Inequality and Stratification as Social Institution

1. PEDU 6210Education Policy and SocietyTopic 4Education Policy and Social Differentiation: Modern Education as Balance Wheel of Social Origins?

2. EDM 6210Education Policy and SocietyTopic 3 (i)Understanding Social Inequality & Social Stratification

3. Inequality and Stratification as Social Institution • “An institution is a relatively enduring collection of rules and organized practices, embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant in the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the idiosyncratic preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external circumstances.” (March and Olsen, 2006, p.3)

4. Inequality and Stratification as Social Institution • Social inequality as a social institution • Durability and persistence or even inevitability of social inequality in human societies • Universality and resilience of social inequality across human societies • Understanding and explaining the persistence and resilience of social inequality across time and locality is one of the major areas in sociological enquiry.

5. Inequality and Stratification as Social Institution • “Stratification system refers the complex of social institutions that generate inequalities… The key components of such systems are (1) the institutional processes that define certain types of goods as valuable and desirable, (2) the rules of allocation that distribute these goods across various positions or occupations in the division of labor, (3) the mobility mechanisms that link individuals to occupations and thereby generate control over valued resources.” (Grusky, 1994, p.3)

6. Inequality and Stratification as Social Institution • Conceptual dimensions of social stratification • The degree of inequality: It refers to the extent of dispersion or concentration of a given of assets (i.e. income) across the individuals in the population. • The rigidity of stratification: It refers to “continuity (over time) in the social standing of its members. The stratification system is said to be highly rigid, for example, if the current wealth, power, or prestige of individuals can be accurately predicted on the basis of their statuses or those of their parents.” (Grusky, 1994, p. 5-6)

7. Inequality and Stratification as Social Institution • Conceptual dimensions of social stratification • …. • Crystallization of inequality: It refers to the extent of correlations among the various assets in a given society. “If these correlations are strong, then the same individuals (the ‘upper class’) will consistently appear at the top of all status hierarchies, and other individuals (the ‘lower class’) will consistently appear at the bottom of the stratification systems.” (Grusky, 1994, p. 6)

8. Inequality and Stratification as Social Institution • Conceptual dimensions of social stratification • …. • Ascription vs. achievement process: It refers to the principles of allocation in use in the allocation process of a given asset to the eligible individuals. By ascription process, it refers to the allocation process is primarily determined by individuals’ “traits present at birth (e.g. sex, race, ethnicity, parental wealth, nationality)” (Grusky, 1994, p. 6); while achievement process refers to the allocation process is mainly determined by individuals’ own abilities and efforts.

9. Inequality and Stratification as Social Institution • David Grusky’s conception of forms of social inequality: David B. Grusky categorizes social inequality in accordance with the types of assets in allocation

11. Stratification and Education: The Formulation of the Problem • The promise of universal education as balance wheel of social inequality: Myth or reality?

12. Horace Mann’s promise: “Surely nothing but universal education can counterwork this tendency to the domination of capital and servility of labor. If one class possesses all the wealth and the education, while the residue of society is ignorant and poor, it matters not by what name the relation between them may be called: the latter, in fact and in truth, will be the servile dependents and subjects of the former. But, if education be equally diffused, it will draw property after it by the strongest of all attractions. ... Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” (Horace Mann, 1848) Downloaded from: http://www.tncrimlaw.com/civil_bible/horace_mann.htm

13. Horace Mann (1796-1859)

14. Stratification and Education: The Formulation of the Problem • Mass and universal education has been construed as one of the most salient institution of modern society to remedy the social inequality in human society, but in reality such as promise of the project of modernity has continuously been questioned by sociologists • Is equality in education or more specially equality of educational opportunity an attainable goal or just rhetoric in education policy studies?

15. Stratification and Education: The Formulation of the Problem • Mass and universal education • ….. • If the answer is positive, then the next question will be: Is equality of educational opportunity is effective measure to compensate and remedy social equality, such as class, gender and/or racial inequalities? • If the answer is negative, then the next question will be: Is equality of educational opportunity but ideology legitimatizing the ever persisting social inequality in human societies? • Finally, is equality of educational opportunity an attainable goal or just rhetoric in education policy studies?

16. The Institutional Contradictions of Education in Modern Society • The structural contradiction of modern schooling system • Inequality: The structural imperative of capitalist class structure on the outcomes of education system • Equality: The structural imperative of democratic citizenship on the process of education system

17. The Institutional Contradictions of Education in Modern Society • The functional contradiction of modern schooling system • Schooling is to prepare children to be employable, effective, efficient and competitive labor in capitalist-global market • Schooling is to prepare children to be free, equal, rational and articulating citizen in liberal-democracy

18. Inequality at the Turn of the 21st Century • Wright’s definition and typology of inequality • “To speak of a social inequality is to describe some valued attributes which can be distributed across the relevant units of a society in different quantities, where ‘inequality’ therefore implies that different units process different amount of the this attribute.” (Wright, 1994, p.21) • Typology of inequality

19. Typology of Forms of Inequality (Wright, 1994, p.24)

20. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century (2014) • One of the major findings of Piketty’s book is that the inequalities in wealth and income have increased drastically at the turn of the 21st century (See Piketty, Fig. 7.1. and also Saez, 6.2 below)

22. (Source, Piketty, 2018, P. 46)

23. (Source, Saez, P. 39)

24. (Source, Piketty, 2018, P. 47)

25. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century (2014) • More specifically, the divergence of income between upper and lower classes began to takeoff in the 1980s. However, as we trace back in time to the post WWII, we can witness the convergence of income between the upper and lower classes throughout the 1950s to 1980s.

26. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century (2014) • Piketty asserts that two major conclusions can be drawn from these historical trends: • “The history of the distribution of wealth has always been deeply political, and it cannot be reduced to purely economic mechanism. …The history of inequality is shaped by the way economic, social, and political actors view what is just and what is not, as well as by the relative power of those actors and the collective choices that results. It is the joint product of all relevant actors combined.” (Piketty, 2018, Pp. 44-45)

27. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century (2014) • Piketty asserts that two major conclusions can be drawn from these historical trends: • ….. • “The second conclusion…is that the dynamics of wealth distribution reveal powerful mechanisms pushing alternatively toward convergence and divergence.” (Piketty, 2018, P. 45)

28. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century (2014) • Piketty asserts that two major conclusions can be drawn from these historical trends: • …. • Taken together, to account for the inequality of the 21st century, sociologists are supposed to map out the complex power plays staged by different relevant economic, social and political actors in both the mechanisms of convergence and divergence of inequalities in income and wealth. And to depict how the outcomes of these power plays are unfolded in different points in time in varieties of national, regional and global contexts.

29. World Inequality Report 2018

38. The 21st century’s aporia of class analysis According to conflict theories in class analysis, such e.g. those of Marxian and Weberian, class conflict or class struggle are most like to take place in situation where class inequalities in terms of income, wealth or even life-chances distributions are most salient. It is evident that in the past few decades, inequalities in income and wealth are increasing drastically in most of the developed countries, and yet the class relations between the advantaged and disadvantaged have not triggered any large scale confrontations, not to mention conflicts or struggles. The situation has posed a significant aproia to sociologists in the field of social stratification and political economy.

39. Topic 2 (i)Understanding Social Inequality & Social StratificationEND