Social Stratification, Strata Systems, & Social Class - Week 4

Question 1

What is Social Stratification ?

Answer 1

the systematic process by which people are divided into categories that are ranked on a scale of social worth

Question 2

What are Achieved Characteristics ?

Answer 2

attributes that are acquired through some combination of choice, effort, and ability
ex. occupation, martial status, level of education, income

Question 3

What are ascribed characteristics?

Answer 3

attributes that people have:
at birth (skin color, sex,eye color)
develop over time (baldness,gray air, wrinkles, reproductive capacity)
posses through no effort or fault of thier own (natural origin, religious affiliation “inherited” from parents)

Question 4

Do you think achieved and ascribed characteristics always separate? In what ways might achieved characteristics be impacted by ascribed ones?

Answer 4

They are not always separate because they influence each other. One’s ascribed characteristic may influence something that we see as achieved
ex. wealth, but they inherited that wealth and have nothing to ‘earn it’

Question 5

What is intersectionality ?

Answer 5

Coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
The perspective that multiple identities merge together in our experiences. In the study of stratification, it’s the idea that people live in multiple strata systems that make up their self identification, that each of those are essential to who they are and how they move through, and experience, society

Question 6

What is income ? Wealth? income distribution? What is wealth distribution?

Answer 6

Income- the money you take in

wealth- all of your material possessions , including income

income distribution - relates to how income is arranged, sociologists of at quintiles of the pop. The poorest earn 4% all income, top 20 % earn 40%

wealth distribution- includes stocks, bonds, and other items. more unequal than income distrub. The top one percent of the population holds more wealth than the bottom 90%. Wealth inequality has increased over time.

Question 7

What are the several defin. of poverty? Transitional? Marginal? Residual ? Absolute? Relative?

Answer 7

Transitional poverty - a temporary state of poverty that can happen when someone loses their job for a short time

Marginal poverty- state of poverty when a person lacks stable employment

residual poverty- chronic and multigenerational poverty

absolute poverty- a poverty so severe that one lacks resources to survive

relative poverty- when we compare ourselves to those around us

Question 8

What is the culture of poverty? What are the criticisms

Answer 8

refers to entrenched attitudes that can develop among poor communities and lead the poor to accept their fate rather than attempt to improve their situation.
criticisms - tends to blame the victims failing to take into account the factors involved: Residential segregation, political disenfranchisement, and the use of law enforcement to control the homeless can make poverty invisible to many Americans.

Question 9

What is the American Dream? What are the criticisms ?

Answer 9

that anyone can achieve material success if they work hard enough
criticisms - it legitimizes stratification by reinforcing the idea that everyone has the same opportunity to get ahead and that success or failure depends on the person.
Conflict theorists would argue, systematic bias and inequity that directly impact the likelihood that someone is able to achieve this type of success

Question 10

What are the 6 major class structures ? Upper/elite, upper middle, middle, working, lower, urban underclass?

Answer 10

Upper/Elite class - 1%,attend expensive boarding schools and hold exclusive club memberships

Upper Middle class- about 15%, attend expensive boarding schools and hold exclusive club memberships, made up of highly educated professionals and owners of businesses.

Middle class- about 35%,moderate incomes include white collar workers –teachers, nurses, and some well-paid blue-collar occupations such as factory foremen.

Working class- about 30% generally made up of people with high school diplomas and lesser levels of education. Most working class individuals are paid on an hourly basis and usually do manual labor or pink collar jobs.

Lower class- about 37 million, feel the effects of poverty, Blacks and Hispanics disproportionately live in poverty. This reality is evidence of the intersectional link between race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class (and gender if you break these numbers down even further to account for gender).

Urban Underclass - encompasses the homeless and chronically unemployed,have few opportunities, poor schools and weak social structures.

Question 11

What are the social stratification systems? slavery, caste, class systems

Answer 11

Open strata or Class systems- a scheme of social stratification where people are ranked on the basis of merit, talent, ability, or past performance (achieved)

Closed Strata or Caste System- a scheme of social stratification where people are ranked on the basis of traits over which they have no control (ascribed), permanently fixed, born into it, not allowed to move up or down in ranks

Slavery- to the total control over people who have no choice about their state ,driven by rapid population growth, extreme poverty and weak governments and desire for cheap labor

Question 12

What are the forms of slavery? Chattel, debt bondage, contract

Answer 12

Chattel slavery is a form of slavery in which a slave is considered property
Debt bondage is a form of slavery in which someone borrows money in order to repay a different debt and works off the new debt
Contract slavery is a form of slavery in which a person signs a work contract receiving food and shelter by an employer, but is threatened when they try to leave the contract

Question 13

What is trafficking ?

Answer 13

which can take the form of any of the above types of slavery, take place as a form of forced factory labor and or forced prostitution

Question 14

What is social mobility? horizontal? vertical? intragenerational ? intergenerational ?

Answer 14

Social mobility is the ability to change social classes

Horizontal mobility refers to moving within the same status category

Vertical mobility involves moving from one social class to another

Intragenerational mobility occurs when an individual changes social standing, especially in the workforce

Intergenerational mobility refers to the change that family members make from one social class to the next through generations

Question 15

Karl Marx and Social Class ?

Answer 15

Marx defined ‘class’ as a category that designates a person’s overall status in society. two main social classes in capitalist societies: the capitalists (or bourgeoisie), who owned the means of production, and the workers (or proletariat), who sold their labor for wages. Would remain divided while social inequality grows

Question 16

Marx Weber and Social class ?

Answer 16

argued that class status was the product of three components: wealth, power, and prestige (the social honor people are given because of their membership in well-regarded social groups).

“Negatively privileged” property class is persons completely unskilled, lacking property, and dependent on seasonal or sporadic employment who constitute the very bottom of the class system.

The “Positively privileged” property class is those individuals at the very top of the class system.

Question 17

Theories of Social Class

Answer 17

Functionalists believe that systems find equilibrium or balance so stratification must be the result of some kind of functional balance, Davis and Moore assume that stratification is inevitable and aids in the functioning of society
meritocracy argument which states that those who get ahead do so based on their own merit

Conflict theorists focus on the struggle for limited resources. for Tumin social inequality is rooted in a system that is more likely to reward those who come from the higher classes and who have the resources to obtain better jobs. Groups with power will try to maintain or increase their power. The wealthy try to maintain the status quo so training remains in their hands.

Symbolic interactionists are interested in how people perceive poverty and wealth. The higher our socioeconomic status (SES) the less we believe that social class matters. Individuals from the working class tend to have lower expectations about future earnings and job opportunities than higher classes.

Question 18

What is Global Stratification ? What are the suggestions of Wallenstein on how the world is divided by it connection to economic power ?

Answer 18

Global stratification is the categorization of countries based on objective criteria such as wealth, power, and prestige, which highlight social patters of inequality throughout the world

Core nations which are constantly trying to seek expansion and profit, advanced countries ex USA

Periphery countries at the margins where the core nations expand their influence

Semi-periphery countries that use some of their wealth through natural and human resources to build its own economy

External nations are underdeveloped countries

Question 19

What is neocolonialism ?

Answer 19

s a process in which powerful nations use loans and economic power to maintain control over poor nations, The corporations benefit because they gain benefits, tax benefits, lenient environmental laws, cheap labor. Wealthy nations use multinational corporations to go into poorer nations.

Question 20

What is globalization ? Brian Drain?

Answer 20

Globalization is a complex process by which the world and its national economy are becoming more and more intertwined. Globalization connects the world through business, travel, immigration, education, health issues, and production of goods.

Brain drain is a situation in which the best talent leaves poor countries to work in rich countries; this situation provides an even greater advantage to wealthy countries. Some argue that globalization is exploitation; these theorists believe globalization polarizes the world and creates gaps between groups and predict more war, and terrorism and unrest will be the result