Stratification and Social mobility What is social

Stratification and Social mobility

What is social stratification? • Stratification is a hierarchy of positions with regard to economic production which influences the social rewards to those in the positions. Another way of saying this is that some societies have more economic inequality, or a greater difference between the best-off and the worst-off, than others. In modern society, stratification is usually determined by income and other forms of wealth, such as stocks and bonds, but resources such as power and prestige matter, too. No matter what determines it, a society’s stratification has significant consequences for its members’ attitudes, behavior, and, perhaps most important of all, life chances—how well people do in such areas as education, income, and health. We will see examples of these consequences in the pages ahead and end with a discussion of some promising policies and programs for reducing inequality and poverty.

What are the major forms of stratification? • Primitive communalism characterized by a high degree of sharing and minimal social inequality. Slavery involving great social inequality and the ownership of some persons by others. Caste in which an individual is permanently assigned to a status based on his or her parents' status. Estate in which peasants are required by law to work land owned by the noble class in exchange for food and protection from outside attacks.

How do stratification systems differ? • Openness is the opportunity for individuals to change their status. Caste stratification systems are closed whereas class stratification systems are more open. The degree of equality is the degree to which the social structure approaches an equal distribution of resources. Hunting and gathering societies are typically very equal with inequality developing in later stages of agriculture and industrialization.

Social stratification is based on four basic principles: Ø Social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences; Ø Social stratification carries over from generation to generation; ØSocial stratification is universal but variable; ØSocial stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs as well.

• In modern Western societies, stratification is broadly organized into three main layers: üupper class ümiddle class ü lower class. Each of these classes can be further subdivided into smaller classes

Karl Marx • In Marxist theory, the capitalist mode of production consists of two main economic parts: the substructure and the superstructure. Marx saw classes as defined by people's relationship to the means of productions in two basic ways: either they own productive property or labour for others. The base comprehends the relations of production—employer–employee work conditions, the technical division of labour, and property relations—into which people enter to produce the necessities and amenities of life. In the capitalist system, the ruling classes own the means of production, which essentially includes the working class itself as they only have their own labor power ('wage labor') to offer in order to survive. These relations fundamentally determine the ideas and philosophies of a society, constituting the superstructure. A temporary status quo is achieved by various methods of social control employed, consciously or unconsciously, by the bourgeoisie in the course of various aspects of social life. Through the ideology of the ruling class, false consciousness is promoted both through ostensibly political and non-political institutions, but also through the arts and other elements of culture. Marx believed the capitalist mode would eventually give way, through its own internal conflict, to revolutionary consciousness and the development of egalitarian communist society.

• According to Marvin Harris and Tim Ingold, Lewis Henry Morgan's accounts of egalitarian hunter-gatherers formed part of Karl Marx and Engels's inspiration for communism. Morgan spoke of a situation in which people living in the same community pooled their efforts and shared the rewards of those efforts fairly equally. He called this "communism in living. " But when Marx expanded on these ideas, he still emphasized an economically oriented culture, with property defining the fundamental relationships between people. Yet, issues of ownership and property are arguably less emphasized in hunter-gatherer societies. This, combined with the very different social and economic situations of hunter-gatherers may account for many of the difficulties encountered when implementing communism in industrialized states. As Ingold points out: "The notion of communism, removed from the context of domesticity and harnessed to support a project of social engineering for large-scale, industrialized states with populations of millions, eventually came to mean something quite different from what Morgan had intended: namely, a principle of redistribution that would override all ties of a personal or familial nature, and cancel out their effects.

Max Weber • Max Weber was strongly influenced by Marx's ideas, but rejected the possibility of effective communism, arguing that it would require an even greater level of detrimental social control and bureaucratization than capitalist society. Moreover, Weber criticized the dialectical presumption of proletariat revolt, believing it to be unlikely. Instead, he developed the three-component theory of stratification and the concept of life chances. Weber supposed there were more class divisions than Marx suggested, taking different concepts from both functionalist and Marxist theories to create his own system. He emphasized the difference between class, status, and power, and treated these as separate but related sources of power, each with different effects on social action. Working at half a century later than Marx, Weber claimed there to be in fact four main classes: the upper class, the white collar workers, the petite bourgeoisie, and the manual working class. Weber's theory more-closely resembles contemporary Western class structures, although economic status does not currently seem to depend strictly on earnings in the way Weber envisioned.

Weber derived many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the social structure of Germany. He noted that contrary to Marx's theories, stratification was based on more than simply ownership of capital. Weber examined how many members of the aristocracy lacked economic wealth yet had strong political power. Many wealthy families lacked prestige and power, for example, because they were Jewish. Weber introduced three independent factors that form his theory of stratification hierarchy, which are; class, status, and power:

Class: A person's economic position in a society, based on birth and individual achievement. Weber differs from Marx in that he does not see this as the supreme factor in stratification. Weber noted 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 noted that political power was 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. For example, individuals in state 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 power.

What are Weber's three dimensions of stratification? • Class or a set of people with similar amounts of income and wealth. Party or a set of people with similar amounts of power. Status group or a set of people with similar social prestige or positive regard from members of a society.

What are the five basic viewpoints on why stratification exists? • Natural inevitability which suggests that inequality exists because of natural differences in people's abilities and is a just system. Structural -functionalist which states that stratification is useful to society because it enhances stability and induces members of the society to work hard. Conflict which suggests that stratification occurs through conflict between different classes, with the upper classes using superior power to take a larger share of the social resources. Evolutionary which states that people will share enough resources to ensure the survival of the group until a surplus exists at which time power determines how the surplus is distributed. Symbolic Interactionist which calls attention to the importance of symbolic displays of wealth and power that influence one's definition of self and the importance of ideas in defining social situations.

In what regard is some stratification inevitable? • Inequality may emanate from natural differences in people's abilities. What are the functionalist and conflict theories as to the reasons for stratification? Structural-functionalists believe that societies tend to be stable and are held together through consensus. Stratification provides an important function to society by aiding this process because it lessens conflict and provides structure. Conflict theorists believe that society tends toward conflict and change and that stratification system coerce the lower classes in order to benefit the upper classes.

What are the basic premises of the evolutionary perspective? • In primitive societies the survival of the group is paramount and people will share their resources to ensure that the group survives. As society develops increasingly sophisticated technology, surplus exists and power will determine the distribution of the surplus.

How are the supporting beliefs symbolically important to a stratification system? • Symbolic Interactionists point out that symbols help to define the meaning of all social actions, and a person's self is developed socially through social interaction. Legitimating ideas, expressed symbolically in the form of language provide reasons for inequality for strata for the ways people are placed in the strata and for changes in the stratification system. These supporting ideas also strongly affect how people evaluate themselves within the system, influencing them to accept their position in the structure as good and right.

What is social mobility? • Social mobility is the movement of a person from one status to another, either between generations or within a person's adult career.

What is structural mobility? • Structural mobility is mobility brought about by changes in the stratification hierarchy for instance as society becomes more technologically advanced.

Social mobility • Social mobility is the movement of individuals or groups in social position over time. It may refer to classes, ethnic groups, or entire nations, and may measure health status, literacy, or education — but more commonly it refers to individuals or families, and their change in income. It also typically refers to vertical mobility—movement of individuals or groups up (or down) from one socio-economic level to another, often by changing jobs or marriage; but can also refer to horizontal mobility—movement from one position to another within the same social level. Social mobility can be the change in status between someone (or a group) and their parents/previous family generations ("inter-generational"); or over the change during one's lifetime ("intragenerational"). It can be "absolute"—i. e. total amount of movement of people between classes, usually over one generation (such as when education and economic development raises the socio-economic level of a population); or "relative" -- an estimation of the chance of upward (or downward) social mobility of a member of one social class in comparison with a member from another class. A higher level of intergenerational mobility is often considered praiseworthy, and the sign of greater fairness, or equality of opportunity, in a society.