Stratification

Stratification describes the differential arrangement of persons or positions within a society. The term can also be used to refer to the hierarchical ordering of societies or other macrolevel entities.

Many of the founding fathers of sociology were interested in issues of stratification. Karl Marx was most interested in economic stratification and how it spelled itself out in the capitalist system. He saw two broad layers (although an argument can be made that he actually saw more) in society—capitalists at the top and proletariat at the bottom. His means for determining the social strata were purely economic and based on the ownership of the means of production.

Max Weber took Marx's theory of stratification one step further to also include dimensions of status and power as well as economics. Weber's ideas about economic stratification are found in what he termed class. The concept of a class does not refer to a community of actors but rather to any group of actors whose shared class location is, or at least could be, the basis of some form of action. Status, on the other hand, does represent a shared community. While class refers to economic production, class refers largely to consumption. Hence, status is based on one's lifestyle. A third dimension of stratification, the concept of a party, is oriented solely toward the attainment of power. This is the most highly organized of the three and is found in the political realm.

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) wrote what is perhaps the best-known piece of structural-functional literature on the topic of stratification. They argued that social stratification is both functional and necessary for a society to continue and be healthy. They argued that no society had ever been totally classless because all societies need a system of stratification, and this need brings such a system into existence. This is not to imply that the creation of a stratified system is a conscious undertaking of the society but rather that it is an “unconsciously evolved device.” Their theoretical orientation of structural-functionalism also led them to view society not in terms of actors but in terms of positions. Consequently, their main interest was in how certain positions come to be ranked higher or lower in the system, not how certain people come to fill those particular positions.

Davis and Moore believed that one of the major problems in society was how to get the right people into the right positions and after they are there, how to keep them there. This was a problem because some positions are more pleasant to occupy than others, some are more important to the continuity of society, and different positions require different skills. They argued that those positions that are deemed higher up in society (e.g., doctors, lawyers, politicians) were less pleasant to occupy, more important to the overall society, and required the greatest level of ability. Hence, these positions had to be rewarded with the highest levels of prestige, money, and leisure.

The structural-functional approach to stratification has been criticized on many levels. First, it is seen as simply perpetuating the privilege of those who already enjoy it. Second, it assumes that simply because stratification has existed in the past, it must continue in the future. Third, it is difficult to support that there are positions in society that are more or less important than others. Are nurses any less important than the doctor's they assist? Fourth, any shortage of people willing to occupy higher positions in that stratified system is caused primarily by the stratified system itself through differential access to means such as education and training. Finally, it negates the possibility of one's being motivated to accept a higher position solely, or even in part, for its intrinsic rewards.

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