This document summarizes key concepts around social stratification and inequality from Chapter 3, including: 1) Social stratification refers to ranking members of society in groups based on status determined by factors like occupation, power, education. 2) Systems of stratification include slavery, caste systems, and social classes determined by education, occupation, income, and residence. 3) Social mobility refers to movement between social classes, which is more possible in class systems than slavery or caste systems, but upward mobility is still difficult to achieve.

1. ANTHONY GIDDENS ● MITCHELL DUNEIER ● RICHARD APPELBAUM ● DEBORA CARR
Slides created by Shannon Anderson, Roanoke College
Third Edition
Chapter 3: Stratification, Class, and Inequality 1

2. Social stratification
• Social stratification refers to the ranking of
members of a society in groups on the basis of
their status.
• This ranking may be on the basis of occupation,
power, economic resources, prestige, caste,
education.
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3. Determinants of Social stratification
a) Power
b) Economic resources
c) Prestige
d) Occupation
e) Caste
f) Education
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4. Systems of Stratification
Three basic types of systems of social stratification.
• Slavery
• Caste
• Class
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5. Systems of Stratification
Social class: A social class is a homogeneous group
of people in a society formed on the combined basis
of:
1. Education
2. Occupation
3. Income
4. Place of residence
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6. Social Classes in Pakistan
1. Upper social class
a) Upper Upper Class
b) Upper Middle Class
c) Upper Lower Class
2. Middle social class
a) Middle Upper Class
b) Middle Middle Class
c) Middle Lower Class
3. Working social class
a) Lower Upper Class
b) Lower Middle Class
c) Lower Lower Class 6

7. Social Classes in Pakistan
1. Upper social class:
i. They have high level of income and belong to be
most high paying profession.
ii. They live in cleanest place of the country
iii. Their size is 2% of the total society.
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8. Social Classes in Pakistan
2. Middle social class:
i. Social mobility is found highest in this class.
ii. They live comfortably than poor class, but are
financially lower than upper class.
iii. Their norms are likely to be similar to that of poor
class.
iv. This class is the best example of DEFERRED
GRATIFICATION PATTERN.
v. Their population is 28% out of the total population.
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9. Social Classes in Pakistan
3. Working social class:
i. Social mobility is the lowest in them.
ii. Rate of deviance is high in them.
iii. They lack long term planning.
iv. Their size is 70% out of the total population of
Pakistan.
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10. Type of social status
1. Ascribed Status - The social class position
allocated to an individual by society as a result of
factors over which the individual has no control.
2. Achieved Status - The social class position which
an individual acquires as a result of his/her own
activities.
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11. Social Mobility
• Social mobility is the movement of people up or
down the stratification system.
• It can also be defined as the act of moving from one
social class to another.
• Class systems allow for more movement than
slavery or caste systems.
• It is quite difficult to achieve upward social mobility.
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12. Types of Social Mobility
1) Territorial Mobility – It is the change of residence
from one place to another.
2) Vertical Mobility - Refers to a major movement
up or down in social class position.
3)Horizontal Mobility - Refers to movement within
a social class. In general, there is no overall change
in the social class status of an individual involved.
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13. Race and Wealth
• Research shows that non-whites generally have less
wealth and education than other social groups.
• Non-whites are also much more likely to experience
discrimination when buying homes.
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14. Marx and class conflict
• Karl Marx was very interested in class relations in
capitalist societies.
• Class was determined solely by one’s relation to the
means of production.
– Proletariat and bourgeoisie
– Group membership utterly determined life
chances.
• Ultimately the proletariat would overthrow the
bourgeoisie, ending the reign of capitalism.
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15. Weber: Class and status
• For Max Weber, position in a stratification system
was not based on economics alone.
• Weber’s had a three-fold approach.
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16. Functionalist Approaches
• Functionalist theorists attempt to understand what
role inequality plays in keeping society at
equilibrium.
• Davis and Moore (1945) argued that stratification
benefited society by ensuring that the most
important roles would be filled by the most talented
and worthy people.
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17. Poverty
Sociologists discuss two general types of poverty:
– Absolute poverty
– Relative poverty
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18. Why are the poor poor?
• Poverty is not simply the result of not working hard.
• Explanations for poverty are diverse.
• What we know is that low earnings make it very hard
to “get ahead.”
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19. Gender and poverty
Feminization of poverty.
• Because of social changes, including divorce and
the increasing normalization of single-parenting,
there are more female-headed households.
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20. Explanations for poverty
• Sociologists have many empirical explanations for
poverty, but by and large they all fall under one of
two themes:
– Blaming the victim
– Blaming the system
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21. Poverty and social problems
• Social welfare systems
• Homelessness
• Lack of basic medical care
• Educational segregation
• People turn to non-conventional means to make
money.
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