Why are you at college?

• Get a good job?

• Get ahead?

• If so, then you sound like you are already concerned with inequality, fairness, and social mobility.

Social Stratification

• How a society is sorted into groups (a.k.a. strata).

• Each layer of a stratification system has different

  • access to resources

  • and opportunities

• Stratification refers to the hierarchical organization of a society into groups with differing levels of power, social prestige, or status and economic resources.

• Social stratification is UNIVERSAL

  • The degree of stratification differs across societies

• Davis-Moore Thesis

  • the greater the functional importance of a social role, the greater must be the reward

  • The theory posits that social stratification represents the inherently unequal value of different work.

Forms of Equality

• Equality of opportunity

  • Inequality is acceptable so long as everyone has the same opportunities for advancement and is judged by the same standards.

• Equality of condition

  • Idea that everyone should have an equal starting point from which to pursue his or her goals

• Equality of outcome

• Everyone in a society should end up with the same “rewards,” regardless of starting point, opportunities, or contributions. [e.g. Communism]

3 Views of Stratification

• Rousseau argued that private property creates social inequality, and that this inequality ultimately leads to social conflict.

• Malthus viewed inequality favorably, but only as a means for controlling population growth.

  • more equal distribution of resources would increase the world’s population to unsustainable levels and ultimately bring about mass starvation

• Hegel viewed history in terms of a master–slave dialectic, a relationship of mutual dependency

  • eventually lead to equality for all (or very nearly all).

Components of Stratification Systems

• How do you enter strata?

• How do you move between strata?

Caste Systems

• born into strata

• no mobility

• often religious based system

Class Systems

• Born into strata

• Some mobility

• Classes are groups of people who share similar characteristics and social locations.

Marx’s Two Class System

• Bourgeoisie vs. Proletariat

• Exploitation leads to revolution

Weber’s Multi-Class System

• Weber believed that a class of people was defined by the similar life chances they held.

• Life chances can be thought of as the chances that you will be able to reach your goals in society.

Status Hierarchy System

• Another way that Weber argued we could identify social classes was to look at the social status a person held.

• To approximate social status Weberian Sociologists study the social honor and prestige we give to certain occupations.

Meritocracy

• Meritocracy: a system that rewards and punishes based on your merit, talent, and achievement.

  • Vilfredo Pareto argued that 20% of the population was more talented, smarter, and more able to assume positions of power.

C Wright Mills - The Power Elite

• The Power Elite focused on controlling just 3 institutions:

• Economic Order: With just a few mega-corporations controlling almost the entire economy.

• Political Order: With only a few parties who are remarkably similar on almost every issue, controls the legal justice system allowing the powerful to define their behaviors as legal and others behaviors as illegal.

• Military Order: The largest and most expensive feature of government and one that has a monopoly on violence and death.

Why is Inequality Rising So Much?

• Changes in Politics

  • De-unionization

  • Supply-Side Economics (a.k.a. trickle down economics)

  • Distrust in government

• Changes in Economy

  • Deindustrialization

  • Automation of labor

• Changes in Society

  • Credentialization

  • Divorce/Remarriage

  • Feminization of poverty

Hegemony

• political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states

• leadership or dominance of one group over another.

  • Eg: hegemony is the student government leadership in a school.

Returning to Meritocracy

• What is wrong with the our understanding that: “You get what you deserve and you deserve what you get”

Poverty

• Structural Causes of Poverty

  • Joblessness:

    • in 2010 48 million people aged 18 to 64 were unable to find work for even one week.

  • Access to education:

    • the poor are disproportionately likely to go to poorly funded schools

  • The lower classes bear the brunt of almost every aspect contributing to growing inequality.

• Consequences of Being Poor

  • Payday loan industry charges 400% interest.

    • Cost borrowers $3.4 billion dollars a year.

    • There are as many pay day loan outlets as there are McDonalds and Burger Kings combined! (Rivlin 2010).

  • Hospitals routinely charge more to patients without healthcare.

  • Check cashing can cost up to 10%.

  • WIC-only grocery stores charge 10-20% more for food items.

  • Food Deserts

    • Many low income communities have no access to grocery stores or places that sell fresh produce, meats, or dairy.

• Welfare Benefits to the Poor

  • In 1996 congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA).

    • Limited welfare cash assistance to 5 years total in your lifetime

    • in GA it's 4 years, in some states it's as low as 2 years.

    • Mandated welfare recipients find work within 2 years.

    • Cut federal assistance programs by $54.5 billion.

  • People may still be eligible for food stamps, housing assistance, and programs like W.I.C., but very few people receive cash from the government because they are poor.

• Upside Down Welfare System

  • Of all the money spent by the government on people, the majority goes to the non-poor.

    • Public education

    • Social Security

    • Medicare

• When Asked if Using a Government Program

  • 60% of those receiving the home mortgage tax deduction said no.

  • 53% of those receiving subsidized student loans said no.

  • 51.7% of those receiving a child and dependent care tax credit said no.

Cultural Capital

• “The general cultural background, knowledge, skills, dispositions inherited from one generation from to the next”

• Habitus is really the physical embodiment of cultural capital– such that we have the goals, tastes, ideas, and thoughts of people who are in our same social class