Thurs- Inequality Lecture + DW2 Neighborhood Walk

DUE DATES- ON TIME​

1. A Touchy Subject Annotations. DUE: Monday, 9/19, Start of Class.

DUE DATES- LATE (-10%)

1. College Essay FINAL/Cover Sheet. LAST DAY TO TURN IN: Monday, 9/19, Start of Class

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Starter 11:  Why are there different classes?  (10 min)
What do you think explains the stratification (class divisions) in the US class system?  Why do you think that every society is stratified (divided) in some way?

Lecture:  Social Stratification and Theories  (30 min)

1. US Class Divisions
   1. Review the basics, that this is going to be the general structure we refer to.
   2. These are typical incomes--there is a range within each class, and different people will define them slightly differently
   3. Important:  These are HOUSEHOLD incomes (typically a family of 3), not individual.
2. Social Stratification
   1. System where people are divided into layers based on property, prestige, and power
   2. Social patterns, not about individuals (in terms of blame or change)
   3. Ranks people according to relative privileges
   4. Every society does it (caste system = more fixed, our system = more open)
3. Functionalist Perspective (Davis and Moore)
   1. Social stratification is functional, and necessary for maintaining stability
   2. Society needs to make sure that certain positions are filled (doctors, etc.)
   3. Limited number of people have skills or talents for these important positions
   4. To develop these skills, training is necessary, this requires sacrifices
   5. To motivate people to sacrifice and fill these positions, society must offer them greater rewards (sustenance and comfort, humor and diversion, self-respect and ego expansion)
   6. Most important positions get greatest rewards, and vice versa
   7. Different access to societal rewards -->differentiation in prestige and esteem → institutionalized social inequality
4. Critiques of Functionalism
   1. Difficult to compare functional importance of any job (Ex: NBA vs. Primary school teacher, banker  vs. garbage man).  Little connection between income and functional importance
   2. Social stratification not fair or rational
      1. Wealth and inheritance
      2. Control of access to training → artificial scarcity of talent (med school)
      3. Opportunities not distributed equally
   3. Functionalism is used to keep poor people buying into their own oppression
5. Conflict Perspective
   1. Stratification is dysfunctional and harmful
   2. Every society, groups struggle to gain larger share of resources
   3. When a group gains power, uses that power to extract what it can from groups beneath it.  Also uses social institutions to keep itself in power.
   4. Benefits rich at the expense of the poor
   5. According to conflict theory, capitalist economic competition unfairly privileges the rich, who have the power to perpetrate an unfair system that works to their advantage.
   6. “Losers” who are at the bottom of the social stratification have little opportunity to improve their situation, since those at the top tend to have far more political and economic power.
6. Critiques of Conflict Perspective
   1. People do not always act out of self-interest (donations to charity)
   2. Conflict theory underestimates social mobility, people can change classes through hard work.
7. Marx’s Theory
   1. In capitalist societies, the bourgeoisie class owns the means of production while the proletariat class sells their labor to the bourgeoisie.
   2. The bourgeoisie have power and status, which they use to maintain the society’s superstructure —it’s values, ideologies, and norms.
   3. In an ideal Marxist communist society, everyone would share access to the means of production and social stratification would be nonexistent.
   4. In a capitalist society, the ruling class promotes its own ideologies and values as the norm for the entire society, and these ideas and values are accepted by the working class.
   5. A temporary status quo could be achieved by employing various methods of social control—consciously or unconsciously—by the bourgeoisie in various aspects of social life. 
   6. Eventually, the capitalist economic order would erode, through its own internal conflict → revolutionary consciousness, development of egalitarian communist society.
      1. State would own the means of production
      2. Equally distribute resources to all citizens. 
8. Weber’s Theory
   1. Response to Marx
   2. Class is a person’s economic position, based on birth and individual achievement.
   3. Status is one’s social prestige or honor, which may or may not be influenced by class.
   4. Power is one’s ability to get one’s way despite the resistance of others.
   5. Students:  Come up with an example in each category of a person or type of person who has this characteristic, without perhaps having the others

Application of Theories (5 min)
In your group, discuss:

1. Which of these theories do you think is dominant in the popular American narrative?  Explain.
2. Which of these theories do you think best explains class stratification in the US?  Why?
3. What questions do you have about social stratification?  Put them on the board!

10 min- Prep for DW 2
Observation form review, where to park, etc.

4th and 6th- to DW2 for "Middle Class" neighborhood observation.