Sociology: Chapter 7

Structural Functionalism—Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore

Social stratification is a system of rewards that is unequally distributed among various roles. Higher roles are more desirable and critical for the functioning of society than lower roles. There is an assumption of meritocracy.

Relative deprivation

is a comparative measure,

Culture of poverty

is a term coined by Oscar Lewis, who suggested that the poor develop a way of life that included attitudes of resignation and fatalism, which causes poverty to pass on generationally.

Social inequality

is the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige in society. Social inequality profoundly affects individuals' life experiences.

working poor

make up 20 percent of the population, often working in lower-paid manual and service industry jobs or doing seasonal work.

upper class

makes up 1 percent of the U.S. population. This group's total net worth is greater than that of the entire remaining 90 percent. Members of this class earn in excess of $250,000 per year and are often highly educated, cultured, and influential.

upper middle class

makes up 14 percent of the population. Members are well educated and highly skilled, making upward of $89,000 to more than $150,000 per year.

middle class

makes up 30 percent of the population, though there are some indications that its proportion is shrinking. Generally, the middle class works as skilled laborers in technical and lower-management jobs, earning from $55,000 to $88,000.

working class, or lower middle class

makes up 30 percent of the population. Working-class members tend to be semiskilled workers in manual labor, clerical jobs, and the service industry, and make around $23,000 to $54,000 per year.

underclass

makes up about 5 percent of the population. Its members are generally not well educated and lack valuable work skills. Because members may be seldom or unemployed, many depend on public or private assistance for an average income of less than $7,500 per year.

Social stratification

means that members of a society are categorized and divided into groups that occupy particular places in a social hierarchy. Higher-level groups will enjoy more access to the rewards and resources within that society, leaving lower-level groups with less.

absolute deprivation

measures the extent to which people are unable to meet minimum standards for food, shelter, clothing, and health care.

Caste System

A caste system is a highly stratified society where a person has little or no chance of changing his or her position within the hierarchy regardless of individual achievement. Caste is usually based on heredity. South Africa's apartheid system (1948-91) was a caste system based on race and ethnicity. South Africans were classified into four main racial groups: white, black, Indian (from Asia), and colored (mixed race). Although blacks made up 60 percent of the population, they were subject to substandard treatment and access to resources. Apartheid maintained geographical and social separation of racial groups.

Weberian Theory—Max Weber

Class involves wealth, power, and prestige. Power is the ability to impose one's will on others. Prestige refers to social honor that comes from membership in certain groups. Although wealth, power and prestige are interrelated, they are separate and distinct concepts.

Symbolic Interaction—David Sudnow

Class is constructed from everyday social interactions. Sudnow argues that we make split-second judgments about who people are and which social status they occupy, and then act on these judgments. Aaron Cicourel maintains that we make inferences about the statuses of others based on the social situation in which we encounter them. Erving Goffman notes that we interpret different aspects of identity by interpreting the behavior of others, and others do the same to us. We are constantly evaluating the class statuses of others, while they are evaluating our class status. Class, then, is a performance of particular elements that make up our presentations of self.

Postmodernism—Pierre Bourdieu

Class is created by social reproduction, through which it is passed from one generation to another. Cultural capital refers to the tastes, habits, and expectations that parents pass on to their children. Cultural capital can hinder or help people in their lives.

Education

Education and class status affect one another in a self-perpetuating feedback cycle. Typically, the higher a person's education level is, the higher his or her income will be. A person's class background will also affect his or her attitudes and access to education.

Basic principles of social stratification are:

It is a characteristic of society rather than a reflection of individual differences. It persists over generations. Different societies use different criteria for ranking. It is maintained through beliefs that are widely shared by members of a society.

Criminal Justice

Members of lower classes are more likely to encounter the criminal-justice system than members of upper classes because people in lower classes are often more visible and less powerful, and thereby more likely to be labeled as criminals. Poor people are also more likely to be victims of violent crime than rich people.

Health

SES affects both overall health and access to health care. Those with more education are more likely to report being in excellent health. Those with higher SES also have a lifespan five years longer than that of people of low SES.

Work and Income

Social class affects a person's chances to work. Lower-class workers generally are unemployed or underemployed more often than upper- or upper-middle-class workers. Some among the extremely privileged upper class are able to live a luxurious lifestyle without having to work for income.

Family

Social class has an effect on the age when people marry, the age when they have children, and how many children they have.

Conflict Theory—Karl Marx

Social inequality exists where capitalists have a distinct advantage over workers. Wealth becomes concentrated among a small group of the elite.

Social Class

System of stratification practiced primarily in capitalist societies. Ranks individuals and groups using variables of wealth, education, income, power, and occupation; these factors together are commonly known as socioeconomic status (SES).

Slavery

The most extreme system of social stratification, slavery relegates people to the status of property, mainly for labor. Slaves have none of the rights common to free members. Slavery is an economic system that is profitable to the owner at the expense of the slaves, who endure extreme subjugation. Currently prohibited in every nation in the world, slavery is both illegal and immoral. Nevertheless, forms of slavery such as child slavery, serfdom, forced and bonded laborers, human trafficking, and sex slavery persist.

Intergenerational mobility

refers to change in social class that occurs from one generation to the next.

Social mobility

refers to movement from one social class to another.

Intragenerational mobility

refers to the change in social class that occurs in an individual's lifetime.

Vertical social mobility

refers to the movement between different class statuses.

Structural mobility

occurs when large numbers of people move up or down the social ladder because of structural changes in society as a whole.

Horizontal social mobility

refers to the occupational movement of individuals or groups within a social class.

closed system

there is little opportunity for social mobility. However, the apparent opportunities in a more open system may be more perception than reality.