social stratification

• Social Mobility


  The way in which a person can move up the social ladder
• Ascribed status


  Social position is assigned at birth
• Achieved status


  Social position is achieved through hard work and merit
• Closed system


  A society in which a person's status cannot be changed and social mobility cannot be achieved
• Open system


  A society in which a person's status can be changed and social mobility can be achieved
• Slavery


  • The members of the defeated society were born as slaves and this status could not be changed. Slaves were under the strict command of their masters
• Feudalism


  • It was operated in Medieval England, where there were 4 layers of society that all swore allegiance to the King. The peasants were at the very bottom. There was little to no social mobility
• Apartheid


  • The apartheid in South Africa segregated people according to their race. White people were considered superior whereas black and other people of colour were considered lesser than. Social mobility was not possible due to the fact that skin colour and race could not be changed
• Caste system


  • A system in India that stated people were above others because of their ancestry and heritage. Social mobility was no possibility of marriage between castes because becoming involved with castes below yours would've been repulsive
• Social class


  • Current stratification system of Britain today Based on economic factors such as household income. Social mobility is achievable if income increases enough to move up to the next class
• Functionalist view of stratification


  Stratas in society are necessary in order for people to the hard working, laborious jobs and to encourage people to work harder so they don't fall into those jobs
• Davis and Moore


  • Role allocation: People will get a job that suits their skills and efforts more. Some jobs are more functionally important than others, meaning that they require more time, effort, qualifications, training etc. More functionally important jobs will get rewarded more. Unequal rewards means that people will work harder to get the functionally important jobs. Society is meritocratic, so if people work harder to get functionally important jobs, they will reap higher rewards and be able to achieve social mobility through it
• Marxist view of stratification

  Capitalism creates a two-class stratification system by dividing people according to their wealth and income. Means of production are owned privately by the bourgeoisie who exploit the proletariat by paying them the least amount of money possible to increase the surplus value. Working class are also exploited by being alienated from their own labour power and products of it, they are encouraged to compete with each other and are alienated from their own being. The working class will rarely challenge the ideas of the upper class because they also own the production of ideas and beliefs. The capitalist ideology they created shapes the way of life in society. All social institutions work in the favour of the ruling class, which put the working class in a state of false-class consciousness. In order to create a classless system, the proletariat must overthrow the upper class and attain shared ownership through a revolution
• Weberian view of stratification

  3 dimensions to stratification; market situation, power and status. Market position: how much money you are potentially able to make - People with higher qualifications and specialist skills are more marketable and are therefore more likely to achieve social mobility. Status: how much prestige and respect a person receives from others and whether they are inferior or superior to others - Status and income do not always correlate directly; someone may have a low income but a high status (e.g religious leaders) or someone may have a high income but a low status (e.g drug dealers and strippers). Power: Individuals or groups can exercise their power by coercing people into doing what they want. People of a higher authority may exercise their power over people simply due to the fact that they have more authority, perhaps even due to their charisma
• Feminist view of stratification

  Two main stratas in society: men have more authority and exercise their power over women. Liberal feminists: Gender inequalities are due to unfair laws and gender role socialisation rather than biological differences. Radical feminists: Society is run by men for the advantage of men and women are disadvantaged at every aspect because of it. Marxist feminists: Women are cheap and exploitable for employers, women reproduce the labour force, women absorb the frustrations of their husband. Black feminism: Developed because other types of feminism did not acknowledge other factors such as race and ethnicity, mainstream feminism reflected the views of white middle-class women, developed the concept of intersectionality
• Intra-generational mobility


  When an individual movies up the social ladder
• Inter-generational mobility


  When a family member moves up the social ladder (e.g when a child moves to a different social class than their parents)
• Ways social mobility may be achieved

  • Educational credentials
  • Marriage
  • Inheritance
  • Changes in employment
  • Social capital
• Barriers to social mobility

  • Discrimination due to ethnicity
  • Gender
  • Poverty
  • Unfair opportunities in education or employment
• Scott


  • Education does not matter very much when it comes to occupational success, class structures are self-reproducing, chances of a person moving up or down the social ladder heavily depends on their social class, influence of social class is the leading influence in modern society
• Social Mobility Commission (2017)

  • People from privileged backgrounds are more represented in investment banking, a candidate's suitability may be assessed in relation to their educational background and also their polish (the way in which they speak, dress, act etc), advantages people from the middle-upper class
• Problems when measuring social mobility include: A person may change their career multiple times, some studies of intergenerational mobility only focus on the mobility of men, not women, making it unrepresentative, changing class structures
• Goldthorpe and Lockwood: Affluent Worker study


  • A process of embourgeoisement was taking place amongst the working class (they were becoming more like the middle class in terms of values), traditional working class values like solidarity had disappeared, they carried out their research in Luton and found that they rejected embourgeoisement thesis, the working class became a new version of the working class, but were still not like the middle class, they were similar to the middle class in terms of their home-centred, privatised lifestyle, they also became more instrumental, meaning that they began viewing things as a means to an end rather than the goal itself, they had individualistic social and political attitudes
• Devine: Affluent Worker study - Revisited

  • Tested the idea of privatised instrumentalism, interviewed male manual workers in Luton to be able to make a direct comparison with the research Goldthorpe et al carried out, did not find evidence to support the idea of privatised instrumentalism; their lifestyle was not as communal as it once was but it is also not as privatised as they had predicted, rejected the idea of the new working class and denied that affluent workers passively accepted capitalism, there was increase of living standards and aspirations as consumers but many workers still felt a sense of injustice when it came to people being put on a pedestal due to inheritance, her sample lost faith in the labour party, the working class' lifestyle, norms and values did not change as drastically as Goldthrope's study suggested
• Arguments for living in a classless society

  • Saunders: Class origins are not as important when shaping outcomes in modern Britain. Emphasises the importance of an individual's ability rather than class origins on the occupation they achieve
  • Functionalists believe that society is meritocratic and people's achievements are based on how hard they work and not on their social class
  • Class is no longer seen as a predictor of voting behaviour
• Arguments against living in a classless society

  • Economic changes since 2005 such as zero-hour contracts have made people aware of class differences
  • Although the proportion of people that do working class jobs has fallen, the amount of people that call themselves working class has remained the same
• Ethnicity and life chances: Power

  • ONS: 15% of the UK population were ethnic minorities but were severely underrepresented among holders of political power, people from ethnic minorities were also underrepresented amongst teachers and armed forces, especially in the higher ranks, this shows that they lack power because they lack the positions that will allow them to make people behave in ways they want
• Ethnicity and life chances: Employment

  • Li et al: focused on whether or not ethnic minorities have the same chances as white british people when it comes to employment. Indians and Chinese had the same chances but black Caribbeans had much worse chances. Weekly earnings for Bangladeshi and Pakistani women were much worse than white British women. Wood et al: found workplace discrimination in favour of white names over equivalent applications with ethnic names. People with ethnic names were less likely to be called back for an interview. Davidson: Concrete ceiling - Describes the embedded discrimination that prevents ethnic minority women from being promoted and makes their journey more difficult
• Ethnicity and life chances: Education

  • Troyna and Williams: Ethnocentric curriculum - Students of ethnic minority backgrounds may underachieve in school because the curriculum is ethnocentric and not representative of their history or culture, so they may lose interest in the subject. When black history is taught for example it's the negative aspects, like slavery. This would negatively impact their self-esteem. Wright: teachers hold ethnic-based stereotypes. Black Afro-Caribbean boys are seen as loud and underachieving, whereas Chinese Asian girls were seen as studious and timid
• Ethnicity and life chances: Criminal justice system


  • Mcpherson report: Police are institutionally racist and mishandled the case of Stephen Lawrence because they held racial prejudices against him due to the fact that he was a black teenage boy. Phillips and Bowling: police officers hold ethnic based stereotypes and are therefore more likely to stop and search ethnic minorities. They are over-policed, which leads to more arrests and convictions. This may lead to difficulties when trying to find jobs in the future
• Gender and life chances: Family

  • Oakley: women who worked ended up with a dual burden because they had paid employment and unpaid house work. Duncombe and Marsden: domestic work was overwhelmingly done by women. Triple shift: women carried out paid employment, unpaid domestic work and unpaid emotional work. Walby: women are disproportionately victims of domestic violence. Domestic violence is a result of women's inferiority to men and men exercising their power over women. Delphy and Leonard: women are constantly under control of the male figures in her life. When a girl gets a boyfriend or a husband, social control transfers from her father and brother to their male counterparts
• Gender and life chances: Employment

  • Men and women do not work in the same jobs and different areas are dominated by different genders. Bryant: women experience a glass ceiling which refers to the invisible barriers that prevent women from getting promoted. There is an unfair difference in the pay between men and women. Fawcett Society: Motherhood penalty; even 12 years after they give birth, women still earn 33% less per hour than men
• Gender and life chances: Education

  • Heaton and Lawson: hidden curriculum teaches patriarchal values in school. They found that there were traditional patriarchal values in textbooks, with men having the positions with more authority. Kelly: resources in the classroom are made to be more appealing to boys in certain subjects, such as science which would encourage them to pursue STEM related careers whereas girls are encouraged to take on activities such as textiles etc. Francis: Boys in the classroom attract more attention to themselves from teachers. This may lead to girls feeling neglected in the classroom as boys are likely to have more pupil-teacher interactions. Lees: there's a double standard when it comes to boys and girls. Girls who are seen as sexually promiscuous are demeaned whereas boys are praised for it
• Gender and life chances: Power

  • Women are underrepresented in positions of political and influential power. This would lead to less girls being inspired by it and less girls would choose to go into politics, which creates a cycle of unrepresentativeness
• Men and life chances

  • They are significantly affected the decisions that women have made. Crisis of masculinity: boys underachieve more in school compared to girls, there's a decline in the paid work in manufacturing and other laborious industries. Men see their masculinity as being at risk because they are likely to get low-paying insecure jobs or experience long-term unemployment
• Age and life chances: Employment


  • Unemployment rate for 16-24 year-old's is much higher than other age groups, many young people are likely to hold insecure jobs or zero-hour
• Girls are neglected in the classroom as boys are likely to have more pupil-teacher interactions
• Lees: 'There's a double standard when it comes to boys and girls. Girls who are seen as sexually promiscuous are demeaned whereas boys are praised for it'
• Women are underrepresented in positions of political and influential power
• Women being underrepresented in positions of power


  Less girls being inspired by it and less girls would choose to go into politics, which creates a cycle of unrepresentativeness