SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

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SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
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WHAT IS SOCIAL STRATIFICATION?

• SYSTEM IN WHICH GROUPS OF PEOPLE ARE DIVIDED INTO
  LAYERS ACCORDING TO THEIR RELATIVE POWER,
  PROPERTY AND PRESTIGE

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Systems of Stratification

• Describes systems of social inequality among
  different groups of people
• People in our society are classified as members
  of various categories according to their gender,
  race and class

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TYPES OF STRATIFICATION

• SLAVERY-ownership of some people by others
• CASTE-system in which status is determined by
  birth and is lifelong organization of people
  into fixed hereditary groups in which there is
  little or no chance for children to escape the
  group

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SLAVERY

• Debt
• Crime
• War

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CASTE

• Brahman (Priests and teachers)
• Kshatriya (Rulers and soldiers)
• Vaishy (Merchants and traders)
• Shudra (Peasants and laborers)
• Dalit (outcastes doing degrading or polluting
  labor
• Endogamy
• Ritual pollution/ablution

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Class Systems

• Social Class-group of individuals or families who
  occupy a similar position in the economic system
  of production, distribution and consumption of
  goods and services in industrial societies

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What is Social Class?

• 1. Class is economically based and is measured
  by economic variables such as occupation, income
  and ownership of wealth

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What is Social Class?

• Class is a social relationship. There must be
  more than one class as class is dependent on
  inequality. There is an assumption that some
  people have a relationship of inequality with
  others in the society.

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What is Social Class?

• Class system boundaries are fluid. People can
  move in and out of the class into which they were
  born.

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What is Social Class?

• Class positions are in some part achieved (rather
  than ascribed). It is difficult (and highly
  unlikely) to be born into a working-class family
  and later become a member of the owning class but
  not impossible

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Weber and Social Class

• Three components
• Property
• Prestige
• power

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Perspectives on Class

• An example of a Functionalist Perspective
  (Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore)
• Society must make certain that its positions are
  filled
• Some positions are more important than others
• The more important positions must be filled by
  the more qualified people
• To motivate the more qualified people to fill
  these positions, society must offer them greater
  rewards

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