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Chapter 8
 The unequal distribution of:
 Wealth
 Power
 Prestige

Due to meritocracy or social stratification
 Social hierarchy
 Division of society into groups
 Upper
 Middle
 Lower
 Criteria for Stratification:
 Race
 Class
 Gender
 Age
 Whatever is socially important.
1.
Characteristic of society
2.
Persists over generations
3.
All societies stratify their members
4.
Maintained through beliefs (ideology)



Divine right of kings
White man’s burden
Work hard and you will achieve
 1. Slavery
 2. Caste system
 3. Social class
 Most extreme form of
stratification
 People are property
 Can be bought and sold
 Provide labor
 Status determined by heredity (birth)
 Religious
 Economic
 Political
 Physical characteristics
 Cannot be changed
▪ Apartheid in South Africa (1948-1991)
4 official
groups:
 Black
 White
 Indian
 Coloured


Social Class:

System based on access to resources:
 Wealth
 Property
 Power
 Prestige

Sociologists refer to it as socioeconomic status
(or SES).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHACox2UamQ
 Upper class:
 Wealthiest people in U.S.
 About 1% of the U.S. population
 Most of the wealth of the country
 How the very rich live
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDPBxN9Ez1o&feature=related
 Playhouses
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feApzG9FUuY&feature=related
Top 10 of Forbes 400 Wealthiest in 2012
 Professionals and Managers
 Executives
 Managers
 Well-educated
▪ College or postgraduate degrees
 14% of the U.S. population
 Primarily:
 “White collar” workers
 Broad range of incomes
 About 30% of the U.S. population
 “Blue-collar” or service industry
workers
 Less likely to have college degrees
 30% of the U.S. population
 “Working poor”
 Unemployed
 Typically have lower levels of literacy
than other classes
 20% of U.S. population
U.S. Social Class Ladder
The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology, 2nd Edition
Copyright © 2010 W.W. Norton & Company
◦
Social institution that organizes
society’s:
 Production,
 Distribution, and
 Consumption of goods and services
Goods: Commodities (products)
Services: Activities that benefit people
 What goods & services to produce?
 In what quantities?
 How scarce resources are allocated?
 How goods & services are distributed?
 Access to goods & services?
 Capitalism
 Socialism
 No nation is completely one or the
other
 Two ends of a continuum
1.
Private ownership of means of
production
1.
Public ownership of the
means of production
2.
Production based on profit
2.
Production based on
human needs
3.
Competition
3.
Equality of all people
4.
Democracy
5.
Common good
4.
5.
Self-interest
Limited government influence
24
U.S. considered a Capitalist system

Most businesses are privately owned

But government has large role in the
economy

Public Ownership:
 Schools
 Highways
 Parks
 Museums
 Sets minimum wage levels
 Workplace safety standards
 Provides farm price supports
 Negotiates trade policies
 Karl Marx: Two main social classes in
capitalist societies:
1.
Capitalists (or bourgeoisie), who own
the means of production
2.
Workers (or proletariat), who sell their
labor for wages
 Max Weber: Social Class has 3 components:
1.
Class (Wealth: money, investments)
2.
Status (Prestige)
3.
Party (Power)
Social Prestige of Selected Occupations in U.S.
The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology, 2nd Edition
Copyright © 2010 W.W. Norton & Company
Social Prestige of Selected Occupations in U.S.
White Collar
Score
Blue Collar
White Collar
Score
Blue Collar
The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology, 2nd Edition
Copyright © 2010 W.W. Norton & Company


Social reproduction=Generation to generation
“Cultural capital”
 Expectations
 Habits
 Tastes
 Skills
 Knowledge
 Perceptions

Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
 The way we use status differences to categorize
ourselves and others

Erving Goffman: Social class indicated by:
 Clothing
 Speech
 Gestures
 Possessions
 Friends
 Activities
 Functions:
 Motivates people to achieve
 Allocates people into jobs
 Poor provide jobs for others
 Social service
Theory in Everyday Life
The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology, 2nd Edition
Copyright © 2010 W.W. Norton & Company
 Life Chances
 Consequences of belonging to a
certain social class:
 Education
 Employment
 Medical care (health)

Social mobility: Movement within the
hierarchal system of social classes
 Move up or move down
 Closed system very little opportunity to
move from one class to another
 Open system offers opportunities to move
from one class to another

How to marry rich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvibi2Cph-E&feature=related
 Intergenerational mobility:
 Movement between social classes
 From one generation to the next
 Intragenerational mobility
 Movement between social classes
 Over an individual’s lifetime
 Horizontal social mobility
 Occupational movement within a
social class
 Vertical social mobility
 Upward or Downward movement

Structural mobility: Changes in social
status of large numbers of people due to
structural changes in society


Example: Creating new kinds of jobs
Industrialization—Improved social status
 Increases in education
 New technology
▪ Computers
 For a family of 4, 2012
official
poverty line was an annual income of
$23,050
 2012: 46.2 million people in poverty
 15% of the population poverty

Money Income- Compute Poverty Status

Earnings, unemployment compensation,
workers' compensation, Social Security, SSI,
public assistance, veterans' payments, survivor
benefits, pension or retirement income,
interest, dividends, rents, royalties, income
from estates, trusts, educational assistance,
alimony, child support, assistance from
outside the household, & miscellaneous
sources.
 Income before tax deductions
 Excludes:
 Capital gains
 Accumulated wealth
 Home ownership

Social Security also lifted roughly 14.5
million seniors above the poverty line.

Without SS, the number of people
ages 65+ in poverty would have
increased five-fold
 Top 1 % of wage earners had a 6 %
increase in income over last year
 Income at the bottom 40%
basically unchanged
 What can we do?