What Is Stratification?
I. Definitions
A. Webster's Collegiate:
"stratify (vb) 1: to form, deposit,
or arrange in strata; 2a: to divide
or arrange into classes, castes, or
social strata; b: to divide into a
series of graded statuses"
...
B. Geological strata (layers) formed through processes of
sedimentation and erosion, with periodic volcanic
eruptions, ice ages, etc.
C. Sampling: stratified random sample
1. when a subset of a sample (e.g. young, old,
black, retired, mentally ill) is too small or too
likely to be under-represented in a simple
random sample
2. a stratified random sample will increase the
sampling fraction (percent of population
selected) for this segment
3. oversampling blacks, for example (as in the
Health and Retirement Survey) is an example
of a stratified sample
D. sociologists usually mean vertical sorting of the
population on some basis or another
1. unlike geologists, we are less certain or less
unanimous about the general processes that are
responsible for stratifying human societies
2. clearly, there are sociological equivalents of
erosion and sedimentation: routine processes
3. clearly there are sociological equivalents of ice
ages or volcanic eruptions: we call these
revolutions or institutional change
4. we will talk more about these when we get into
theories
II. Examples
A. Imagine a patriarchal society with very limited
differentiation
1. males versus females
2. old versus young
3. family relations (parents and children and
husbands and wives) would be the equivalent
of sedimentation and erosion
a. producing inequality
b. reproducing inequality
c. through exploitation of unpaid labor
of women and children
d. through monopolizing resources
through clan relations (brothers,
uncles, male cousins)
4. some clans might be wealthier than others
a. because they had more children
b. because they had more women
B. Imagine a highly differentiated egalitarian society
1. separate career and educational paths for a
variety of occupations
2. but all occupations would receive equal
rewards
III. Questions
A. Which society (A or B, above) is more
differentiated?
B. Which society has more inequality?
C. Which society seems more likely to exist (or to
have existed)?
D. Why?
IV. Consider, for a Moment, Philosophical/Moral Questions
A. Which is a better society?
B. Which is a more just society?
C. Which provides a better ideal toward which we
might strive?