1. What is the Davis-Moore thesis? The Davis-Moore thesis states that social stratification has good consequences for society. They argue societies may have different occupations or tasks that these jobs differ in their importance to society. They believed this encourages people to work harder and be more efficient in their jobs, ultimately benefiting society.
2. List and define three different systems of stratification in society. The three different systems of social stratification in society are slavery, castes, and social classes. Slavery is the most extreme form of social inequality, where enslaved people are treated a property that can be bought, sold, and used however the owner wants. A caste system is one where social
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Lastly, horizontal mobility occurs when an individual takes another job that keeps him in the same social class.
5. Compare and contrast the upper-uppers and the upper-lowers in the United States.
The upper-upper class are those who come from old money, which is inherited from previous generations.This class compose less than 1% of the population, but possess a great deal of power, and influence society. The upper-lowers are those who come from “new money.” Most of these people a famous stars and are sometimes referred to as the “working rich” because they work for the money they earn. Although the upper-lowers may possess more money than the upper-uppers, they often find it difficult to be apart of the upper society.
Critical Thinking Questions
1. The Davis-Moore thesis argues that social inequality is beneficial to society. Do you agree or disagree with this thesis? Why or why not? I agree with Davis-Moore 's thesis that social inequality is beneficial to society. Without social inequality everyone would be equal, earning the same amount of money and working at the same jobs. One of the major benefits of social inequality is that individuals have different occupations that differ in their importance in society. While there are some jobs anyone could do, like working at Taco Bell. Other jobs require a lot of skill, patience, and knowledge, like
Social inequality refers to the ways in which socially defined categories of persons. Unequal society has a big impact on individuals. There are different ways in how you can discriminate against someone this includes stereotyping. Stereotyping is were an individual is labelled as a certain person, or put into a certain group. For example a group of teenagers on the streets wearing hoodies, people would presume they were out to cause trouble.
Each of these groups is stratified into its own class; the group of people ranked most closely to them in property, power, and prestige. A person’s position in the stratification system affects everything about their life, from what they think and expect in life to how they see the world, as well as what opportunities they will have access to. Although, your status is still assigned at birth, but you have the chance at upward social mobility based on material possessions that you acquire, or things that you achieve. Or you may be on the other end of the spectrum and experience downward social
Although most people in the United States of America do not live in an upper-class household, this term is often correlated with income, wealth, power, and prestige. In fact, “approximately one percent of the U.S. population is considered to fall in this stratum” (2017 p.260). Nevertheless, the middle class are the rulers of the United States of America. Per Conley, the middle class is “a term commonly used to describe those individuals with nonmanual jobs that pay significantly more than the poverty line – though this is a highly debated and expansive category, particularly in the United States of America, where broad swathes of the population consider themselves middle class” (2017 p.262). In particular, the middle class is often correlated with white-collar workers, such as accountants, teachers, and attorneys. An abundant number of families in the United States of America are considered to be “poor.” In accordance with Conley, “in 2015, the poverty line for a family of four was $24,250” (2017
All of a sudden, I found myself thinking sociologically when I started wondering about how get payed differently. As a society we have set up many barriers around people that makes them feel that they have very little that they can do. We have divided society into social classes that arranged from the upper class to the middle class then lower class. These classes that are set make some people feel like they are at a disadvantage when it comes to many things. After having a long thought about this I think that removing the social classes will be very beneficial to many people. Some the rich people will say that they like how it is now because they are getting lots of benefits from the social classes and that it’s not their fault they have more than others.
The first key idea from the materials is that social inequities and capitalism are intertwined. In the TEDTalks, while the upper class, or plutocrats, are typically living large, the lower classes are struggling to live. Additionally, due to the unfair system, the lower-income people are more likely to drop out
Income inequality happens in the United States. Possibly income inequality is a suitable portion of a lively and wealthy economy, as long as encouragements work hard and fee in schooling. Or does it interrupt public organization and exclude the unfortunate?
Social inequality is defined as the unequal distribution of social and economical resources. There are unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions and statuses within a group or society. Because there is social inequality, people have less life chances meaning less educational and occupational opportunities, which prevents movement on the social ladder. This gives authority to the rich because the rich own the means of production, giving capitalists the power to exercise it by exploiting the poor working class. An individual interest and not that of a community drive the rich. Such differences degrade and stigmatize the social class with less money and opportunities causing social stratification.
Individuals within a society are grouped into certain rankings that is based on their wealth, income, race and education known as the social stratification. Sociologist use this to determine the social standings of individuals within a society. Social stratification can also appear in much smaller groups. These groups such as the work place, schools, and businesses can “take the form of a distribution of power and authority down the ranks”. (Cole, 2017) The Caste system is also another form of stratification that one does not get a choice in. They are born into it and regardless of their talents will hold positions that are given to them their whole life. Social mobility is the ability for individuals to move about their social standings.
In “Some Principles of Stratification” Davis and Moore discuss stratification within society and how it impacts different
Social stratification is the system of inequality based on ranking people or groups based on power, prestige, and wealth (www.sociologydictionary.org, 2017). This term is often seen as a cultural trait of the society and not a reflection of individual differences and involves inequality as well as beliefs that encourage the inequality. Social stratification can be either closed (ascribed) or open (achieved) and characterized by social mobility. There are two types of social mobility: vertical and horizontal. People who lives in open type societies often work harder to move up but in closed type system the social status determine by birth, like caste system and suppresses any desire for achievement.
Social stratification can be defined as a system in which groups of people are divided into layers according to their relative property, power, and prestige. Social stratification can affect the way people interpret life. There’s four major systems that makes up social stratification slavery, caste, estate, and class. Slavery refers to the aspect that people can own other people. This has been around since ancient times of history, and still do this day occurring. Slavery is based upon three factors, which the debt, crime, and war. Slaves were classified as the poor, by not having any land, and zero power. Although several slaves contained these factors, there are others that could develop a higher position in the community. Slaves could
Social stratification can be simply defined by stating that it is a system in which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy (Macionis, page 224). The concept of social stratification is based on four central principles, which are social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences, it carries over from one generation to the next, while it is universal, it is also variable, and social stratification involves not only inequality but beliefs as well (Macionis, pages 224-225). The first principle, that social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences, basically says that children born into wealthy families are more likely to be of good health, do well in school, succeed in a career, and live a long life (Macionis, pages 224-225). An example of this first principle can be seen in the what happened to the Titanic. The first-class passengers survived not because they were better swimmers than the second- and third-class passengers, but because of their privileged position (Macionis, page 224-225). The second principle states that the concept of social stratification is one that carries over from one generation to the next (Macionis, page 225). This concept is essentially stating that the social standing of a person is partially determined by their parents. Most people’s social standing remains constant throughout their lives (Macionis, page 225). While social stratification is
In similar fashion, inequality affects many people of the Egyptian heritage. From the outside looking in, Egypt is known as one of the most wealthiest and prosperous economies in the world, however, in their case it seems that as the rich gets richer the poor are becoming poorer. In most societies, the stratification is an economic system based on wealth, the net value of money places people in forms of social groups. In Egypt there are many social categories of people—the rich, the military establishment, educated youth, the middle
Does social stratification have a functional purpose in society or is it just another means of social inequality?
For society to function we need people to do the basic jobs that keep our world running such as, farmers, fast food workers, educators, police officers, lifeguards, etc., and to get the best people to do these jobs society has to have an incentive for these positions. The harder jobs to do usually have more incentive than the occupations that require less skill, the incentive may be a higher salary or more job stability. Some argue that it is immoral to give better awards to some jobs than others, because each job has a contribution to society. Another critization of social stratification is the purpose that is trying to be promoted is sabotaged by the idea in the first place. Different social classes divides society and hinders the possible talents by those born into the lower classes from ever making a contribution to society. Giving the children born into poverty an equal opportunity just as kids born into other social classes is needed in order to eliminate this problem. Critics also claim that the more important occupations in a society are not really open. This can be explained as “...members of society who occupy privileged positions allow only a small number of people to enter the circle, so shortages are created artificially” (Tischler, 2014, P.194) and this causes the determined worth of people who do hold the privileged positions. In certain situations the high reward a job has does not actually pertain to the function the job serves, such as celebrities. We pay