Social Stratification
social stratification
• the unequal distribution of goods and
services, rights and obligations, power and
prestige
• all attributes of positions in society, not
attributes of individuals
• universality of stratification
STRATIFICATION & STATUS
• status - ascribed & achieved
• ascribed status - social positions that
people hold by virtue of birth
• achieved status - social positions attained
as a result of individual action
• shift from kin based societies to modern
society involves growth in importance of
achieved status
Roles, Stereotypes, Stratification
• Roles -- tasks & activities that a culture
assigns to people
• Stereotypes -- oversimplified strongly held
ideas about the characteristics of people
• Stratification -- unequal distribution of
rewards (socially valued resources, power,
prestige, personal freedom) between
people reflecting their position in the social
hierarchy
Stratified Society
• stratification means
– there are significant breaks in the distribution of
goods services, rights, obligations, power
prestige
– as a result of which are formed collectivities or
groups we call strata
class societies
• Unequal access to all 3 advantages,
economic resources, power, prestige
• Open & closed class systems
– the extent to which mobility occurs allowing
people to pass through inequalities
• Closed system
– No mobility
– tend to persist across generations
• Open system
– ease of social mobility permitted
caste, slavery, and class systems
• caste systems
– closed, hereditary systems of stratification
often dictated by religion
– hierarchical social status is ascribed at birth,
people locked into their parents social position
– legal & religious sanctions, occupation,
commensality applied against people who
seek to cross them
• apartheid - caste like system, legally
maintained hierarchy based on skin color
(the color bar)
caste, slavery, and class systems
• slavery – closed class system
– people treated as property
– the most extreme & coercive form of legalized
inequality
Open Class System
• facilitates mobility
• individual achievement & personal merit
determining social rank
• hierarchical social status is achieved on
the basis of people's efforts
• ascribed status (family background,
ethnicity, gender, religion, skin color) less
important
• blurred class lines & wide range of status
positions