Part 1
Choose the correct judgments about social stratification and write down digital R s under which they are listed.
1) The concept of "social stratification" denotes a system of signs and criteria of social stratification.
2) The division of society into strata allows the existence of privileges for representatives of some strata.
3) The criteria of social stratification include the amount of power.
4) One of the criteria for social stratification is the individual psychological traits of a person.
5) Scientists distinguish two types of social stratification: progressive and regressive.
Are the following judgments about social stratification correct?
A. The concept of "social stratification" refers to the system of social stratification of society.
B. The criteria for social stratification include the amount of income, the amount of power, the level of education.
1) only A is correct
2) only B is correct
3) both statements are correct
4) both statements are wrong
Choose the correct judgments about social mobility and write down the numbers under which they are indicated.
1) Intergenerational mobility is a comparative change in social status among different generations.
2) Organized mobility is the state-controlled movement of a person or entire groups up, down or horizontally: with the consent of the people themselves, or without their consent.
3) The horizontal type of mobility includes obtaining an extraordinary military rank.
4) The vertical type of mobility includes the transition of a person to a lower social stratum.
5) Social mobility is the division of society into groups occupying different positions.
Choose from the proposed list of words that you want to insert in place of the gaps.
“Social inequality characterizes the relative position of individuals and social (A). Specific group or individual ____ (B) are recognized as members of society, and in public opinion a certain significance is attributed to them.
Social inequality in modern society is most often understood as ____ (C) the distribution of social groups in a hierarchical order. And the concept of "middle class" just describes such a socially comfortable position: economic well-being, the presence of property valued in society ____ (D), civil rights.
Social inequality is determined primarily by the significance and ____ (E) functions performed for society. In modern society, the profession becomes decisive ____ (E) social status."
List of terms:
1) status
2) Group
3) criterion
4) stratification
5) socialization
6) profession
9) mobility
Part 2
With the emergence of the “class of intellectuals”, non-materialistic goals become the driving force of social progress, and that part of the society that is not able to assimilate them objectively loses its significance in public life more than any other class in an agrarian or industrial society. Intellectual stratification, reaching unprecedented proportions today, is gradually becoming the basis of any other social stratification ...
Development modern economy, based on the production and use of knowledge, involves the formation of a new principle of social stratification, much more rigid in comparison with all known to history. In agrarian societies, the power of the feudal lord over the peasants gave birthright, in industrial society the power of the capitalist was based on the right of ownership, and the influence of the civil servant was determined by his place in the political system; all these status factors were not due to the natural and indelible qualities of people - any member of society, being in the place of representatives of the ruling class, could more or less successfully perform the corresponding social functions ...
In modern conditions, it is not social status that serves as a condition for a person to belong to the elite of a post-industrial society; on the contrary, he himself forms qualities in himself that make him a representative of the highest social stratum. It is widely believed that information is the most democratic source of power, because everyone has access to it, and a monopoly on it is impossible; however, it is also important that information is also the least democratic factor of production, since access to it does not mean owning it ...
Social stratification: concept, criteria, types
To get started, watch the video tutorial on social stratification:
The concept of social stratification
Social stratification is the process of arranging individuals and social groups along horizontal layers (strata). This process is associated primarily with both economic and human causes. The economic reasons for social stratification is that resources are limited. And because of this, they must be rationally disposed of. That is why the ruling class stands out - it owns the resources, and the exploited class - it obeys the ruling class.
Among the universal causes of social stratification are:
psychological reasons. People are not equal in their inclinations and abilities. Some people can concentrate on something for long hours: reading, watching movies, creating something new. Others do not need anything and are not interested. Some can go to the goal through all obstacles, and failures only spur them on. Others give up at the first opportunity - it's easier for them to moan and whine that everything is bad.
biological reasons. People are also not equal from birth: some are born with two arms and legs, others are disabled from birth. It is clear that it is extremely difficult to achieve something if you are disabled, especially in Russia.
Objective causes of social stratification. These include, for example, place of birth. If you were born in a more or less normal country, where you will be taught to read and write for free and there are at least some social guarantees- this is good. You have a good chance of being successful. So, if you were born in Russia even in the most remote village and you are a kid, at least you can join the army, and then stay to serve under the contract. Then you may be sent to a military school. It's better than drinking moonshine with your fellow villagers, and by the age of 30 to die in a drunken brawl.
Well, if you were born in some country in which statehood does not really exist, and local princes come to your village with machine guns at the ready and kill anyone at random, and whoever they hit are taken into slavery, then write your life is gone, and together with her and your future.
Criteria of social stratification
The criteria of social stratification include: power, education, income and prestige. Let's analyze each criterion separately.
Power. People are not equal in terms of power. The level of power is measured by (1) the number of people who are under your control, and also (2) the amount of your authority. But the presence of this criterion alone (even the greatest power) does not mean that you are in the highest stratum. For example, a teacher, a teacher of power is more than enough, but the income is lame.
Education. The higher the level of education, the more opportunities. If you have a higher education, this opens up certain horizons for your development. At first glance, it seems that in Russia this is not the case. But that's just how it seems. Because the majority of graduates are dependent - they should be hired. They do not understand that with their higher education they may well open their own business and increase their third criterion of social stratification - income.
Income is the third criterion of social stratification. It is thanks to this defining criterion that one can judge which social class a person belongs to. If the income is from 500 thousand rubles per capita and more per month - then to the highest; if from 50 thousand to 500 thousand rubles (per capita), then you belong to the middle class. If from 2000 rubles to 30 thousand then your class is basic. And also further.
Prestige is the subjective perception people have of your , is a criterion of social stratification. Previously, it was believed that prestige is expressed solely in income, because if you have enough money, you can dress more beautifully and better, and in society, as you know, they are met by clothes ... But even 100 years ago, sociologists realized that prestige can be expressed in the prestige of the profession (professional status).
Types of social stratification
Types of social stratification can be distinguished, for example, by spheres of society. A person in his life can make a career in (become a famous politician), in the cultural (become a recognizable cultural figure), in the social sphere (become, for example, an honorary citizen).
In addition, types of social stratification can be distinguished on the basis of one or another type of stratification systems. The criterion for singling out such systems is the presence or absence of social mobility.
There are several such systems: caste, clan, slave, estate, class, etc. Some of them are discussed above in the video on social stratification.
You must understand that this topic is extremely large, and it is impossible to cover it in one video tutorial and in one article. Therefore, we suggest that you purchase a video course that already contains all the nuances on the topic of social stratification, social mobility and other related topics:
Sincerely, Andrey Puchkov
Introduction
Human society at all stages of its development was characterized by inequality. Structured inequalities between different groups of people sociologists call stratification.
Social stratification is the differentiation of a given set of people (population) into classes in a hierarchical rank. Its basis and essence lies in the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, responsibilities and obligations, the presence and absence of social values, power and influence among members of a particular community. Specific forms of social stratification are varied and numerous. However, all their diversity can be reduced to three main forms: economic, political and professional stratification. As a rule, they are all closely intertwined. Social stratification is a constant characteristic of any organized society.
In real life, the inequality of people plays a huge role. Inequality is a specific form of social differentiation, in which individual individuals, strata, classes are at different levels of the vertical social hierarchy, have unequal life chances and opportunities to meet needs. Inequality is the criterion by which we can place some groups above or below others. Social structure arises from the social division of labor, and social stratification arises from the social distribution of the results of labor, i.e. social benefits.
Stratification is closely connected with the dominant system of values in society. It forms a normative scale for evaluating various types of human activity, on the basis of which people are ranked according to the degree of social prestige.
Social stratification performs a dual function: it acts as a method of identifying the strata of a given society and at the same time represents its social portrait. Social stratification is distinguished by a certain stability within a particular historical stage.
1. Stratification term
Social stratification is a central theme in sociology. It describes social inequality in society, the division of social strata by income level and lifestyle, by the presence or absence of privileges. In primitive society, inequality was insignificant, so stratification was almost absent there. In complex societies, inequality is very strong, it divided people by income, level of education, power. Castes arose, then estates, and later classes. In some societies, the transition from one social stratum (stratum) to another is prohibited; there are societies where such a transition is limited, and there are societies where it is completely allowed. Freedom of social movement (mobility) determines whether a society is closed or open.
The term "stratification" comes from geology, where it refers to the vertical arrangement of the Earth's layers. Sociology has likened the structure of society to the structure of the Earth and placed the social strata (strata) also vertically. The basis is the income ladder: the poor are at the bottom, the wealthy are in the middle, and the rich are at the top.
Each stratum includes only those people who have approximately the same income, power, education and prestige. The inequality of distances between statuses is the main property of stratification. The social stratification of any society includes four scales - income, education, power, prestige.
Income - the amount of money received by an individual or family for a certain period of time (month, year). Income is the amount of money received in the form of wages, pensions, allowances, alimony, fees, deductions from profits. Income is measured in rubles or dollars that an individual (individual income) or family (family income) receives during a certain period of time, say one month or a year.
Incomes are most often spent on maintaining life, but if they are very high, they accumulate and turn into wealth.
Wealth - accumulated income, i.e. amount of cash or embodied money. In the second case, they are called movable (car, yacht, securities, etc.) and immovable (house, works of art, treasures) property. Usually wealth is inherited. Inheritance can be received by both working and non-working, and only working people can receive income. In addition to them, pensioners and the unemployed have income, but the poor do not. The rich may or may not work. In both cases, they are owners because they have wealth. The main wealth of the upper class is not income, but accumulated property. The salary share is small. For the middle and lower classes, income is the main source of subsistence, since the first, if there is wealth, is insignificant, and the second does not have it at all. Wealth allows you not to work, and its absence forces you to work for the sake of wages.
Wealth and income are unevenly distributed and signify economic inequality. Sociologists interpret it as an indicator that different groups of the population have unequal life chances. They buy different quantities and different quality food, clothing, housing, etc. People with more money eat better, live in more comfortable homes, prefer private cars to public transportation, can afford expensive vacations, and so on. But in addition to the obvious economic advantages, the wealthy have hidden privileges. The poor have shorter lives (even if they enjoy all the benefits of medicine), less educated children (even if they go to the same public schools), and so on.
Education is measured by the number of years of study in a public or private school or university. Let's say elementary school means 4 years, junior high school 9 years, high school 11 years, college 4 years, university 5 years, graduate school 3 years, doctorate 3 years. Thus, a professor has more than 20 years of formal education behind him, and a plumber may not have even eight.
Power is measured by the number of people who are affected by the decision you make (power is the ability to impose your will or decisions on other people, regardless of their desire).
The essence of power is the ability to impose one's will against the will of others. In a complex society, power is institutionalized; protected by laws and tradition, surrounded by privileges and wide access to social benefits, allows you to make decisions that are vital for society, including laws that, as a rule, are beneficial to the upper class. In all societies, people who hold some form of power—political, economic, or religious—make up an institutionalized elite. It represents the domestic and foreign policy of the state, directing it in a direction that is beneficial to itself, which other classes are deprived of.
Three scales of stratification - income, education and power - have quite objective units of measurement: dollars. Years, people. Prestige is outside this range, as it is a subjective indicator.
Prestige is the respect that a particular profession, position, occupation enjoys in public opinion. The profession of a lawyer is more prestigious than the profession of a steelworker or a plumber. The position of president of a commercial bank is more prestigious than that of a cashier. All professions, occupations and positions that exist in a given society can be placed from top to bottom on the ladder of professional prestige. As a rule, professional prestige is determined by us intuitively, approximately.
2. Systems of social stratification
Regardless of the forms that social stratification takes, its existence is universal. Four main systems of social stratification are known: slavery, castes, clans and classes.
Slavery is an economic, social and legal form of enslavement of people, bordering on complete lack of rights and an extreme degree of inequality. An essential feature of slavery is the possession of some people by others.
Usually point to three causes of slavery. First, a debt obligation, when a person who was unable to pay his debts fell into slavery to his creditor. Secondly, the violation of laws, when the execution of a murderer or a robber was replaced by slavery, i.e. the culprit was handed over to the affected family as compensation for the grief or damage caused. Thirdly, war, raids, conquest, when one group of people conquered another and the winners used some of the captives as slaves.
conditions of slavery. Conditions of slavery and slaveholding varied significantly in different regions of the world. In some countries, slavery was a temporary condition of a person: having worked for his master for the allotted time, the slave became free and had the right to return to his homeland.
General characteristics of slavery. Although slaveholding practices varied in different regions and in different eras, but regardless of whether slavery was the result of unpaid debt, punishment, military captivity or racial prejudice; whether it was permanent or temporary; hereditary or not, the slave was still the property of another person, and the system of laws secured the status of a slave. Slavery served as the main distinction between people, clearly indicating which person is free (and legally receives certain privileges) and which is a slave (without privileges).
Slavery has historically evolved. There are two forms of it:
Patriarchal slavery - a slave had all the rights of a younger family member: he lived in the same house with his masters, participated in public life, married free people; it was forbidden to kill him;
Classical slavery - the slave lived in a separate room, did not participate in anything, did not marry and did not have a family, he was considered the property of the owner.
Slavery is the only form of social relations in history when one person acts as the property of another, and when the lower stratum is deprived of all rights and freedoms.
Caste - called a social group (stratum), membership in which a person owes solely to his birth.
The achieved status is not able to change the place of the individual in this system. People who are born into a low-status group will always have this status, no matter what they personally manage to achieve in life.
Societies that are characterized by this form of stratification strive for a clear preservation of the boundaries between castes, therefore endogamy is practiced here - marriages within their own group - and there is a ban on intergroup marriages. To prevent inter-caste contact, such societies develop complex rules regarding ritual purity, according to which it is considered that communication with members of the lower castes defiles the higher caste.
A clan is a genus or kindred group connected by economic and social ties.
The clan system is typical of agrarian societies. In such a system, each individual is associated with an extensive social network of relatives - a clan. The clan is something like a very extended family and has similar features: if the clan has a high status, the individual belonging to this clan has the same status; all funds belonging to the clan, whether meager or rich, belong equally to each member of the clan; loyalty to the clan is a lifelong obligation of each of its members.
Clans are also reminiscent of castes: belonging to a clan is determined by birth and is lifelong. However, unlike castes, marriages between different clans are quite allowed; they can even be used to create and strengthen alliances between clans, since the obligations that marriage imposes on spouses' relatives can unite members of two clans. The processes of industrialization and urbanization turn clans into more fluid groups, eventually replacing clans with social classes.
Clans especially rally in times of danger, as seen in the following example.
A class is a large social group of people who do not own the means of production, occupying a certain place in the system of social division of labor and characterized by a specific way of earning income.
The systems of stratification based on slavery, castes and clans are closed. The boundaries separating people are so clear and firm that they leave no room for people to move from one group to another, with the exception of marriages between members of different clans. The class system is much more open because it is based primarily on money or material possessions. Class is also determined at birth - an individual receives the status of his parents, but the social class of an individual during his life can change depending on what he managed (or failed) to achieve in life. In addition, there are no laws that determine the occupation or profession of an individual depending on birth or prohibit marriage with members of other social classes.
Consequently, the main characteristic of this system of social stratification is the relative flexibility of its boundaries. The class system leaves room for social mobility, i.e. to move up or down the social ladder. Having the potential to advance one's social position, or class, is one of the main driving forces that motivate people to study well and work hard. Of course, marital status, inherited by a person from birth, can also determine extremely unfavorable conditions that will not leave him a chance to rise too high in life, and provide the child with such privileges that it will be practically impossible for him to "slide down" the class ladder.
Whatever class typologies were invented by scientists and thinkers. The ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle were the first to propose their model.
Today sociology offers different typologies of classes.
More than half a century has passed since Lloyd Warner developed his concept of classes. Today it has been replenished with one more layer and in its final form it represents a seven-point scale.
The upper - upper class includes "aristocrats by blood" who emigrated to America 200 years ago and accumulated untold wealth over many generations. They are distinguished by a special way of life, high society manners, impeccable taste and behavior.
The lower - upper class consists mainly of the "new rich", who have not yet had time to create powerful tribal clans, who have seized the highest posts in industry, business, and politics. Typical representatives are a professional basketball player or a pop star who receive tens of millions, but in a family who do not have "aristocrats by blood."
The upper-middle class consists of the petty bourgeoisie and highly paid professionals, such as big lawyers, famous doctors, actors or TV commentators. The lifestyle is approaching high society, but they still cannot afford a fashionable villa in the most expensive resorts in the world or a rare collection of art rarities.
Middle - the middle class represents the most massive stratum of a developed industrial society. It includes all well-paid employees, medium-paid professionals, in a word, people of intellectual professions, including teachers, teachers, middle managers. It is the backbone of the information society and the service sector.
The lower-middle class was made up of lower employees and skilled workers, who, by the nature and content of their work, gravitate rather not to physical, but to mental labor. A distinctive feature is a decent way of life.
The upper-lower class includes medium and low-skilled workers engaged in mass production in local factories, living in relative prosperity, but in behavior significantly different from the upper and middle class. Distinctive features: low education (usually complete and incomplete secondary, secondary special), passive leisure (watching TV, playing cards or dominoes), primitive entertainment, often excessive use of alcohol and non-literary vocabulary.
The lower - the lower class are the inhabitants of basements, attics, slums and other places that are not very suitable for life. They do not have any or primary education, most often they are interrupted by odd jobs or begging, they constantly feel an inferiority complex due to hopeless poverty and constant humiliation. They are usually called the "social bottom", or underclass. Most often, a number of them are recruited from chronic alcoholics, former prisoners, homeless people, etc.
The term "upper-upper class" means the upper layer of the upper class. In all two-part words, the first word denotes the stratum or layer, and the second denotes the class to which the given layer belongs. "Upper-lower class" is sometimes referred to as it is, and sometimes it is used to denote the working class.
In sociology, the criterion for attributing a person to one or another layer is not only income, but also the amount of power, the level of education and the prestige of the occupation, which involve a specific lifestyle and style of behavior. You can get a lot, but spend all the money or drink it away. Not only the arrival of money is important, but their expenditure, and this is already a way of life.
The working class in modern post-industrial society includes two layers: lower - middle and upper - lower. All knowledge workers, no matter how little they get, are never enrolled in the lower class.
The middle class is always distinguished from the working class. But the working class is distinguished from the lower class, which may include the unemployed, the unemployed, the homeless, the poor, and so on. As a rule, highly skilled workers are included not in the working class, but in the middle, but in its lowest stratum, which is filled mainly by low-skilled mental workers - employees.
Another variant is possible: workers are not included in the middle class, but constitute two layers in the general working class. Specialists are included in the next layer of the middle class, because the very concept of "specialist" implies at least a college education. The upper stratum of the middle class is filled mainly by "professionals".
3. Stratification profile
and profile stratification.
Thanks to the four scales of stratification, a sociologist is able to create such analytical models and tools that can be used to explain not only an individual status portrait, but also a collective one, that is, the dynamics and structure of society as a whole. For this, two concepts are proposed that are similar in appearance. But they differ in their internal content, namely the stratification profile and the stratification profile.
Thanks to the stratification profile, it is possible to more deeply consider the problem of status incompatibility. Status incompatibility is a contradiction in the status set of one person, or a contradiction in the status characteristics of one status set of one person. Now we have the right to connect the category of stratification to the explanation of this phenomenon and express status incompatibility in stratification characteristics. If some concepts showed a specific status, for example, a professor and a policeman, go beyond the boundaries of their (middle) class, then status incompatibility can also be interpreted as stratification incompatibility.
Stratification incompatibility causes a feeling of social discomfort, which can turn into frustration, frustration - into dissatisfaction with one's place in society.
The fewer cases of status and stratification incompatibility in a society, the more stable it is.
So, the stratification profile is a graphic expression of the position of individual statuses on four scales of stratification.
It is necessary to distinguish another concept from the stratification profile - the stratification profile. Otherwise, it is called the profile of economic inequality.
The stratification profile is a graphical expression of the percentage of the shares of the upper, middle and lower classes in the country's population.
Conclusion
According to the evolutionary theory of stratification, as culture becomes more complex and develops, a situation occurs in which no individual can master all aspects of social activity, there is a division of labor and specialization of activity. Some activities turn out to be more important, requiring long-term preparation and appropriate remuneration, while others are less important and therefore more massive, easily replaceable.
The concepts of stratification, unlike the Marxist idea of classes and the construction of a classless society, do not postulate social equality, on the contrary, they consider inequality as a natural state of society, therefore strata not only differ in their criteria, but are also placed in a rigid system of subordination of some layers to others, privileged the position of the higher and the subordinate position of the lower. In a dosed form, even the idea of some social contradictions is allowed, which are neutralized by the possibilities of social mobility of the vertical type, i.e. it is assumed that individual talented people can move from the lower strata to the higher strata, as well as vice versa, when inactive people who occupy places in the upper strata of society due to the social status of their parents can go bankrupt and end up in the lowest strata of the social structure.
Thus, the concepts of the social stratum, stratification and social mobility, supplementing the concepts of class and class structure of society, concretize the general idea of the structure of society and help to detail the analysis of social processes within certain economic and socio-political formations.
That is why the study of stratification is one of the most important areas of social anthropology. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, three main objectives of such research can be distinguished: “The first objective is to establish the extent to which class or status systems dominate at the level of society, establishing modes of social action. The second task is to analyze class and status structures and factors that determine the process of class and status formation Lastly, social stratification documents the inequality of conditions, opportunities and incomes, as well as the ways in which groups maintain class or status boundaries.In other words, it raises the question of social closure (clousure) and studies the strategies by which some groups maintain their privileges while others seek to gain access to them.
List of used literature
Avdokushin E.F. International Economic Relations: Textbook - M.: Economist, 2004 - 366 p.
Bulatova A.S. World economy: Textbook - M.: Economist, 2004 - 366 p.
Lomakin V.K. World economy: Textbook for universities. - 2nd ed., revised. and additional – M.: UNITI-DANA, 2001. – 735 p.
Moiseev S.R. International monetary and credit relations: Tutorial. - M.: Publishing house "Business and Service", 2003. - 576 p.
Radjabova Z.K. World Economy: Textbook. 2nd ed., Revised. and additional - M.: INFRA-M, 2002. - 320s.
Social stratification (12)
Abstract >> SociologyWidely used in sociology concept“social stratification". When considering a problem social inequalities are justified to come from... the principle, then they are social layers. AT social stratification tends to inherit positions. ...
Social stratification (11)
Abstract >> SociologyGroups of people in sociology widely use concept « social stratification". Social stratification- (from lat. stratum - ... three fundamental concepts sociology - social structures, social composition and social stratification. In the domestic...
Social stratification like a tool social analysis
Coursework >> SociologyBetween concepts « social stratification" and " social structure”, so V. Ilyin draws a parallel between concepts « social stratification" and " social inequality". Social
The concept of social stratification. social stratification- historically specific, hierarchically organized structure social inequality, presented as a division of society into strata (lat. - stratum - layer), differing from each other in that their representatives have an unequal amount of material wealth, power, rights and obligations, privileges, prestige. Thus, social stratification can be represented as a hierarchically structured social inequality in society.
The fundamental importance of the principle of social inequality is generally recognized in sociological science, but explanatory models of the nature and role of social inequality differ significantly. Thus, the conflictological (Marxist and neo-Marxist) direction believes that inequality gives rise to various forms of alienation in society. Representatives of functionalism argue that the existence of inequality is an effective way to equalize the starting positions of individuals due to competition and stimulation of social activity, universal equality deprives people of incentives to advance, the desire to make maximum efforts and abilities to perform duties.
Inequality is fixed in any society with the help of social institutions. At the same time, a system of norms is being created, according to which people should be included in relations of inequality, accept these relations, and not oppose them.
Systems of social stratification. Social stratification is a constant characteristic of any organized society. The processes of social stratification play an important regulatory and organizing role, helping society at each new historical stage to adapt to changing conditions, developing those forms of interaction that allow it to respond to new requirements. The stratified nature of human interaction makes it possible to maintain society in an orderly state and thereby preserve its integrity and boundaries.
In sociological science, four historically existing systems of stratification are most often described: slave, caste, estate and class. The well-known English sociologist Anthony Giddens paid special attention to the development of this classification.
Slave stratification system is based on slavery - a form of inequality in which some people, deprived of freedom and any rights, are the property of others, endowed with privileges by law. Slavery appeared and spread in agrarian societies: from ancient times it lasted until the nineteenth century. With a primitive technique that required a significant amount of human labor, the use of slave power was economically justified.
Caste stratification system characterized by the fact that the social position of a person is rigidly determined from birth, does not change throughout life and is inherited. There are practically no marriages between individuals belonging to different castes. Caste (from port. casta - “race”, or “pure breed”) is a closed endogamous group of people who are assigned a strictly defined place in the social hierarchy, depending on the functions in the division of labor system. The purity of caste affiliation is maintained by traditional rituals, customs, rules, according to which communication with representatives of the lower castes defiles the higher caste.
For almost three millennia, until 1949, the caste system existed in India. Even now there are thousands of castes, but they are all grouped into four main castes, or Varnas (Skt. "color"): Brahmins, or the caste of priests, are landowners, clergymen, scientists, village clerks, numbering from 5-10% of the population; kshatriyas - warriors and noble people, vaishyas - merchants, merchants and artisans, who together made up about 7% of Indians; Sudras - simple workers and peasants - about 70% of the population, the remaining 20% are Harijans ("God's children"), or untouchable, outcasts, engaged in humiliating labor, who traditionally were cleaners, scavengers, tanners, swineherds, etc.
Hindus believe in reincarnation and believe that those who follow the rules of their caste will rise to a higher caste by birth in a future life, while those who violate these rules will lose their social status. Caste interests became an important factor during election campaigns.
estate stratification system, in which inequality between groups of individuals is enshrined in law, became widespread in feudal society. Estates (estate) - large groups of people, differing in rights and obligations to the state, legally formalized and inherited, which contributed to the relative closeness of this system.
Developed estate systems were feudal Western European societies, where the upper class consisted of aristocracy and gentry (small nobility). In tsarist Russia, some classes were obliged to carry out military service, others - bureaucratic, and others - "tax" in the form of taxes or labor duties. Some vestiges of the estate system survive in today's Great Britain, where titles of nobility are still inherited and honored, and where great businessmen, government officials, and others may, as a reward for special merit, be given a peerage or knighthood.
Class stratification system is established in a society based on private property, and is associated with differences in the economic situation of groups of people, with inequality in relation to ownership material resources and control over them, while in other systems of stratification, non-economic factors (eg, religion, ethnicity, profession) play a primary role. The classes are the social groups of the free in legal relation people with equal basic (constitutional) rights. Unlike the previous types, belonging to classes is not regulated by the state, is not established by law and is not inherited.
The main methodological interpretations of the concept of "class". The greatest contribution to the theoretical development of the concept of "class" and social class stratification was made by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Max Weber (1864-1920).
By linking the existence of classes with certain historical phases in the development of production, Marx created his own concept of the "social class", but without giving it a holistic, detailed definition. For Marx, a social class is a group of people who are in the same relation to the means of production with which they ensure their existence. The main thing in the characterization of a class is whether it is an owner or not.
Most complete definition classes in accordance with the Marxist methodology was given by V.I. Lenin, according to which classes are characterized by the following indicators:
1. possession of property;
2. place in the system of social division of labor;
3. role in the organization of production;
4. income level.
Essential in the Marxist methodology of class is the recognition of the indicator "possession of property" as a fundamental criterion of class formation and the very nature of the class.
Marxism divided the classes into basic and non-basic. The main classes were named, whose existence directly follows from the economic relations prevailing in a given society, primarily property relations: slaves and slave owners, peasants and feudal lords, proletarians and the bourgeoisie. Non-basic - these are the remnants of the former main classes in the new socio-economic formation or the emerging classes that will replace the main ones and form the basis of class division in the new formation.
In addition to the main and non-basic classes, social strata are the structural element of society. Social strata are intermediate or transitional social groups that do not have a pronounced relation to the means of production and, therefore, do not have all the features of a class (for example, the intelligentsia).
Max Weber, agreeing with Marx's ideas about the relationship of class with objective economic conditions, found in his research that a much larger number of factors influence the formation of a class. According to Weber, the division into classes is determined not only by the presence or absence of control over the means of production, but also by economic differences that are not directly related to property.
Weber believed that qualification certificates, academic degrees, titles, diplomas and the professional training received by specialists put them in a better position in the labor market compared to those who do not have the appropriate diplomas. He proposed a multidimensional approach to stratification, believing that the social structure of a society is determined by three autonomous and interacting factors: property, prestige (meaning respect for an individual or group based on their status) and power.
Weber associated the concept of class only with capitalist society. He argued that property owners are a "positively privileged class". At the other extreme is the "negatively privileged class", which includes those who have neither property nor skills to offer on the market. This is the lumpen proletariat. Between the two poles there is a whole range of so-called middle classes, which consist of both small proprietors and people who are able to offer their skills and abilities on the market (officials, artisans, peasants).
According to Weber, belonging to one or another status group is not necessarily determined by belonging to a certain class: a person who enjoys honor and respect may not be an owner, both the haves and the have-nots can belong to the same status group. Differences in status, Weber argues, tend to lead to differences in lifestyle. The lifestyle is set by the group's common subculture and is measured by status prestige. Separation of groups according to prestige can occur for various reasons (belonging to a certain profession, etc.), but it always acquires a rank character: “higher - lower”, “better - worse”.
Weber's approach made it possible to single out in the social structure not only such large analytical units as "class", but also more specific and flexible - "strata" (from lat. stratum-layer). A stratum includes many people with some common status attribute of their position, who feel connected to each other by this community. Evaluative factors play an important role in the existence of strata: a person's line of behavior in a given situation, his attitudes based on certain criteria that help him rank himself and those around him.
When studying the social structure, social strata are distinguished, the representatives of which differ from each other in an unequal amount of power and material wealth, rights and obligations, privileges and prestige.
Thus, Weber's stratification methodology makes it possible to obtain a more voluminous, multidimensional idea of the social structure of modern society, which cannot be adequately described in coordinates by Marx's bipolar class methodology.
Social class stratification by L. Warner. The model of social stratification by the American sociologist Warner (1898-1970) was most widely used in practice.
He considered social stratification as a functional prerequisite for the existence of a modern industrial society, its internal stability and balance, which ensures the self-realization of the individual, his success and achievements in society. Position in class stratification (or status) is described by Warner in terms of education level, occupation, wealth, and income.
Initially, Warner's stratification model was represented by six classes, but later the "middle middle class" was introduced into it and now it has acquired the following form:
Top-top class are "aristocrats by blood", representatives of influential and wealthy dynasties with very significant resources of power, wealth and prestige throughout the state. They are distinguished by a special way of life, high society manners, impeccable taste and behavior.
Lower-upper class includes bankers, prominent politicians, owners of large firms who have reached the highest status in the course of competition or due to various qualities.
upper-middle class are representatives of the bourgeoisie and highly paid professionals: successful businessmen, hired company managers, prominent lawyers, famous doctors, outstanding athletes, the scientific elite. They enjoy high prestige in their fields of activity. Representatives of this class are usually spoken of as the wealth of the nation.
middle-middle class represents the most massive stratum of industrial society. It includes all well-paid employees, medium-paid professionals, people of intelligent professions, including engineers, teachers, scientists, heads of departments at enterprises, teachers, middle managers. Representatives of this class are the main support for the existing government.
lower-middle class are low-ranking employees and skilled workers, whose labor in its content is predominantly mental.
upper-lower class are mainly medium- and low-skilled wage workers engaged in mass production in local factories, living in relative prosperity, who create surplus value in a given society.
lower-lower class are the poor, the unemployed, the homeless, foreign workers and other marginalized groups. They have only primary or no education, most often they are interrupted by odd jobs. They are usually called the "social bottom", or underclass.
Social mobility and its types. Under social mobility(from lat. mobilis- capable of movement, action) is understood as a change by an individual or group of a place in the social structure of society. The study of social mobility was started by P.A. Sorokin, who under social mobility understood not only the movement of individuals from one social group to another, but also the disappearance of some and the emergence of other social groups.
According to the directions of movement, there are horizontal and vertical mobility.
Horizontal mobility implies the transition of an individual from one social group or community to another, located at the same social level, in one social position, for example, moving from one family to another, moving from an Orthodox to a Catholic or Muslim religious group, from one citizenship to another, from one profession to another. An example of horizontal mobility is a change of residence, moving from a village to a city on permanent place residence or vice versa, moving from one state to another.
Vertical mobility called the movement from one layer to another, higher or lower located in the hierarchy of social relations. Depending on the direction of movement, one speaks of ascending or descending mobility. Upward mobility implies an improvement in social position, social uplift, for example, promotion, higher education, marriage to a person of a higher class or a more affluent person. Downward mobility- this is a social descent, i.e. moving down the social ladder, for example, being fired, demotion, bankruptcy. According to the nature of stratification, there are downward and upward flows of economic, political, and occupational mobility.
In addition, mobility is group and individual. Group Such mobility is called when an individual goes down or up the social ladder along with his social group (estate, class). This is a collective rise or fall in the position of the whole group in the system of relations with other groups. The causes of group mobility are wars, revolutions, military coups, change of political regimes. Individual mobility is the movement of the individual, occurring independently of others.
The intensity of mobility processes is often regarded as one of the main criteria for the degree of democratization of society and liberalization of the economy.
mobility range, characterizing a particular society depends on how many different statuses exist in it. The more statuses, the more opportunity a person has to move from one status to another.
In traditional society, the number of high-status positions remained approximately constant, so there was a moderate downward mobility of descendants from high-status families. Feudal society is characterized by a very small number of vacancies for high positions for those who had a low status. Some sociologists believe that, most likely, there was no upward mobility.
An industrial society is characterized by a wider range of mobility, since there are a much larger number of different statuses in it. The main factor of social mobility is the level of economic development. During periods of economic depression, the number of high-status positions decreases, while low-status positions expand, so downward mobility dominates. It intensifies in those periods when people lose their jobs and at the same time new layers enter the labor market. On the contrary, during periods of active economic development, many new high-status positions appear. The increased demand for workers to occupy them is the main cause of upward mobility.
The main trend in the development of an industrial society is that it simultaneously increases in wealth and the number of high-status positions, which in turn leads to an increase in the size of the middle class, whose ranks are replenished by people from lower strata.
Caste and estate societies restrict social mobility by imposing severe restrictions on any change in status. Such societies are called closed.
If most of the statuses in a society are prescribed, then the range of mobility in it is much lower than in a society based on individual achievement. In a pre-industrial society, upward mobility was not great, since legal laws and traditions practically closed the peasants' access to the estate of landowners.
In an industrial society, which sociologists refer to as a type of open society, individual merit and achieved status are valued above all. In such a society, the level of social mobility is quite high. A society with open borders between social groups gives a person a chance to rise, but it also creates in him a fear of social decline. Downward mobility can occur both in the form of pushing individuals from high social statuses to lower ones, and as a result of lowering the social statuses of entire groups.
Channels of vertical mobility. The ways and mechanisms by which people climb the social ladder, P.A. Sorokin called channels of vertical circulation, or mobility. Since vertical mobility exists to some extent in any society, there are various “elevators”, “membrane”, “holes” between social groups or strata, using which individuals move up and down. For an individual, the possibility of moving up means not only an increase in the share the social benefits he receives, it contributes to the realization of his personal data, makes him more plastic and versatile.
The functions of social circulation are performed by various institutions.
The most famous channels are family, school, army, church, political, economic and professional organizations.
A family becomes a channel of vertical social mobility in the event that the marriage union is entered into by representatives of different social statuses. So, for example, in many countries there was at one time a law according to which, if a woman married a slave, she herself became a slave. Or, for example, an increase in social status from marriage with a titled partner.
The socioeconomic position of the family also influences career opportunities. Sociological studies conducted in Great Britain have shown that two-thirds of the sons of unskilled and semi-skilled workers were, like their fathers, engaged in manual labor, that less than 30% of specialists and managers came from the working class, i.e. rose, 50% of specialists and managers took the same positions as their parents.
Ascending mobility is observed much more often than downward mobility, and is characteristic mainly of the middle strata of the class structure. People from the lower social classes, as a rule, remained at the same level.
School, being a form of expression of the processes of education and upbringing, it has always served as a powerful and fastest channel of vertical social mobility. This is confirmed by the large competitions for colleges and universities in many countries. In societies where schools are open to all members, the school system is a "social elevator" moving from the bottom of society to the very top. The so-called "long elevator" existed in ancient China. During the era of Confucius, schools were open to everyone. Examinations were held every three years. The best students, regardless of the status of their families, were transferred to higher schools, and then to universities, from where they got to high government positions.
In Western countries, many social spheres and a number of professions are practically closed to a person without an appropriate diploma. The work of graduates of higher educational institutions paid higher. In recent years, the desire of young people who have received a university degree to study in graduate school has become widespread. This noticeably changes the ratio of students and graduate students studying in universities. Universities where there are more students than graduate students are called conservative, moderate - have a ratio of 1: 1 and, finally, progressive - those where there are more graduate students than students. For example, at the University of Chicago, there are 7,000 graduate students for every 3,000 students.
Government groups, political organizations and political parties also play the role of "elevator" in vertical mobility. In Western Europe during the Middle Ages, the servants of various rulers, being involved in public sphere often became rulers themselves. This is the origin of many medieval dukes, earls, barons and other nobility. As a channel of social mobility, political organizations are now playing especially important role: many functions that used to belong to the church, government and other social organizations are now being taken over by political parties. In democratic countries, where the institution of elections plays a decisive role in shaping supreme bodies power, the most the easy way to attract the attention of voters and to be elected is political activity or participation in any political organization.
Army as a channel of social mobility functions not in peacetime, but in wartime. Losses among the command staff lead to the filling of vacancies by people of lower ranks. During the war, soldiers, showing courage and courage, are awarded the next rank. It is known that out of 92 Roman emperors, 36 reached this rank, starting from the lower ranks, out of 65 Byzantine emperors, 12 advanced through an army career. Napoleon and his entourage, marshals, generals and the kings of Europe appointed by him belonged to the class of commoners. Cromwell, Washington and many other commanders have risen to their highest positions through careers in the army.
Church as a channel of social mobility uplifted a large number of people. Pitirim Sorokin, having studied the biographies of 144 Roman Catholic popes, found that 28 of them came from the lower classes, and 27 from the middle strata. The rite of celibacy (celibacy), introduced in the 11th century by Pope Gregory VII, did not allow the Catholic clergy to have children, so the vacant high positions of the clergy were occupied by lower-ranking persons. After the legalization of Christianity, the church begins to fulfill the function of the ladder along which slaves and serfs began to climb, and sometimes to the highest and most influential positions. The church was not only a channel for upward mobility, but also for downward mobility: many kings, dukes, princes, lords, nobles and other aristocrats of various ranks were ruined by the church, brought to trial by the Inquisition, destroyed.
social marginality. The process of loss by individuals of their identification with certain social communities, classes is expressed by the concept marginalization.
Social mobility can lead to the fact that a person has left the limits of one group, but has been rejected or only partially included in another. Thus, individuals and even groups of people appear, occupying marginal (from lat. marginalis- located on the edge) of a position, not integrating for a certain time into any of those social groups that they are guided by.
In 1928, the American psychologist R. Park first used the concept of "marginal man". Studies of the characteristics of a personality located on the border of different cultures, conducted by the Chicago sociological school, laid the foundation for the classical concept of marginality. Later it was picked up and revised by researchers studying borderline phenomena and processes in society.
The main criterion that determines the state of marginality of an individual or a social group is a state associated with a state of transition, presented as a crisis.
Marginality can arise for various reasons, both personal and social. The phenomenon of marginality is quite common in the transition of society from one economic and political system to another, with a different type of stratification. In this case, entire groups or social strata find themselves in a marginal position, which are unable or unable to adapt to the new situation and integrate into the new stratification system. A marginal situation can cause conflicts and deviant behavior. This situation can form a person's anxiety, aggressiveness, doubt about personal value, fear in making decisions. But a marginal situation can become a source of socially effective creative actions.
Stratification of modern Russian society. Modern Russian society is characterized by profound changes in the social class structure of society, its stratification. Under the new conditions, the former status of social groups is changing. The upper elite strata, in addition to traditional management groups, include large owners - new capitalists. A middle stratum appears - relatively well-to-do and "arranged" representatives of various socio-professional groups, mainly from entrepreneurs, managers and part of qualified specialists.
The dynamics of social stratification of modern Russian society is characterized by the following main trends:
— significant social stratification;
— slow formation of the “middle class”;
— self-reproduction of the middle class, the narrowness of the sources of its replenishment and expansion;
— a significant redistribution of employment across sectors of the economy;
— high social mobility;
— Significant marginalization.
The middle class of Russian society. In the social class structure of modern society, an important place belongs to the "middle class" ("middle classes"). The scale and qualities of this social group essentially determine the socio-economic, political stability and the nature of the systemic integration of society as a whole. For modern Russia, the formation and development of the "middle class" essentially means the creation of the foundations of civil society and democracy. Russian sociologists compiled a generalized portrait of representatives of the middle class (SK) of Russia and its strata.
The upper layer of the middle class is for the most part highly educated people. 14.6% of them have an academic degree or have completed postgraduate studies, another 55.2% are people with higher education, and 27.1% have secondary specialized education. The middle stratum of the middle class is also quite highly educated. And although here only 4.2% already have an academic degree, the majority are people with higher education (the number of people with secondary specialized education is 31.0%, and with secondary and incomplete secondary education is only 9.8%). In the lower stratum of the middle class, the number of people with secondary and special secondary education reaches a total of 50.2%.
By official status, representatives of the upper layer of the middle class, more than half (51.1%) are top managers and entrepreneurs with employees. Qualified professionals in this layer accounted for 21.9%.
The middle stratum of the middle class is clearly dominated by qualified specialists (30.1%) and workers (22.2%); the share of managers is only 12.9%, entrepreneurs with employees - 12.1%. But in this group, one and a half times higher than in the whole of the NC (6.4%, against 4.3%), the proportion of those who have a purely family business.
In general, using the terminology adopted in studies of the middle class in Western European countries, according to the results of the study, it can be said that the backbone of the upper layer of the middle class is made up of top managers and businessmen who have their own firms with employees. The presence of highly qualified specialists is clearly noticeable in it, quite evenly representing the humanitarian intelligentsia and the military, and to a lesser extent, the engineering and technical revolution. The presence of "white" and "blue collars" is weakly expressed.
The backbone of the middle stratum of the middle class is made up, first of all, of qualified specialists, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, "blue-collar workers" - skilled workers. A prominent place in its composition is also occupied by managers and entrepreneurs, including representatives of the family business and self-employed.
According to the All-Russian Center for Living Standards for 2006, the middle class in our country includes families where the monthly income for each family member is from 30,000 to 50,000 rubles. Representatives of this class are characterized not only by the ability to eat normally and purchase the necessary durable goods, but also to have decent housing (at least 18 square meters per person) or a real opportunity to improve it, plus a country house or the possibility of acquiring it in the foreseeable future. Of course, there must be a car or cars. It is also necessary to have funds for treatment, surgery, tuition fees for children, legal fees, if necessary. Such a family can rest in our resorts or abroad.
For the whole country in 2006, the listed requirements were met by average per capita consumer spending from 15 to 25 thousand rubles per month. Plus should be about the same monthly savings. Naturally, each territory has its own characteristics, and the amount of income and savings will be different. For Moscow, for example, these limits are 60-80 thousand rubles. Above this bar are the wealthy and wealthy. In total, as these studies have shown, about 10 percent of the country's population, or about 13.5 million Russians, can be attributed to the middle class. So, approximately 6-7 million families.
Approximately 90% of the Russian middle class has substantial savings. It also includes private shareholders who have invested in securities - no more than 400 thousand people. Taking into account the members of their families, it turns out about one and a half million Russians - 1% of the population. This is the upper middle class. For comparison: in the US, the number of such shareholders is tens of millions, almost a good half of American families. Them efficient operation, property and income created the basis for a stable functioning of the market without deep state intervention.
In Western Europe and the USA, and other countries, an influential "middle class" has existed for several centuries and makes up 50 to 80% of the population. It includes various groups of entrepreneurs and merchants, skilled workers, doctors, teachers, engineers, clergymen, military personnel, government officials, mid-level personnel of firms and companies. There are also significant political, economic and spiritual differences between them.
There are not so many wealthy and wealthy citizens with incomes higher than the middle class in our country. This is 4 million people, or 3 percent of the total population. Very rich - dollar millionaires - from 120 to 200 thousand.
With a 60 million poor army (taking into account not only their income, but also housing conditions) and a small middle class, it is difficult to talk about long-term stability in society today.
New marginal groups. As a result of the changes that have taken place in Russia in the last decade in the economic, political and social spheres of public life, new marginal groups have emerged:
- “post-specialists” are professional groups of the population that are being released from the economy and do not have employment prospects due to their narrow specialization in the new economic situation in Russia, and retraining is associated with a loss of skill level, loss of profession;
- "new agents" - private entrepreneurs, the so-called. self-employed population not previously oriented towards private entrepreneurial activity, but forced to look for new ways of self-realization;
- "migrants" - refugees and forced migrants from other regions of Russia and from the countries of the "near abroad". The peculiarities of the position of this group are related to the fact that it objectively reflects the situation of multiple marginality, due to the need to adapt to a new environment after a forced change of place of residence.
Social stratification(from lat. stratum- layer and facio- do) - one of the basic concepts sociology denoting a system of signs and criteria of social stratification, position in society; social structure society; branch of sociology.
Under social stratification is understood as the presence in a particular society of many social formations, whose representatives differ among themselves in an unequal amount of power and material wealth, rights and obligations, privileges and prestige. Such a hierarchically built distribution of socio-cultural benefits expresses the essence of social stratification, through which in any social system it becomes possible to stimulate certain types of activity and interaction, tolerate others and suppress others. Thus social stratification differs from social differentiation. The concept of " social differentiation» is broader in scope and implies any social differences, including those not related to inequality, with stimulation (or, conversely, repression) of various forms of activity.
The term "stratification" is borrowed by sociology from geology, where it refers to the location of the layers of the earth.
social stratification- this is the division of society into special layers (strata) by combining various social positions with approximately the same social status, reflecting the prevailing idea of social inequality in it, built vertically (social hierarchy), along its axis according to one or more stratification criteria (indicators of social status).
The division of society into strata is carried out on the basis of the inequality of social distances between them - the main property of stratification. Social strata line up vertically and in strict sequence according to indicators of wealth, power, education, leisure, and consumption.
In social stratification, a certain social distance is established between people (social positions) and a hierarchy of social strata is formed. Thus, unequal access of members of society to certain socially significant scarce resources is fixed by establishing social filters on the borders separating social strata.
For example, the allocation of social strata can be carried out according to the levels of income, knowledge, power, consumption, the nature of work, spending free time. The social strata identified in society are evaluated in it according to the criterion of social prestige, which expresses the social attractiveness of certain positions.
The simplest stratification model is the dichotomous one - the division of society into elites and masses. In the earliest archaic social systems, the structuring of society into clans is carried out simultaneously with the establishment of social inequality between them and within them. This is how “initiates” appear, that is, those who are initiated into certain social practices (priests, elders, leaders) and the uninitiated - profane. Within such a society, if necessary, it can further stratify as it develops. This is how castes, estates, classes, etc. appear.
Most researchers believe that social stratification is a hierarchically organized structure of social inequality that exists in a certain society in a certain historical period of time. The hierarchically organized structure of social inequality can be imagined as the division of the whole society into strata (this word comes from the Latin stratum - layer, flooring). Layered, multi-level society in this case can be compared with the geological layers of the soil. At the same time, compared with simple stratification, social stratification has at least two significant differences. First, stratification is a stratification of ranks, when the upper strata are in a more privileged position (in terms of the possession of resources or opportunities for obtaining rewards) than the lower strata. Secondly, the upper strata are much smaller in terms of the number of their members of society. Thus, the elite, the upper strata, are certainly a minority in comparison with the lower strata of society. The same can be said about the other layers, if they are viewed sequentially from top to bottom. However, in modern, highly developed, prosperous societies, this order is violated. The poor strata may be inferior in quantitative terms to the stratum constituting the so-called "middle class" and to some other strata of the population.
Modern ideas about the stratification model that has developed in society are quite complex - multi-layered (polychotomous), multidimensional (carried out along several axes) and variable (allow the coexistence of many stratification models): qualifications, quotas, attestation, status determination, ranks, benefits, privileges, etc. preferences.
At present, the theory of stratification by K. Davis and W. Moore can be considered the most influential point of view on the process of formation of social strata. According to this theory, every society must solve the problem of placing and motivating individuals in the social structure. social order in society is based on the distribution of individuals according to social statuses (in accordance with their functional capabilities, i.e. their maximum contribution to achieving the goals of society) and encourage them to perform social roles corresponding to these statuses. Society can choose two ways to motivate for the best performance social roles. Thus, the competitive system is primarily aimed at mobilizing individuals in relation to achieving the most attractive status, while the non-competitive system in relation to social status pays more attention to the motivation to perform functional duties, i.e. contribution to society as a whole. A society with any social structure uses both of these systems, only to a different extent.
The most important dynamic characteristic of society is social mobility. According to the definition of P. A. Sorokin, “social mobility is understood as any transition of an individual, or a social object, or a value created or modified through activity, from one social position to another.” However, social agents do not always move from one position to another, it is possible to move the social positions themselves in the social hierarchy, such a movement is called “positional mobility” (vertical mobility) or within the same social stratum ( horizontal mobility). Along with social filters that set up barriers to social movement, there are also “social lifts” in society that significantly accelerate this process (in a crisis society - revolutions, wars, conquests, etc.; in a normal, stable society - family, marriage, education , property, etc.). The degree of freedom of social movement from one social stratum to another largely determines whether a society is closed or open.
The point of view of K. Sorokin is successfully developed by his student, one of the prominent teachers of the Harvard School in sociology, a representative of functionalism T. Parsons, who believes that value orientations of members of society are the basis of stratification. At the same time, the assessment and attribution of people to certain social strata is carried out according to the following main criteria:
- - qualitative characteristics of members of society, which are determined by genetic traits and prescribed statuses (origin, family ties, personal qualities and abilities)
- - role characteristics, which are determined by the set of roles that an individual performs in society (position, level of professionalism, level of knowledge, etc.);
- - the characteristics of the possession of material and spiritual prices by posts (money, means of production, works of art, the possibilities of spiritual and ideological influence on other strata of society, etc.).
Attempts to explain the mechanism of stratification of society were made more than once in different periods of human history. However, only in the last decades of our century, we were able to teach to comprehend this most important social problem, without understanding which it is impossible to explain the processes taking place in society, to imagine the future of this society.
Typology of strata
A stratum includes many people with some common status attribute of their position, who feel connected to each other by this community. As a common feature that allows you to unite people into strata, there can be features of various nature - production, economic, political, socio-demographic, cultural, etc. Thus, the researcher gets the opportunity to analyze the population according to a variety of - important, secondary and even insignificant - criteria. As a result, people belonging to different classes may end up in the same stratum, singled out, for example, on the basis of education or job characteristics. At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the basis for distinguishing a stratum is not any sign, but only a status one, that is, one that objectively acquires a rank character in a given society “higher-lower”, “better-worse”, “prestigious “not prestigious”, etc. A number of characteristics can be used as the basis for distinguishing only differentiated, but not status groups. For example, fans of folk music or fans of a football team are most often seen as members of a particular cultural group, regardless of its status aspect.
What only typologies of classes were invented by scientists and thinkers. The ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle were the first to propose their model.
Today, sociologists offer different typologies of classes. One has seven, the other has six, the third has five, and so on. social strata.
The first typology of US classes was proposed in the 1940s by the American sociologist Lloyd Warner. It included six classes. In addition to this, other schemes were proposed, for example: upper-higher, upper-lower, upper-middle, middle-middle, lower-middle, working, lower classes. Or: upper class, upper-middle, middle and lower-middle class, upper working class and lower working class, underclass. There are many options, but it is important to understand two fundamental points:
- . the main classes, no matter how they are called, are only three: rich, prosperous and poor;
- . non-basic classes arise by adding strata or layers that lie within one of the main classes.
Speaking about the elements of social stratification, they use such units of analysis as "class", "social stratum", "social group" denoting different social communities. The inclusion of people in a particular community is determined primarily by the form of their social interaction, which allows them to be considered as a single whole, as well as the place or social positions they occupy in the social space.
Social class is a large taxonomic unit of social division. This concept was born long before the advent of stratification theory. It firmly entered the scientific apparatus of social thinkers in Western Europe in Newest time. Prior to this, the units of the social structure were discussed based on class representations, using the names of specific social or public ipynn, representatives of certain professions, etc. and the poor.
We list the typological groupings of the most important features, some of their empirical referents, as well as the layers that are distinguished on the basis of these features and indicators:
- . signs associated with the economic situation of people, i.e., the presence of private property, types and amounts of income, the level of material well-being; strata are distinguished accordingly: rich, middle-income and poor; high and low paid workers; property owners and residents of municipal apartments, etc.;
- . signs associated with the division of labor, i.e. the scope, types and nature of labor, the hierarchy of professional statuses, the level of qualifications and professional skills, vocational training; strata are distinguished accordingly: workers in heavy industry; service workers; persons with secondary special education, etc.;
- . signs related to the scope of power: here production relations and the organization of labor are of great importance, within which a different degree and unequal volume of opportunities to influence others through official position, through the types and forms of management activities, through the possession of socially significant information, etc.; accordingly, layers can be distinguished: ordinary workers on state enterprise; small business managers; top government executives; elective positions of the municipal level of government, etc.;
- . signs associated with social prestige, authority, influence.
Class concept
Despite the fact that social class is one of the central concepts in sociology, scientists still do not have a single point of view regarding the content of this concept. For the first time we find a detailed picture of a class society in the works of K. Marx. It can be said that Marx's social classes are economically determined and genetically conflict groups. The basis of division into groups is the presence or absence of property. The feudal lord and the serf in a feudal society, the bourgeois and the proletarian in a capitalist society are antagonistic classes that inevitably appear in any society that has a complex hierarchical structure based on inequality. Marx also allowed the existence of small social groups in society that could influence class conflicts. In studying the nature of social classes, Marx made the following assumptions:
- Every society produces a surplus of food, shelter, clothing, and other resources. Class differences arise when one of the population groups appropriates resources that are not immediately consumed and are not currently needed. Such resources are treated as private property.
- Classes are determined on the basis of the fact of ownership or non-ownership of the produced property. In different historical periods there were different kinds property (slaves, water, land, capital), which were crucial in human relationships, but all social systems were based on two antagonistic social classes. In the modern era, according to Marx, there are two main antagonistic classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
3. The importance of the study of classes lies in the fact that class relations necessarily presuppose the exploitation of one class by another; one class appropriates the results of the labor of another class, exploits and suppresses it. This kind of relationship constantly reproduces the class conflict, which is the basis of social changes taking place in society.
- There is an object (for example, the possession of resources) and subjective attributes of a class. The latter represent the fact of belonging to a class, which does not necessarily have to be accompanied by an awareness of such belonging or a sense of political affinity with the interests of one's class. Only when the members of society are aware of their class affiliation, when they begin to act together in the interests of their class, can we speak of a fully formed social class.
Despite the revision, from the point of view of modern society, of many provisions of the class theory of K. Marx, some of his ideas remain relevant in the currently existing social structures.
The most influential, alternative to the Marxist theory of social classes are works by M. Weber. Unlike Marx, Weber identifies other factors that influence the formation of inequality relations. In particular, he considers prestige as one of the most important signs of social class. However, he considers links between opportunities for advancement to higher, attractive statuses and belonging to a social class, believing that a class is a group of people with similar advancement or career opportunities. Just like Marx, Weber sees the relation to property as the basic status distribution in society and the basis for the formation of social classes. However, Weber attaches much more importance to the division within the main classes (the presence of intermediate classes) than Marx. For example, Weber divides the class of owners and the trading class, divides the working class into several classes (depending on the type of ownership of the enterprises in which they work) based on the opportunities they have to improve their status. Unlike Marx, Weber considers the bureaucracy as a class, as a necessary link of power in modern society. Weber for the first time lays a system of stratification in the basis of class division; existing in this society.
Modern theories of social classes are also based on the theory of stratification. Most sociologists see a basic difference in relation to property; nevertheless, they recognize class-forming factors such as official status, power, prestige, etc. If a social stratum can denote division along one parameter, then a social class is not only an enlarged stratum.
- Firstly, a social class is formed on the basis of the proximity of status profiles, i.e., it is based on a number of class-forming parameters, and the possession (ability to dispose) of resources is the basis of the class division of society.
- Secondly, each social class has a specific subculture, which is maintained in the form of traditions, taking into account the existing social distances between representatives of different classes, as well as class consciousness, which becomes universal within this class in terms of self-identification and collective achievement of class interests.
- Thirdly, each class has different social opportunities and privileges, which is a decisive condition for achieving the most prestigious and rewarded statuses.
Models of the class structure of society
At present, there are a large number of models of class structures, and sociologists are now coming to the conclusion that in modern society the basis of these structures remains unchanged, and only individual structural units change depending on the cultural, economic, structural and other characteristics of each society. At the same time, the definition of the class positions of individuals is carried out using complex indices that evaluate the positions of an individual in many dimensions (in our case, this is a status profile).
Among the models of stratification adopted in Western sociology, the most famous should be considered the model of W. Watson, which was the result of research conducted in the 30s in the United States. It should be said that all modern Western models of the class structure of society, to one degree or another, contain elements of the Watson model.
When conducting research, Watson and his colleagues initially focused on a fairly simple three-tier system of class division of society - the upper class, the middle class, the lower class. However, the results of the study showed that it is advisable to single out intermediate classes within each of these enlarged classes. As a result, Watson's model acquired the following final form:
- Top-top class are representatives of influential and wealthy dynasties with very significant resources of power, wealth and prestige throughout the state. Their position is so strong that it practically does not depend on competition, depreciation of securities and other socio-economic changes in society. Very often members of this class do not even know the exact size of their empires.
- Lower-upper class bankers are prominent poly owners of large firms who have reached the highest status in the course of competition or due to various qualities. They cannot be accepted into the upper-upper class, because they are either considered upstarts (from the point of view of representatives of the upper-upper class), or they do not have sufficient influence in all areas of the activity of this society. Usually members of this class are fiercely competitive and dependent on the political and economic situations in society.
H. Upper-middle class includes successful businessmen, hired company managers, prominent lawyers, doctors, outstanding athletes, scientific elite. Representatives of this class do not claim influence on the scale of the state, however, in rather narrow areas of activity, their position is quite strong and stable. They enjoy high prestige in their fields of activity. Representatives of this class are usually spoken of as the wealth of the nation.
- lower-middle class hired workers - engineers, medium and small rank teachers, scientists, heads of departments at enterprises, highly skilled workers, etc. At present, this class is the most numerous in the developed Western countries. His main aspirations are raising the status within this class, success and a career. In this regard, for representatives of this class, a very important point is economic, social and political stability in society. Speaking for stability, representatives of this class are the main support for the existing government.
- upper-lower class are mainly hired workers who create surplus value in a given society. Dependent in many ways on the upper classes for their livelihood, this class struggled throughout its existence to improve living conditions. In those moments when its representatives realized their interests and rallied to achieve their goals, their living conditions improved.
- lower-lower class are the poor, the unemployed, the unemployed, foreign workers and other representatives of marginalized groups.
The experience of using the Watson model showed that in the presented form it is in most cases unacceptable for the countries of Eastern Europe and Russia, where a different social structure developed in the course of historical processes, there were fundamentally different status groups. However, at present, due to the changes that have taken place in our society, many elements of Watson's structure can be used in the course of studying the composition of the social classes in Russia. For example, social structure of our society in the studies of N.M. Rimashevskaya looks like this:
- "All-Russian elite groups", combining the possession of property in amounts comparable to the largest Western states, and the means of power influence at the all-Russian level.
- “Regional and corporate elites”, which have significant wealth and influence at the level of regions and sectors of the economy, in terms of Russian scale.
- The Russian "upper middle class", which has property and incomes that provide Western standards of consumption, claims to improve its social status and is guided by the established practice and ethical norms of economic relations.
- The Russian “dynamic middle class”, which has incomes that ensure the satisfaction of average Russian and higher consumption standards, relatively high potential adaptability, significant social claims and motivations, social activity and an orientation towards legal ways of its manifestation.
- "Outsiders", characterized by low adaptation and social activity, low incomes and orientation towards legal ways of obtaining them.
- "Marginals", characterized by low adaptation and asocial and antisocial attitudes in their socio-economic activities.
- "Criminal society", which has a high social activity and adaptation, but at the same time quite rationally acting contrary to the legal norms of economic activity.
As you can see, the Rimashevskaya model is similar in many respects to the Watson model. First of all, this is noted in relation to the significance of the “dynamic middle class”, which is in the process of formation, which largely affects the existence of significant social instability in modern Russia. Rimashevskaya emphasizes this point in the development of Russian society: “If it is possible to maintain this type of social dynamics, to orient it towards the gradual transfer of social expectations to the corresponding status positions, the level of income, then this will mean that the “dynamic middle class” will begin to transform into a classical support of stability and social order."
In conclusion, we can say that the social class structure is built on the basis of inequality, taking into account such a characteristic as heterogeneity. The system of inequality is formed on the basis of the basic parameters of society, which include income, origin, position, power, education and other ranking indicators. The proximity of social statuses leads to the formation of social strata, which, in addition to the difference in remuneration, have different attitudes, norms of behavior, ideals, etc.
Social strata can be combined into social classes that have a certain relationship to the means of production, their own subculture and opportunities to occupy more attractive social statuses. The class structure of society has unique specific features and is subject to change in the course of social development.