What is Social Class Social Stratification And Principles of Social Class - Essay Example

?What is Social In all societies, material and symbolic rewards are distributed in unequal proportions and every society strives to find an answer to this unequal distribution of resources. Social Stratification is defined as systematic form of inequality. In days before industrial age social stratification was treated as normal. It was considered that some people on earth are there to indulge in slavery in terms of their race or ethnicity. In the same way it was considered that between male and female, one gender would dominate the other. These sorts of views where inequality in society was considered as natural, there was no urge to investigate on social stratification. (Crompton, 1998, p. 1) The paper attempts to analyze the different perspectives of social class. Social Stratification Apart from the stratification explained above, there is a second view of inequality wherein it is considered as divine structure of society. For example in India there is Hindu caste system. In this system the people of lower castes face many restrictions as they are thought to be ineligible to mix with the higher caste. Thus caste system also gives rise to social inequality. (Crompton, 1998, p. 2) There is also material inequality, which is justified as divine law. It was considered natural that the “best” should be getting the major rewards of the society. Western Europe was basically a rural society from ninth century onwards, where the social status of an individual was determined by the amount of land he owns and the church mainly controlled it. The church had the benefit of both economic and moral strength. The preaching of the church was that God gave land so that people can live on the earth for achieving eternal salvation. The church’s view was that one should not seek for riches as that is considered as greed and poverty is thought to be divine. (Crompton, 1998, p.2) In primitive society, concentration of wealth in the hands of few was contributed to social stratification. Throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, capitalism developed in the Western Europe and in most other parts of the world. The advent of capitalism paved the way for modern society in which the traditional explanations of social inequality were faced with criticisms. (Crompton, 1998, pp.2,3) The concept of inequality due to birth was opposed with the justification that every human being on earth is born equal. This gave rise to explanation of inequality from social perspective. The question arose that if equality is considered as natural condition of human beings and if everyone is gifted with equal rights, then what gives the right to some people to dominate the others. Social contract theorists provided the answers to some of these questions. According to Hobbes (1588-1679), that life in general is nasty and short and is chracterised by war between men of different statures. To maintain peace in the society and to avoid chaos, submission to the situation is the best thing to do. According to Locke (1632-1704), it is the state’s authority to protect the natural rights of individuals in regard to life and property. Rousseau (1712-18) did not believe that social equality could be achieved. According to him, direct democracy can provide the best protection to people. (Crompton, 1998, p.3) Principles of Social Class Every human society of any country has unequal structure of society. In every society, in the past or in the present, there has been unequal distribution of goods and services. From this it can be assumed that some inevitable factors lead to such social arrangements. There are some services in the society that require certain skill from people. There can be talent in many people for performing many services but to convert those talents into skills it requires long periods of training that calls for some kinds of sacrifices. To encourage the people to undergo such trainings they must be promised of equal privileges in the future positions. For instance, in a factory, it is not ethically correct to judge that the engineers are more important than the unskilled workers because in the long run everyone becomes indispensable to the factory. Moreover, it has been seen that such judgements as to indispensability of a certain class of people depends upon the bargaining power of that section of people. This power is rather a culturally shaped consequence of rating system and is not inevitable. (Levine, 2006, pp.105-107) Unequal Wealth Distribution In a society, there is almost always unequal distribution of wealth. These inequalities in economic conditions mean people of certain sections of the society enjoy special privileges. Wealthy people can get better quality of goods and services that are available in the market than those accessed by the poor people. Wealthy people can also afford to live in big houses, travel in cars unlike the poor section of the society who rely more on public transport. Statistics have shown that people of lower class in society have lower life spans than people of high-class society and their children do not often get higher education. (Saunders, 1990, p. 41) Racial Inequalities A society also is comprised of inequalities between racial groups. Children who belong to families of backward caste generally perform worse in the field of education than those children who belong to upper castes. There is also evidence that in a society, boys perform better than girls in secondary and higher education. Then people living in different regions of a country have different conditions in health. (Saunders, 1990, p.42) Education as way of overcoming Social Inequality The Americans believe that educating the society is the best was for overcoming the structure of social inequality. Scientific research has shown that education in every sphere of the society cannot be attained. Studies have demonstrated that college admission and graduation are linked to social stratification in regard to class and race. In search of better explanation of the link between education and social inequality, researchers have studied the decisions that adolescents face in different stages of their course of education. Researchers have seen that the decision of transition from school to college taken by adolescents depend on a number of factors like their ability to achieve success in college, potential job opportunities and their capacity to invest necessary funds in higher education. It is vital to investigate how and whether students can reach the detailed information that would make them possible to achieve their dream of attaining college after school. It is necessary to study the role of parents in children’s education. It is seen that parents continue to get involved in the education of their children eve in college level. Thus it is seen that social and economic status of the family have impact on the decision making process of adolescents. Transition to college from school is not simple and requires many steps. The young generation can benefit from proper guidance from the adults. Sometimes low grades in school and lack of determination act as hindrance to being accepted in colleges. Parents of middle class society devote considerable amount of hours to get involved in their children’s education and as such the middle class youth have significant advantage. Poor families or working class people rarely get involved in children’s education and they give the entire responsibility to schools. In these families the youth do not get proper guidance regarding college education. Thus, the overall scenario is that the young generation’s decision to pursue higher education is linked to social and economic inequality. (Lareau and Conley, 2008, pp. 118-120). Effects of Social Background on Human Behaviour An example of Kray twins can be given as an example of how social background can give rise to criminals in society. The Krays were an old-fashioned family from the East End of London. The twins carried Irish, Romany and Jewish blood. They lived in a tiny terrace house where their maternal grandparents also lived. The area where they lived where bombed down in war and even before that it was one of the poorest section of the East End and many criminals were born in that area. The house where they lived had no bathrooms and since it was situated near the railway station, the entire house shook day and night when trains traveled past the windows of their bedrooms. Grandfather of the twins would sit with them for hours and talk about the criminals and their activities of the old East End. The Kray twins who were considered the heroes of the local area committed several murders and were serving 30 years in jail. Ronnie who was the elder twin died of heart attack while serving his term at the age of 61 and his twin brother Reggie was let out for the day of funeral under heavy guard. People gathered in large crowds to say their final farewell to Reggie, the murderer. (Marsh, Keating, Punch and Harden, 2009, pp. 4,6) Conclusion Social class is determined by a numbers of factors like wealth, status, caste, education and living conditions. While it is not possible for achieving equality in every sphere of the society, it is largely upon the government of a particular country to strive for maintaining balance in the social structure. Although equal rights are given to all classes of the society, but lack of opportunity and financial status deprive the people of lower class of many privileges. References 1. Crompton, R. (1998), Class and Stratification: An Introduction to Current Debates, USA: Wiley-Blackwell 2. Levine, R. F. (2006), Social Class and Stratification: Classic Statements and Theoretical Debates, USA: Rowman & Littlefield 3. Saunders, P. (1990), Social Class and Stratification, London: Routledge 4. Lareau, A. and D. Conley (2008), Social Class: How Does It Work, USA: Russell Sage Foundation 5. Marsh, I., Keating, M., Punch, S. and J. Harden (2009), Sociology: Making Sense of Society, England: Pearson Education Read More