Explaining Social Class Inequality - OCR A2 SOCIOLOGY

Explaining Social Class Inequality - OCR A2 SOCIOLOGY

1. Functionalism

   • Parsons
     • Value consensus and stratification
   • Davis and Moore
     • Stratification
       • Right people to the most important positions
       • Ensures people working to a high standard
     • Role allocation
       • functional uniqueness
       • Degree of dependence of others
     • Tumin
       • Reward consensus?
       • Only Monitary motivation?
       • Functional importance is opinion
   • Meritocracy

2. New Right

   • Saunders
     • A society based on social equality is only possible if considerable force is used
       • Legal Equality
       • Opportunity equality
       • No equality of outcomes
   • Murray
     • Depenendency culture
     • Underclass

3. Marxism

   • Karl Marx
     • Class conflict and dependency
     • False class consciousness
   • Westergaad and Resler
     • Little evidence of class divisions in Britain disappearing
     • inequalities can only be understood as a result of the way the capitalist system operates
   • Braverman
     • De-skilling of the 'middle-class'
       • Proletaririanisation
   • Gramsci
     • Neo-Marxist
     • Ruling class Hegemony
       • Stops a revolution taking place

4. Weberian

   • Weber
   • Status
     • how much respect a person receives from others
     • strong bonds from similar status
   • Party
     • Groups concerned with exercising power
   • Social class
     • Social class is a group with a similar MARKET SITUATION
       • Similar economic rewards
       • Similar life chances
   • Focusing on multiple social classes and different dimensions of inequality obscures the fundamental importance of class divisions in a capitalist society

5. Feminism

   • Abbott
     • Goldthorpe's study ignores women completely
   • Surrey scale
     • Created as a social class classification where men women are classified on their own occupations, not their husbands

6. Postmodernism

   • Malcolm et al
     • People now group together based on cultural values rather than economic status
   • Beck
     • Risk society
       • There are risks that affect everyone so class division has been decreasing