Social stratification

08-16-2015
1
What does the term mean to you?

It is when there is an unequal distribution of
resources and opportunities. The outcome
becomes predictable.
2

Have you heard of the Skull and Bones
club?
Think about that and the following slides.
4

It is the club. The big guys. Bankers.
Political leaders. The whole gamut. You
are not invited.
8
This is the previous
Chairman of the Federal
Reserve, Ben Bernake.
He is invited.

This theory views poverty as a chronic, self-
perpetuating pattern that occurs because
of the different values of the poor.
This is a way of justifying poverty in the US.
10

This is the situation in which people slip into
poverty for a limited time after major
adverse events, such as illness or divorce.
11

This suggests that changes in the nature of
industry from manufacturing to service-
sector employment produces vulnerability
among some workers.
12

This refers to people exhibiting persistent
poverty.
13

Where do your choices begin? And why are
they the way they are.
Think of it as
“The Lottery of Birth”
15
(Hughes and Kroehler, 2005)

What is your “Social Mobility”?
(Defined as the process in which individuals
or groups move from one level to another in a
stratification system.)
16

17
1. Vertical Mobility
2. Horizontal Mobility
3. Intergenerational Mobility (from
one generation to the next)
4. Intragenerational Mobility (change
over time)

 The rankings apply to social categories of people who
share a common characteristic without necessarily
interacting or identifying with each other. (Women vs.
men; wealthy from poor.)
 People’s life experiences and opportunities depend
heavily on how their social category is ranked. (Being
male or female, or black or white.)
 The ranks of different social categories tend to change
very slowly over time. (Thinks of women’s gains and
black’s gains—they have been slow.)
 Do you agree?
20

There are two primary types of social
systems according to Hughes and
Kroehler.
Open systems
and
Closed systems
21
NOTE: This has now
become nearly useless.

Systems in which people have a great
deal of trouble changing their social
status we call closed systems.
A closed class system is supported by
stratification that is based primarily on
ascribed status.
There is little social mobility.
22

23
Brahmin (priests) The elites
Kshatriyas (warriors) public
service, law
Vaishyas (traders) business
Shudras (workmen) semi-
skilled labor
Panchama (untouchables)

Systems in which people have a relatively
easy time changing their status are called
open systems. The United States is a
fairly good example of an open system.
24

25
Who decides what is fair?
Who actually accomplishes
anything
by themselves?
The idea is not the reality

Hughes and Kroehler note that we identify
social classes three ways:
The Objective method
The self-placement method
The reputational method
27

1. Class is a statistical category:
Assignment is based upon income,
occupation or education.
2. These are measurable attributes.
3. Consider “occupational prestige” scores.
28

Physician 82
College Professor 78
Attorney 76
Dentist 74
Clergy 70
Nurse 62
Plumber 41
Mechanic 37
Taxi Driver 22
Garbage Collector 17
Janitor 16
Shoeshine 9
29

1. Class is viewed as a social category in
which people group themselves with
others they perceive as sharing certain
attributes in common.
2. Class lines may or may not conform to
what social scientists think are logical
lines of cleavage.
3. But the class with which people identify
may be one that is aspired to, rather than
one which is actually participated in.
30

1. Individuals (respondents) are asked to
classify others.
2. This views class as a social group—one
with shared feelings of oneness with
stable patterns of interaction.
3. Consider social solidarity.
4. Useful for studying small groups and
communities.
31

1. Education
2. Occupation
3. Political power or position
4. Prestige
5. Economic status
32

”We encounter Mrs. Jones. She works as
a salesperson in a department store, is
an owner of a piece of land inherited
from her farmer father, is married to a
machinist, has a son who is studying to
be an accountant, and is white and
Catholic. We hesitate on how to classify
her…to classify is to homogenize.”
~Adam Przeworski (Capitalism and
Social Democracy, 1985, p. 94) in Google
Books

How political action flows from class
interests:
Alexander Hamilton observed: the rich
seek social stability to preserve their
advantage, but the poor work for social
change that would bring them a larger
share of the world’s rewards.
(from Gilbert, 2008)
34

A position within a group or society.
A status is within a class structure so is
different from class itself.
35

While Marx wrote extensively about class,
Max Weber studied stratification from a
different perspective. One of status.
36

His special contributions were:
1 To introduce a conceptual clarity that were
often lacking in the work of Marx.
2 To highlight the subjective aspects of
stratification, as expressed in everyday
interactions.
37

When one measure of status is inconsistent
with another.
A Ph.D. driving a cab
Adjunct teachers as being of low wealth
38

Class situation or membership …is
defined by the individual’s strength in
economic markets to the extent that
they determine individual life chances
(as originally proposed by Max Weber).
39

By this is meant the fundamental aspects of
an individual’s future possibilities that are
shaped by class membership.
What do you think your life chances are?
What does the future hold for you based
upon your class membership?
40

The propertyless can be differentiated by the
occupational skills that they bring to the
marketplace: The life chances of an
unskilled worker have vastly different from
those of a well-trained engineer. This
differs from Marx’s simplified differentiation
of workers and owners. It is much more
diverse than that implied by Marx.
41

It is a probabilistic concept-that is, the
probability of where you were born and
born to. It looks at likely it is, given
certain factors, that an individual's life
will turn out a certain way.
42

This is NOT about what one might
achieve through effort, but rather what
the likelihood that such effort will ever
occur, or if it does, the odds on its
success being realized.
43

The term Economic Mobility is useful here, if not exactly the
same as Life Chances. It is still the idea of improving one’s
social status (SES). For the US, it is not looking very good. 44

Social Class, then, becomes a group of
people who share the same economically
shaped life chances.
Status…is ranking by social prestige.
The members of a class may have little
sense of shared identity [while] members
of a status group generally think of
themselves as a social community.
45

“With some over-simplification, one might
thus say that ‘classes’ are stratified
according to their relations to the
production and acquisition of goods;
whereas ‘status groups’ are stratified
according to the principles of their
consumption of goods as represented
by special ‘styles of life.’”
(quote from Gilbert, 2008)
46

Income refers to the amount of new money
people receive within a given time interval.
Wealth has to do with what people own at
a particular point in time.
47

65
Country Best off 10th Poorest 10th Inequality Index
Sweden 152% 56% 2.7
Netherlands 175 62 2.9
Norway 162 55 2.9
Switzerland 185 54 3.4
France 193 55 3.5
United Kingdom 194 51 3.8
Canada 184 46 4.0
Italy 198 49 4.1
United States 206 35 5.9
DEFINITION of 'Gini Index'
A measurement of the income distribution of a country's residents. This
number, which ranges between 0 and 1 and is based on residents' net income,
helps define the gap between the rich and the poor, with 0 representing perfect
equality and 1 representing perfect inequality (Investopedia Dictionary)

66
Credit Pearson Publishing 2014 from something or other.

This is all to say that in highly egalitarian
societies, the percentages of aggregate
income for each economic layer should be
fairly close to each other.
67

We have a system that is based upon
capital, not productivity. Capital is
dominated by an elite few.
This might be called “late capitalism.”
68

“…in the simplest societies, or those
which are technologically most primitive,
the goods and services available [are]
distributed wholly, or largely on the basis
of need, [whereas] with technological
advance, an increasing proportion of the
goods and services available to a
society [are] distributed on the basis of
power.”
(Lenski, 1966 in Gelles and
Levine 1999: 275)
69

Let’s take a theoretical view of
why there is such a wide
disparity of wealth in this and
other countries.
70

According to the functionalist
view, social stratification is a
structural feature of all
societies.
71

1 Society must make certain that its positions
are filled.
2 Some positions are more important than
others.
3 The more important positions must be filled by
the more qualified people.
4 To fill the greater positions we must offer a
greater reward.
(Davis and Moore in Henslin, 2011)
72

But, isn’t the garbage collector a very important
part of society?
And if the functionalist perspective is true, then
society would be a true meritocracy—but
the best predictor of who goes to a
prestigious college is wealth, not merit.
And if stratification is so functional, it should
benefit everyone.
(Henslin, 2011)
73

This theory holds that social stratification
exists because it benefits some members
of society while at the expense of others.
Consider the banks and mortgage crisis
who benefitted and who lost?
Consider Oil and Gas companies– who
benefits from increased gasoline prices?
76

The concept of “Surplus Value”
The notion of “False Consciousness”
77

The difference between the value that
workers create (determined by the labor-
time invested in a commodity that they
produce) and the value that they receive
(as determined by the subsistence level of
their wages).
78

The belief in the values and ideals which do
not best serve one’s own interests. I.e. the
worker’s belief in a strong work ethic which
does not benefit the worker, but does
benefit the owners of the means of
production.
(ibid)
79

 Forbes magazine in an article in 2012 states:
 It’s a common belief in America that all people have
the same opportunity for success as the top 1 percent.
Most people consider success to be a by-product of
hard work, and hard work is something that Americans
are extremely familiar with. In fact, Americans have
increased productivity by 80 percent since 1979;
unfortunately, their income hasn’t risen accordingly, if
at all.
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneywisewomen/2012/03/21/average-america-vs-
the-one-percent/)
81

Dual Labor Market
This is what we most likely perceive intuitively. A
dual labor market is one in which one tier gets a
higher wage than the other tier.
Have you had a job that had a wage that was
significantly lower than that of another group of
workers in the same organization?
This relates to race, class, gender, age, disability,
etc.
82

Dual Labor Market
CORE and PERPHIRY
A dual labor market has the primary, or core, sector
of the economy offering “good jobs’ and the
secondary, or periphery, sector offering “bad jobs”
with poor pay and poor working conditions.
83

Global Core and Periphery
In a geopolitical sense (global nations and
corporations) “core” means a nation that utilizes the
resources of “peripheral” nations. The core benefits
from the peripheral’s natural resources. While this
still happens (think Apple and “rare earths” in
China, we need to include the use of cheap labor as
a means of supporting the core state’s more
comfortable lifestyle. So it goes.
84

85
Capitalists (The Bourgeoisie)
Own and control means of production
Achieve wealth through capital
Workers (The Proletariat)
Work for wages
Vulnerable to displacement by
machines and cheap labor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vus4b8F
RTKM
90

91
Corporate rich,
executive branch,
military leaders
Interest group
leaders, legislators, local
opinion leaders
Unorganized, exploited masses

92
Social Upper Class
Corporate
Community
Policy Formation
Organizations
The Power Elite
Based upon Mills’ “elite” model

1 Super class: Owners and employers.
Investments or ownership. Incomes at six to
seven figure level.
2 Credentialed Class (Managers): Med- and
upper-level managers and CEOs of
corporations and public organizations.
3 Professionals: Credentialed skill (college and
professional degrees). High social capital.
Income from $75K to upper six figure.
95
Privileged class (20%)

1 Comfort class: Nurses, teachers, civil servants.
Income from $35K to $50K
2 Contingent class: Work for wages in clerical and
sales, personal services and transportation. Often
college graduates. Income under $30K.
3 Self-employed: Usually with no employees.
Family workers. Low incomes and high rate of
failure.
4 Excluded class: In and out of labor market in a
variety of unskilled, temporary jobs.
96
New Working Class (80%)

Social stratification

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (20)

Destaque

Destaque (20)

Semelhante a Social stratification

Semelhante a Social stratification (20)

Mais de Eric Strayer

Mais de Eric Strayer (20)

Último

Último (20)

Social stratification