UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY AND POLITICS
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
- It is a society's categorization of people into socioeconomic strata, based on their
occupation and income, wealth and social status, or derived power.
- Members of society is arranged in hierarchy based on their access to or control over
basic needs
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION DISTINGUISHED AS THREE SOCIAL CLASSES
1. The upper class - consists of the elite families who are the most prolific and
successful in their respective areas. These are the groups of people who are stock
holders, investors, and who live in an exclusive neighborhood. They own many houses,
mingle with the same class, and value heritage most over wealth.
Example: Business owners, investors, Government minister, Judges, Chief Executive
Officer (CEO).
2. The middle class - these are mostly professional people. They live in spacious
houses, situated in best subords. Their income can afford them a comfortable lifestyle.
They value education most since education to them is the most important measure of
social status.
Example: Doctors, Lawyers, Manager, owners of small businesses.
3. The lower class - these are the office and clerical workers, skilled and unskilled
craftsman, farm employees, underemployed and indigent families. They live in small
houses.
Example: agricultural workers, construction workers, Janitors, cleaners.
Each class can be subdivided into strata, e.g. the upper-stratum, the middle-stratum,
and the lower-stratum.
The categorization of people by social strata occurs in all societies, ranging from the
complex, state-based societies to tribal and feudal societies, which are based on
socioeconomic relations among classes of peasants.
Status - The individual's position in the social structure.
Statuses - The higher or lower positions that come about through social stratification.
However, statuses are not the same. We get difference statuses in different ways.
Some are ascribed statuses and achieved statuses.
Ascribed statuses - which are assigned or given by the society or group on the basis
of some fixed category, without regard to a person's abilities or performance.
Example: Family Background, sex, race, and ethnic heritage.
Achieved statuses - are earned by the individual.
Example: You become an actress because you won the search/contest "Starstruck".
Prestige and Easteem
Prestige - refers to the evaluation of status. You have prestige according to your status.
The prestige is not applied directly to you as a person, but rather to the social category
to which you are in. Prestige is based on your status, and esteem is based on your role
behavior.
Easteem - refers to the assessment of our role behavior. The measure of easteem we
have depends on how well we carry out our role.
Social class - generally referred to as a number of people who are group collectively
because they have similar professional occupational statuses amount of prestige or
lifestyle.
According to Mars, members of each social class shared many interests.
POLITICAL STRATIFICATION
- It is the extent to which inequalities are encapsulated in, or influenced by, political
structures and processes regarding influence, power and authority.
- from an institutional perspective can be related to laws, norms, values, class
structures, associations, and status groups, which structure or form the relations among
individuals and group of actors.
- can be expressed in many different ways. It is categorized by power volume. Power is
the ability to carry out the spirit to delineate and take charge of activities of other.
Political inequality structures from a relational perspective appear from differentiated
interactions among agents.
Social Mobility System/Structure
- The act of moving from one social status to another. Social mobility makes the
inequality of social class reasonable and, in the point of view of some, even justifiable.
Two types of social mobility:
1. Horizontal mobility is the movement of a person within a social class level.
For example: If a person leaves the job of a principal to become an Educational
supervisor, that remains in the same social class. The two jobs have the same
occupational status, require the same amount of trainings, receive same salary, and
have same amount of prestige. The person has been moved horizontally.
2. Vertical mobility is the movement of the person between social class levels. The
movement may be upward or downward.
Example: would be the rag-to-riches stories of Business tycoons.
Types of stratification system
∆ Closed system - impose rigid boundaries between social groups.
- Limit interactions between members who belong to different social groups or occupy
different levels in social hierarchy.
- resistant to change in social roles.
∆ Open system - mainly based on achievement allowing more flexibility in social roles,
increased social mobility and better interaction.
∆ Caste system - status is determined by birth and is lifelong. It is a closed system as it
does not allow for social mobility.
Example: India's Thousand Year Old Caste System.
Social Inequality
- The existence of uneven opportunities and rewards of a diverse social positions or
statuses within a group or society.
- occurs when resources (opportunities & rewards) in a given society are distributed
unevenly, typically through norms of allocation that engender specific patterns along
lines of socially define categories of person.
Gender Inequality
- It is the idea that men and women are not equal and that gender affects an individual's
living experience.
- Each society establishes a structure that on the balls of sex and gender, permits or
limits access to power, properly, and prestige: this structure is referred to as gender
stratification.
Sexism - an individual's prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people
of a given sex.
Sex and Gender are different concepts:
Sex - is the biological characteristics that distinguish males and females, primary sex
organs and secondary sex organs.
Gender - is a social characteristic that varies from one society to another and refers to
what the group considers proper for its males and females.
Feminism - a belief that women should have equal right with men in society.
