According to Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, What Benefits Come From Social Stratification?

Functionalism

In folklore, the functionalist perspective examines how order'due south parts operate. Co-ordinate to functionalism, different aspects of gild exist because they serve a needed purpose. What is the function of social stratification?

In 1945, sociologists Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore published the Davis-Moore thesis, which argued that the greater the functional importance of a social role, the greater must exist the reward. The theory posits that social stratification represents the inherently unequal value of different piece of work. Sure tasks in guild are more valuable than others. Qualified people who make full those positions must be rewarded more than than others.

According to Davis and Moore, a fireman's job is more than important than, for case, a grocery store cashier's. The cashier position does not require the same skill and training level as firefighting. Without the incentive of higher pay and better benefits, why would someone be willing to rush into called-for buildings? If pay levels were the same, the firewoman might also work as a grocery shop cashier. Davis and Moore believed that rewarding more of import piece of work with higher levels of income, prestige, and power encourages people to work harder and longer.

Davis and Moore stated that, in almost cases, the degree of skill required for a job determines that chore's importance. They likewise stated that the more than skill required for a job, the fewer qualified people in that location would be to do that task. Certain jobs, such as cleaning hallways or answering phones, do not require much skill. The employees don't demand a college degree. Other work, similar designing a highway system or delivering a infant, requires immense skill.

In 1953, Melvin Tumin countered the Davis-Moore thesis in "Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis." Tumin questioned what determined a chore'due south degree of importance. The Davis-Moore thesis does not explain, he argued, why a media personality with little education, skill, or talent becomes famous and rich on a reality show or a campaign trail. The thesis also does not explain inequalities in the educational activity system or inequalities due to race or gender. Tumin believed social stratification prevented qualified people from attempting to fill roles (Tumin 1953). For example, an underprivileged youth has less run a risk of condign a scientist, no matter how smart she is, because of the relative lack of opportunity available to her. The Davis-Moore thesis also does not explain why a basketball role player earns millions of dollars a year when a medico who saves lives, a soldier who fights for others' rights, and a teacher who helps form the minds of tomorrow volition likely not make millions over the class of their careers.

The Davis-Moore thesis, though open for debate, was an early attempt to explain why stratification exists. The thesis states that social stratification is necessary to promote excellence, productivity, and efficiency, thus giving people something to strive for. Davis and Moore believed that the organisation serves order equally a whole considering it allows anybody to benefit to a certain extent.

Disharmonize Theory

These people are protesting a determination made by Tennessee Technological Academy in Cookeville, Tennessee, to lay off custodians and outsource the jobs to a private house to avert paying employee benefits. Individual job agencies often pay lower hourly wages. Is the decision off-white? (Photo courtesy of Brian Stansberry/Wikimedia Commons)

Conflict theorists are deeply critical of social stratification, asserting that information technology benefits only some people, non all of society. For instance, to a conflict theorist, information technology seems wrong that a basketball role player is paid millions for an annual contract while a public school teacher earns $35,000 a year. Stratification, disharmonize theorists believe, perpetuates inequality. Conflict theorists try to bring awareness to inequalities, such as how a rich guild can have then many poor members.

Many conflict theorists draw on the piece of work of Karl Marx. During the nineteenth-century era of industrialization, Marx believed social stratification resulted from people'due south human relationship to production. People were divided by a single line: they either owned factories or worked in them. In Marx'due south fourth dimension, bourgeois capitalists owned loftier-producing businesses, factories, and land, as they all the same do today. Proletariats were the workers who performed the transmission labor to produce goods. Upper-course capitalists raked in profits and got rich, while working-course proletariats earned skimpy wages and struggled to survive. With such opposing interests, the two groups were divided by differences of wealth and power. Marx saw workers feel deep alienation, isolation and misery resulting from powerless status levels (Marx 1848). Marx argued that proletariats were oppressed past the money-hungry bourgeois.

Today, while working conditions take improved, conflict theorists believe that the strained working relationship between employers and employees nonetheless exists. Capitalists ain the means of product, and a system is in place to make business organization owners rich and keep workers poor. According to conflict theorists, the resulting stratification creates grade conflict. If he were alive in today's economic system, as it recovers from a prolonged recession, Marx would likely take argued that the recession resulted from the greed of capitalists, satisfied at the expense of working people.

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is a theory that uses everyday interactions of individuals to explicate society as a whole. Symbolic interactionism examines stratification from a micro-level perspective. This analysis strives to explain how people'south social continuing affects their everyday interactions.

In most communities, people interact primarily with others who share the aforementioned social continuing. It is precisely because of social stratification that people tend to live, work, and associate with others like themselves, people who share their same income level, educational background, or racial groundwork, and even tastes in nutrient, music, and habiliment. The built-in system of social stratification groups people together. This is 1 of the reasons why it was rare for a purple prince like England'due south Prince William to marry a commoner.

Symbolic interactionists likewise note that people'south advent reflects their perceived social standing. Housing, article of clothing, and transportation indicate social condition, every bit do hairstyles, gustation in accessories, and personal style.

(a) A group of structure workers on the job site, and (b) a grouping of businessmen. What categories of stratification practice these structure workers share? How do structure workers differ from executives or custodians? Who is more than skilled? Who has greater prestige in gild? (Photo (a) courtesy of Wikimedia Eatables; Photograph (b) courtesy of Chun Kit/flickr)

To symbolically communicate social continuing, people often engage in conspicuous consumption, which is the buy and utilize of certain products to brand a social statement about status. Carrying pricey but eco-friendly water bottles could indicate a person's social continuing. Some people buy expensive trendy sneakers fifty-fifty though they will never article of clothing them to jog or play sports. A $17,000 car provides transportation as hands equally a $100,000 vehicle, but the luxury car makes a social statement that the less expensive car tin't live upwards to. All these symbols of stratification are worthy of test past an interactionist.

Think Information technology Over

1. Analyze the Davis-Moore thesis. Do you agree with Davis and Moore? Does social stratification play an important function in society? What examples can y'all think of that support the thesis? What examples tin can yous recall of that abnegate the thesis?
2. Consider social stratification from the symbolic interactionist perspective. How does social stratification influence the daily interactions of individuals? How do systems of form, based on factors such as prestige, power, income, and wealth, influence your own daily routines, every bit well as your beliefs and attitudes? Illustrate your ideas with specific examples and anecdotes from your own life and the lives of people in your community.

Exercise

1. The basic premise of the Davis-Moore thesis is that the unequal distribution of rewards in social stratification:

1. is an outdated mode of societal organization
2. is an artificial reflection of society
3. serves a purpose in society
4. cannot be justified

2. Unlike Davis and Moore, Melvin Tumin believed that, because of social stratification, some qualified people were _______ higher-level job positions.

1. denied the opportunity to obtain
2. encouraged to train for
3. often fired from
4. forced into

3. Which argument represents stratification from the perspective of symbolic interactionism?

1. Men ofttimes earn more than women, even working the same job.
2. After work, Pat, a janitor, feels more comfortable eating in a truck terminate than a French restaurant.
3. Doctors earn more than coin considering their job is more than highly valued.
4. Teachers continue to struggle to proceed benefits such as health insurance.

iv. When Karl Marx said workers feel alienation, he meant that workers:

1. must labor solitary, without companionship
2. practice non experience connected to their work
3. move from ane geographical location to another
4. have to put forth self-effort to get ahead

5. Conflict theorists view capitalists as those who:

1. are ambitious
2. fund social services
3. spend money wisely
4. become rich while workers stay poor

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/reading-theoretical-perspectives-on-social-stratification/

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