Chapter 12
Social Stratification
What We Will Learn
•
•
•
To what extent do the societies of the
world vary in terms of the equitable
distribution of power, prestige, and
wealth?
How do class systems differ from caste
systems?
What are the different ways of interpreting
systems of social stratification?
Social Inequality
•
Max Weber’s criteria for measuring social
inequality:
• Wealth - the extent to which they have
accumulated economic resources
• Power - the ability to achieve one’s goals and
objectives even against the will of others
• Prestige- social esteem, respect or
admiration that a society confers on people
Wealth
•
With a net worth of
over $50 billion in
October 2006,
Microsoft’s Bill Gates
represents the upper
level of wealth in the
United States and the
world.
Three Types of Societies
•
Based on levels of social inequality:
• Egalitarian - no individual or group has
appreciably more wealth, power, or prestige
than any other.
• Rank - unequal access to prestige or status
but not unequal access to wealth or power.
• Stratified societies - considerable inequality
in all forms of social rewards (power,wealth,
and prestige).
Egalitarian Societies
•
•
•
No individual or group has more wealth, power,
or prestige than any other.
Everyone, depending on skill level, has equal
access to positions of esteem and respect.
Found most readily among geographically
mobile food collectors
• Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari region
• Inuit
• Hadza of Tanzania
Egalitarian Societies
•
Small-scale foraging
societies, such as the
Hadza of Tanzania,
tend to be egalitarian.
Rank Societies
•
•
•
•
Unequal access to prestige but not to wealth or
power.
Fixed number of high-status positions, which
only certain individuals can occupy.
Primogeniture is the exclusive right of the
eldest usually the son) to inherit his father’s
estate.
Found most prominently in Oceania and among
Native Americans of the Northwest.
Stratified Societies
•
•
Considerable inequality in power, wealth,
and prestige.
As societies become more specialized,
the system of social stratification
becomes more complex.
Stratified Societies
•
In stratified societies, different groups have different
levels of power, prestige, and wealth. In the United
States over the past three decades, the gap between
those at the bottom and those at the top has widened.
Status
•
•
Achieved status
• The status an individual acquires during
the course of her or his lifetime.
Ascribed status
• The status a person has by virtue of
birth.
Class Versus Caste
•
•
In class systems an individual can
change his or her social position
dramatically within a lifetime.
Caste societies have no social mobility,
membership in a caste is determined by
birth and lasts throughout one’s lifetime.
Question
•
At the low end of the inequality
continuum are _______ societies, which
maintain a high level of equality among
the group's members.
a) caste
b) egalitarian
c) ranked
d) stratified
Answer: b
•
At the low end of the inequality
continuum are egalitarian societies,
which maintain a high level of equality
among the group's members.
Question
•
______ societies have unequal access
to prestige, status, wealth, and power.
a) Egalitarian
b) Stratified
c) State
d) Rank
Answer: b
•
Stratified societies have unequal access
to prestige, status, wealth, and power.
Question
•
In _______ societies, membership is
determined at birth, and social mobility
is not possible.
a) caste
b) stratified
c) egalitarian
d) rank
Answer: a
•
In caste societies, membership is
determined at birth, and social mobility is
not possible.
U.S. Class Structure
Class
Income
Education
Occupation
%
Capitalist
$1,000,000
Prestige
universities
CEOs,
investors, heirs
1
$100,000+
Top colleges
/postgraduate
Upper
managers,
professionals
14
High school
/some college
Lower
managers,
teachers, civil
servants
30
Upper
middle
Middle
$55,000
U.S. Class Structure
Class
Income
Education
Occupation
%
Working
$35,000
High school
Clerical, sales,
factory
30
Working
poor
$22,000
Some high
school
Underclass
$10,000 or
less
Some high
school
Service, laborers
Unemployed
13
12
U.S.Class Structure: Katrina
•
Many Katrina victims
waited for days at the
New Orleans
Superdome for
government help
because they didn’t
have a Saab to drive
to a Marriott Hotel
further inland.
U.S.Class Structure:
Donald Trump
•
“You’re fired!” The
capitalist class has
considerable power
over jobs held by the
rest of society.
Hindu Caste Society
•
•
•
Social boundaries are strictly maintained by
caste endogamy and notions of ritual purity and
pollution.
Caste system has persisted for 2,000 years and
enables the upper castes to maintain a
monopoly on wealth, status, and power.
Varnas are caste groups in Hindu India that are
associated with certain occupations.
Hindu Caste Society
•
•
•
Dalit is the politically correct term for those
formerly called the Untouchables in India.
Jati are local subcastes found in Hindu India.
Sanskritization is a form of upward social
mobility found in contemporary India whereby
people born into lower castes can achieve
higher status by taking on some of the
behaviors and practices of the highest
(Brahmin) caste.
Hindu Caste Society
•
The Dalits in India
engage in only the
lowest-status jobs.
Race
•
•
•
•
Race - classification based on physical traits.
Ethnicity - classification based on cultural
characteristics.
There are no pure races.
Different populations have been interbreeding for
thousands of years, resulting in a continuum of human
physical types.
Ethnic Stratification
•
A Gypsy (Roma)
woman and children
beg outside a church
in Bratislava,
Slovakia.
Race And Ethnicity In The
United States
•
If Tony Manero, played
by John Travolta in the
1977 film Saturday Night
Fever, was living in
Brooklyn today, he would
be sharing his ItalianAmerican neighborhood
with large numbers of
Chinese, Russians, and
Ukrainians.
Race And Ethnicity In The
United States
•
Tiger Woods, one of
the greatest golfers of
all time, is the son of
an Asian-American
mother and an
African-American
father. What race is
he?
Forms of Intergroup Relations
1.
2.
3.
Pluralism: two or more groups live in
harmony and retain their own heritage,
pride, and identity.
Assimilation: a racial or ethnic minority
is absorbed into the wider society.
Legal protection of minorities: the
government steps in to legally protect
the minority group.
Forms of Intergroup Relations
4.
5.
6.
Population transfer: physical removal of
a minority group to another location.
Long-term subjugation: political,
economic and social repression for
indefinite periods of time.
Genocide: mass annihilation of groups
of people.
Social Stratification: Theories
•
•
Functionalist
• Class systems contribute to the well-being of
a society by encouraging constructive
endeavor.
Conflict
• Stratification systems exist because the
upper classes strive to maintain a superior
position at the expense of the lower classes.
Conflict Theory
•
•
Bourgeoisie
• Karl Marx’s term referring to the middle class
(those who own the means of production).
Proletariat
• The term used in conflict theories of social
stratification to describe the working class
who exchange their labor for wages.
Global Stratification
•
The average income of people in the United
States is roughly 376 times as much as this
Ethiopian farmer.
Ten Richest Nations
Per Capital GNI (2004)
Luxembourg
Norway
Switzerland
Bermuda
United States
Denmark
$56,380
$51,810
$49,600
estimated
$41,400
$40,750
Liechtenstein
Iceland
estimated
$37,920
Sweden
Japan
$35,840
$37,050
Ten Poorest Nations
Per Capital GNI (2004)
Niger
Rwanda
Sierra Leone
Eritrea
Guinea Bissau
Malawi
Liberia
Congo Democratic Republic
Ethiopia
Burundi
$210
$210
$210
$190
$160
$160
$120
$110
$110
$90