

society

Require the greatest training or

talent

Social Stratification: Is it functional?

According to Weber, there are three

dimensions of inequality:

Class: economic inequality

Status: social prestige

Power

Social Stratification:
Does it lead to conflict?

Why No Marxist Revolution?

1. The fragmentation of the
capitalist class.
2. A higher standard of living.

Based both on birth and individual

achievement
MERITOCRACY

CLASS SYSTEM

What supports meritocracy?

Farming, cow protection and business

are the natural work for the vaisyas,
and for the sudras there is labor and
service to others.

3. More worker organizations.

4. Greater legal protections.

Social Stratification and Interaction

Conspicuous Consumption

Buying and using products

because of the statement they
make about social position

Income Inequality:
Sociological Perspectives
O Conflict Approach
O Inequality is systematically created and
maintained by those trying to preserve
their advantage over the system.
O Does income inequality have a function?

O The poor create jobs for others social

workers, police officers.
O The poor serve as guinea pigs in medical
experiments.
O Why We Need the Poor:
How Poverty Helps Society

O Not everyone in society can and should

be equal.

O The poor make the economy more

efficient. They spend welfare money on
leftover goods such as day-old bread
and the many seconds produced by our
industry. They also buy the furniture and
cars that the rest of us discard.

O Social institutions sort everyone into

their proper places and reward them
accordingly.

O The poor make others wealthy. Think of

the many slum landlords who would
have to get jobs if it werent for the poor.

O Structural-Functionalism:
Inequality as Functional

O Why We Need the Poor:

How Poverty Helps Society

O When we accept our status in society

and acknowledge the status of others,
we provide harmony to the social
order. But this kind of harmony requires
that the occupant of each status act
towards others in a manner which
conveys the impression that his
conception of himself and of them is the
same as their conception of themselves
and him. (Erving Goffman)

O The poor help some people become

upwardly mobile. A good example is
those who run the many small stores in
the inner cities. Without the poor, they
would have to close their doors.

O Structural-Functionalism: Inequality as
Functional

O Structural-Functionalism
and Poverty
O Rapid economic and technological
changes eliminated the need for lowskilled labor, creating a population of
workers who were unskilled and
untrained for this new economy.
O Why the preference for capital-intensive
production?
O Structural-Functionalism
and Poverty
O Poverty is functional for the society.
(Herber Gans)
O Why We Need the Poor:
How Poverty Helps Society
O The poor ensure that societys dirty work
gets done at low cost.

O The poor provide the front line soldiers

for war, the dispensable ones who can
be sacrificed during the battle.
O Why We Need the Poor:
How Poverty Helps Society
O The poor stabilize our political system.
Most vote for Democrats, so to the
degree that this party helps the US
political system, the poor contribute to
that effort.
O The poor provide entertainment. Their
lives of despair are the grist for
countless stories, especially television
news. To be transported out of our
ordinary lives by dramatic accounts of
the lives of others is certainly one
definition of entertainment
O Why We Need the Poor:
How Poverty Helps Society
O The poor enrich our music. Without their
devastating experiences, the rest of us
would have fewer tunes to hum.

I see no changes. Wake up in the morning and

I ask myself, "Is life worth living? Should I blast
myself?"
I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm
black.
My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to
snatch.
Changes, Tupac Shakur
I See The Kids In The Street, With Not Enough
To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind? Pretending Not To See
Their Needs
- Man in the Mirror, Michael Jackson
O Why We Need the Poor:
How Poverty Helps Society

O Are they good people who are

down on their luck and need a
helping hand?
O Are they no-goods who refuse to
work and are a drain on societys
resources.
O Symbolic Interactionism
O Third focus: Is poverty learned behavior?
O Culture of poverty a set of
norms, values, and beliefs that
encourage and perpetuate
poverty.

Income Inequality

O The poor help our motivation. We know A Look at Poverty in the Philippines
that he had better get an education and
work hard or else we could end up there Absolute Poverty
(the projects, and soup line).
"a condition characterised by severe
O The poor also help our self-concept. They deprivation of basic human needs, including
food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities,
make us feel superior.
health, shelter, education and information. It
O Poverty as a result of dysfunctions
depends not only on income but also on access
to services."
O Government
Overall Poverty
O Education
takes various forms, including "lack of income
O Family
and productive resources to ensure sustainable
O Symbolic Interactionism
livelihoods; hunger and malnutrition; ill health;
limited or lack of access to education and other
O First Focus: What does poverty mean to
basic services; increased morbidity and
people?
mortality from illness; homelessness and
O The meaning of poverty is relative and inadequate housing; unsafe environments and
social discrimination and exclusion. It is also
differs from group to group within the
same society, as well as from culture to characterised by lack of participation in
decision making and in civil, social and cultural
culture and from one era to the next.
life. (UN, 1995)
O Absolute poverty measures
poverty in relation to the amount GINI Coefficient
of money necessary to meet basic
extent to which the distribution of income (or,
needs such as food, clothing, and
in some cases, consumption expenditure)
shelter. (UNESCO)
0 : perfect equality
O Symbolic Interactionism
1 : perfect inequality
O Second Focus: How do the non-poor view
the poor?
Race and Ethnic Stratification
O Subordinate / Minority Group

O A group whose members have

significantly less control or power over
their own lives than do the members of a
dominant or majority group.
O Subordinate Group: Five Characteristics
1. Members of a minority group share physical
or cultural characteristics that distinguish them
from the dominant group.

O Racism
O An ideology based on the belief that an
observable, supposedly inherited trait,
such as skin color, is a mark of inferiority
that justifies discriminatory treatment of
people with that trait.
O doctrine of biologically superior and
inferior races.

O Racial Groups

O Racism: at the Individual Level

O Groups that are socially set apart

because of obvious physical differences.

some racial groups are naturally superior

and others are inferior.

O What physical characteristics are

obvious and are important?

This thinking depends on these ideas:

O Ethnic Groups

(1) that people may be reliably classified

into biologically meaningful racial groups

O Groups set apart from others because of

(2) that these groups are inherently different in
their national or distinctive cultural
regard to ability, character,
patterns.
intelligence, social behavior, and culture
O Subordinate Group: Five Characteristics
O Racism: at the Institutional Level
2. Membership in a dominant or minority group
is not voluntary.
- Involves discriminatory policies and practices
O Subordinate Group: Five Characteristics that result in unequal outcomes for members
of different racial groups.
3. Minority group members have a strong
O Theoretical Perspectives
sense of group solidarity. People make
distinctions between members of their own
O Functionalist Perspective:
group (the in-group) and everyone else (the
Functions for the Dominant Group
out-group).
O Racist ideologies provide a moral
O Subordinate Group: Five Characteristics
justification for maintaining a society
that routinely deprives a group of its
4. Members of a minority group generally
rights and privileges.
marry others from the same group.
O Subordinate Group: Five Characteristics
5. Members of a minority experience unequal
treatment and have less power over their lives
than members of a dominant group have over
others.
O Social Construction of Race
O The concept of biological race is based
on the MISTAKEN notion of a genetically
isolated human group.
O Race implies that groups differ physically
also bear distinctive emotional and
mental abilities or disabilities.

O Functionalist Perspective:
Functions for the Dominant Group
O Racial beliefs discourage subordinate
people from attempting to question their
lowly status; to do so is to question the
very foundations of the society.
O Functionalist Perspective:
Functions for the Dominant Group
O Racial ideologies serve as a rallying
point for social movements.
O Nazi party
O Australians Against Further
Immigration

"Australia's immigration policy is disastrous,

proceeding as if there is no balance of payment
problem, no foreign debt and no geographical
or environmental constraints to population
growth. Continued immigration will finally and
irreversibly alter the natural and urban
environment, economic viability and attitudes
and culture of our nation.
The people have not been consulted on, or
given their consent to, the interwoven policies
of immigration and multiculturalism. It is now
time for Australians to demand their
democratic rights, reclaim their sovereignty
and demand a say in the future of their nation.
Australians Against Further Immigration want
immigration drastically reduced to zero net.
That is, out immigration numbers should
merely replace those permanently leaving
Australia each year - historically running
between 20,000 and 30,000. At this policy of
institutionalised, publicly funded
multiculturalism should be scrapped."
O Functionalist Perspective:
Functions for the Dominant Group
O Racist myths encourage support for the
existing order.
O Functionalist Perspective:
Functions for the Dominant Group
O Racist beliefs relieve the dominant group
of the responsibility to address the
economic and educational problems
faced by subordinate groups.
O How Racism is a Dysfunction
O A society that practices discrimination
fails to use the resources of all
individuals. Discrimination limits the
search for talent and leadership to the
dominant group.
O Difference between
Prejudice and Discrimination

O Discrimination aggravates social

problems such as poverty, delinquency,
and crime and places the financial
burden of alleviating these problems on
the dominant group.
O How Racism is a Dysfunction
O Society must invest a good deal of time
and money to defend the barriers that
prevent the full participation of all
members.
O How Racism is a Dysfunction
O Racial prejudice and discrimination
undercut goodwill and friendly
diplomatic relations between nations.
O How Racism is a Dysfunction
O Social change is inhibited because
change may assist a subordinate group.
O How Racism is a Dysfunction
O Discrimination promotes disrespect for
law enforcement and for peaceful
settlement of disputes.
O Conflict Perspective
O Blaming the victim developed by
William Ryan; portraying the problems of
racial and ethnic minorities as their fault
rather than recognizing societys
responsibility.
O Labelling Approach
O A concept introduced by Howard Becker.
O This approach seeks to explain why
certain people are viewed as deviant
and others engaging in the same
behavior are not.
O The basis of our standard is our
stereotypes unreliable generalizations
about all members of a group.
O Labelling Approach

O Robert Mertons Typology

O Self-fulfilling prophecy a person or

group described as having particular
characteristics begins to display the very
traits attributed to him or her

O How Racism is a Dysfunction

O A Continuum of intergroup relations

O Prejudice is a belief or an attitude;

Discrimination involves behavior.

O Genocide
State-sponsored mass killing explicitly
designed to completely exterminate a
population deemed to be racially or ethnically
different and threatening to the dominant
population.
O Expulsion
The forcible removal of a population from a
territory claimed by another population

~ Martin
Luther King, Jr.

GENDER STRATIFICATION

Social construction of gender

Gender Roles

Expectations regarding proper behavior,

attitudes, and activities of males and females.

O Slavery

Sociological
Perspectives on Gender

A Social Problem Exists when

Ownership of one population by another,
which can buy and sell members of the
According to the studies of Bonvillian, 2006
enslaved population and controls every aspect and Farley, 2005
of their lives.
A change in gender roles (among women in
Slavery was abolished
particular) undermines the stability of the
family.
on December 6, 1865.
Jim Crow Laws
O Section 20-54 of Virginias Racial
Integrity Act of 1924 states, It shall
hereafter be unlawful for any white
person in this State to marry any save a
white person.
O Was also practiced in Arizona, Missouri,
Mississippi, Maryland, Georgia, Florida,
Wyoming.

Sociological Perspectives
on Gender

Patriarchy

A system where men are dominant over

women.

The Role of Capitalism

Women are willing to work in different

types of jobs and for different wages
than men because they define
themselves according to their familial
relationships as supporters rather than
as breadwinners.

The Role of Capitalism

Men are duty bound to their jobs

because of a sense of self-worth and
obligation tied to their ability to provide
for their families. As men are limited to
their prescribed positions in the
economy and production, their inner
emotional states are devalued in society.
This limits the development of their full
human potential and contributing to a
range of male problems health and
chronic illnesses, risk taking and
violence.

O Segregation
Ecological and institutional separation of
races or ethnic groups
O Assimilation
The process by which a minority group
blends into the majority population and
eventually disappears as a distinct people
within the larger society.
O CULTURAL PLURALISM
- different ethnic and racial groups are able to
maintain their own cultures and lifestyles even
as they gain equality in the institutions of the
larger society.

I have a dream that my four little children will

one day live in a nation where they will not be
Is it important to ask whether a baby is a boy
judged by the color of their skin, but by the
or a girl?
content of their character.

Sociological Perspectives
on Gender

Sexism and Sex Discrimination

The Status of
Women Worldwide

Women in the
Workforce of the U.S.

Women in the
Workforce of the U.S.

Gender Inequality in Industrial Nations

Trends in U.S. Womens

Participation in the Paid Labor Force,
1890-2008

Why Leave Work?

Top Countries To be a Woman

(Gender Gap Report, 2014)

Feminism

Liberal

Socialist

Marxist

Radical