REPORT

Social Stratification, Global Stratification and Social Class

Prepared By
Group IV
Ferrer Kenneth B.
Caballes Arjay M.
Nera Mark Jayson B.
Medecielo Leinorsan D.
Nucup Angelica Claire L.
1

What is Social Stratification?

For tens of thousands of years, humans lived in small hunting and gathering
societies. These bands of people show little signs of inequality. As societies
became more complex, major changes came about, these changes elevated
certain categories of the population by giving them more power, money, and
prestige.
Social Stratification-a system by which a society ranks categories of people
in a hierarchy.
1. Social Stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of
individual differences.
Children born into wealthy families are more likely than children born in
poverty to experience good healthy, achieve academically, succeed in lifes
work and live a long life.
2. Social stratification persists over generations.
To see stratification as a trait of society rather than one of individuals, we
need to only look at how inequality persists along generations. In all
societies, parents pass their social position on to their children.
Social Mobility- change in ones position in the social hierarchy.
3. Social stratification is universal but variable.

In some societies, inequality is mostly a matter of prestige; in others, wealth or

power is the key dimension of difference. More importantly some societies display
more inequality than others.
1 http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Introd/Presentations/Ch10.ppt
(accessed February 18,2015)

4. Social stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs.

Any system of inequality gives some people more than others and the society
also defines the arrangements as fair.

Caste and Class Systems

A Caste System- is a social system based on ascription, or birth.

A pure caste system is closed because birth alone determines ones destiny, with
little or no opportunity for social mobility based on effort.

First, traditional caste groups have specific occupations, so generations of a

family perform the same type of work.
Second, maintaining a rigid social hierarchy depends on people marrying
within their own categories; mixed marriages would blur the ranking of
children.
Endogamy- marriage between people of the same social category.
Third, caste norms guide people to stay in the company of their own kind.
Fourth, caste systems rest on powerful cultural beliefs.
Caste systems exist in agrarian societies because life long routines of
agriculture depend on a rigid sense of duty and discipline.
The Class System
Class System- social stratification based on both birth and individual achievement.
The class system categorizes people according to their color, sex, or social
background comes to be seen as wrong in industrial and post-industrial societies,
and all people gain political rights and roughly equal standing before the law.
Meritocracy- social stratification based on personal merit.
People in industrial societies develop a broad range of capabilities, stratification
is based on merit, which is the job one does and how well one does it.
The Functions of Social Stratification
2 http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Introd/Presentations/Ch10.ppt
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Davis-Moore Thesis- Social stratification has beneficial consequences of the

operation of a society.
According to the Davis-Moore thesis, the greater the functional importance of a
position, the more rewards a society attaches to it. This strategy promotes
productivity and efficiency because rewarding important work with income,
prestige, power, and leisure encourages people to do these jobs and to work better
longer and harder. Unequal rewards benefit some individuals, then, and a system of
unequal rewards benefits society as a whole.

Stratification and Conflict

Social-Conflict analysis argues that rather than benefiting society as a whole,
social stratification provides some people with advantages over others. This
analysis draws heavily on the ideas of Karl Marx, with contributions from Max Weber.
Marx saw great inequality in wealth and power arising from capitalism, which,
he argued, made class conflict inevitable. In time, he believed, oppression and
misery would drive the working majority to organize and ultimately overthrow
capitalism.

Marx explained that through the family, opportunity and wealth are passed down
from generation to generation. Moreover, the legal system defends private
property and inheritance. Finally, elite children mix at exclusive schools, forging
social ties that will benefit them throughout their lives. Capitalist society
reproduces the class structure in each new generation.
Max Weber: Class, Status, and Power
Weber saw Marxs two-class model simplistic.
Instead, he thought social stratification involves three distinct dimensions of
inequality.
The first dimension is economic inequalitythe issue so vital to Marxwhich
Weber called class position. Weber did not think of classes as crude categories
but as a continuum ranging from high to low. Webers second dimension of social
stratification is status, or social prestige, and the third is power.
Webers view of social stratification in industrial societies as a multidimensional
ranking rather than a hierarchy of clearly defined classes.
Socioeconomic status (SES)-a composite ranking based on various dimensions of
social inequality.

Social stratification according to Weber is variable and complex.

3

Global Stratification

Global Stratification is social stratification on a global scale. Where social

stratification draws attention to inequalities between smaller groups of people,
global stratification draws attention to inequalities between entire countries. For a
long time, Americans have used three categories to stratify nations: first-, second-,
and third-world. Although the three-world model was useful during the Cold War, it
is less useful today, as it does not accurately reflect the uneven distribution of
resources and power among nations.
Sociologists now categorize countries based on gross domestic product, which is
an indicator of a country's wealth and standard of living. High-income countries are
the richest nations with the highest overall standards of living. They include
approximately 25% of the nations in the world, yet they hold most of the world's
wealth. The largest proportion of the world's nations - about 42% - falls into the
middle-income category. Middle-income countries have average income and a
standard of living about average for the world as a whole. The remainder of the
world's nations - about 33% - fall into the last category, low-income countries, which
are those with a low standard of living in which most people are poor.
4

Global Inequality: Differences Between Countries

Global Inequality The systematic differences in wealth and power that exist
between countries
Indicators of Economic Development
GDP A countrys yearly output of goods and services per person
Three economic classes as determined by the World Bank -- low,
middle, and high. (macro national level)
Global Inequality : Differences

Between Countries

3 https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociologytextbook/global-stratification-and-inequality-8/stratification-systems67/stratification-396-10457/ (accessed February 18,2015)

4https://www.google.com.ph/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCIQFjAB&ur
l=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.lib.umn.edu%2Fclar0514%2Facademic%2Fglobal
%2520inequality.ppt&ei=c9HlVNH_G4Xc8AXo8YHgDA&usg=AFQjCNGG2GAtPNGi3CCcncNH5z6d6CIOA&sig2=XJy7NafK6_hIBfztS6j5Mw (accessed February
18,2015)

High Income Countries

GDP of $9,266 per person

Generally those first to industrialize

Account for only 15% of the worlds population

Lay claim to 79% of the worlds annual output of wealth

Middle-Income Countries

GDP of $756 - $9,265 per person

Most began to industrialize late in the 20th century.

Includes 45% of the worlds population

Only accounts for 18% of the annual output of wealth

Low Income Countries

GDP under $755 per person

Mostly agricultural economies that have only recently

began to industrialize

Accounts for 37% of the worlds population

Produces only 3% of the annual output of wealth

Theories of Global Inequality

Market-oriented theory
Free market, less government intervention
Dependency theory

The exploitation of the wealthy countries & the multinational corporations on

the poor countries
World-system theory
5https://www.google.com.ph/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCIQFjAB&url=http
%3A%2F%2Fblog.lib.umn.edu%2Fclar0514%2Facademic%2Fglobal
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Core,semiperiphery & periphery countries.

State-centered Development Theory
Active role of government
Modernization Theory
To develop, countries must embrace new technologies and market driven
values.
Dependency Theory
Exploits the least powerful nations to the benefit of wealthier nations.
World Systems Theory
Economic development is explained by understanding each countrys place
and role in the world economic system.

Social Class

Social class refers to the grouping of individuals into positions on a stratified

social hierarchy. Class is an object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists,
anthropologists and social historians. However, there is not a consensus on the best
definition of the term "class," and the term has different contextual meanings.
In common parlance, the term "social class" is usually synonymous
with socioeconomic status, which is one's social position as determined by income,
wealth, occupational prestige, and educational attainment.
Common models used to think about social class come from Marxist Theory:
common stratum theory, which divides society into the upper, middle, and working
class; and structural functionalism.

Class in Marxist Theory

According to the class social theorist Karl Marx, class is a combination of
objective and subjective factors. Objectively, a class shares a common relationship
6 https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/globalstratification-and-inequality-8/stratification-systems-67/class-estate-399-3427/ (accessed
February 18,2015)

to the means of production. Subjectively, the members will necessarily have

some perception of their similarity and common interests, called class
consciousness. Class consciousness is not simply an awareness of one's own class
interest but is also a set of shared views regarding how society should be organized
legally, culturally, socially and politically.
In Marxist theory, the class structure of the capitalist mode of production is
characterized by two main classes: the bourgeoisie, or the capitalists who own the
means of production, and the much larger proletariat (or working class) who must
sell their own labor power for wages. For Marxists, class antagonism is rooted in the
situation that control over social production necessarily entails control over the
class which produces goods in capitalism this is the domination and exploitation of
workers by owners of capital.
Weberian Class
The class sociologist Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of
stratification that saw political power as an interplay between "class", "status" and
"group power. " Weber theorized that class position was determined by a person's
skills and education, rather than by their relationship to the means of production.
The Common Three-Stratum Model
Contemporary sociological concepts of social class often assume three
general categories: a very wealthy and powerful upper class that owns and controls
the means of production; a middle class of professional or salaried workers, small
business owners, and low-level managers; and a lower class, who rely on hourly
wages for their livelihood.
The upper class is the social class composed of those who are wealthy, wellborn, or both. They usually wield the greatest political power.
The middle class is the most contested of the three categories, consisting of
the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socioeconomically
between the lower class and upper class. One example of the contestation of this
term is that In the United States middle class is applied very broadly and includes
people who would elsewhere be considered lower class. Middle class workers are
sometimes called white-collar workers.
The lower or working class is sometimes separated into those who are
employed as wage or hourly workers, and an underclassthose who are long-term
unemployed and/or homeless, especially those receiving welfare from the state.
Members of the working class are sometimes called blue-collar workers.

Consequences of Social Class

A person's socioeconomic class has wide-ranging effects. It may determine

the schools he is able to attend, the jobs open to him, who he may marry, and his
treatment by police and the courts. A person's social class has a significant impact
on his physical health, his ability to receive adequate medical care and nutrition,
and his life expectancy.
Class mobility refers to movement from one class status to another--either
upward or downward. Sociologists who measure class in terms of socioeconomic
status use statistical data measuring income, education, wealth and other indexes
to locate people on a continuum, typically divided into "quintiles" or segments of
20% each. This approach facilitates tracking people over time to
measure relative class mobility. For example, the income and education level of
parents can be compared to that of their children to show inter-generational class
mobility.

7 https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/globalstratification-and-inequality-8/stratification-systems-67/class-estate-399-3427/ (accessed
February 18,2015)