social inequality

social inequality

social inequality exists when we see people

having unequal access to valued

resources, goods, and services in a society

social inequality

social inequality is significant force in

our lives, it influences our chances of going

to college, graduating from it, getting a

good job, or living a healthy and long life

social inequality

social inequality may appear between rich

and poor, between dominant and

minority groups, between the sexes

and between the old and the young

social stratification

it is a division of society into

categories with some getting more

rewards than others: wealth, power,

prestige or whatever is highly valued by

the society

bases of stratificationwealth: karl marx divided industrial society into two major and one minor classes: the bourgeoisie, the proletariat and the petite bourgeoisie

marx differentiated them on the basis of two criteria: whether or not they own the “means of production” – tools, factories, offices and stores – and whether or not they hire others to work for them

bases of stratificationpower: the ability to get people to do things they otherwise would not do – is associated with wealth

most sociologists agree that people with more wealth tend to have more power

bases of stratificationprestige: sociologists call this kind of stratification a status system

prestige is subjective, depending for its existence on how a person is perceived by others

occupation seems to be the most important source of presitge

what is class?classes are groupings across society

involving inequalities in such areas as power, authority, wealth, income,

prestige, working conditions, and lifestyles and culture

class is a category of people who own or do not own the means of

production, or have about the same amount of income, power and

prestige

identifying classessociologists have devised three

different methods for identifying what our class is:

1. reputational method: asks what do others think of us?

2. subjective method: asks what do we think of ourselves?

3. objective method: asks what do we do, what do we have and

how do we live?

identifying classessociologists have devised three

different methods for identifying what our class is:

1. reputational method: asks what do others think of us?

2. subjective method: asks what do we think of ourselves?

3. objective method: asks what do we do, what do we have

and how do we live?

class profiles1. upper class: “people who have

really made it”, they include the old rich, the celebrity rich, the anonymous

rich, and the run-of-the-mill rich

2. upper-middle class: “people who are doing very well”, they are professional

people, they have very large homes, often vacation in europe, and belong

to semi exclusive clubs

class profiles3. middle-middle class: “people who have achieved the middle-class dream”, although having a lot more than the necessities, they

don’t have many luxuries, they are suburbanites living in a three-bedroom

house with a family tv room, each summer they head for the mountain or the beach

4. lower-middle class: “people who have comfortable life”, these folks pay their bills

on time and even manage to salt something away for a rainy day, they own a six-room,

single-family house in a not-too-fashionable suburb

class profiles5. upper-lower class: “people who are just

getting along”, often the husband is a factory worker, the wife a waitress or store clerk,

they rent a small house or large apartment, they own a more-than-ten-year-old car, a tv

set, and a clothes washer, but not a dishwasher

6. middle-lower class: “people who are having a real hard time”, these men and women are

the working poor, proud that they are working and not on the public dole, they are likely to live in a walkup in an old apartment building, the husband could be a custodian,

the wife a cleaning lady

class profiles7. lower-lower class: “people

who are poor”, most of these families are on welfare, they live in

the poorest section of the inner city, cockroaches come out at

night in the tiny kitchens of their one-bedroom apartments

correlates of classlife chances: we can see the impact of class on life chances in the titanic tragedy; in 1912, on the night when the ship sank into the atlantic ocean, social class was a major determinant of who survived and who died; among females on board, 3 percent of the first-class passengers drowned, compared with 16 percent of the second-class and 45 percent of the third-class passengers

correlates of classlifestyles: tastes, preferences, and ways of living

social mobilitythe movement of one occupational status to another

vertical mobility: moving up or down the status ladderhorizontal mobility: movement from one job to another within the same category

raceas a biological concept, race refers to a large category of people who share certain inherited physical characteristics – caucasoid, mongoloid, negroid

defined sociologically, race is a group of people who are perceived by a given society as biologically different from others

ethnic groupsa collection of people who share a distinctive cultural heritage and a consciousness of their common bond