Social Stratification Theory

Historical Conditions

Inspiration for earlier versions of social stratification theory came from the study of largely historical exemplars of social and cultural strata. Specifically, examination of feudal societies (primarily European) and their impact on people's lives revealed the importance of largely ordained social class strata on the lives and identities of people. Simply, being born into specific strata was fundamental in shaping one's life. For example, “aristocracy,” “tenant farmer,” “trader,” and “peasant” were significant constructs in structuring social order that was relatively fixed and impermeable, as well as the long-term identities and relationships of people within and between such social strata. Perceptions of self-worth, status, life opportunitiesone's place in the worldas well as a host of ways that relationships between such different strata were managed helped show how status, power, class, hierarchy, and the identities of individuals and groups within these [Page 763]strata were organized or stratified. Some branches of social stratification theory approach the relatively fixed or preordained structure of classes and function both as sources of strength and as possible ways of explaining how such feudal societies, in which everyone seemed to know their place, became dominanteven colonialpowers. Some branches of thought about social stratification focused less on hierarchy as a functionally strong characteristic, and more as a source of division and struggle.

Later theoretical permutations of social stratification theory focused on more critical treatments of how feudal and, later, industrial societies affected people's lives. Important anthropological data on more cooperative social and cultural groupings added to the questioning of the functionalist assumptions that feudal order in some societies was a natural, desirable, or even divinely inspired way of organizing strata of people. Interesting too are the ways that ancient feudal structures still permeate and echo through the identities and the relationship between social classes in societies that have long since moved beyond feudal ways of organizing people and institutions. It is possible, for example, to understand current conflicts in some cultures over fox hunting as a reproduction or re-articulation of ancient class tensions between aristocracy and lower classes. Aristocracy appears to be holding onto fox hunting as part of its way of life, and protestors believe it to be a cruel remnant of privilege born of high social status. Although social class is a fundamental construct in social stratification theory, in European societies of this kind, material wealth and class are not necessarily correlated. It is possible to be poor materially and be considered “upper class,” and it is possible to be rich materially and be considered lower or middle class. Class is not earned or acquired in the same way that it is in some societies because markers of class may be different from society to society (birth versus earned education or wealth, for example). In many European societies today, it is also much more likely that people can experience mobility between strata such as social class and status. Upward mobility can occur through professional status, and related aspects of taste and consumption habits through which particular aspects of the performance of higher class status are appropriated into people's performances of identities.

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