Chapter 11 Stratification and Global Inequality

1. Chapter 11Stratification and Global Inequality • The Meaning of Stratification • Stratification and the Means of Existence • Stratification and Culture • Power, Authority, and Stratification

2. Chapter 11Stratification and Global Inequality • Stratification in the Modern Era • Theories of Stratification • Stratification and Global Inequality

3. Social Stratification Society’s system for ranking people hierarchically according to attributes: • Wealth • Power • Prestige

4. Caste System • Closed stratification system into which people are born and in which they remain for life. • Membership in a caste is ascribed.

5. Class System • Social strata based primarily on economic criteria. • Classes of modern societies are defined by the prestige they receive from society. • The way people are grouped with respect to their access to scarce resources determines their life chances.

6. Social Stratification • For small farmers or peasants social strata are based on land ownership and agrarian labor. • Members of lowest strata do the hardest work while those at the top live in relative comfort. • Entire classes have been been eliminated in modern industrial societies as a result of changes in the means of existence.

7. Norms That Reinforce Stratification • Deference- how people behave around those of a higher status. • Demeanor – how people present themselves. 

8. Elements of the Great Transformation • Goods, lands and labor were transformed into commodities whose values could be translated into money. • Relationships based on ascribed status were replaced with relationships based on contracts.

9. Elements of the Great Transformation • The corporation replaced the family, manor or guild as the dominant economic institution. • Rural people began selling their labor for wages. • Demands for full political rights and quality of opportunity spread to wage workers, the poor and women.

10. Conflict Theory • Capitalist societies are divided into two opposing classes: workers and capitalists. • Conflict between classes would lead to revolutions that would result in a classless society. • Marx prediction was not borne out in any society that attempted to implement his ideas on a large scale.

11. Functionalist Perspective • Social classes emerge because unequal distribution of rewards is necessary to channel talented people into important roles in society. • Fails to account for the fact that social rewards in one generation improve the life chances of the next generation. • Doesn't explain why talented people from lower-class families are unable to obtain highly rewarded positions.

12. Interactionist Perspective • People form status groups whose prestige is measured according to what they buy and what they communicate through their purchases. • Stratification system is created over and over again through the everyday behaviors of people.

13. Globalization • Opens new regions to increased trade and investment from other parts of the world, and to greater movement of people across national boundaries. • The benefits are not shared equally: richest 20% command far more than their share of wealth, information and energy.

14. Human Poverty Index • Based on measures of deprivation in longevity, knowledge and standard of living. • Among Developing Countries: • Lowest human poverty index: Trinidad and Tobego (4.1%). • Highest poverty index: Mali (54.7%).

15. Gender Disparities • No contemporary society treats women as well as men. • In developing countries 60% more women than men are illiterate. • In industrial countries unemployment is higher among women than men and women constitute 3/4 of unpaid family workers. 

16. Costs of Universal Accessto Basic Social Services • Basic education $6 billion • Basic health and nutrition $ 13 billion • Reproductive health and family planning $12 billion • Low-cost water supply and sanitation $9 billion • Total: $40 billion