Page 75 - DSOC202_SOCIAL_STRATIFICATION_ENGLISH

Social Stratification Rosy Hastir, Lovely Professional University

Notes Unit 5: Forms of Social Stratification

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
5.1 Caste, Class and Gender as Forms of Social Stratification
5.2 Social Stratification in Urban–Industrial Settings
5.3 Summary
5.4 Key–Words
5.5 Review Questions
5.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit students will be able to:
• Understand the Caste, Class and Gender as a Forms of Social Stratification.
• Explain the Social Stratification in Urban and Industrial Settings.
Introduction

Social stratification as a field of study and research occupies important place in disciplines such as
sociology, anthropology, political science, economics and psychology. Further, the most appealing
of all utopias is (total) equality and hence study of social stratification has been and still is one of
the most fascinating fields of study in different social sciences.
The term ‘social stratification’ has been borrowed from geology and it refers to the division of
people into layers of strata which may be thought of as being vertically arranged in the same way
that layers of the earth are arranged above or below other layers. But this geological metaphor has
its own limitation. As rightly pointed out by Andre Beitelle (1985), “the arrangement of persons in
a society is enormously more complex than the arrangement of layers of the earth; and social
strata are not visible, to the naked eyes in the way that geological strata are”. When we talk of
social stratification we draw attention to the unequal positions occupied by individuals in society.
Broadly speaking, social stratification refers to the division of society into a number of strata,
heirarchically arranged groupings. These groupings have assumed numerously historical and
cultural variations, of which castes, estates and classes are the most familiar. From 1960s onwards
attention also turned to Ethnic and Gender stratification.
Though there is no unanimity on this issue, the dominant opinion among sociologists and social
anthropologists definitely believes in the universality of social stratification yet the bases of
inequalities vary from time to time and society to society. David Jary and Julia Jary in their
Dictionary of Sociology (1991) write that “since there are very many bases on which human
inequalities may be understood and upon which exploitation and oppression may be produced
and reproduced, it is important to recognize that these variables are not mutually exclusive; in the
pre-industrial world religious and military strata often co-existed along with those based on
gender and ethnicity”. In simpler terms, social differences become social stratification when people
are ranked hierarchically along some dimension of inequality, whether this be income, wealth,
power, prestige, age ethnicity or some other characteristics.

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