Sociology of Social Stratification, Theoretical Paradigms, and Inequality

Comprehensive practice flashcards featuring key vocabulary, classical paradigms, and modern sociological theories of social stratification, inequality, and legitimation.

Crudité

An appetizer consisting of a platter of assorted raw vegetables, typically served with one or more dipping sauces.

Transracial

A term historically defined as involving or extending across two or more racial boundaries (such as in transracial adoption), and more recently used by some individuals to describe a personal identity that differs from their assigned race at birth.

Historical Materialism

The foundational Marxian methodological perspective asserting that the study of human society must begin with the material and economic conditions required to produce the necessities of life.

Substructure

In Marxian theory, the material and economic base of society—consisting of the means and relations of production—which shapes and determines the legal, political, and cultural superstructure.

Superstructure

In Marxian theory, all non-economic societal institutions and ideological dimensions (including law, politics, religion, family, education, and art) that are generated by and reinforce the economic substructure.

Means of Production

The technology, tools, raw materials, land, and machinery utilized within a society to produce economic goods.

Relations of Production

The human social relationships, rights, and power positions established within a given mode of production, defining the relationship between different social classes.

Full-Fledged Class

A social class that meets four specific sociological criteria: a distinct role in the mode of production, clear hostile class consciousness, political party organization to fight for its interests, and a distinct set of cultural values and style of life (Hurst 2004).

Stages of Capitalism (Marx)

The three historical stages of capitalist economic development identified by Karl Marx: Cooperation, Manufacture, and Modern (Machine) Industry.

Class Consciousness

The subjective awareness of a subordinate economic group regarding their common objective class interests, shared exploitation, and collective need to politically organize against the ruling class.

Tripartite Nature of Inequality (Weber)

Max Weber's multidimensional model of social stratification consisting of three distinct dimensions: Class (the economic order), Status (the social order), and Parties (the political order).

Class (Weberian)

A group of people sharing a common market situation in the labor, credit/money, or commodity markets, which directly influences their life chances and access to goods and services.

Status Group

A Weberian collectivity ranked on the basis of social honor, respect, and prestige, characterized by a specific consumption pattern, distinctive lifestyle, and social closure.

Party (Weberian)

An association specifically organized to acquire and exert social and political power within an organized enterprise or society (e.g., political parties, labor unions, lobbying bodies).

Bureaucracy

A rational form of social organization based on fixed, written rules, specialized functions, and a hierarchy of offices that dominates modern industrial societies.

Rational-Legal Authority

Authority legitimized by a belief in the legality of normative rules and the right of designated individuals elevated under those rules to issue commands.

Charismatic Authority

Authority based on followers' devotion to the extraordinary heroism, sanctity, or exemplary personal character of an individual leader.

Traditional Authority

Authority that rests on an established belief in the sanctity of age-old traditions and the legitimate status of those exercising power under them.

The Iron Cage

Max Weber's metaphor for the pervasive, rigid, and dehumanizing constraints imposed on individuals by the rationalization, bureaucratization, and technological calculation of modern industrial society.

Social Darwinism (Spencer)

Herbert Spencer's application of evolutionary principles to human society, asserting that societies naturally evolve through 'survival of the fittest' and that state welfare policies disrupt this purifying process by supporting the incompetent.

Mechanical Solidarity

Emile Durkheim's term for the social integration characteristic of simple, traditional societies that share a minimal division of labor, individual similarity, and a powerful collective conscience.

Organic Solidarity

Emile Durkheim's term for the social cohesion found in complex modern societies, maintained through occupational specialization, functional differentiation, and mutual interdependence.

External Inequalities

Social inequalities imposed upon individuals by the arbitrary social circumstances of their birth, derived from ascribed characteristics such as family background and inherited wealth.

Internal Inequalities

Social inequalities derived from innate differences in individual talent, inner ability, and achieved effort, which Durkheim considered moral and central to modern meritocracy.

Anomie

A condition of normlessness and deregulation in society, occurring when social rules break down and individuals lose their sense of moral direction, purpose, or role.

Davis-Moore Theory of Stratification

A functionalist theory (1945) proposing that social stratification is universal and inevitable because societies must offer differential economic rewards and prestige to attract capable talent to functionally important and difficult occupations.

Social Construction Theory

A sociological framework asserting that social categories, labels, and classifications are socially created through interaction and power dynamics rather than biologically or naturally predetermined.

Social Reproduction Theory

The perspective that societal institutions (such as schooling) function systematically to maintain, legitimize, and recreate the established class structure and social hierarchy over time.

Cost of Living Index (COLI)

A quarterly measure published by C2ER tracking regional variations in the consumer goods and services costs across 6 categories for professional/managerial households in the top income quintile.

Dual-Labor Market Thesis

A stratification model arguing that the economy is structurally divided into two non-competing labor market tiers: the primary labor market and the secondary labor market.

Primary Labor Market

The labor market sector associated with the core/monopoly economic sector, characterized by high wages, job stability, favorable working conditions, unionization, and internal promotion ladders.

Secondary Labor Market

The labor market sector associated with the peripheral/competitive economic sector, characterized by low pay, menial work, high turnover, poor conditions, and negligible upward mobility.

Internal Labor Market

An administrative system within primary-sector firms that governs hiring and promotion from within, shielding existing employees from outside labor market competition.

World System Theory

Immanuel Wallerstein's macro-sociological framework conceptualizing global inequality as an interdependent international division of labor divided into Core, Semi-Periphery, and Periphery nations.

Core Nations

Wealthy, industrialized, and militarily dominant nations that specialize in finance, high-tech manufacturing, and information services while extracting surplus value and raw materials from peripheral nations.

Semi-Periphery Nations

Nations that occupy an intermediate economic position in the world system, possessing partially diversified economies that both exploit peripheral areas and face exploitation by core nations.

Periphery Nations

Economically undiversified nations with weak state structures that are dependent on extracting and exporting raw materials and cheap labor to core nations, resulting in high internal inequality.

Unequal Exchange

The structural trade dynamic within World System Theory in which core nations obtain cheap commodities and labor from the periphery while selling back high-priced manufactured goods.

Legitimacy

The willing acceptance and moral endorsement of an existing institutional system and its associated patterns of social inequality by members of a society.

Legitimation

The ongoing socio-psychological and cultural process by which individuals and institutions come to accept, justify, and rationalize structured inequality as natural, moral, or right.

Dominant Ideology

An organized system of beliefs, values, and cultural norms that explains, validates, and defends a society's existing configuration of power and economic privilege.

False Consciousness

A Marxian concept referring to a state in which subordinate classes adopt the values and beliefs of the ruling class, obscuring their own true exploitation and collective interests.

Model Minority Myth

A cultural stereotype portraying a specific demographic group (frequently Asian Americans) as having overcome prejudice exclusively through hard work and family values, masking internal disparities and systemic inequities.

The American Dream

An ideology of individualism holding that society offers abundant economic opportunities where rewards (wealth, education, status) are distributed fairly based on individual effort and merit.

Protestant Ethic

Max Weber's concept identifying the religious values of ascetic Protestantism (diligence, frugality, individualism, and treating worldly labor as a divine calling) as an ideological catalyst for capitalism.

Stakeholder Society

A social policy proposal formulated by Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott proposing a universal, one-time payment of $\$80,000$ to young adults financed by a $2\%$ wealth tax to foster equitable starting conditions.

Homestead Act of 1862

A United States federal statute providing $160$ acres of public land to settlers for a minimal fee, reinforcing the frontier ideology of individual achievement and opportunity.