SOCIAL IDENTITIES

Social Identities

Social Identities

Historically, three key theoretical perspectives have shaped understandings of social stratification: the structural functionalist perspective, Marxian perspectives, and the work of Max Weber. Structural functionalism was founded on the notion of meritocracy, emphasizing societal consensus on the means and processes of selection for particular roles through a system of sifting, sorting, and rewarding talent and ability, motivated by competition for qualifications that in turn structure access to wealth, prestige, and personal satisfaction. Thus the individual can invest in training to maximize rewards in a free labor market. However, the consistently lowered labor market achievements of specific social groups (migrants, minority ethnic groups, and women) have challenged this perspective, suggesting that those in control of wealth and resources require a cheap and replaceable supply of labor (Davis, 2007).

Since the earliest-known writings on the nature of human societies, there has been recognition that social stratification is a central part of all human organization (Lenski 1966). In his Politics, in 350 BCE, Aristotle wrote of the natural ranking of free people and slaves. More recently, during the Age of Enlightenment, philosophers such as Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu wrote of the feudal system of social stratification and its inequities (Zeitlin 1968; Strasser 1976). By the mid-1800s, the classic sociological theorists such as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber began more systematic analyses of system of social stratification using concepts that remain with us to this day (Kerbo, 2006).

From the root word strata, we can recognize that social stratification refers to a ranking of people or groups of people within a society. But the term was defined by the earliest sociologists as something more than the almost universal inequalities that exist in all but the least complex of societies. Social stratification refers to a system with rather predictable rules behind the ranking of individuals ...