Chapter 9Social
Stratification
In Conflict and Order:
Understanding Society, 11th edition
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Major Concepts
Social Differentiation is the process
of categorizing people by age,
height, occupation, or some other
personal attribute.
Social Stratification is when people
are ranked in a hierarchy that
differentiates them as superior or
inferior.
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Major Concepts
The hierarchies of stratification—
class, race and gender—place
groups, individuals, and families in
the larger society.
Life Chances refers to the chances
throughout one’s life cycle to live and
to experience the good things in life.
Traditionally, the family has been
viewed as the principal unit in the
class system.
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Class
Social Class
Social classes are formed when a number
of people occupy the same relative
economic rank in the stratification system.
Privilege refers to the distribution of goods
and services, situations and experiences
that are highly valued and beneficial.
Class privileges are based on the
systematic linkages between families and
society.
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Race and Ethnicity
Race and Ethnicity
Race is socially defined on the basis of a
presumed common genetic heritage
resulting in distinguishing physical
characteristics.
Ethnicity refers to the condition of being
culturally rather than physically
distinctive.
The most important feature of racial
stratification is the exclusion of people
of color from equal access to society’s
valued resources.
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Gender
Gender
The sex-gender system is the
stratification system that assigns
women’s and men’s role unequally.
Sex roles refers to behaviors
determined by an individual’s biological
sex.
Patriarchy is the term for forms of social
organization in which men are dominant
over women.
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The Intersection of Class, Race
and Gender
The hierarchies of class, race and
gender are interrelated systems of
stratification.
These systems of inequality forms
what Patricia Hill Collins calls a
matrix of domination in which each
of us exists.
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Theories of Stratification
Order Theory
Order theorists argue that social
inequality is universal and natural.
They argue that inequality serves as a
basic function by motivating the most
talented people to perform the most
important tasks.
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Theories of Stratification
Conflict Theory
Conflict theorists argues that social
inequality is basically unjust and the
source of many social problems.
They argues that the oppressed often
accept their deprivation as the result of
false consciousness.
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Deficiency Theories
Biological Inferiority
The biological explanation of poverty is
that the poor are innately inferior.
Some theorists have argued that certain
categories of people are disadvantaged
because they are less well endowed
mentally (a theoretical version of social
Darwinism).
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Deficiency Theories
Cultural Inferiority
The culture of poverty thesis contends
that the poor are qualitatively different
in values and lifestyles from the
successful and that these differences
explain the persistence of poverty from
generation to generation.
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Deficiency Theories
Critics of innate inferiority and
culture-of-poverty explanations
charge that, in blaming the victim,
both theories ignore how social
conditions trap individuals and
groups in poverty.
The source of the problem lies not in
the victims but in the way society is
organized to advantage some and
disadvantage others.
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Structural Theories
Institutional Discrimination occurs
when the customary ways of doing
things, prevailing attitudes and
expectations, and accepted
structural arrangements work to the
disadvantage of the poor.
The poor are trapped by this type of
discrimination.
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Structural Theories
The Political Economy of Society
The basic tenet of capitalism--the primacy
of maximizing profit-- promotes poverty in
several ways
Employers are constrained to pay their
workers the least possible in wages and
benefits.
By maintaining a surplus of laborers
wages are depressed
Employers make investment decisions
without regard for their employees
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2007
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2007