Social Differentiation and Social Stratification Status: socially defined position in a group or society. Social Differentiation: process by which different statuses in any group develop. Social Stratification: fixed arrangement in society by which groups have different access to resources, power, and perceived social worth.

Forms of Stratification  Estate System: the elite have total control over societal resources, including property  Caste System: assigned to an individual at birth.  Class System: possibility of changing over time, based on achieved status.

Defining Class  Social class is the social structural position that groups hold relative to economic, social, and political, and cultural resources of society.  Life Chances: opportunities that people in a particular class have in common, education, jobs, housing

 Measures that represent concepts:  Income* Race  Education level* Gender  Occupation* Ancestry  Place of residence  Material goods

 th centuries in Western Europe  Enlightenment (the Age of Reason)  Positivism: accurate observation and description, not religious dogma or unfounded speculation  Humanitarianism: human reason can improve society for all Auguste Comte (1789 – 1857) – coined the phrase “sociology” – believed in careful observation of human behavior to uncover laws of social behavior Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 1859) – Democracy in America Harriet Martineau (1802 – 1876) – Society in America

Emile Durkheim (French, ): People in society are held together by shared belief systems. Social facts exist outside individuals and exist to constrain behavior, a collective reality. Basis for “functionalism.” Karl Marx (German, ) Society is shaped by economic forces, with the system of capitalism (which is class-based) dictating individual behavior. Max Weber (German, ) Society has 3 basic dimensions: economic, political, and cultural. In looking at society, one is already a product of it, thus objectivity should be emphasized even though it is flawed. Verstehen = understanding social behavior from point of view of participants. Scientific approach.

 American and European sociologists both conceived society as an “organic metaphor” – society is constantly evolving.  American sociology was built on the earlier work of the Europeans, but distinctive American flavor: Pragmatism

 Social Darwinism: e.g. William Graham Sumner ( ) claimed that survival of the fittest=concept justified the inequities in society (social evolution)  Social Telesis: e.g. Lester Frank Ward ( ) claimed that human intervention in natural evolution of society would advance interests of society.  industrialization, urbanization

 Method of approaching sociology that developed at the University of Chicago  Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead: individual identity developed through people’s understanding of how they are perceived by others.  Robert Park: city/neighborhood boundaries  Jane Addams: founder of the Hull House

W.E.B DU BOIS (1868 – 1963): cofounder of the NAACP (1909), Ph.D. from Harvard (first one awarded by Harvard to an African-American) Asst. Professor of Sociology at University of Pennsylvania (had to live in the settlement he was studying)

 Functionalism: emphasizes the stability and integration in society  Conflict Theory: sees society as organized around the unequal distribution of resources, held together by power and coercion  Symbolic Interaction: emphasizes role of individuals in giving meaning to social behavior, thereby creating society