Social and Political

Stratification
Social and Political Stratification
• Differentiation- is the method of relating people in terms of certain
social characteristics and then classifying them into social categories
based on the different characteristics.
• Ex. According to sex, age, occupation, education, religion, race,
intelligence, wealth, etc.
• Social Stratification- the layering of these social categories into higher
position of prestige or respect.
• -is a society’s categorization of people into socioeconomic strata,
based on their occupation and income, wealth and status, or derived
power (social and political)
Stratification
• Is the relative social position of persons within a social group,
category, geographic region, or social unit.

• Social Stratification is distinguished as three social classes:

• The Upper Class- consists of the elite families who are the most prolific and
successful in their respective areas. These are the groups of people who are
stockholders, investors, and who live in an exclusive neighborhood. They own
many houses; mingle with the same class, and value heritage most over
wealth.
The Middle Class
• These are mostly professional people like lawyers, doctors, managers,
owners of small businesses, executive, etc.
• They live in spacious houses, situated in best suburbs.
• Their income can afford them a comfortable lifestyle.
• They value education most since education to them is the most
important measure of social status.
The lower class
• These are the office and clerical workers, skilled and unskilled
craftsman, farm employees, underemployed and indigent families.
• They live in smaller houses.
• They are short of revenue, education or training, acquaintances, and
communication.
• They depend on their pay check.
Social Class
• Is generally referred to as a number of people who are grouped
collectively because they have similar professional/occupational
statuses, amount of prestige, or lifestyle.
• According to Marx, the Industrial Revolution formed a capitalist class
of rich people who owned the factories, and other forms of
production or industry.
• And from there on, groups of workers were produced to work for
them and become dependent on the capitalist for the wages they
would receive.
Political Stratification
• Is the extent to which inequalities are encapsulated in, or influenced
by, political structures and processes regarding influence, power and
authority.
• It is categorized by power volume.
• Power- is the ability to carry out the spirit to delineate and take
charge of activities of other people through various ways (the right,
violence, authority etc.)
• It concerns the unequal distribution of political rewards and
inequalities in access to political offices.
Social Mobility System/Structure
• The act of moving from one social status to another.
• If social mobility is high, even though individuals have unequal social
origins, everyone believes that they are equal in having an
opportunity of getting a higher social class positions.
• If social mobility is low, it is clear that majority of the people are
stationary with respect to the status of their ancestors.
Open Class System
• It means that individuals can change their social class position in the
society.
• The degree of downward individual mobility is one of the tests of an
open class society.
• If mostly all people remain in the social class rank of their parents,
then we call it a closed class society.
Caste and Close-class System
• Are approximately the same things, the concept of open and closed
classes is more useful than the concept of caste, because it can be
used as a measure of the amount of mobility in different societies.
• If a society has many individuals who came from lowly homes and
rose to high positions, along with others who fell down from status of
either parent, then we can say there is high degree of social mobility
and an approximation of the open-class society.
Types of Social Mobility
• People may change their social class position either of two ways.
• They can move from one position to another position within their social class.
• They can move into another class.

• Horizontal mobility- is the movement of a person within a social class level.

• Ex. If a person leaves the job of a Principal to become an Education
Supervisor, that person remains in the same social class.
• The two jobs have the same occupational status, require the same amount of
trainings, receive same salary, and have the same amount of prestige.
• The person has been moved horizontally.
Vertical Mobility
• Is the movement of the person between social class levels.
• The movement may be upward or downward.
• The person may either rise or fall in the social class structure.
• Let’s assume that the Principal did not apply for Education Supervisor
position.
• Instead he used his share (money) from a family business and started
to operate his own preschool. And after a few years his school offered
complete elementary education and after a few years more he
offered again a complete secondary education and even put up
branches in many places.
Social Inequality
• The existence of uneven opportunities and rewards for a diverse
social positions or statuses within a group or society.
• It occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly,
generally through norms of allocation, that bring about specific
patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons.
• It is correlated to racial inequality, gender inequality, and ethnic
inequality as well as other status characteristics.
Gender Inequality
• Sexism- sex and gender-based prejudice and discrimination
• Women are underrepresented in political activities and decision
making processes in almost every part of the world.
• Gender discrimination, particularly regarding the lower social status
of women, has been a topic of discussion not only within academic
and activist communities but also by government agencies and
international bodies such as the United Nations.
Racial and Ethnic Inequality
• Is the consequence of hierarchical social distinctions between racial
and ethnic categories within a society and are often recognized based
on characteristics such as skin color and other physical characteristics
or an individual’s place of origin or culture.
• This inequality can be visible through biased hiring and pay practices.
• These are instances that employers prefer hiring potential employees
based on the perceived ethnicity of a candidate’s given name.
Minorities
• Who are barred from some degree of power, prestige, or wealth.
• Usually denied equal treatment by the dominant members of the
society.
• Discrimination- Minorities are being deprived of equal treatment and
are kept in a lower status by the dominant members of the society
and the resistance of equality.
• Prejudice- is defined as a negative attitude toward the members of a
particular group.
• It is preconceived idea or “prejudgement” of others that allows us to
brand/label them in various pessimistic ways.
Stereotyping
• Which refers to our propensity to picture all members of a particular
category as having the same qualities.
• Stereotyping is the result of overgeneralization.
• If we have encountered negative attitudes with a member of a
particular social category, then we overgeneralize by judging that
everyone else in the category is just like that person.
Ethnocentrism
• The belief that our own nation, race, or group is the best.
• The consequence is we suppose that other groups or societies are
inferior to our own.
• We also believe that we all belong to social or cultural groups and
have a tendency to believe that “we” are better than “they.”
Scapegoating
• This is a situation when people encounter problems that they do not know how
to solve.
• Often, they feel frustrated.
• Time to time this frustration can lead to aggression.
• The term “scapegoat” is taken from the ancient Hebrew custom of identifying the
sins of the people with a goat and then driving the goat into the wilderness.
• This kind of attitude which is looking for someone or something else to be
blamed for our own troubles or problems continues up to this time.
• Minorities are often the object of scapegoating since they lack power and status
on the society.
• The jobless, for example, often blame immigrants or some other minority for
taking the job from them and resulting in their economic problems.
Racism
• It is the thinking that one’s own race is superior and has the right to
control or direct others.
• It helps maintain the myth that other people are inferior because of
certain differences.
• Racism remains as one of the foremost ways that the dominant
members of a society sustain the power over the minorities.
• Racism provides a means for reducing minorities to a lower status.
How People Become Minorities
• There are three basic ways in which minority definitions develop
according to sociologists, namely:
• MIGRATION- When people move or migrate, from one society to
another, they are commonly called minorities in the new society.
• Migration could be voluntary (by choice), or it could be involuntary.
• For instance the incident of blacks who were forcibly brought to the
American continent as slaves is one example of involuntary migration.
Colonialism
• Some people become minorities in their own country, without ever
leaving their place of birth.
• This happens when people from another country decides to settle in
a new land and then take control of the society.
• Examples within our own country are the Spanish and American
colonizers. When Magellan came to the Philippines, he already found
tribes of people. After 333 years of Spanish colonization here in the
Philippines came the Americans.
Annexation
• Citizens may turn out to be a minority when their country is joined, or
annexed, to another nation.
• Annexation could either be voluntary or involuntary.
• Annexation usually happens after a war ends.
How Minorities are Treated
• The existence of minorities in a society means that the dominant
group of people must deal with or treat them in some other way.
• When some people in a society consider others as inferiors, the
behavior patterns of everyone involved are affected.
Six Patterns of Dominant-Minority
Relationship
• Extermination
• The most tremendous form of rejection by dominant members of a society
toward minorities is to kill or exterminate them.
• Extermination is the most brutal of all the treatments of minority people.

• The most dreadful example of this is the mass extermination of roughly six
million Jews by Hitler’s Germany in World War II.
Expulsion
• Is less severe form of rejection, compared to extermination.
• Expulsion is the elimination of the minority group from the dominant
society.
• Sometime minorities are expelled to an unused tract of land
Segregation
• The minority may be segregated or isolated, in specific neighborhoods.
• Segregation is the spatial separation of the minority from the dominant
members of the society.
• It involves not only housing but also schools, jobs, transportation,
restrooms, theatres, and restaurants.
• Segregation for many generations became the practice in the US where
black Americans were required to live in certain sections of a town.
• Their offspring had to attend a segregated school; and in some states, black
Americans attended special theaters and swam at beaches separate from
those of Whit Americans.
Segregation
• In 1954, an important step was taken, when the United States
Supreme Court ruled (in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka) that segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional.
Cultural Pluralism
• Is the acceptance and recognition of cultural differences in subgroups
among the residents, with no single subgroup dominating the others.
• Instead of trying to blend their cultural identities with the common
culture, they keep their unique ethnic characteristics and accept one
another as they are.
• Ex. Switzerland, where French, German, and Italian, and Swiss have
retained their separate languages and customs; however they are all
united in a common political and economic system.
Assimilation
• It has occurred when previously distinct social categories blend into one unified
social category.
• Many immigrants to the United States so wanted to be Americans that they
dropped all of their ethnic characteristics- their verbal communication, outfit,
customs and traditions, and even their names.
• For example, they changed the name Juan to John

• Amalgamation
• Is blending through accepted intermarriage.
• Through this process, the differences between dominant and minority members
of society disappear.
• All individuals have ancestors of various nationalities in an amalgamated society.