Sociology
CLASS AND STRATIFICATION
Lesson Outline

Understanding Social Stratification

Social stratification and inequality

Systems of stratification

Social classes in the United States

Theories of Social Class

Socioeconomic status and life chances

Social mobility

Defining poverty

Inequality and the ideology of the American Dream
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Understanding Inequality
 Inequality is the unequal access to scarce
goods or resources.
 It is found in most, if not all, societies.
 It is a question of how unequal a society is.
 How unequal is the United States?
 Can it be seen from space?
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International Comparison of Poverty
Rates among Wealthy Countries
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Understanding Social
Stratification
Social stratification is the division of society into
groups arranged in a social hierarchy based on
access to wealth, power and prestige. Ex: slavery,
caste and social class
Where people rank in stratification system influences
every part of their lives in profound ways.
 What food they eat, where they shop, clothes they wear,
schools they attend, income they earn, how long (and
quality of life) they live, occupation.
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Social Stratification
 Every society has some form of social stratification, but
societies group people on different criteria (such as race,
class, and gender).
 Social stratification is a characteristic of society; it
persists over generations, and it is maintained through
beliefs (and ideologies) that are widely shared by
members of society.
 By definition inequality is unequal; this contradicts basic
American values.
 How are we ok with some having more than others?
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Systems of Stratification
(Cont’d)
 Social class refers to a system of
stratification based on access to resources
such as wealth, property, power, education
and prestige.
 Sociologists often refer to it as socioeconomic
status (or SES).
 By the way, what’s the difference between
income and wealth?
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Social Classes in the United
States
 The upper class (capitalist class):
 Wealthiest people in a class system
 Make up about 1% of the U.S. population
 Possess most of the wealth of the country
 The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1
in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the
stock market bubble.
 It was at 411:1 in 2005 and 344:1 in 2007, according to
research by United for a Fair Economy.
 By way of comparison, the same ratio is about 25:1 in
Europe.
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Social Classes in the United
States
 The upper-middle class:
 Professionals and managers
 Make up about 14% of the U.S. population
 Benefited the most from college
 The middle class consists primarily of
 “White collar” workers
 Have a broad range of incomes
 Make up about 30% of the U.S. population
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Social Classes in the United
States
 The working (lower-middle) class:
 “Blue-collar” or service industry workers
 Less likely to have college degrees
 Make up about 30% of the U.S. population
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Social Classes in the United
States
 The lower class (the working poor):
 Many poor people who typically have lower
levels of literacy than other classes
 Make up about 20% of the U.S. population
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CEOs' average pay, production workers' average pay,
the S&P 500 Index, corporate profits, and the federal
minimum wage, 1990-2005 (all figures adjusted for
inflation)
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Distribution of income in the
United States, 1982-2006
Top 1 percent
Next 19 percent
Bottom 80 percent
1982
12.80%
39.10%
48.10%
1988
16.60%
38.90%
44.50%
1991
15.70%
40.70%
43.70%
1994
14.40%
40.80%
44.90%
1997
16.60%
39.60%
43.80%
2000
20.00%
38.70%
41.40%
2003
17.00%
40.80%
42.20%
2006
21.30%
40.10%
38.60%
From Wolff (2010).
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How unequal are we?
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Distribution of Net Worth (assets
– liabilities), 2001
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How unequal are we?
 The top-earning 20 percent of Americans -- those
making more than $100,000 each year -- received
49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S.,
compared with the 3.4 percent made by the bottom
20 percent of earners, those who fell below the
poverty line, according to the new figures (late
2010).
 That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in
2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.
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 At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of
Americans, who earn more than $180,000,
added slightly to their annual incomes last
year.
 Families at the $50,000 median level slipped
lower.
 Lower-skilled adults ages 18 to 34 had the
largest jumps in poverty last year.
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Americans Vastly Underestimate
Wealth Inequality
 A recent report shows across ideological,
economic and gender groups, Americans
thought the richest 20% of our society
controlled about 59 percent of the wealth,
while the real number is closer to 84%.
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Americans Vastly Underestimate
Wealth Inequality
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Theories of Social Class
 Karl Marx believed that there were two main social
classes in capitalist societies:
 Capitalists (or bourgeoisie), who owned the means
of production
 Workers (or proletariat), who sold their labor for
wages
 He believed that the classes would remain divided
and social inequality would grow.
 Has social inequality grown?
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Theories of Social Class
 Max Weber offered a similar model that also
included cultural factors.
 He argued that class status was made of
three components:
 Wealth (or Privilege, inherited assets)
 Power
 Prestige
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What does your living
room/neighborhood say about you?
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Theories of Social Class
 More recently, Pierre Bourdieu argued each
generation acquires cultural capital (tastes,
habits, expectations, skills, knowledge, etc.) that
help us to gain advantages in society
 This cultural capital either helps or hinders us as
we become adults.
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Lareau’s “concerted
cultivation’ and ‘natural
growth’

How does social reproduction (tendency for social classes to remain
stable across generations) occur?

Research indicates class more important than race and that childrearing practices reproduce class-based advantages

Concerted cultivation – involves high levels of extracurricular activities
(which prepare children for success in the middle class adult world, but
requires time and money, usually by mom)

Accomplishment of natural growth - which emphasizes loving children
and providing for them and giving children much more leisure time that
is self-directed and unstructured.
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Concerted Cultivation
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Theories of Social Class
 Symbolic Interactionists examine the way we
use status differences to categorize ourselves
and others.
 As Erving Goffman pointed out, our clothing,
speech, gestures, possessions, friends, and
activities provide information about our
socioeconomic status.
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Socioeconomic Status and Life
Chances
 Belonging to a certain social class has
profound consequences for individuals in all
areas of life including:
 Education
 Employment
 medical care
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Brain and Lung Cancer Statistics
What’s different about how one gets which type of
cancer?
Lung cancer is strongly impacted by health behaviors
whereas brain cancer is generally viewed as less
predictable or preventable
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Social Mobility
 Social mobility is the movement of individuals or
groups within the hierarchal system of social classes.
 America technically has an open system (it is legal
and permissible for people to move between classes)
but there are structural patterns where people tend
to stay very close to the class they were raised in.
 If we have an open system, why do we see a lack of
opportunities to move between classes?
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Poverty
 In the United States, the federal poverty line (an
absolute measure of annual income) is frequently
used to determine who should be categorized as
poor.
 In 2005, about 37 million people (12.6% of the
population) in the United States were considered
poor.
 Recent estimates show this is now about 14% of the
population; and the pop is larger now than in 2005.
 Why are we so unaware of the poor?
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Number of Poverty and Poverty
Rate, 1959-2007
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Poverty
 The culture of poverty refers to learned
attitudes that can develop among poor
communities and lead the poor to accept
their fate rather than attempt to improve
their situation.
 What is missing from this theory?
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Inequality and the Ideology of
the American Dream
 The ideology of the American
Dream (that anyone can achieve
material success if they work hard
enough) explains and justifies our
social system, but it has been
criticized for legitimizing
stratification by telling us that
everyone has the same opportunity
to get ahead.
This Alger novel features
a newsboy who rises to
Newspaper editor.
Are most Americans
today likely to achieve
upward mobility?
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The Problem with the American
Dream
 It is predicated on a “meritocracy” (that hard
work is justly rewarded).
 This notion tells us that success or failure
depends on the person, when in reality we
know that there are structural advantages
and disadvantages that also contribute to an
individual’s success or failure.
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Take Away Points:
 Inequality is intentional; moreover it is rising.
The U.S. now has higher rates of inequality
and poverty than other industrialized
countries.
 It is legitimated by the ideology of
meritocracy and the American Dream.
 Social class profoundly effects every facet of
your life.
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