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Sociology part 2Lecture 7: social inequality and the state. Chapters 4,8, 9, 10.
a. Inequality from a stratification perspective
b. Openness: the meritocracy
c. Skewness: the role of the welfare state
Social stratification
Sociologists use the concept of social stratification to refer to a system by which a society ranks
categories of people in hierarchy, five basic principles tend to organize them everywhere.
1. Social stratification is a characteristic of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences.
It is a system that confers unequal access to resources.
2. Social stratification persists over generations. So that patters of inequality stay the same from
generation to generation. Social mobility is mostly horizontal, changing similar occupations.
3. Social stratification is universal but variable. It is found everywhere but what is unequal and how
unequal it is varies from one society to another.
4. Social stratification involves not just inequalities but beliefs. The explanation of why people are
unequal varies in societies.
5. Social stratification engenders shared identities as belonging to a particular social category
different from others.
Sociologists have recognized that social division and their linked inequalities are organized through a
range of key social structures, such as gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability and age. There are a key
number of processes at work such as:
-social exclusion and marginalization
-exploitation in which the transfer of the results of the labour of one social group to benefic another
-powerlessness, people come to lack authority, status and sense of self that many professionals tend
to have.
, -cultural imperialism: the universalization of a dominant group’s experience and culture, and its
established as the norm
-violence towards members of a group for simply belonging to that group.
The problem with systems of stratification is that they are interconnected: intersectionality is the
ways in which different forms of inequality and division interact with each other.
closed and open systems of stratification
Slavery: a form of social stratification in which people are owned by others as a property. It no longer
exists in its traditional forms. It is now more related to control through violence instead of ownership. It
can be:
-forced labour
-debt bondage
-Prostitution
-servile marriage
The estate system and the cast system
It is a system based on rigidly interlocking hierarchy of rights and obligations. The caste system is seen as
a form of social stratification based on inherited status or ascription. Race is often a tool used by the
cast. In those systems birth determines people’s life in four aspects, occupation, marriage, company ‘of
their kind’, and powerful cultural beliefs. It is a system typical of agrarian societies, based on a strong
sense of duty and discipline.
The class system
Industrial societies are based on developing special talents. Social class then is the social stratification
resulting from the unequal distribution of wealth, power and prestige. It is more open and based on
individual achievement. The similarities of all those systems is that people remain unequal.
,stability and change
• Reproduction: you are more likely to belong to the same social class as your parents
• Mobility: a part of the population will move up or down the social ladder
reproduction
Origin
, Parents want their children to be at least equally well-off as themselves In our societies that means
obtaining education and a decent job Family resources help children to achieve that:
• Economic capital (tuitions, tutors, time, housing)
• Social capital (job information and favors)
• Cultural capital (childrearing values, vocabulary)
Education
Labor market
Education and occupation have a large influence on your income
The figure on your left shows, per social class, median income for a three-person household across three
years in the U.S.A. (source: Pew research center)
Class conflict
A (too) brief history of class conflict
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