Social Stratification
Chapter 8
Social Stratification
Study Questions
1. Why are the experiences of sociology student Scott McLaren useful for exploring the world’s richest and poorest?
2. Distinguish between absolute and relative poverty.
3. How is household wealth distributed on a global scale?
4. Distinguish between achieved and ascribed statuses.
5. What is social prestige? How is it complicated by esteem?
6. Use infant mortality and consumption patterns as examples of how life chances vary across countries.
7. What characteristics distinguish a caste from a class system of stratification?
8. What are the various kinds of social mobility?
9. How do functionalists (Davis and Moore) explain social stratification?
10. How do the functions of poverty help us to understand inequality?
11. Explain the conflict position on social stratification.
12. What is modernization? What are characteristics of a modern society?
13. What are the stages of modernization?
14. What is dependency theory?
15. Distinguish between colonization, decolonization and neocolonialism.
16. What are some of the structural responses to global inequality? Are those responses taking place? How effective are those responses?
17. Summarize how Marx approached social class in his writings. What are the contemporary applications for Marx’s ideas?
18. How does Max Weber use the concept of social class? What are the contemporary applications?
19. How is class ranking complicated by status groups and parties?
20. What general structural changes in the American economy have created urban and other under classes?
21. What is debt? When is debt a problem? What groups are most affected by severe debt problem?
Concept Application
Consider the concepts listed below. Match one or more of the concepts with each scenario. Explain your choices.
a. Ascribed characteristics
b. Intergenerational mobility
c. Life chances
d. Negatively privileged property class
e. Social stratification
f. Status group
g. Status value
h. Upward mobility
i. Vertical mobility
Scenario 1
“Do blondes have more fun? Social scientists have yet to nail down the answer. But economists now have good reason to believe that blondes make more money—or at least the trim, attractive ones do. New studies show that men and women (with any hair color) who are rated by survey interviewers as below average in attractiveness typically earn 10 to 20 percent less than those rated above average.
“One is tempted to write off the results as proof that idle econometricians are the Devil’s helpers. But the findings from Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jeff Biddle of Michigan State are complemented by other research showing that obese women are also at a considerable earnings disadvantage. And they could figure prominently in the very serious business of deciding who is protected by the three-year-old Americans with Disabilities Act” (Passell 1994:C2).
Scenario 2
“The Brinks Hotel was another American symbol in Saigon. It was a bachelor officer’s headquarters, an American world that Vietnamese need not enter unless, of course, it was to clean the rooms or to cook or to provide some other form of service. It stood high over Saigon and its hovels, a world of Americans eating American food, watching American movies, and just to make sure that there was a sense of home, on the roof terrace there was always a great charcoal grill on which to barbecue thick American steaks flown in especially to that end” (Halberstam 1987:618-19).
Scenario 3
“These children [of people who make enough money to live a privileged life] learn to live with choices—more clothes, a wider range of food, a greater number of games and toys—that other boys and girls may never be able to imagine. They learn to grow fond of or resolutely ignore dolls and more dolls, large dollhouses, and all sorts of utensils and furniture to go in [these dollhouses, as well as] enough Lego sets to build yet another house for the adults in the family. They learn to take for granted enormous playrooms filled to the brim with trains, helicopters, boats, punching bags, Monopoly sets…. They learn to assume instruction—not only at school, but at home—for tennis, for swimming, for dancing, for horse riding. And they learn often enough to feel competent at those sports, in control of themselves while playing them, and, not least, able to move smoothly from one to the other” (Coles 1978:26).
Scenario 4
“Wanting out is a common ambition in small towns all over America. In 1951, there were three ways to realize it. One was to get a job in the big city—in my case, either Kansas City or St. Louis, at the edges of the imaginable world. At sixteen, I was too young for this, and besides, I had no idea of what I could do.
“A second way—chosen by four men from the class ahead of me—was to enlist in a branch of military service or volunteer for the draft. That would get you even farther from home and pile up educational benefits under the GI Bill.
“A third alternative to work and military service was just beginning to open up to people—mostly men—of my class and region: college” (Davis 1996:14).
Scenario 5
“The deeper message of Edin’s book concerns the material hardships that most welfare families still endure. Eight in 10 had severe housing problems. One in six had recently been homeless. One-third had run out of food sometime in the previous year. And conditions didn’t really improve for those who appear to have moved up one step to an entry-level job. In examining the budgets of 165 working mothers, Edin found them even more likely than those on welfare to be unable to pay their bills. ‘I thought they might be the same, but not worse,’ she says” (DePerle 1997:34).
Practice Test: Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Which one of the following questions would be of least interest to a sociologist studying the world’s richest and poorest peoples?
a. How does one explain the extremes of wealth and poverty in the world?
b. Why should so few in the world enjoy great wealth while so many struggle to survive?
c. Can capitalism and globalization correct dramatic inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest peoples?
d. How might we instill a work ethic in the world’s poorest peoples?
2. If we describe the situation of those at the bottom in terms of a lack of access to things like cell phones, internet and satellite television service, we are describing
a. relative poverty.
b. absolute poverty.
c. sustained poverty.
d. extreme poverty.
3. Extreme wealth is the most excessive form of wealth. The term applies to a minority of people, perhaps as few as the richest __________ people in the world.
a. 800
b. 100 million
c. 1.2 billion
d. 2.4 billion
4. An achieved status is an attribute that people
a. inherit at birth.
b. develop over time.
c. possess through no fault or effort of their own.
d. acquire through some combination of choice, effort, and ability.
5. For sociologists, one important dimension of any stratification system is the extent to which people “are treated as members of a category, irrespective of their individual merits.” This statement suggests that sociologists are particularly interested in how _____________ are viewed and treated.
a. achieved statuses
b. class systems of stratification
c. ascribed characteristics
d. status value
6. A baby born in _______________ has the worst chances of surviving the first year of life.
a. China
b. Mexico
c. Sierra Leone
d. Vietnam
7. In the United States, babies classified as _________________ have the worst chance of surviving the first year of life.
a. white
b. black
c. Hispanic
d. Asian
8. A person who changes his or her class position through marriage, graduation, inheritance, or job promotion is experiencing
a. vertical mobility.
b. horizontal mobility.
c. caste mobility.
d. downward mobility.
9. According to the functionalist perspective, the unequal distribution of rewards is necessary in order to
a. ensure that the most functionally important occupations are filled by the best-qualified people.
b. make the least functionally important occupations attractive to the masses.
c. justify denying some people the opportunity to achieve functionally important occupations.
d. make the system as democratic as possible.
10. Poor people purchase goods and services that would otherwise go unused, such as day-old bread, used cars, and second-hand clothes. Such purchases speak to
a. functional uniqueness.
b. comparable worth.
c. the functions of poverty.
d. status consciousness.
11. The question “Why should full-time workers at a child care center (a traditionally female occupation) receive a median weekly salary of $333, while a person working as an auto mechanic (a traditionally male occupation) earns $578?” relates to issues of
a. pay equity.
b. comparable worth.
c. functional uniqueness.
d. status consciousness.
12. ___________ seek to understand the experience of inequality – how it is communicated and how that inequality is conveyed.
a. Functionalists
b. Conflict theorists
c. Symbolic interactionists
d. Modernization theorists
13. A country is considered modern if it possesses at least eight characteristics. Which one of the following is not one of those eight?
a. A system of mass media and communication is in place
b. People feel a sense of loyalty to a country
c. Energy to produce good, goods and services revolves around physical exertion
d. People feel a sense of loyalty to an extended family
14. ______________ is a form of domination in which a foreign power uses its superior military force to impose its political, economic, social, and cultural institutions on an indigenous population with the aim of dominating their resources, labor and markets.
a. Neocolonialism
b. Social stratification
c. Conflict
d. Colonialism
15. Examples of primary products include
a. cars.
b. computers.
c. oil.
d. cell phones.
16. “As leaders, we have a duty…to all the world’s people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs.” These words reflect the spirit of which global initiative?
a. Holt International
b. USA AID
c. the Millennium Development Project
d. Micro-lending
17. A researcher connected to the Save the Children organization observed Vietnamese mothers using alternative food sources available to everyone (they were going to the rice paddies to harvest tiny shrimp and crabs, and they were picking sweet potato greens—considered low-class food—and mixing both food sources with rice). As a result, their children were not malnourished. The mothers are considered
a. positive deviants.
b. positively privileged.
c. negatively privileged.
d. part of the urban underclass.
18. The British Medical Association wrote, “All countries must strive to attain self-sufficiency in their health care workforce without generating adverse consequences for other countries.” The Association was responding to
a. subsidized education.
b. out-migration.
c. in-migration.
d. brain drain.
19. According to Max Weber, persons completely unskilled, lacking property, and dependent on seasonal or sporadic employment constitute the
a. negatively privileged property class.
b. ascribed property class.
c. marketing class.
d. negatively privileged status group.
20. In The Truly Disadvantaged, Julius Wilson emphasized the role of _____________ in creating a population known as the inner city poor.
a. motivation
b. self-esteem
c. economic transformation/restructuring
d. misguided liberal policy
True/False Questions
1. T F About one-third of the world’s people do not have a decent place to go to the bathroom.
2. T F Ascribed statuses are attributes people can easily change.
3. T F A baby born in the United States has the best chance in the world of surviving its first year of life.
4. T F In a true class system, ascribed characteristics determine one’s social class.
5. T F In a true class system, there is no social mobility.
6. T F Functionalists argue that social stratification is necessary for attracting the best qualified to the most important positions.
7. T F The Walmart CEO earns 16,000 times the salary of the Chinese factory worker who make products sold in that CEO’s stores.
8. T F Dependency theorists challenge the basic assumptions underlying modernization theory.
9. T F When absolute dollars are used as criteria, the United States is the largest donor of foreign aid.
10. T F Social class is difficult to define.
Internet Resources
• The Bible on the Poor
http://www.zompist.com/meetthepoor.html
“The Bible contains more than 300 verses on the poor, social justice, and God's deep concern for both. This page contains a wide sample of them, and some reflections. It's aimed at anyone who takes the Bible seriously.”
• Debt Relief Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative
http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/hipc.htm
The HIPC Initiative was intended to resolve the debt problems of the most heavily-indebted poor countries (originally 41 countries, mostly in Africa) with total debt nearing $200 billion. The 600 million people living in these countries survive an average of 7 years less than citizens in other developing countries, with half living on less than $1 per day. Money freed up by debt relief must be used for sustainable development, so that the countries will not again face unmanageable debts and their people can exit from extreme poverty.
• Rich World, Poor World
http://www.cgdev.org/Research/?TopicID=39
“The Center for Global Development is dedicated to reducing global poverty and inequality through policy-oriented research and active engagement on development issues with the policy community and the public. A principal focus of the Center's work is the policies of the United States and other industrial countries that affect development prospects in poor countries.” This site gives more information on CBD research and publications on issues such as Education and the Developing World, Global Trade, Jobs and Labor Standards and Global HIV/AIDS and the Developing World.
Applied Research
Sociologists Ross E. Mouer and Yoshio Sugimoto (1990) present a multidimensional framework for thinking about stratification. They identify four dimensions of stratification: economic, political, psychological, and information-based, and give examples of rewards associated with each dimension. Select one specific type of reward from the list below and find data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census or other data sources that illustrate patterns of inequality in the United States.
Economic rewards:
Occupation
Salary
Pension
Benefits
Environment (quality of surroundings)
Employment security
Job safety
Quality of recreation facilities
Leisure
Political rewards:
Influence
Authority
Contacts
Access to guns and tanks
Control over army or police force
Votes
Publicity
Information and intelligence
Psychological rewards:
Status
Prestige
Honor
Esteem
Fame
Publicity
Recognition
Friends
Conspicuous consumption
Information-based rewards:
Knowledge
Specific skills