Social Class and Social Stratification

Review of social status Statuses are socially defined positions in groups or societies that carry with them certain expectations, rights, and duties. Statuses exist independent of their occupants. We are not the status, we occupy the status. “Alexis is not the status. Student, woman, worker: these are her statuses for society. Senior is her status for her group (FHS). Some statuses are highly ranked, while others are lowly ranked.

Ascribed and achieved status Ascribed statuses are positions conferred at birth or received involuntarily later in life. Examples include race/ethnicity, age, and gender. Ascribed statuses affect the achieved statuses we occupy. Examples of this (money at birth, physical attributes, race, gender) Achieved statuses are positions assumed voluntarily as a result of personal choice, merit, or direct effort. Examples include occupation, education, and income. Some achieved statuses, like that of drug addict, are negative. Both of these types of statuses are given (by societal norms or beliefs) as well as taken/earned (examples) This “ranking” of statuses is what we refer to as social stratification

Social Stratification the hierarchical arrangement of large social groups based on their control over basic resources. Refers to a society’s categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education and power.

Why sociologists study stratification While there are always inequalities between individuals, sociologists are interested in larger social patterns. Stratification is not about individual inequalities, but about systematic inequalities based on group membership, classes etc Stratification involves patterns of inequality as well as ideologies that support the patterns. No one person is to blame for social inequalities; social stratification is created and supported by society as a whole Sociologists examine the social groups in the hierarchy and try to understand how inequalities are structured and why they persist.

Systems of Stratification and mobility Systems of stratification may be open or closed based on the availability of social mobility―the movement of individuals or groups from one level in a stratification system to another. Intergenerational mobility is the social movement experienced by family members from one generation to the next. Intragenerational mobility is the social movement of individuals within their own lifetime.

Types of systems Slavery, a closed system, is an extreme form of stratification in which people are owned. Some analysts claim only five societies had extensive slavery: ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the United States, the Caribbean, and Brazil. In the United States, slaves were inherited, seen as property rather than human beings, denied rights, and kept in their place by coercion. Many people in the U.S. think of slavery as a historical event, and do not realize that slavery still exists today. Trafficking is "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion" according to the United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.

Systems cont A caste system is a system of social inequality in which people's status is permanently determined at birth based on their parents' ascribed characteristics. Vestiges of caste systems exist in contemporary India and South Africa. In India, caste is based partly on occupation; in South Africa, it was based on race. Marriages are endogamous. Patterns associated with caste persist long after formally being abolished.

Systems cont The class system is a type of stratification based on the ownership and control of resources, and on the type of work people do. In class systems, position comes at least in part through achievement. Mobility can be upward or downward. Downward social mobility can be caused by any number of reasons, including lack of jobs, low wages and employment instability, marriage to someone with fewer resource and less power than oneself, and changing social conditions.

Sociological perspectives on class stratification

Karl Marx and Social Conflict According to Marx, class position and the extent of our income and wealth are determined by our work situation, or our relationship to the means of production. The bourgeoisie or capitalist class consists of those who privately own the means of production; the proletariat, or workers, must sell their labor power to the owners in order to earn enough money to survive. Class relationships involve inequality and exploitation; workers are exploited as capitalists expropriate a surplus value from their labor.

Weber: Wealth, prestige, and power Weber's multidimensional approach to stratification focused on the interplay among wealth, prestige, and power in determining a person's class position. Weber placed people who have a similar level of wealth―the value of a person's or family's economic assets, including income, personal property, and income producing property―and income in the same class. He identified classes including entrepreneurs, or wealthy professionals and merchants, rentiers, who live off of their investments and don't have to work, and those who work for a living—the middle class and the working class. Prestige, the second dimension of stratification, is the respect or regard with which a person or status position is regarded by others. Those who share similar levels of social prestige belong to the same status group regardless of their level of wealth. Power, the final dimension of stratification, is the ability of people or groups to carry out their own goals despite opposition from others. Power gives some people the ability to shape