Stratification

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Stratification

• Stratification is a central theme in sociological
  research
• The concept of stratification indicates that a
  social system (e.g. society, organizations such
  as a large manufacturing plant) is composed of
  positions and people who have different levels of
  status
• The stratification of society is inevitable!
• Marxs concept of class is a starting point for
  thinking about stratification, although Weber
  argued that a sole focus on class was
  misleading...

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Weber and Stratification
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Functionalist Theoryof Stratification

• Davis/Moore Theory
• Positions differ in society to the extent that
  they are functionally important
• It is harder to fill the most important positions
  since they typically require a good deal of
  education and training
• Hence, higher rewards go to the most important
  positions in society

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Social Mobility

• Social mobility has to do with how people gain or
  lose status
• Social mobility is an important aspect of
  contemporary Western societies
• In some societies, like caste societies (e.g.
  India), there is virtually no mobility while
  capitalist democracies are systems that enable
  mobility

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Status and Social Mobility
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Structural Mobility
1960
1990
All 25 retain high status
High-Status Positions
High-Status Positions
25
50
25 move to high status
50 retain low status
Low-Status Positions
Low-Status Positions
75
50
100 Jobs
100 Jobs
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Exchange Mobility
1960
1990
Only 10 retain high status
High-Status Positions
High-Status Positions
25
25
15 move to high status
15 fall to low status
Low-Status Positions
Low-Status Positions
60 retain low status
75
75
100 Jobs
100 Jobs
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Conflict Theorists AskWhat about Power?

• Who gets to decide which positions are
  functionally more important?
• Who has the opportunity to seek advanced
  education and training necessary in order to
  obtain positions deemed functionally important?
• Conflict theorists of stratification disagree
  with functionalist interpretations (e.g. Tumin),
  arguing that social stratification systems
  function to provide the elite with the political
  power necessary to procure acceptance and
  dominance of an ideology which rationalizes the
  status quo

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What about Power?

• Merton makes a key distinction between manifest
  and latent functions
• Manifest functions are simple often obvious
• Doctors get paid more because they are more
  important to society
• Latent functions are deeper more obscured
• Poverty helps to guarantee the status of those
  who are not poor (Gans catalogs a number of such
  latent functions)
• Functional theorists focus on Manifest
  Functionswhat serves society the best

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What about Power?

• Dr. Pangloss and Durkheim tend to ignore the role
  of power in defining societal norms and how
  elites in society work to maintain norms and
  define deviance to keep their position in society
• The existence of poverty, as discussed in
  Jonathan Kozols Savage Inequality, is not
  articulated by Durkheims concept of organic
  solidarity
• Impoverished and homeless people have no voice in
  politics or in defining societal normsthey are
  defined as deviant

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Conflict View of Stratification

• Contrary to some functionalist theories of
  stratification (e.g. Davis Moore), conflict
  theories emphasize the role of power and
  exploitation
• Critique studies of mobility for overplaying the
  American dream--you can advance if you work hard
  enough
• Focus attention on structural barriers to mobility

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Conflict Critique of Mobility

• Conflict theorists view the idea of social
  mobility with skepticism, emphasizing how
  stratification systems are marked by barriers to
  mobility
• lack of access to education/top schools
• lack of social skills necessary for advancement
• lack of social connections to get good jobs
• For conflict theorists, mobility
  counterintuitively provides an opportunity to
  challenge the system
• e.g. Based on theories such as status
  inconsistency, social mobility of minorities and
  people in low status groups can facilitate social
  change through social movements and other forms
  of political action

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Status Inconsistency

• People whose status is inconsistent, or higher on
  one dimension than on another, will be more
  frustrated and dissatisfied than people with
  consistent statuses (Lenski)
• Status inconsistency will lead people to blame
  the system as opposed to themselves
• e.g. In the 1960s, Gary Marx found that wealthy,
  famous or highly educated African Americans
  (bankers physicians) would be more militant
  about changing racial conditions than African
  Americans with consistently low statuses
  (janitors, housekeepers)

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Conflict Approach to Stratification

• Instead of studying mobility, conflict theorists
  tend to highlight how barriers to mobility exist
  based on race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexual
  preference, etc.
• discrimination in hiring
• glass ceiling

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Conflict Approach to Stratification

• Conflict theorists have also emphasized that
  lower-level workers need to unionize to avoid
  more excessive forms of exploitation
• More explicitly at the organizational level,
  conflict theorists emphasize the role of
  organizations in forcing downward mobility
• closing of plants
• national chains (WalMart) devastating local
  community businesses
• emergence of low-wage, low-skill service sector
  jobs (McDonalds, telemarketing)

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Functional vs. Conflict

• So which theory provides the best approach to the
  study of stratification?
• They both provide valuable insights
• Functional theory provides a view of how
  different occupational positions exist based on
  the needs of society
• Conflict theory highlights that this leads to
  inequalities that are often insidious,
  intolerable, and worth fighting about