Social Stratification and Inequality
Dimensions of Inequality
Stratification is the ranking of people into hierarchical layers with unequal access to valued resources. Class is broadly economic; status is social prestige; power is the capacity to impose one's will - Weber's three dimensions. Slavery, caste, and class systems differ by mobility: caste is closed and ascribed, class is comparatively open and achieved. Social mobility may be vertical (up or down) or horizontal, intragenerational (within a life) or intergenerational (across generations). Structural mobility results from changes in the economy itself.
Theories
Marx analyzed ownership of the means of production, dividing bourgeoisie from proletariat and predicting class consciousness and revolution. Weber added status and party to class. Functionalist accounts (Davis and Moore) argue inequality rewards important, scarce talent; critics note that this ignores inherited advantage. Conflict accounts stress reproduction of privilege. Socioeconomic status (SES) combines income, education, and occupation. Poverty is measured absolutely (a fixed threshold) or relatively (compared to a society's standard); the culture of poverty thesis is heavily criticized for blaming the poor.
Traps
Do not equate class with caste, or confuse intragenerational with intergenerational mobility. Questions often test whether a measure is absolute or relative, and whether a theory is functionalist or conflict.
Rule of Thumb
When a scenario describes one person's rise within a career, it is intragenerational vertical mobility; when it compares parents and children, it is intergenerational.