Social Stratification and Access to Resources (Foundational Concept 9)
Stratification basics
Social stratification is the ranking of groups by unequal access to valued resources. Socioeconomic status usually combines income, education, and occupational prestige; it is closely related to, but not identical with, Weber's three dimensions of class (economic), status (social honor), and party (power). Marx analyzed stratification through the relation to the means of production (bourgeoisie and proletariat) and predicted class consciousness. Davis-Moore functionalism argues inequality motivates people to fill important roles; conflict theory emphasizes how elites reproduce their advantage.
Mobility and poverty
Intergenerational mobility compares a person's position with their parents'; intragenerational mobility compares it across one lifetime; vertical mobility is up or down, horizontal mobility is a lateral move. Structural mobility stems from economy-wide change rather than individual effort. Absolute poverty is material deprivation measured against a fixed standard; relative poverty is deprivation measured against others in the same society. Bourdieu's cultural capital (knowledge, tastes, credentials) and social capital (networks) transmit advantage across generations, a process called social reproduction; human capital is skills and training.
Race, gender, and consequences
Race and ethnicity are social constructions rather than biological categories. Intersectionality holds that race, class, gender, and other statuses interact to produce distinct experiences of disadvantage. Life chances, including health, education, housing, and safety, follow the social gradient: outcomes worsen at every step down the hierarchy, not only below the poverty line. Fundamental cause theory explains this persistence through flexible resources such as money, knowledge, and connections. Minority stress and medical mistrust are structural explanations, not personal failings.
Traps
Treating SES, class, and status as interchangeable; mixing absolute and relative poverty; confusing intergenerational with intragenerational mobility; personalizing what is structural.
Worked rule
If a stem describes a group's standing relative to others, think stratification and social capital; if it describes a fixed survival standard, think absolute poverty.