Learning outcomes:

After working effectively at this unit you will be able to:

 define and comment on the patterns of social stratification;

 identify social classes and understand the impact of class identity on social behaviour;

 write opinion essays dealing with class characteristics in different countries;

 express and interpret facts and proportions of sociological data to support yor point of view on class characteristics;

 understand the relations of ideas in the text with the help of linking words;

present your conclusions and group opinion concerning the issue of social stratification.

 introduce points in an argument reflecting a paradox between an increasingly secular society and a growing demand for children to be educated in a “religious” environment;OBJECTIVES:

SUB-UNIT 4.1. Patterns of Social Stratification

WARMING-UP:

Task 1. Look through the following statement from The Republic written by a classical Greek philosopher Plato in 370 B.C. What sociological term is he explaining? What “cities” are meant here? Can you find the same “two cities” in the society we are living in?

“Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.”

How are the Plato’s metaphorical examples connected with the issue of stratification as “the structured ranking of individuals and groups’?

 Task 2. In groups try to find some real examples from the way our society functions that would support the idea of stratification:

In the family: At work:

- …… ? - …. ?

In social life: Your suggestions:

- ….. ? - …?

Be ready to present the ideas of your group using the following tips:

 Task 3. Now read the introductory part of the extract “Patterns for Social Stratification” and choose one of the sentences given below as representing the main idea of the passage. What is the function of this extract?

a) Living in a group inculcates some particular status on a person thanks to which he/she finds him/herself in a certain strata.

b) People’s functioning in the society has both advantages and disadvantages reflected in the unfair distribution of benefits and burdens.

c) Social arrangements cannot be called neutral because they promote goals and interests only of some particular groups of people.

PATTERNS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Group living confers various collective benefits on the members of a society. Together they can accomplish a great many things that they could not otherwise achieve. But the advantages and disadvantages of the collective enterprise are not shared evenly. Most societies are organized so that their in­stitutions systematically distribute benefits and burdens unequally among different categories of people. Sociologists call the structured ranking of individuals and groups—their grading into horizontal layers or strata—social stratification. Viewed in this manner, social arrangements are not neutral, but serve and promote the goals and interests of some people more than they do those of other people.

 Task 4. Read the part of the article under the title “Patterns of Social Stratification” and find out statements that would support these ideas:

1)Already long ago people understood that the division of functions entailed effective society functioning.

2)Inborn roles of people are limited to the women’s abilities to give birth to children.

3)Status is not a prerequisite for having more of less respect towards people of other statuses.

Patterns of Social Stratification

Social stratification depends upon but is not the same thing as social differentiation—the process by which a society becomes increas­ingly specialized over time. Very early in their history, human beings discovered that a divi­sion of functions and labor contributed to greater social efficiency. Consequently, in all societies we find a separation of statuses and roles. This arrangement requires that people be distributed within the social structure so that the various statuses are filled and their accompanying roles performed. Nature helps to accomplish this task by dictating that only women should bear children, but nature does not go very much beyond this. Human, beings have to figure out the rest for themselves.

Although the statuses that make up a social structure may be differentiated, they need not be ranked with respect to one another. For instance, within our society the statuses of infant and child are differentiated, but the one is not thought to be superior in rank to the other. They are merely different. Social differ­entiation sets the stage for—provides the so­cial material that may or may not become the basis for—social ranking- In other words, whenever we encounter social stratification we find social differentiation, but not the other way around. Let us begin our consid­eration of social stratification by examining a number of different arrangements.

 Task 5. Scan the passages dealing with different arrangements of social stratification. Put them into the right order and decide which paragraphs deal with open/closed systems.

A: In contrast, where people have great difficulty in changing their status, we call the arrangement a closed

system.

B: Members of the lower castes were consid­ered inferior, scorned, snubbed, and oppressed by higher caste members regardless of per­sonal merit and behavior. Rigid rules of avoid­ance operated within the system because con­tact with lower caste members was believed spiritually to pollute and defile upper caste members. Even today, caste still shapes behav­ior in some localities, especially in rural areas, setting the rules of courtship, diet, housing, and employment. The con­cept of dharma legitimates the system, estab­lishing the idea that enduring one's lot in life with grace is the only morally acceptable way to live. But even at its zenith, the Hindu caste system never operated to foreclose mobility up and down the social ladder. Different birth and death rates among the castes, discontent among the disadvantaged and exploited, com­petition between members of different castes, the introduction of modern farming technol­ogies, conversions to Buddhism and Islam, and other factors have operated against a completely closed system (Weisman, 1987).

C: Rather, the democratic creed holds that all people should have an equal opportunity to ascend to the heights of the class system. In theory, the rewards of social life flow to people in accordance with their merit and competence and in proportion to their contribution to the larger social enterprise. However, in practice the ideal is not realized, since the American system places some measure of reliance on ascription, particularly in assigning statuses on the basis of sex, age, and race.

D: Although there are no societies that are entirely open or entirely closed, the United States provides a good example of a relatively open system. The American dream portrays a society in which all people can alter and im­prove their lot. The American folk hero is Abe Lincoln, the "poor boy who made good," the "rail-splitter" who through hard work man­aged to move "from log cabin to the White House." The United States is founded not on the idea that all people should enjoy equal status, nor on the notion of a classless society.

E: Stratification systems differ in the ease with which they permit people to move in or out of particular strata. As we will see later m the chapter when we discuss social mobility, peo­ple often move vertically up or down in rank or horizontally to another status of roughly similar rank. Where people can change their status with relative ease, we refer to the arrangement as an open system.

F: When we think of a closed system, the Hindu caste arrangement often comes to mind, particularly as it operated in India prior to 1900. Under the traditional Hindu system, life was ordered in terms of castes in which people inherited their social status at birth from their parents and could not change ir in the course of their lives. Historically there have been thousands of castes in India, al­though all pftfiem have fallen into four^maior_ castes: the Brahmins, or priestly caste, who represent about 3 percent of the population; the Kshatriyas, allegedly descendants of war­riors, and the Vaisyas, the traders, who to­gether account for about 7 percent of Indians; and the Sudras, peasants and artisans, who constitute about 70 percent of the population. The remaining 20 percent are the Harijans, or Untouchables, who have traditionally served as sweepers, scavengers, learherworkers, and swineherds.

 Task 6. Compare your way of the text arrangement with that of your group-mates. Read this part of the article and support the following statements based on the information from this extract giving some examples:

• It is next to impossible to find entirely open societies.

• Societies differ in the ease with which people can move in or out a particular strata.

• Although democratic society entails equal opportunities for every member of the society, in practice there are many other factors that determine assigning statuses.

• Even within a closed system one can find a number of examples proving the existence of social mobility that will gradually lead to changing of the system’s type.

What elements helped you to put the passages about open/closed systems into the right order? What role have such words as “in contrast”, “rather”, “although” played in these extracts?

 Task 7. So, words of this type are called linking because of their function to link, to join the parts of a complex sentence, to organize the sentences and the ideas expressed in them into one body.

Here are the most widely used linking words. Their knowledge will help you to understand the organization of the ideas in any scientific text.

Use the English-Russian/Belarussian dictionary to find the translation of the following linking words and after that try to put them into the appropriate sense group:

As a result, because of (+noun), although, therefore, even though, so that, in spite of, due to (+ noun), however, but, consequently, nevertheless, since, in order to, on the other hand, in contrast, rather.

• words introducing the result;

• words introducing the reason;

• words introducing contrast;

• words introducing purpose;

Match the following statements using the missing linking words of the appropriate type (prompts in brackets will help you):

a) (reason) In India members of higher castes did not communicate with those from lower ones. – Contact with lower caste members was believed spiritually to pollute those from the upper class.

b) (contrast) In such a type of the system as an open one people have a chance to change their status with relative ease. – In a closed system it is difficult for them to do it.

c) (result) Lincoln had been working hard. – He managed to move “from log cabin to the White House”.

d) (reason) In India people could not change their status. – They inherited their status at birth from their parents.

e) (contrast) There are no societies of “pure” type. – It is possible to discern the arrangement of societies in some countries.

f) (reason) Untouchables served as sweepers and swineherds. – Untouchables were the members of the lower casts.

 The following words (word combinations) will help you in expressing your own opinion on different issues connected with the topic of social stratification in a sociologically adequate way.

Separation	The state of being kept apart from smn, smth	разъединение, разделение
Arrangement	A group of some objects, facts, data put in a particular way	классификация систематизация
Tangible	Smth that can be easily seen, felt, or noticed	ощутимый, реальный, ясный
Entirely	completely	всецело, вполне, совсем, только
Evenly	equally	одинаково
To contribute (to) V+ing	To help to make it successful	способствовать, содействовать
To assign	To give smth (for ex. a task or a function) to smb	назначать, определять, давать
To permit	To allow, to make possible for smth to happen	давать возможность, позволять
To determine	To control smth, to decide or settle it	обуславливать, определять, устанавливать
To consider	To pay attention to smth	рассматривать полагать, считать
To differetiate	To recognize or show difference between things	отличать, устанавливать различие, разграничивать
To shape	To cause smth to develop in a particular way	придавать форму, создавать