Social Groups and Social
Stratification
(Miller Chapter 7)
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
The BIG Questions
 What is the range of cross-cultural
variation of social groups?
 What is social stratification, and what
are its effects on people?
 What is civil society?
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
What is a social group?
 A social group is a
cluster of people
beyond the domestic
unit who are usually
related on grounds
other than kinship,
although kinship
relationships may
exist between people
in the group
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Social group and responsibilities
 Members of all social groups have
a sense of rights and
responsibilities in relation to the
group which, if not maintained,
could mean loss of membership
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Categories of social groups
 Primary group – consisting of people
who interact with each other and know
each other personally
 Secondary group – consisting of
people who identify with each other on
some common ground but who may
never meet with one another or interact
with each other personally
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Types of Social Groups
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Friendship
Clubs and fraternities
Countercultural groups
Work groups
Cooperatives
Self-help groups
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Friendship
 Friendship refers to close social ties
between at least two people that are informal,
are voluntary, and (usually) involve personal,
face-to-face interaction
 Friends are mutually supportive of each other,
psychologically and sometimes materially
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Friendship
 Vary cross culturally
 e.g. Racial segregation, gender segregation may
limit possibilities for friendships
 Influenced by technology
 Cell phones, internet
 May play important roles in economic survival
 In low income communities
 Sharing, swapping goods (food and clothing),
baby sitting, lending money between individuals
 Often refer to each other by kin terms to signify the
importance and significance of these relationships
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May contribute
to economic
security among
the poor
Related to
microcultural
factors such
as gender,
age, class,
ethnicity, and
institutions
Friendship
Maintained
through
balanced
exchange
Usually between
social equals
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Clubs and Fraternities
 Clubs and fraternities are social groups that
define membership in terms of a sense of
shared identity and objectives
 May comprise of people of the same…
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Ethnic heritage
Occupation or business
Religion
Gender
 Often some sort of initiation to be accepted
 Anything from paying monetary dues to gang rape
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Clubs and Fraternities
 Have a variety of functions
 Sociability
 Psychological support
 Economic and political roles
 Sponsoring special events
 Responding to emergencies
 Collecting food or money to distribute to those
less fortunate
 Volunteering in the community in other ways
 etc.
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Clubs and Fraternities
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Clubs and Fraternities
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Countercultural Groups
 People who resist conforming to the
dominant cultural pattern – are outside
the “mainstream” of society
 Hippies
 Youth gangs
 Body modification groups
 Importance of bonding through shared
initiation and other rituals
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Youth gangs
 Youth gang refers to a group of young
people, found mainly in urban areas,
who are often considered a social
problem by adults and law enforcement
officials
 Are not always violent
 May be very formally organized or
informally organized
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Street gangs
 Street gangs are a formal variety of a
youth gang, often involved in unlawful
activities
 Have leaders and a hierarchy of
membership roles and responsibilities
 There are a variety of theories for why
individuals join street gangs
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Body Modification Groups
 Include people who have a sense of
community strengthened through forms
of body alteration
 Doing something that sets apart from
others, to identify with a certain body
modification group
 Often not accepted by the “mainstream”
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Work Groups
 Work groups are groups organized to
perform specific tasks
 Prominent in horticultural and agricultural
communities
 Building homes, roads, land preparation,
harvesting, or repair of irrigation canals
require large inputs of labor that exceed the
capability of a single household unit
 May provide labor for chiefs
 Often made up of youths
 Can be informally or formally organized
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Work Groups
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Cooperatives
 Cooperatives are a form of
economic group with three key
features
 Co-ops are owned and controlled
by their primary users
 Surpluses are shared among the
members
 Decision making follows the
democratic principle of one vote
per person
 May be beneficial
economically and may provide
a source of mutual strength
and support
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Self-Help Groups
 Self-help groups are groups formed to
achieve specific personal goals
 Coping with illness or bereavement
 Lifestyle change
 Trying to exercise more or lose weight
 Numbers have proliferated in recent
years
 Can occur in person or online
 http://dailystrength.org/support-groups
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Self-Help
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Social Stratification
 Social stratification consists of
hierarchical relationships between
different groups – as though they
were arranged in layers or strata
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Social Stratification
 A person’s position
or standing in
society is referred to
that person’s status
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Social Stratification
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All social stratification systems have several
commonalities
1. People in groups in higher positions have
privileges not experienced in lower-echelon
groups
2. Those with greater entitlements are dominant
those with lesser entitlements
3. Members of the dominant groups tend –
consciously or unconsciously – to seek to
maintain their position
4. In spite of efforts to maintain systems of
dominance, instances of subversion and
rebellion do occur, indicating the potential for
agency among the oppressed
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Social Stratification
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Social Stratification
 Status in society may be…
 Ascribed
 Based on qualities of a person gained through
birth
 More “closed” in terms of mobility within the
system
 “Race”
 Ethnicity
 Gender
 Age
 Physical ability
 Achieved
 Based on qualities of a person gained through
action
 More “open” in terms of mobility within the
system
 Class
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Social Stratification
Hierarchical relationships among different
groups including outright discrimination.
Achieved Status
Ascribed Status
Class
“Race”
Ethnicity
Caste
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Social Class
 Social class refers to a person’s or
group’s position in society defined
primarily in economic terms
 In many cultures, class is a key factor in
determining a person’s status, whereas
in others, it is less important than, for
example, birth into a certain family
 Is a secondary group
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Social Class
 Prevailing ideology in U.S. is that of
meritocratic individualism
 The belief that rewards go to those who deserve
them
 Individual has the option of moving up in class if
they work hard
 Structurists point to the power of economic
class position in shaping a person’s lifestyle
and his/her ability to choose a different one
 Lack of money and other economic resources
 Leads to inability to easily afford higher education
 Leads to inability to easily overcome poverty
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“Race”, Ethnicity, Gender, and
Caste
 Are secondary groups
 Highly determined at birth (ascribed),
but there is a slight degree of
maneuverability within the system
 Degree of maneuverability often depends
on the cultural-context
 Degree of discrimination against these
groups differs depending on the cultural
context
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“Race”
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Problem with the Traditional
Concept of “Race”
 Racial categories have no basis in
biology
 Biologically, race is not a valid concept,
especially from a genetic perspective
 Impossible to tell biologically where one
race ends and another begins
 Genetic variation within racial groups is
much greater than the genetic variation
between racial groups
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Modern Day Understanding of
Race in Everyday Life
 Race has been traditionally used as a
biological term, but it has enormous
social significance.
 Influence social identity (along with age
and gender)
 Plays a huge role in how someone is
initially perceived and judged by others
 Still a widespread perception that
certain physical characteristics are
associated with various cultural
attributes
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Modern Day Understanding of
Race in Everyday Life
 Racial classifications based on skin
color, depth of skin tone, skin texture,
hair color, facial features, other physical
features
 Levels of income, levels of education,
amount of money may influence racial
categorizations
 “Money whitens” in many areas
 People with the same physical features may be
considered to be in different “races” depending
upon how much money they have Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
Racism
 Based on false belief that intellect and
cultural factors are inherited with
physical characteristics.
 Uses culturally defined variables to
typify all members of particular
populations.
 Assumes that one's own group is
superior.
 Racism is a cultural phenomenon (not a
biological one) that is found worldwide.
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Racism
 Pretending that racism doesn’t exist
may allow it continue
 1994 – end of apartheid in South Africa
 Official end of laws supporting segregation
 Existence of racism is denied
 Led to lack of public discussions about racism
 Allows racial discrimination to continue in subtle
but often just as harmful ways
 http://www.imdiversity.com/villages/global/civil_
human_equal_rights/SouthAfricaUFS.asp
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Racism
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Example: post-apartheid
recovery in South Africa
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Racism
 Racism exists not only between
different “races”
 Racism exists even within “races”
 There has been a debate within the last
few years on whether Obama is black
enough…
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VyDNug2W
EI
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Ethnicity
 Ethnicity is a sense of group membership
based on a shared sense of identity
 Often self-defined versus categorizing people
in a particular “race” which is defined by
others
 May be based on the perception of shared
history, territory, language, religion, or a
combination of these
 May experience discrimination based on
ethnicity
 In extreme cases may experience ethnocide =
the annihilation of the culture of an ethnic group by
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a dominant group
Gender and Sexism
 Gender inequalities are based on
perceived differences between people
born male or female or somewhere in
between
 Varies cross culturally
 Patriarchy – male dominance in
economic, political, social, and ideological
domains
 Common but not universal cross culturally
 Varies in severity and results
 Honor killings are an extreme case
 Killing a woman whose behavior dishonors her
family
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Gender and Sexism
 Matriarchy – female dominance in
economic, political, social, and ideological
domains
 Much more rare
 Found among the pre-colonial Iroquois
 Minangkabau
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Caste System
 The caste system is a social stratification
system linked with Hinduism and based on
a person’s birth into a particular group
 Is an ascribed system
 Most associated with India
 Divided into four varnas (their term for their
major social categories)
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Brahmans - priests
Kshatriya - warriors
Vaishya - merchants
Shudras – laborers
 Within each of these varnas are hundreds of
locally named social categories called castes
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Caste System
 There is a fifth group of people called the
dalits, or untouchables.
 There are about 150 million dalits living in India
today
 Are the lowest grouping
 Sometimes placed outside the varnas system
because they are seen as not even being
human
 Discrimination based on caste is illegal in the
Indian constitution, but in practice
discrimination persists
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India’s Varna System: Basic of the
Caste/Jati System
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Brahmin
priests of
India
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Civil Society
 Civil society consists of diverse interest
groups that function outside the
government to organize economic,
political, and other aspects of life
 Can either support or oppose the state
 Activist groups
 Are formed with the goal of protesting certain conditions
such as political repression or human rights violations
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Interaction between Civil Society,
Government, and Business
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New Social Movements
 New social movements refers to activist
groups of the late 20th and early 21st century
 Often formed by oppressed minorities
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Indigenous peoples
Ethnic groups
Women
Poor
 Many use cybertechnology to involve networks wider
than their immediate social group
 Use cybernetworking to…
 Broaden their membership
 Exchange ideas
 Raise funds
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008
The BIG Questions Revisited
 What is the range of cross-cultural
variation of social groups?
 What is social stratification, and what
are its effects on people?
 What is civil society?
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2008