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Chapter 13, Social Stratification

Chapter 13, Social Stratification. Chapter Outline. Dimensions of Social Inequality Types of Societies Racial and Ethnic Stratification Race and Ethnicity in the United States Forms of Intergroup Relations Theories of Stratification. Social Inequality.

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Chapter 13, Social Stratification

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  1. Chapter 13, Social Stratification

  2. Chapter Outline • Dimensions of Social Inequality • Types of Societies • Racial and Ethnic Stratification • Race and Ethnicity in the United States • Forms of Intergroup Relations • Theories of Stratification

  3. Social Inequality • Max Weber’s criteria for measuring social inequality: • Wealth • Power • Prestige

  4. Three Types of Societies • Based on levels of social inequality: • Egalitarian • Rank • Stratified societies

  5. Egalitarian Societies • No individual or group has more wealth, power, or prestige than any other. • Everyone, depending on skill level, has equal access to positions of esteem and respect. • Found most readily among geographically mobile food collectors • Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari region • Inuit • Hadza of Tanzania

  6. Rank Societies • Unequal access to prestige but not to wealth or power. • Fixed number of high-status positions, which only certain individuals can occupy. • Others are excluded regardless of skills, wisdom, industriousness, or personal traits. • Found most prominently in Oceania and among Native Americans of the Northwest.

  7. Stratified Societies • Considerable inequality in power, wealth, and prestige. • Closely associated with the rise of civilization approximately 5,500 years ago. • As societies become more specialized, the system of social stratification becomes more complex.

  8. U.S. Class Structure

  9. Hindu Caste Society • Social boundaries are strictly maintained by caste endogamy and notions of ritual purity and pollution. • Caste system has persisted for 2,000 years and enables the upper castes to maintain a monopoly on wealth, status, and power.

  10. Race • Race - classification based on physical traits. • Ethnicity - classification based on cultural characteristics. • There are no pure races. • Different populations have been interbreeding for thousands of years, resulting in a continuum of human physical types.

  11. Forms of Interracialand Interethnic Relations • Pluralism: two or more groups live in harmony and retain their own heritage, pride, and identity. • Assimilation: a racial or ethnic minority is absorbed into the wider society. • Legal protection of minorities: the government steps in to legally protect the minority group.

  12. Forms of Interracialand Interethnic Relations • Population transfer: physical removal of a minority group to another location. • Long-term subjugation: political, economic and social repression for indefinite periods of time. • Genocide: mass annihilation of groups of people.

  13. Social Stratification: Theories • Functionalist • class systems contribute to the well-being of a society by encouraging constructive endeavor. • Conflict • stratification systems exist because the upper classes strive to maintain a superior position at the expense of the lower classes.

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