Social Stratification and Class

Social Stratification and ClassDiscuss what is meant by favorable stratification and evaluate the different ways that social secern has been outlined and measured.The term social stratification refers to the grouping of social sectionalizationes within a society. This is a specific form of inequality, and the effect of this is that current groups in society atomic number 18 seen as having a higher status or rank than others based on power and wealth. Social stratification works by society rank which is based in four sections. Social stratification posterior be passed from one generation to the next, i.e. royalty, it is universal but varies over time and place, it is a mark of society not individual differences and lastly social stratification likewise goes on beliefs and not just inequality (Wikipedia, 2014). Sociologists argue that some form of social stratification occurs in every society in the world despite that everyone claims to want an equal society (Burton, 2013). So ciologists consider there to be three principal(prenominal) systems of stratification in todays societies. These are thr only, the caste system and the class system.Slavery has legally been abolished in many countries but there is ease evidence of at least 400 million people living under conditions that amount to slavery. For those living in Sudan, Ghana, India, Pakistan, and many other countries with similar ideals, slavery is a common thing to happen and in certain parts of Asia sex slavery is also common. A caste system is a social system built on ascribed status. This is a status based on characteristics a someone is born with, such as race, gender, religion, age etc. In a caste system there is no chance to change from one caste to another and marriage outside of a persons caste is not generally permitted. Often in a caste system the marriages are pre-arranged between parents rather than a choice of the individual. A class system is a social system built on achieved status. This is status that a person either earns or chooses so is not dependent on where a person was born or a persons parentage. Those born in a class system can choose their education, vocation and partner. A person in a class system may also start off in one class but can move between classes ( glister Notes, n.d). For many sociologists the focus is on the caste and class systems of stratification and the amount of social mobility within that system. This social mobility is the ease of which a person can move up or down the class system and will be based on a persons wealth or power.In forward-looking western societies, stratification is organised by class and divided into three main layers, upper class, middle class and reduce class. Each of these classes can then be broken down into further categories determined by things such as housing locations (Wikipedia, 2014). A persons social class will depend on where they are from, what they do for a living, where they achieved their educ ation, who they are connected to and how powerful them people may be, how much wealth they have and their position in society. When a persons social class is being considered their education will not generally be considered, unless of line of reasoning they attended a high ranking education facility. This person will also need to have some high connections to be considered for upper class status. If a person is lacking any of these factors they will be considered as middle or even write down class, depending on their postcode or banking company balance, within a western society. In modern western societies there are different categories for social stratification such as age, race, gender, class, race or disability and in some places there will be even more categories (Wikipedia, 2014).Social classification has taken place long before the modern form of classifying people began. Social stratification has been measured in different forms from asking people which class they feel the y belong in to using a persons postcode. The two most used measures are both based on occupation. The Registrar Generals Standard Occupation mixed bag (SC) and the Socio-Economic Groups (SEG). The SC began in has been in the census since 1901 and is based on a persons occupation which will fall into one of six categories Professional, Intermediate, experient (Non-Manual/Manual), Partly Skilled and Unskilled. This is an ordinal measure that ranks occupation, by skill and social standing. The SEG is made up of 17 different categories and would in fact cover all eventualities of employment, house worker, student etc. This is a nominal measure that ranks occupation by employment status ( unidentified n.d).The SC has strengths as well as weaknesses with its use. It is a simple system with easily generalizable categories. This system is also useful when wanting to compare the changes in occupations held over a period of time. However, this system does not face to group people it focuse s more on the occupation. Another problem with this system is that the categories do not consider the differences in income between certain occupations. The SEC also has some strengths and weaknesses to its reliability in measuring class. Its main strength is that it does have a wider range of categories for people to consider, however its biggest weakness is that is still fails to acknowledge certain people, such as women, students and the unemployed (Sociology Org, 2013).Having more than one way of measuring social class has caused many problems. As occupations have changed dramatically over the historic period there are many problems with the way the SC and the SEG measures class. The biggest of the problems is that they are not designed to measure the occupations of women, housewives, students or even the unemployed adequately. Although this will generally be the most reliable as people will accept what is told to them by a government body such as the Registrar General. In 1994 a government review of social classifications took place with the aim to review the reliability of using occupation to measure social class, to review the social class categories and to quantify the effectiveness of the changes made. These changes took place in 1998 and a new classification system, NS-SEC, was introduced beginning in the 2001 census (Anon, n.d).This change made to the way occupation is measured comes in eight categories to include the differences in set locations. The categories of the NS-SEC are higher managerial and professionals, lower managerial and professionals, intermediate occupations (clerical, sales and services), small employers and own account workers, lower supervisory and technical occupations, semi-routine occupations, routine occupations and never worked or long term unemployed (Wikipedia, 2013).ReferencesAnon. (n.d) Definition and Measurement of Social Class online. accessible from http//www.uwic.ac.uk/shss/dom/newweb/classdefinition/Difficulties .htm Last Accessed Jan 2014.Anon. (n.d) Social stratification online. unattached from https//www.google.co.uk/url?sa=trct=jq=esrc=ssource=webcd=1sqi=2ved=0CDAQkA4oADAAurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwordnetweb.princeton.edu%2Fperl%2Fwebwn%3Fs%3Dsocial%2520stratificationei=TIw5U6OlM6viywP42IIIusg=AFQjCNFPiQoB3wnfTRpv0MM_X4Pr_XWEMwsig2=f2pVumGz7bpiGO8bUQIBnQ Last Accessed Jan 2014.Burton, J. (2013) Class and Stratification class hand-out. Access to Social Science Class and Stratification, Northampton College. Nov 2013.Sociology Org. (2013) Measuring Social Class online. Available from http//www.sociology.org.uk/s3a.pdf Last Accessed Jan 2014.Spark Notes. (n.d) Social Stratification and Inequality online. Available from http//www.sparknotes.com/sociology/social-stratification-and-inequality/section3.rhtml Last Accessed Jan 2014.Wikipedia. (2013) National Statistics Socio-economic Classification online. Available from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Statistics_Socio-economic_Classification Last Accessed Jan 2014.Wikipedia. (2014) Social Stratification online. Available from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_stratification Last Accessed Jan 2014.BibliographyAnon. (2010) What does Social Stratification mean? Online. Available from https//uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100529054226AAF1wY9 Last Accessed Jan 2014.Boundless. (n.d) Social Stratification online. Available from https//www.boundless.com/sociology/definition/social-stratification/ Last Accessed Jan 2014.Iiser (n.d) NSSEC online. Available from https//www.iser.essex.ac.uk/archives/nssec Last Accessed Jan 2014.Rose, D. Pevalin, D. (2010) Re-basing the NS-SEC on SOC2010 online. 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