Stratification systems include class systems and caste systems, as well as meritocracy. India used to have a rigid caste system. The people in the lowest caste suffered from extreme poverty and were shunned by society. In this photo, an Indian woman of a specific Hindu caste works in construction, and she demolishes and builds houses. Caste systems are closed stratification systems in which people can do little or nothing to change their social standing.
A caste system is one in which people are born into their social standing and will remain in it their whole lives. People are assigned occupations regardless of their talents, interests, or potential. In the Hindu caste tradition, people were expected to work in the occupation of their caste and to enter into marriage according to their caste.
Accepting this social standing was considered a moral duty. Cultural values reinforced the system. Caste systems promote beliefs in fate, destiny, and the will of a higher power, rather than promoting individual freedom as a value.
A person who lived in a caste society was socialized to accept his or her social standing. Although the caste system in India has been officially dismantled, its residual presence in Indian society is deeply embedded.
In rural areas, aspects of the tradition are more likely to remain, while urban centers show less evidence of this past.
As a global center of employment, corporations have introduced merit-based hiring and employment to the nation. A class system is based on both social factors and individual achievement. A class consists of a set of people who share similar status with regard to factors like wealth, income, education, and occupation.
Unlike caste systems, class systems are open. People are free to gain a different level of education or employment than their parents. They can also socialize with and marry members of other classes, which allows people to move from one class to another. In a class system, occupation is not fixed at birth. Though family and other societal models help guide a person toward a career, personal choice plays a role.
In class systems, people have the option to form exogamous marriages , unions of spouses from different social categories. Marriage in these circumstances is based on values such as love and compatibility rather than on social standing or economics. Though social conformities still exist that encourage people to choose partners within their own class, people are not as pressured to choose marriage partners based solely on those elements. Marriage to a partner from the same social background is an endogamous union.
Meritocracy is an ideal system based on the belief that social stratification is the result of personal effort—or merit—that determines social standing. High levels of effort will lead to a high social position, and vice versa. The concept of meritocracy is an ideal—because a society has never existed where social rank was based purely on merit. Because of the complex structure of societies, processes like socialization, and the realities of economic systems, social standing is influenced by multiple factors—not merit alone.
Inheritance and pressure to conform to norms, for instance, disrupt the notion of a pure meritocracy. While a meritocracy has never existed, sociologists see aspects of meritocracies in modern societies when they study the role of academic and job performance and the systems in place for evaluating and rewarding achievement in these areas. Social stratification systems determine social position based on factors like income, education, and occupation.
Caste systems correlate with high status consistency, whereas the more flexible class system has lower status consistency. Susan earned her high school degree but did not go to college. That factor is a trait of the lower-middle class. She began doing landscaping work, which, as manual labor, is also a trait of lower-middle class or even lower class.
However, over time, Susan started her own company. She hired employees. She won larger contracts. She became a business owner and earned a lot of money. Those traits represent the upper-middle class. In a class system, a person can work hard and have little education and still be in middle or upper class, whereas in a caste system that would not be possible.
In a class system, low status consistency correlates with having more choices and opportunities. Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, who is in line to be king of England, married Catherine Middleton, a so-called commoner, meaning she does not have royal ancestry.
It is rare, though not unheard of, for a member of the British royal family to marry a commoner. Stratification is defined as the act of sorting data, people, and objects into distinct groups or layers. It is a technique used in combination with other data analysis tools. When data from a variety of sources or categories have been lumped together, the meaning of the data can be difficult to see.
This data collection and analysis technique separates the data so that patterns can be seen and is considered one of the seven basic quality tools. The ZZ manufacturing team drew a scatter diagram to test whether product purity and iron contamination were related, but the plot did not demonstrate a relationship.
Then a team member realized that the data came from three different reactors. Figure 1: Stratification Diagram. Now patterns can be seen. Individuals can experience upward or downward social mobility for a variety of reasons.
Upward mobility refers to an increase—or upward shift—in social class. In the United States, people applaud the rags-to-riches achievements of celebrities like Jennifer Lopez or Michael Jordan. Bestselling author Stephen King worked as a janitor prior to being published. Oprah Winfrey grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi before becoming a powerful media personality. There are many stories of people rising from modest beginnings to fame and fortune.
But the truth is that relative to the overall population, the number of people who rise from poverty to wealth is very small.
Still, upward mobility is not only about becoming rich and famous. In the United States, people who earn a college degree, get a job promotion, or marry someone with a good income may move up socially. Some people move downward because of business setbacks, unemployment, or illness.
Dropping out of school, losing a job, or getting a divorce may result in a loss of income or status and, therefore, downward social mobility. It is not uncommon for different generations of a family to belong to varying social classes. This is known as intergenerational mobility. For example, an upper-class executive may have parents who belonged to the middle class.
In turn, those parents may have been raised in the lower class. Patterns of intergenerational mobility can reflect long-term societal changes.
Similarly, intragenerational mobility describes a difference in social class that between different members of the same generation. For example, the wealth and prestige experienced by one person may be quite different from that of his or her siblings. Structural mobility happens when societal changes enable a whole group of people to move up or down the social class ladder.
Structural mobility is attributable to changes in society as a whole, not individual changes. In the first half of the twentieth century, industrialization expanded the U. Many people have experienced economic setbacks, creating a wave of downward structural mobility. When analyzing the trends and movements in social mobility, sociologists consider all modes of mobility. Scholars recognize that mobility is not as common or easy to achieve as many people think.
In fact, some consider social mobility a myth. Class traits , also called class markers, are the typical behaviors, customs, and norms that define each class. Class traits indicate the level of exposure a person has to a wide range of cultures. Class traits also indicate the amount of resources a person has to spend on items like hobbies, vacations, and leisure activities.
People may associate the upper class with enjoyment of costly, refined, or highly cultivated tastes—expensive clothing, luxury cars, high-end fund-raisers, and opulent vacations. People may also believe that the middle and lower classes are more likely to enjoy camping, fishing, or hunting, shopping at large retailers, and participating in community activities.
While these descriptions may identify class traits, they may also simply be stereotypes. Moreover, just as class distinctions have blurred in recent decades, so too have class traits. A very wealthy person may enjoy bowling as much as opera. A factory worker could be a skilled French cook. A billionaire might dress in ripped jeans, and a low-income student might own designer shoes.
Class distinctions were sharper in the nineteenth century and earlier, in part because people easily accepted them. The ideology of social order made class structure seem natural, right, and just. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, U. They published novels in which characters struggled to survive against a merciless class system. These dissenting authors used gender and morality to question the class system and expose its inequalities. They protested the suffering of urbanization and industrialization, drawing attention to these issues.
For speaking out so strongly about the social issues of class, authors were both praised and criticized. Most authors did not want to dissolve the class system. They wanted to bring about an awareness that would improve conditions for the lower classes, while maintaining their own higher class positions DeVine Soon, middle-class readers were not their only audience. The act increased literacy levels among the urban poor, causing a rise in sales of cheap newspapers and magazines.
These reading materials are credited with the move toward democratization in England. Many of the novels of that era are seen as sociological goldmines. They are studied as existing sources because they detail the customs and mores of the upper, middle, and lower classes of that period in history. There are three main classes in the United States: upper, middle, and lower class.
Social mobility describes a shift from one social class to another. Class traits, also called class markers, are the typical behaviors, customs, and norms that define each class.
The accompanying web site is full of information, interactive games, and life stories from those who participated. Beeghley, Leonard. DeVine, Christine. London: Ashgate Publishing Co. Domhoff, G. Gilbert, Dennis. Kennickell, Arthur B. Ponds and Streams: Wealth and Income in the U. January 7. Lin, Nan, and Wen Xie.
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