Stratification and
Structural Inequality
Definitions of social class and class categories
class consciousness
Absolute and relative poverty
Consequences of poverty (newman)
Stratification refers to the defacto
ranking system where in people with in a particular stratum of the population
receive unequal rewards and life chances in society.
Different in each strata:
-Leisure time
-education
-health
Structural inequality involves institutional arrangements
that perpetuate particular forms of stratification.
Mobility is extent to which the social
structure allows people to change their social status.
Fundamental Principles of Inequality
1) Characteristic of society not
individual differences.
2) Persists over generations
3) Universal characteristic of society,
but caries in form.
4) Involves beliefs, not just material
inequality
Factors of Stratification
Horizontal vs. Vertical Mobility.
1) Vertical mobility: moving to higher
or lower status, evidenced by a change in lifestyle.
2) Horizontal mobility change from one
status to that which is roughly equivalent.
Intergeneration vs. Intragenerational
Mobility
1) Intragenerational mobility: mobility occurring within
ones life.
2) Intergenerational mobility: mobility
occurring across generations.
-Both can happen
Determinants of mobility:
1. Open systems
a. Class system, based on achievement.
b. Flexible boundaries.
c.
Exogamous
marriage occurs.
2. Closed system
a. Caste system, lifelong member from
ascribed status.
b. Boundaries are clearly drawn.
c.
Endogamous
marriage only.
d.
Davis-Moore
Thesis (1945)
1. Society has essential tasks that must
be performed.
2. Rewards must be offered to be sure
that all tasks are attended to. (Salary and social status)
3. The size of the reward is
proportional to the pleasantness, importance and scarcity of talent and ability.
(Hard to be a doctor)
Conflict
theory:
1. Who determines the size of the
reward?
2. Marx: ownership determines inequality
3. Meomarxists: the division of labor furthers
inequality.
Class Stratification
Definitions
of class
1. The relationship to the means of
production.
a. Marxist definition of class.
b. Ambiguity of in Marx’s depiction
(Eric Olen Wright, 1979)
I.
Intermediate
class positions.
II.
Contradictory
class positions: non-labor (domestic work) and non-productive labor (pastor, do
work but no product).
2. Weber.
a. Wealth: economic status.
b. Power: political status.
c.
Prestige:
social status.
3. Socioeconomic status: includes the
combination of education, income and occupation.
Replication of Class
Melvin
Kohn’s Class and Conformity asks the question; with the relatively equal
access to education and similar income levels, why do working class and middle
class distinctions persists across generations?
1. Parent’s values about children’s
behavior.
a. Middle-class values focus on
self-control and curiosity
b. Working-class values emphasize
obedience.
c.
Dual-income
households: mother’s class background has a greater impact than the father’s
income.
2. Reproduction of class positions.
a. Emphasis in values effects methods of
punishment
I.
Working
class: physical punishments or isolation.
II.
Middle
class: Any punishment includes explanation of punishment.
b. Reinforcement of
conformity/self-control values.
c.
Values
influence job choices. (Obedience emphasized, then probably will be in the job
where there is structure)
d. Job choices influences social
position and child rearing.
e. Cycle repeats with next generation.
Global Systems of
Stratification
-Why are
some nations richer than others?
Definition
of Development
Development
involves a global process of change whereby industrialization and urbanization
are spread to non-industrial societies, leading to the development of the world
economy.
Theories
of Development
Modernization
Theory
1. Stages of development.
a. Traditional stage: non-modern,
traditional
b. Take-off stage: emergence of market
system. One industry in particular takes off. (England-spinning wheel)
c.
Drive
to maturity: economy diversifies. (Durable goods: washer, cars, fridge)
d. High ass consumption: slower
development. (GNP slows more)
2. Criticisms of Modernization Theory
a. Stages cannot be skipped.
b. Progress is unilinear:
development cannot be undone.
c.
Does
not match experiences of non-European nations.
d. Looks only to internal influences. (
e. What comes next? Continued growth? Is
this environmentally sustainable?
3. Strategies for modernization
Dependency Theory
1. Dependency: model of economic
development that explains global inequality in terms of the historical
exploitation of poor societies by rice ones.
2. Core and periphery.
a. Core: the modernizating
nations of
b. Periphery: the regions that supplied
the natural resources to the core, gaining less than they offered.
c.
Periphery
economies develop around the exporting of natural resources, typically unable
to simultaneously foster industrial growth.
d. Result is the single-export economies
of many Latin American and African nations.
3. Strategies for development: ending dependency.
e. Import-substitution. (Like a barter
system, which you export products that is a big industry of your nation)
f.
Taking
advantage of oligopoly. (Few people controlling all, OPEC)
World-System
Analysis
1. Rooted in dependency theory.
2. Unit of analysis: the world economy
a. Other theories look to the
nation-state as the unit of analysis.
b. Dependency got away from this
somewhat, but retained a perspective that was binational.
c.
Wallerstein looks at capitalism as the unit of analysis and looks at
the way it has spread throughout the world: within
d. Role of national governments: to
protect and increase capital.
e. Very historically grounded.
3. Incorporation in the Capitalism
System
a. Incorporation: establishing permanent
economic ties through extending commodity chains.
b. Peripheralization: the restructuring of the newly
incorporated economy through the transforming the economic
4. Strategies for development
a. Assumes zero-sum situation: If one
nation increases its wealth, it does so at the expense of another.
b. Foster the route of world capital
into your nation.
Prejudice and
Discrimination
Social
Perceptions and Stratification
Systems of
inequality involve beliefs, not jus material inequality.
1. A human difference exists.
2. The human difference becomes socially
relevant.
3. Values come to interpret the social
relevance.
4. Structures of differentiation
develop.
5. Systems of inequality emerge.
Belief
systems structure systems of inequality because of the basic value frames that
they produce.
Prejudice
and Discrimination
Prejudice
1. Definitions: rigidly held,
unfavorable attitudes, beliefs, and feelings about members of a different
group, based on a social characteristic such as race, ethnicity, sex sexuality,
age, ect.
2. Theories of prejudice:
a. Scapegoating: a minority group is blamed for some
set of social ills; even through they are not the cause of the social problem.
(Germans blaming the Turkish guest workers for the unemployment with violence.)
b. Authoritarian personalities: some
individuals have or develop psychological tendencies characterized by
conformity, intolerance, prejudicial attitudes, adulation of the strong, and
contempt for the weak. (General prejudice with no basis)
When members of a dominant social group perceived that their
cultural power may be in jeopardy, many latent tendencies toward authoritarian
personalities will emerge.
c.
Cultural
theory: through the process of socialization, we learn prejudicial perceptions
from the family, peer groups, the media and school.
3. Positive vs. Negative prejudice
Discrimination.
1. Definition: different or unequal
treatment of people based on some socially significant characteristic.
2. personal vs. institutional
discrimination
a. Personal discrimination involves an
individual’s expression of prejudicial attitudes and behaviors.
b. Institutional discrimination occurs
when the social structure reflects and reproduces inequalities in a society,
whether or not the individuals maintaining these laws, customs and practices
have discriminatory intent.
c.
These
can be located with in Merton’s four cell-chart of
prejudice and discrimination.
Discrimination?
Yes? No?
Prejudice?
Yes Active
Bigotry Timid Bigotry (Legal Sanctions)
No Structural Discrimination
3. Positive vs. negative discrimination.
Patterns of interaction between majority and minority
A. Patterns of integration.
1. Assimilation/acculturation: melting
pot image.
2. Pluralism: encourages diversity and
distinctiveness, garden salad image.
B. Patterns of rejection.
1. Population transfer: the dominant
group removes the minority. (Concentration camps during WWII or US putting
Japanese people in
2. Continued subjugation: internal
colonization/segregation.
3. Extermination: genocide. (Nazi and
Jews)
The Pervasiveness of
Race
Definitions
Race: a
category of people labeled and treated as similar because of some common
biological traits.
Ethnicity:
the sense of community that derives from the cultural heritage shared by a
category of people with common ancestry.
The
Structure of Racial and Ethnic Stratification
Social constructionism in race and ethnicity categories
Different
definitions of minority:
1. Numerical minorities: a group that
does not constitute fifty percent or more of a population.
2. Power disparity: a group defined in
contrast to a dominant or controlling group.
Personal
and institutionalized racism
Role of
perceptions in racial and ethnic stratification
Jensen's
white privilege
Role of
privilege in perceptions of race
1. Within any given stratified system,
the definition and recognition of societal or cultural problems depends upon
the relative power available to the groups and individuals involved.
2. Structures of inequality are
difficult to perceive when one is placed in the dominant position. (A man try
to explain to a women not to be scared to walk home alone but the woman is
still scared because she is not in a man’s position which is not likely to get
attacked)
3. Statistical studies have confirmed
the disparity in perceptions:
a. Whites are three times more likely
than blacks to feel that too much is made out of problems facing blacks today.
b. Blacks are twice as likely as whites
to feel that whites still have a better chance of getting ahead.
4. One result of the stratification is
symbolic racism.
a. Symbolic racism
is a form of racism expressed subtly and indirectly through oppositions to
programs that seek to improve the status of racial and ethnic minorities in a
society.
b. Most white Americans feel that
schools should be integrated and that people of all races should have equal
opportunities to enter any occupation.
However, overwhelming majorities in national surveys oppose
special government economic assistance to minorities and government efforts to
desegregate schools, such as court-ordered busing.
The Sociology of Gender
Inequality
Definitions
Sex involves the biological distinction between female
and male.
Gender refers to the expected dispositions
and behaviors that cultures assign to each sex. (Masculine or feminism)
Gender roles are the rights and obligations that
a culture of subculture defines as normatively for men and women. (Women
nurses, men do more dangerous jobs)
The
Social Structure of Sexism
Patriarchy
and objectification
Differences
in men and women's health
Sexism
encompasses prejudice, actions and social structures that have the effect of
supporting the privilege of one sex over the other.
Forms if
sexism: the key test of whether something is sexist lies in its consequences:
if it supports male privilege, then it is by definitions sexist.
1. Subtle forms of sexism in
interaction. (Males usually steps into women’s space)
2. Sexism within the family.
a. Gender roles in family division of
labor.
b. Arlie Hochschild,
Second Shift (1989) (Women are more in work force, so are men working in
the house more? No, women work and then come home and do domestic work)
3. Sexism in the workplace.
a. In some social settings, jobs are
defined as being appropriate for men or women specifically.
i.
Subtle
forms of discrimination in the workplace include:
1. Exclusion from informal leadership
and networks.
2. workplace structures that do not support
pregnancy/childbirth
3. Sexual harassment
ii.
Within
the workplace, statistical studies have shown that women hit a glass ceiling
regarding their advancement.
Men who work in jobs that have traditionally been defined as
“women’s” jobs experience the opposite effect, rapid advancement known as the
glass escalator
Women’s
bodies are the site of a struggle for control
1. Control over women’s bodies.
a. Unbearable weight. (1993) Susan Bordo.
b. The Women in the body (1987) Emily Martin.
2. Work place control: Backlash.
(1991) Susan Falud: (American Cyanamid Paint Company)
Gender,
Sexuality and Culture
1. Heteronomativity.
a. Andi O’Conor (
b. American Heteronormativity.
i.
Sex
normetivity indicates the content and form of gender
ii.
When
sex and gender do not “match up” appropriately, this reflects a breech in the
normative system.
iii.
The
rupture is understood by assumption about sexuality.
Hegemonic
Masculinity and relations of masculinity