Preview

The Origin of Social Stratification

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
5553 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Origin of Social Stratification
INTRODUCTION
Social stratification is rigid subdivision of society into a hierarchy of layers, differentiated on the basis of power, prestige and wealth. It is the hierarchical arrangement of people in a society.

Stratification is common in the animal kingdom on the basis of power and gender and some form of stratification has probably always existed among humans. With the development of food and other surpluses resulting from technological advances in agriculture and manufacturing, some people began to accumulate more recourses or wealth than others.

Social stratification can happen on the basis of caste, income, wealth, education, religion, power, age, gender, occupation, race, region, language, party and politics. There could be many other factors influencing social stratification.

For the greater part of history, the existing stratification order was regarded as an immutable feature of society and the implicit objective of commentators was to explain or justify that order in terms of religious or quasi-religious doctrines.

ORIGINS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
In early societies, people shared a common social standing. As societies evolved and became more complex, they began to elevate some members. Today, stratification, a system by which society ranks its members in a hierarchy, is the norm throughout the world. All societies stratify their members. A stratified society is one in which there is an unequal distribution of society’s rewards and in which people are arranged hierarchically into layers according to how much of society’s rewards they possess. To understand stratification, we must first understand its origins.

HUNTING AND GATHERING SOCIETIES
[pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic]
Hunting and gathering societies had little stratification. Men hunted for meat while women gathered edible plants, and the general welfare of the society depended on all its members sharing what it had. The society as a whole undertook the rearing and socialization of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Social stratification is the separation of huge numbers of people into strata according to their relative power, property, and prestige. It affects to both nations and to people within a nation, society, or other group. Although they may argue as to which structure of social stratification they employ, all societies stratify their members. Bovee, Thill, and Tumin talk about social stratification in some way in their papers, which will be addressed below.…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Any stratification system is characterized by a number of rungs or levels of the society. In America for example, they have the upper class, middle class lower class etc. Stratification is essentially a ranking system it is the hierarchical order of different social class within a society. “Social Stratification can be described as socially-patterned inequality of access to things that a culture defines as desirable.” The definition defines how social classes are different among different cultures and societies. Therefore, depending on the different social class that is inherited, it will influence the individual’s function in society.…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The social structure of Britain has been highly influenced by the concept of social class. In sociology, the term ‘social class’ is most often used to refer to the primary system of social stratification found in modern capitalist societies. Social stratification refers to ‘the presence [in society] of distinct social groups which are ranked one above the other in terms of factors such as prestige and wealth’.…

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Social stratification refers to a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. Hypothetically, we can analyze social stratification from three major perspectives. Structural functionalists argue that social stratification is beneficial for a society, while a conflict theorist would argue that, rather than benefiting society as a whole, stratification provides some people with advantages over others. Finally, a symbolic interactionist would analyze how social stratification helps us see patterns of social inequality in our everyday…

    • 448 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Nickel and Dimed

    • 1820 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Two very different ideas are presented in the hierarchy of humanity, known as the theories of stratification. The first is the functionalist theory of stratification. This theory holds that, according to Emile Durkheim, "inequalities are good for society..." Certain people are designed and trained to perform certain jobs, and only those people can perform them to their full capacity. The workplace must reward the employee for good jobs and advances in specialization and training. This will induce the employee to work at his or her full potential. The second idea, which juxtaposes the first, is the conflict theory of stratification. This theory poses the idea that any form of social stratification creates a small, powerful group of individuals, and a large group of low wage, working class citizens. This theory also makes the points that, those who are in power, try to keep it, and proceed to create further disadvantages for the working class. The conflict theory in effect states that social inequalities are not good for society as they limit the ability for talented workers to realize their potential and utilize in the workforce.…

    • 1820 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In our society today, social class and stratification both play huge roles in how individuals and groups alike interact and function amongst each another. According to Parrillo, social stratification is the hierarchical classification of the members of society based on the unequal distribution of resources, power and prestige. (Parrillo, 2012) Parrillo illustrates the term social class by stating, it designates people’s place in the stratification hierarchy, identifying those in each grouping who share similar levels of income, status, property, power and types of lifestyle.…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    City Road Cardiff

    • 907 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The study of stratification has long been studied in the history of sociology, teachings such as inequality, including economic inequality, racial/ethnic inequality, gender inequality, and other types of inequality determines the differences people are facing within the society. This inequality is known as the ‘spatio temporal’ – social inequality. It means having unequal opportunities and rewards for different social statuses within a group or society. There are two main ways to measure social inequality: inequality of conditions, and inequality of opportunities. Inequality of conditions refers to the unequal distribution of income, wealth and material goods. Inequality of opportunities refers to the unequal distribution of ‘‘life chances’’ across individuals such as level of education, health status, and treatment by the criminal justice system.…

    • 907 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There are a number of different sociological perspectives that attempt to explain class stratification. One theory of which is Marxism. Karl Marx believed that there was a definite conflict between the classes, and that the system of stratification derives from different social groups and their relations to the means of production. From Marx's perspective, a class group is when all it's members share the same relations to the means of production. Marxism also believes that there are only 2 classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, showing social closure. The bourgeoisie exploit the proletariat who have to sell their labour to the ruling class. Marx believed that the…

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Global Stratification

    • 1804 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Social stratification is a categorized arrangement of large social groups based on their control over basic resources. Patterns of structural inequality, raises the main sociological issue which is, economic development that accompanies human development.…

    • 1804 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stratification is a "structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in a society" (Witt 238). There are four major groups of stratification. They are slavery, castes, estates and social classes. In America, a perfect example of stratification as I know it, is upper, middle and lower class. The textbook breaks social class down even further into five categories in America: upper, upper-middle, middle, working, and under-class" (Witt 240). Throughout childhood, I grew up in a typical middle-class family. Social mobility is the "movement of individuals or groups from one position in a society's stratification system to another" (Witt 241). More often than not, social mobility indicates a change…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    SSD2 Module 4 Notes

    • 28472 Words
    • 90 Pages

    Subcultures are groups within complex cultures who share the basic cultural outlook of the larger culture, but have significant differences.…

    • 28472 Words
    • 90 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It refers to an individual’s social standing or a society’s categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power. Social stratification produces and maintains inequality, not individual inequalities, but about systematic or social inequalities. The structure of society affects a person's social standing (OpenStax College, 2015, p.187). The term social stratification is also used in the social sciences to describe the relative social position of persons in a given social…

    • 1490 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Social Class Matters

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Davis, K., & Moore, W. E. (2000). Chapter 2: Some Principles of Stratification. In, Social Stratification, Class, Race, & Gender in Sociological Perspective (pp. 30-33). Perseus Books Group. Retrieved from EBSCOhost…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Social classes or social stratification in sociology is a concept involving classification of people into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political, race and ideological dimensions. When differences lead to greater status, power or privilege for some groups over the other it is called Social Stratification. It is a…

    • 2317 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Social Inequality happens when an individual or a group within a society has unequal rights to social commodities such as power, wealth, education and opportunity. The book defines Inequality as "the degree to which culturally valued material and social rewards are given disproportionately to individuals, families and other kinds of groups". Each culture has a different expression of inequality. Morton Fried, a Professor of Anthropology in the 1960's, proposed that there exists three kinds main kinds of inequalities across most cultures: Egalitarian, Ranked and Stratified.…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics