Social Stratification

8 Pages 2103 Words

Everywhere you go you attempt to classify all that you see. Every stimulus goes into some specific group or ranking. This is a necessary aspect of life in order to make sense of the world in which we live. However, one must begin to wonder if some of this classifying has negative aspects. People placed in a certain group might have more privileges and advantages than others. Social Stratification has become important in identifying why certain people get certain things. According to our textbook social stratification is viewed as, “the ranking or grading of individuals and groups into hierarchical layers.”(Hughes, 171) This in turn “…represents structured inequality in the allocation of rewards, privileges, and resources.” (Hughes 171) This brings up some interesting questions. Is there any way that equality is possible? Will there always be poverty in our society? With the help of our textbook, as well as outside sources I plan on studying the current trends of stratification. Along with this I hope to show that while not impossible, total equality is quite unrealistic.
It’s a subject that I’m sure has been on a lot of peoples mind since the beginning of civilization as we know it. Most societies have been and continue to organize their institutions so that that the benefits and burdens are systematically distributed unequally among different categories of people. Some might say that poverty is necessary however unfortunate. Without poor individuals a lot of necessary yet “dirty” jobs would never get done. Also some might point out that there are limited resources and that it should be a fight to see who gets what and how much. Others may feel differently and believe that equality should be a human right and every individual should have an opportunity at the resources. Yet in order to change the system from unequal to equal the people at the top of the hierarchal pyramid would have to give up some of...