Theories of Social Differentiation
and Social Change
Overview: Basic Issues in Theories of
Social Differentiation and Social
Change
Lecture
• Theory and empirical research
• Conceptual framework for studying differentiation and
inequality
• Examples of differentiation and inequality
• Basic concepts in studying social change
Theory and Empirical Research, I
• Robert K. Merton (1910-2003):
- The Bearing of Sociological Theory on Empirical Research
- The Bearing of Empirical Research on Sociological Theory
Theory -> Empirical Research:
- Epistemological basis (how do we approach reality?)
- Orientations toward social facts (what is important to
study?)
- Analysis of sociological concepts (how to conceptualize
them?)
- Theory itself (set of hypotheses)
- Derivations and codification (how the theory is testable and
modifiable?)
Theory and Empirical Research, II
Empirical Research -> Sociological Theory:
- The serendipity pattern (the unanticipated, anomalous and
strategic datum exerts a pressure for initiating theory)
- The recasting of theory (new data exerts pressure for the
elaboration of a conceptual scheme)
- The re-focusing the theoretical interest (new methods exerts
pressure for the new foci of theoretical interest)
- The clarification of concepts (empirical research exerts
pressure for clear concepts)
Concepts, I: Differentiation
• Differentiation is the general process of distinguishing
among people according to their personal attributes
(qualities) and their social roles (and tasks).
Attributes: sex, body size, physical strength, etc.
Social roles: family roles, occupations, etc.
• Differentiation does not imply that differences in personal
attributes and/or social roles are rank on a hierarchy.
Concepts, I: Differentiation
• Minimal condition for Differentiation: X ≠ Y
Differentiation of human beings and social differentiation.
Human differentiation or human variability refers to the fact
that there is a range of possible values for each of the
numerous physical, mental characteristics of human beings.
Social differentiation = socially recognizable characteristics
Social differentiation
• Social differentiation refers to such characteristics of
individuals which are recognized by a given society as
important for role playing and social interaction. Thus,
this is a very broad term that could refer to nominal,
ordinal, and metric variables.
Inequality
Generally, and in mathematics specifically, an inequality is a
statement about the relative size or order of two objects, or
about whether they are the same or not.
• The notation a < b means that a is less than b.
• The notation a > b means that a is greater than b.
• The notation a ≠ b means that a is not equal to b, but does
not say that one is greater than the other or even that they
can be compared in size.
Notation
In contrast to strict inequalities, there are two types of
inequality statements that are not strict:
• The notation a ≤ b means that a is less than or equal to b
(or, equivalently, not greater than b)
• The notation a ≥ b means that a is greater than or equal to
b (or, equivalently, not smaller than b)
Notation
An additional notation (dealing with magnitude):
• The notation a ≪ b means that a is much less than b.
• The notation a ≫ b means that a is much greater than b.
Social stratification
• Social stratification refers to the hierarchically organized
structures of social inequality that exist in any society.
Stratification position
Strata refer to people who occupy a similar social position in
the society.
A social position is determined by:
• (1) what people know (education)
• (2) what people do (occupation)
• (3) what people have (income).
In modern society, an unequal distribution of education,
occupational rank, and income is at the core of social
stratification.
Stratification studies
•
•
•
•
WHO
GETS WHAT
WHY
AND WITH WHAT CONCEQUENCES?
Social class
• Social class in a very controversial notion.
• Changing meaning of the concept of social class through
time
Modern definitions of class
• Modern definitions refer to the processes of control:
WHO
CONTROLS WHOM
WHY
AND WITH WHAT CONCEQUENCES?
Basic criteria
• Basic criteria of class:
- Control on capital market (ownership of the means of
production, e.g., employers, self-employed)
- Control over the processes on the labor market:
- over work of others (e.g. managerial and
supervisory
positions)
- over skills needed on the market (e.g.,
professionals)
- Control over processes on the consumer market (exclusion,
e.g. marginalized segments of a society)
Social classes defined
• Social classes are defined on the basis of economic power,
which in turn is related to the prevailing pattern of
political and ideological domination within a particular
society. Classes are distinguished on the basis of certain
relations, rather than attributes.
• Basic class relationships result in the political and cultural
identities of classes. When the properties of emergent
groups are taken into account class categories constitute
social groups.
Formal properties of the definition of social class
• (1) social class is a generic concept utilized in studying the
dynamics of the societal system;
• (2) social class implies relational rather than distributional
aspects of social structure;
• (3) classes are considered as not merely aggregates of
individuals but real social groups;
• (4) the meanings attached to the term social class vary and
refer to different types of societal structuration;
• (5) various types of structuration appear in substantive
discussions of economic classes, political classes, and
cultural classes.
Controversy over class
Issues:
• (1) the most important criteria in distinguishing classes;
• (2) the number of class divisions that exist;
• (3) the extent to which individuals must recognize these
divisions;
• (4) whether or not class divisions even exist.
_____________________________________
Jan Pakulski and Malcom Waters, The Death
of Class, 1996.
Level of measurement
The level of measurement of a variable refers to the nature of
information contained within numbers assigned to units of
observation.
Stanley Smith Stevens. On the theory of scales of measurement
(1946).
Levels of measurement:
• nominal (also categorical or discrete)
• ordinal (also rank-order)
• metric: interval (also distance) or ratio (also zeroreference)
Measurement and Differentiation
a≠b
a < b, a > b
a ≤ b, a ≥ b
a ≪ b, a ≫ b
Nominal
Yes
No
No
Ordinal
Yes
Yes
No
Metric
Yes
Yes
Yes
Table 1. Distribution of languages by area of origin
From: Ethnologue, 16th Edition, M. Paul Lewis, Editor.
Copyright © 2009, SIL International. All rights reserved.
Area
Living languages
Count Percent
Number of speakers
Count
Percent
Mean
Median
Africa
2,110
30.5
726,453,403
12.2
344,291
25,200
Americas
993
14.4
50,496,321
0.8
50,852
2,300
Asia
2,322
33.6
3,622,771,264
60.8
1,560,194
11,100
Europe
234
3.4
1,553,360,941
26.1
6,638,295
201,500
Pacific
1,250
18.1
6,429,788
0.1
5,144
980
Totals
6,909
100.0
5,959,511,717
100.0
862,572
7,560
Table 2. Distribution of languages by number of first-language speakers
From: Ethnologue, 16th Edition, M. Paul Lewis, Editor.
Copyright © 2009, SIL International. All rights reserved.
Population
range
Living languages
Count
100,000,000
and more
10,000,000 to
99,999,999
1,000,000 to
9,999,999
100,000 to
999,999
10,000 to
99,999
1,000 and less
Totals
Percent Cumulative
Number of speakers
Count
Percent
Cumulative
8
0.1
0.1%
2,308,548,848
38.7
38.7
77
1.1
1.2%
2,346,900,757
39.4
78.1
304
4.4
5.6%
951,916,458
16.0
94.1
895
13.0
18.6%
283,116,716
4.8
98.8
1,824
26.4
45.0%
60,780,797
1.1
99.9
3,801
6,909
55.0
100.0
100.0
8,248,141
5,959,511,717
0.1
100.0
100.0
Table 3. Rank order of languages
From: Ethnologue, 16th Edition, M. Paul Lewis, Editor.
Copyright © 2009, SIL International. All rights reserved.
Rank
Language
Primary Country
Total
Countries
Speakers
(millions)
1
Chinese [zho]
China
31
1,213
2
Spanish [spa]
Spain
44
329
3
English [eng]
United Kingdom
112
328
4
Arabic [ara]
Saudi Arabia
57
221
5
Hindi [hin]
India
20
182
6
Bengali [ben]
Bangladesh
10
181
7
Portuguese [por]
Portugal
37
178
8
Russian [rus]
Russia
33
144
9
Japanese [jpn]
Japan
25
122
10
German, Standard [deu]
Germany
43
90.3
473 of the languages listed in the Ethnologue are classified as nearly extinct.
They are classified in this way when "only a few elderly speakers are still
living." The entries below give just the known population information. Click
on "More information" to see the full entry for the language.
Africa (46 total)
The Americas (182 total)
Asia (84 total)
Europe (9 total)
The Pacific (152 total)
Index of language diversity for countries:
The computation of the diversity index is based on the
population of each language as a proportion of the total
population. The index cannot fully account for the vitality
of languages.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity refers to groups of people whose members identify
with each other, through a common heritage, consisting of a
common language, a common culture (often including a
shared religion) and a tradition of common ancestry
(corresponding to a history of endogamy).
Levinson, David (1998), Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready
Reference Handbook, Greenwood Publishing Group
1,640 ethnic groups
Ethnic differentiation
• World Ethnic Groupshttp://siakhenn.tripod.com/ethnic.html
• This entry provides an ordered listing of ethnic groups
starting with the largest and normally includes the percent
of total population.
• Afghanistan: Pashtun 38%, Tajik 25%, Hazara 19%, minor
ethnic groups (Aimaks, Turkmen, Baloch, and others) 12%,
Uzbek 6%
• Austria: German 98%, Croatian, Slovene, other (includes
Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Roma)
• Congo, Democratic Republic of: over 200 African ethnic
groups of which the majority are Bantu; the four largest
tribes - Mongo, Luba, Kongo (all Bantu), and the MangbetuAzande (Hamitic) make up about 45% of the population
• Poland: Polish 97.6%, German 1.3%, Ukrainian 0.6%,
Byelorussian 0.5% (1990 est.)
Measures
The most important measure based on a comparison with the
standard distribution is Gini index (coefficient).
The Gini indext is a statistical measure of inequalit
developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1912.
It is based on the Lorenz curve. (Max Lorenz, American
economist, 1905).
Gini index
• The Gini coefficient is a measure of dispersion most
prominently used as a measure of inequality. It is defined
as a ratio with values between 0 and 1:
• A low Gini coefficient = more equal distribution,
• A high Gini coefficient= more unequal distribution.
• 0 = perfect equality (everyone having exactly the same
income)
• 1 corresponds to perfect inequality (where one person has
all the income, while everyone else has zero income).
Gini index
The Gini coefficient requires that no one have a negative
value of the distributed good.
Although this measure can be applied to various goods, it is
convenient for explain it for income. People could have
from 0 income to some large some like billion of dollars.
As a mathematical measure of inequality, the Gini coefficient
carries no moral judgment about whether a particular
level of (in)equality is good or bad.
Gini Index
Gini index
Properties of Gini Index
The Gini coefficient satisfies four important principles:
• Anonymity: it does not matter who the high and low
earners are.
• Scale independence: it does not consider the size of the
economy.
• Population independence: it does not matter how large the
population is.
• Transfer principle: if income is transferred from a rich
person to a poor person the resulting distribution is more
equal.
Social system - change
System and change
(1) Elements (e.g. the number and variety of human individuals
and their actions) – change in composition
(2) Interelations among elements (e.g. dependencies)
- change in structure
(3) Functions of elements (e.g. occupational roles) – change of
function
(4) Boundery (e.g. criteria of inclusion) – changes in it
(5) Subsystems (e.g. subdivisions) – change in the relations of
subsystems
(6) Environment (geo-political location) – changes in it.