Chapter 10 Social Stratification

What is social stratification?

• job specialization

• ranking categories of people in a hierarchy

• the fact that some people work harder than others

• inequality of personal talent and individual effort

Looking back in history and around the world today, we see that social stratification may involve differences in

• how unequal people are

• what resources are unequally distributed

• why a society claims people should be unequal

• all of these

a caste system is social stratification

• based on individual achievement

• based on meritocracy

• based on birth

• in which people are likely to change their social position over time

According to the Davis-Moore thesis,

• equality is functional for society

• the more inequality a society has, the more productive it is

• the more important jobs must provide enough rewards to draw talent from the less important jobs

• societies with more meritocracy are less productive than those with caste systems

Karl Marx claimed that society " reproduces the class structure". By this he meant that

• society benefits from inequality

• class differences are passed on from one generation to the next

• class differences are the same everywhere

• a society without classes is impossible

In an open system there is

• more mobility depending on where you were born

• less mobility due to meritocracy

• more mobility up and down

• less mobility up and down

A society with which type of productive technology has the least amount of social stratification?

• hunting and gathering

• horticulture/pastoral

• industrial

• postindustrial

Keeping in mind the Kuznets curve, which type of society has the most social stratification?

• hunting and gathering

• horticultural / pastoral

• industrial

• agrarian

What is meritocracy?

• mobility is based on family ties

• mobility is based on ethnic stereotypes

• mobility is based on gender roles

• mobility is based on individual talent and personal merit

Is social stratification universal?

• Yes, and fixed

• Yes, and variable

• No, it favors undocumented immigrants

• Only for the upper 1% of society