Social Stratification

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

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