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An abstract is required. Social class refers to the ranking of people into a hierarchy within a culture. The idea of the social class entered the English lexicon about the s, with no specific originator. This ranking may be legal, as in former Indian castes, or abstract. Various schools of sociology differ in postulating which social traits are significant enough to define a class.

Social Class And The Self Video

Social Class And The Self

In this section, we will look at social stratification from the perspectives of each of the major schools of thought within sociology. We start with classical conflict and Weberian theories and structural functionalism, and then consider postmodern and symbolic interactionist theories. Each perspective offers different ideas about what determines social class, with the macro theorists focusing Social Class And The Self larger-scale social structures and the postmodern and micro theorists focusing more on meaning, interpretation, and interactions in everyday life. Karl Marx formed his social theories at a time when monumental changes were occurring in the stratification systems that characterized nineteenth-century Europe.

The feudal systemwhich consisted of a hierarchy of privileged nobles who were responsible for and served by a lower stratum of serfs forced laborerswas breaking down. Cities were growing larger as more people moved from rural areas to take part in the new forms of industry that were emerging there. Marx was concerned about a new kind of social inequality that he saw emerging—between the capitalists bourgeoisiewho owned the means of production, and the workers proletariatwho owned only their own labor.

Marx argued that economic relationships were quickly becoming the only social relationships that mattered: The impersonal forces of the market were creating a new, rigid system of social stratification in which capitalists had Social Class And The Self economic advantage and workers had none. He believed that the classes would remain divided and social inequality would grow; that wealth and privilege would be concentrated among a small group of capitalists and that workers would continue to be exploited.

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Contemporary conflict theorists continue to understand social class in a similar way. Max Weber noted that owning the means of production was not the only way of achieving upper-class status; a person could also accumulate wealth consisting of income and property.

As a contemporary example, Microsoft and Facebook are both publicly traded companies on the stock market, which means that they are owned by thousands of individual shareholders who benefit when the company turns a profit. But the people who started those companies have amassed far greater fortunes.

Although they may not own their corporations, Socil can exert influence over the marketplace, consumers, and the work lives of their employees. And they can use their wealth to support various causes and campaigns. Weber believed that another important element in social class has to do with prestigethe social honor granted to people because of their membership in certain groups.

Take note that athletes rank higher than sociologists in Table 7. Wealth by itself can also be a source of prestige, though not always. For Weber, wealth, power, and prestige are interrelated because they often come together, but it is also possible to convert one to the other.

Weberian Theory

The Kardashian sisters, for example, whose father Robert was a wealthy attorney most memorably in the O. They did little themselves to gain their prestige besides being born into wealth and being willing to participate in the reality shows that now bear their names. TABLE 7. Functionalism emphasizes social order and solidarity based on commonly shared values about what is good and worthwhile.

In this view, the system of stratification that has emerged over time, though not egalitarian, is still functional for society in a number of ways. Because there are a variety of roles to perform for the maintenance and good of the whole, there must be incentives to ensure that individuals will occupy those roles that are most necessary or important. Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore Social Class And The Self some of the principles of stratification that result in a system of rewards Social Class And The Self https://amazonia.fiocruz.br/scdp/essay/essay-writing-format-cbse-class-12/implementing-an-effective-punishment-for-an-offender.php unequally distributed among various roles. The assumption is that some roles are more desirable than others and may require greater talent or training. In addition, certain roles may be more critical than others to the functioning of society, as well as difficult to fill, so there must be a mechanism for attracting and securing the best individuals to those positions.

Conflict Theory

This would mean that there is widespread consensus about which positions are most Social Class And The Self click the following article terms of their special qualifications or the potential scarcity of qualified individuals to occupy those positions—and that society accepts the need to bestow rewards upon people who are considered of greater importance. Take, for instance, the role of a physician, which has the highest ranking of occupational prestige in American society National Opinion Research Center Doctors play an important role in providing highly prized services to other members of society.

Think of the steps it takes to become a doctor. A person must have an extensive education and graduate training and must complete a long and intensive internship before being certified to Sociap medicine. This individual also devotes a great deal of personal resources of time and money to this process. It is further assumed that there are only so many people who might have the talent and determination to become doctors, and so it follows that there must be incentives or rewards for them to enter the field of medicine. The functionalist perspective helps explain the existing system of social stratification and its persistence, but it still leaves us with Tge about the structured inequalities that it continues to reproduce.

Is it really functional for social rewards such as wealth, power, and prestige to be so unequally divided among members of society? And while we might agree that doctors are very important to society, are they more so than teachers and carpenters?

Our heroes of pop culture famous actors, athletes, musicians can rise to the highest ranks while our everyday heroes day-care providers, firefighters, mechanics may struggle to make a living. Whose values are structuring the system and, after closer scrutiny, is it clear that compensating stockbrokers more than bricklayers is really functional to society as a whole?]