Social Stratification Flashcards
What is social strat
How a society is structured unequally into a hierarchy or strata
How does social class impact life chances and opportunities
Wealthier backgrounds = more chances as they have money to get a good education
What are the main ideas of functionalists
They believe if something functions correctly there is no need to change it
Consensus theory = everyone believes and follows the same rules, Norms and values
Role allocation
Meritocracy
Trained to develop skills most suited to your future job
The harder you work the better the rewards
Weber and class
Classes are formed due to market situation (some are more skilled than others so get more pay and job security)
There are life chances, less opportunities for lower classes
The 4 groups Weber believed in
- property owning upper class
- professional middle class
- petty bourgeoisie
- manual working class
Weber and status
People can demonstrate status through material wealth (property)
Status is more how they spend their money than how they earn
Aswell as awards
Weber and status critique
Marxists would argue Weber does not consider the exploitation of working class by bourgeoisie
The market situation hides importance of the division of bourgeoisie and proletariat
Functionalists - DAVIS AND MOORE
All societies need a way of placing people into different job roles
Some roles are more important and most people lack talent to fill them
Social mobility
Intra generational
Inter generational
Intra = movement of a person over a lifetime
Inter= movement between a families generation
One way social class can be measured
NCSEC - measures social class by basing the class depending on ur occupation.
A judge would be placed in top class
Problem with NCSEC
Ignores people who are born into high class and wealth
e.g the queen does not have an occupation but is high class.
Devine’s social class compared to modern way of measuring class (the great British class survey)
Considers living standards, priverlages, class inequalities where the great British class survey only considers jobs
Goldthorpe and affluent worker
The affluent worker is a worker who is well paid and enjoy work despite having working class jobs
“The new working class”
Instrumental attitudes
The worker enjoys their standard of life work gives them but not actually interested in the job
