Signs of social stratification of society. The concept of "social stratification of society"

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The concept of social stratification

Social stratification is the process of arranging individuals and social groups in horizontal layers (strata). This process is associated primarily with both economic and human causes. The economic reasons for social stratification is that resources are limited. And because of this, they must be rationally disposed of. That is why the ruling class stands out - it owns the resources, and the exploited class - it obeys the ruling class.

Among the universal causes of social stratification are:

psychological reasons. People are not equal in their inclinations and abilities. Some people can concentrate on something for long hours: reading, watching movies, creating something new. Others do not need anything and are not interested. Some can go to the goal through all obstacles, and failures only spur them on. Others give up at the first opportunity - it's easier for them to moan and whine that everything is bad.

biological reasons. People are also not equal from birth: some are born with two arms and legs, others are disabled from birth. It is clear that it is extremely difficult to achieve something if you are disabled, especially in Russia.

Objective causes of social stratification. These include, for example, place of birth. If you were born in a more or less normal country, where you will be taught to read and write for free and there are at least some social guarantees, that's good. You have a good chance of being successful. So, if you were born in Russia even in the most remote village and you are a kid, at least you can join the army, and then stay to serve under the contract. Then you may be sent to a military school. It's better than drinking moonshine with your fellow villagers, and by the age of 30 to die in a drunken brawl.

Well, if you were born in some country in which statehood does not really exist, and local princes come to your village with machine guns at the ready and kill anyone at random, and whoever they hit are taken into slavery, then write your life is gone, and together with her and your future.

Criteria of social stratification

The criteria of social stratification include: power, education, income and prestige. Let's analyze each criterion separately.

Power. People are not equal in terms of power. The level of power is measured by (1) the number of people who are under your control, and also (2) the amount of your authority. But the presence of this criterion alone (even the greatest power) does not mean that you are in the highest stratum. For example, a teacher, a teacher of power is more than enough, but the income is lame.

Education. The higher the level of education, the more opportunities. If you have a higher education, this opens up certain horizons for your development. At first glance, it seems that in Russia this is not the case. But that's just how it seems. Because the majority of graduates are dependent - they should be hired. They do not understand that with their higher education they may well open their own business and increase their third criterion of social stratification - income.

Income is the third criterion of social stratification. It is thanks to this defining criterion that one can judge which social class a person belongs to. If the income is from 500 thousand rubles per capita and more per month - then to the highest; if from 50 thousand to 500 thousand rubles (per capita), then you belong to the middle class. If from 2000 rubles to 30 thousand then your class is basic. And also further.

Prestige is the subjective perception people have of your , is a criterion of social stratification. Previously, it was believed that prestige is expressed solely in income, because if you have enough money, you can dress more beautifully and better, and in society, as you know, they are met by clothes ... But even 100 years ago, sociologists realized that prestige can be expressed in the prestige of the profession (professional status).

Types of social stratification

Types of social stratification can be distinguished, for example, by spheres of society. A person in his life can make a career in (become a famous politician), in the cultural (become a recognizable cultural figure), in the social sphere (become, for example, an honorary citizen).

In addition, types of social stratification can be distinguished on the basis of one or another type of stratification systems. The criterion for singling out such systems is the presence or absence of social mobility.

There are several such systems: caste, clan, slave, estate, class, etc. Some of them are discussed above in the video on social stratification.

You must understand that this topic is extremely large, and it is impossible to cover it in one video tutorial and in one article. Therefore, we suggest that you purchase a video course that already contains all the nuances on the topic of social stratification, social mobility and other related topics:

Sincerely, Andrey Puchkov

With the help of the concept of social stratification (from lat. stratum- layer, stratification) sociologists try to describe and explain the fact of social inequality, the subordination of large groups of people, the existence of social order.

It is generally accepted that inequality in society is eternal, that differences between social subjects are predetermined, which ultimately takes shape in a hierarchy system adopted in a given society, in which all members of society are included and against which they act and evaluate their own and others' behavioral practices.

social stratificationis a set of functionally related statuses and roles (reduced to strata), reflecting the vertical projection of the social system, which in turn indicates the inequality of subjects in the social hierarchy. At the same time, the concept of inequality is devoid of an ethical-chain character (although this is difficult to accept) and is seen as a natural and necessary way of organizing and functioning of society. In this regard, absolute equality is assessed as a detrimental factor for the social system, although several models of universal equality can be mentioned that do not bring the death of the social hierarchy - these are Roman law (“everyone is equal before the law”) and religion (“everyone is equal before God”) However, their implementation in practice is far from perfect.

From the standpoint of the theory of social stratification, society is a hierarchy (pyramid) of strata (social strata), which consist of carriers of the same or similar statuses and roles. The concept of a stratum was transferred to sociology from geology, where it denoted a geological layer of rock when describing a cut of the earth. It was applied in sociology in the 1920s. 20th century P.A. Sorokin, who developed and systematized a number of concepts that formed the basis of the theory of social stratification.

The concept of social stratification as inequality should be distinguished from the concept of social differentiation, which implies all sorts of social differences, not necessarily related to inequality. For example, one can single out groups of philatelists and football fans whose pastimes form these groups, but have nothing to do with social inequality or anything like that. In this regard, the question arises about the foundations of social stratification, about the initial prerequisites for the emergence of a system of inequality in society. Russian researcher G.A. Avanesova proposes to refer to such grounds:

• social connections of people(as a natural basis for the processes of stratification of society), which always involve the formation of hierarchization over time: leaders and subordinates, authorities and outcasts, leaders and followers are singled out;
• value-symbolic basis, which is associated with the comprehension of social norms and prescriptions, endowing social roles with specific evaluative content and meaning;
• norm(motivationoppo-repressive basis) as a boundary within which the ordering of social ties and value ideas takes place;
• bionatural and anthropological qualities: “... Few of the researchers object to the very fact of the continuity of the functional-hierarchical nature of social organization in the natural environment and the animal world.<...>Many anthropologists, using the example of pre-modern and surviving archaic communities, have traced a positive relationship between, firstly, the territory and the natural environment, secondly, the satisfaction of the initial (primary) human needs, and, thirdly, forms of interaction, value-stimulating systems.<...>Such anthropological qualities of people as gender, physical, psychological abilities, as well as signs mastered from the first days of life - family-role ties, ethno-national stereotypes, etc., also acquire a great influence on stratification processes. one .

The emergence of ideas about social stratification is associated with the development of ideas about social structure, when it became clear that “all relations in society - between systems and communities of different types or between social groups and specific people - are located in systems of different ranks. Such stable types of institutional connections, specific behavior of people give society stability. Understanding this necessitated the creation of a new categorical-conceptual apparatus, with the help of which it was possible to scientifically describe and understand the vertical projection of society, inequality. The main concepts of the theory of social stratification include: "social class", "stratum", "social status", "social role", "social mobility".

social class(from lat. classis- group) in a broad sense - a large group of people as part of society. The basis of this group is a certain unifying (common) feature, which entails the similarity of interests and behavioral practices of those who belong to this class.

The inequality of people in the system of organization and functioning of society was already obvious to Plato and Aristotle, who explained and justified this fact. In the VI century. BC e. Roman emperor Servius Tullius divided his subjects into five classes based on wealth in order to streamline the process of army formation.

The theoretical discovery of classes took place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. thanks to the works of French historians F. Guizot,

O. Thierry, O. Mignet and others, who, on the basis of bourgeois revolutions, approached the concepts of class interest, class struggle, class as subjects of history. The English political economists A. Smith and D. Ricardo tried to clarify the economic reasons for the emergence and functioning of social classes. This vector of research was continued in Marxism, which made the greatest contribution to the development of class theory.

K. Marx proceeded from the fact that the reasons proposed before him for the emergence of classes (mental and physical differences of people, different levels of income, violence and wars) do not reflect the real state of affairs, since classes are socio-economic formations: the appearance, development and disappearance social classes is determined by the level and specifics of material production. Classes arise as a result of the development of productive forces, the division of labor and the formation of private property relations during the period of the decomposition of the tribal system. These processes led to the separation of agriculture from cattle breeding, later - crafts from agriculture, to the emergence of surplus product and private property, which determined the social differentiation of people in society, which became the basis for the formation of classes.

The materialistic analysis of history allowed K. Marx to assert that it is the economic aspect (relation to the means of production) that determines the role of classes in the social organization of labor and the system of political power, and affects their social position and way of life. The class struggle, in turn, is the driving force behind social development (changes in the social structure of society).

The classical definition of a social class was given by the successor of the Marxist theory V.I. Lenin. He singled out four main features of a class: classes are large groups of people that differ in their place in a historically defined system of social production, their attitude to the means of production, their role in the social organization of labor, the methods of obtaining and the size of the share of social wealth that they possess. The essence of relations between classes lies in the ability of some to appropriate the labor of others, which is possible due to the difference in their place in a certain way of social economy.

Within the framework of Marxist theory, any society exists as a system major and non-core classes. The existence of the former is determined by the dominant mode of production (the specifics of the economic basis), while the presence of the latter is determined by the processes of preservation (or gradual disappearance) of the remnants of old economic relations or the formation of a new (not yet dominant) mode of production. Social groups that are not part of the existing classes (they do not have clear class features) form specific (intermediate, transitional) social strata (layers). An example of such a layer is the intelligentsia - a significant group of people professionally comma mental labor, the production of knowledge, meanings, symbols.

An alternative to the Marxist logic of class analysis (of that period) was the theory of violence by H. Spencer and E. Dühring and the polystructural Weberian approach. The first alternative proceeded from the leading role of war and violence in the formation of social classes: as a result of war and the enslavement of some groups by others, a distinction arises in labor functions, wealth, and prestige. For example, G. Spencer believed that the winners create the ruling class, and the defeated become producers (slaves, serfs, etc.). The system of inequality includes three classes: the highest (domination, leadership), the middle (delivery, purchase and sale of products), the lowest (extraction and production of the product).

Unlike K. Marx, M. Weber did not want to see only economic features in the class, which oversimplify both the nature of the class and the diversity of elements of the social structure of society. Along with the category "class", he used the categories "stratum" and "party", in relation to which he singled out three stratification projections of society (three orders): economic, social, political. Differences in property form classes, differences in prestige form strata (status groups), differences in power form political parties.

M. Weber represented a class as a group of people with similar chances in life, determined by their power (influence), which makes it possible to receive specific benefits and have an income. Being in a class is not fatal, irresistible (unlike the beliefs of K. Marx), since the market is the determining factor in the class situation, i.e. types of human opportunities to enjoy goods and earn income under certain conditions. Thus, a class is people who are in the same class situation, have a common position in the economy, which can be changed depending on the situation. The transition from one class to another is not difficult, since the class-forming features are blurred and it is not always possible to draw clear boundaries between classes.

There are three classes: class of owners(property owners of various shapes and sizes), profit class(subjects related to banking, trade and services) and social class(proletariat, petty bourgeoisie, intelligentsia, officials, persons, commas in the education system). These three classes are essentially groups of classes, since each of them consists of several classes (subclasses), belonging to which is determined not by the relation to the means of production, but by arbitrary criteria (mainly the level of consumption and forms of ownership of property). For example, the class of owners looks like this: owners of slaves, owners of land, owners of mines, owners of equipment and instruments, owners of steamships, owners of jewelry and art treasures, financial creditors. The class (subclass) of propertyless owners (owners with a minus sign) includes slaves, declassed people, debtors, and the “poor”.

In modern sociology, class theory has broken up into many areas and schools that are trying to comprehend the modern processes of transformation of the class structure of the traditional capitalist society, determined by the new quality of social realities (post-industrialism, information society, globalization). The main topics of class research include the analysis of transformations in the system of ownership - management - control (M. Zeitlin, G. Karchedi, H. Bravsrman, P. Bourds), the study of the processes of change in the working class and the restructuring of classes (S. Malle, A. Gorz , P. Saunders, P. Townsend, A. Touraine), micro-level analysis of the class structure (E. Wright), exploitation theory (J. Roemer), research in the field of modern class struggle (M. Foucault, T. Marshall, R. Darsndorf ).

Strata (status group) - a set of people who have a certain amount of socially attributed prestige (honor) shared by all. The assessment (positive or negative) of this prestige is status. Status, honor, according to M. Weber, is not connected with the class situation of the subject and may even be in opposition to economic indicators. The fundamental difference between classes and strata is that the former arise in the process of development of production and commodity relations, while the strata are formed as the principles of consumption are established in all spheres of public life.

Strata(from lat. stratum- layer), or social stratum - a set of subjects with the same or similar statuses (a set of status features). Sometimes these concepts (stratum and layer) are distinguished: a stratum is a social group that has a certain status in the social hierarchy; social stratum - an intermediate (or transitional) social group that does not have all the characteristics of a class.

The concept of strata in its modern form arose after the Marxist-Leninist theory of class as a more flexible and accurate tool for the analysis of modern systems of stratification. A hierarchical set of strata forms a vertical section of the social system and reflects the inequality of its members. Historically, status groups in different societies were formed and consolidated in different forms: castes, estates, clans, etc.

As an ideal model for describing social inequality, a pyramid of three levels is most often proposed: upper - upper class (elite), middle - middle class (main class), lower - lower class (social bottom).

The stratification pyramid functions according to its universal laws, which allow us to give it some invariant characteristics: there are always fewer positions at the top than at the bottom; the amount of social goods circulating (consumed) at the top is always greater than at the bottom; promotion to the top positions is always associated with overcoming social filters (property qualification, educational, age, etc.) - the higher the position, the tougher the effect of these filters. Each of these levels may consist of a whole set of strata that reflect the real status diversity of social groups in a given society. For example, within the framework of the analysis of the structure of the middle class, it is possible (under appropriate conditions) to distinguish the upper layer of the middle class, the main class, the lower layer of the middle class, the boundary layer, etc. - it all depends on the source material of the study and the criteria for identifying strata. The latter concerns the main methodological question of the theory of stratification: on what basis does a scientist single out a stratum, distinguish them from each other? The answer was formed during the development of the concept of status.

social status, or rank, - the position of the subject in society, position in the social hierarchy. Status, status is formed on the basis of both objective signs (for example, industrial and professional) and subjective (for example, cultural and psychological assessments). With regard to status, a person is treated as a status set, i.e. carrier of many statuses at the same time (they are acquired and manifested in different situations). It is customary to distinguish between the following statuses:

• basic (key) and minor, which differ in the situation of manifestation;
• attributed, which does not depend on the individual (conditioned biologically (race, gender) or socially (class title, inheritance)), and achieved(depends on the personal merits of the subject);
• social(objective position in the social hierarchy) and private(position in a small group based on personal qualities).

The status is a consequence of the action of status (stratification) features. It is according to them that sociologists distribute people according to the "floors" of the social ladder, they are the basis for distinguishing social strata. These signs are concrete-historical, depending on the time and place of action, although in the theory of stratification there were attempts to find universal, invariant status signs. K. Marx, for example, singled out the main and only sign of social stratification - economic. It is based on the relationship to the means of production. The German sociologist R. Dahrendorf believed that a status sign is political authority, which reflects the complicity of power. Hence the division into managers (owners and non-owners) and managed (lower and higher). The French sociologist A. Touraine believed that in modern society (information, post-industrial) the main class sign is access to the information because the forms of domination today are based on knowledge and education: the new ruling class (technocrats) is determined by the level of education and the availability of knowledge.

However, most researchers believe that there is no single universal stratification feature, that it is complex in nature and must correspond to the polystructural realities of the social system. P.A. Sorokin (the author of the classical theory of stratification) argued that in order to describe the social inequality of subjects, it is necessary to use a combination of economic, professional and political grounds. The American researcher L. Warner named income, prestige of the profession, education, ethnicity as stratification signs, on the basis of which in the US society of the 1930s-1940s. he identified six social strata. His colleague B. Barber defined the following features: prestige, profession, power, power, income, education, degree of religiosity (ritual purity); position of relatives, ethnicity.

When analyzing social inequality in modern societies, the following elements of stratification are most often evaluated:

• economic well-being(property, form and amount of income), according to which it is possible to distinguish the rich, wealthy, moderately well-off and poor;
• education, in accordance with the level of which citizens can be divided into groups of people with higher education, secondary education, etc.;
• profession(place in the system of division of labor, sphere of implementation of labor behavior, type, nature and qualification of labor). Depending on the nature of the activity, it is customary to distinguish between mental workers, workers employed in agriculture, industry, etc.;
• power(the amount of power, access to the distribution of scarce and significant resources), in relation to which one can single out ordinary workers, middle managers, top managers in business, top government managers, etc.;
• authority, prestige(the significance and influence of certain subjects in the view of others), according to which leaders, the elite, "stars", etc. can be distinguished.

When analyzing the social stratification of a given society, it is necessary to remember the specific historical context, which is reflected in the system of status (stratification) features, which can be rank (basic) and nominal (additional or concomitant). Ranked- these are the signs that "work" in a given situation, are real indicators of correlation with a particular stratum. Rated- those signs that “do not work” or show their effect in a latent form (for example, for the systems of stratification of modern democratic societies, gender, race, religion, nationality, place of residence will be nominal, but when transferred to the analysis of medieval society, they turn into rank ).

social role - status-related system of actions (functions, behaviors) subject. This concept was introduced by R. Linton in 1936. He defined the social role as the dynamic aspect of status.

The social role is formed as an objective and subjective expectation on the part of others of proper behavior from the bearer of this status. The concept and content of the role is formed in the individual in the process of socialization. Through the performance of roles, social interaction of individuals is carried out, a system of role ligaments is created.

According to T. Parsons, any social role is described by the following characteristics: emotional side (some roles require emotional restraint, others - looseness), a way to get a role (some roles are prescribed, others are won), scale (roles are strictly limited or blurred), degree of formalization roles (action according to strictly established rules or arbitrarily), motivation (orientation to personal gain, the common good, the interests of the group), a structure that includes a description of the type of behavior, rules of conduct, assessment of role performance, a system of sanctions for breaking the rules.

When performing social roles, which fit the system of social relations and interactions of a given society, situations such as role conflict and distancing from the role may arise. Role conflict(relative to one subject) arises in a situation of mismatch of roles in the presence of several statuses at the same time (for example, the situation of Taras Bulba, when he killed his son Ondry: in the person of Bulba, the statuses of father and military opponent simultaneously converged). Role distancing is a deliberate violation of the strategy of prescribed role behavior. This situation falls under the definition of deviation. Mass distancing from a role can serve as a sign of social tension, a demand to change the existing rules of the status-role system.

social mobility - movement of the subject in social space or change by the subject of his place in the social structure. It is the most important characteristic of a stratified system, which makes it possible to describe its dynamics and changes. P.A. Sorokin argued that social mobility is present in any hierarchical society and it is necessary in the same way as blood vessels are for an animal organism.

Speaking of social mobility, it is necessary to distinguish between its varieties. So, in modern sociology there are:

• vertical(ascending and descending) and horizontal mobility. Vertical mobility is associated with a change in status to a higher (upward mobility) or lower (downward mobility), horizontal - with movements within the stratum without changing the status and rank characteristics. An example of horizontal mobility is geographic mobility, which is a simple movement from one place to another while maintaining the same social status (but if a change of status is added to the change of place, then geographic mobility becomes migration);
• individual mobility(moving up, down, horizontally of an individual independently of others) and group mobility(a situation of increasing or decreasing the social significance (value) of an entire group - a class, estate, caste). According to P.A. Sorokin, social revolutions, invasions and foreign interventions, wars, coups and change of political regimes, replacement of the old constitution with a new one, creation of an empire, peasant uprisings, internecine struggle of aristocratic families can be the causes of group mobility;
• intergenerational and intragenerational mobility. Intergenerational mobility suggests that the new generation reaches a higher or lower social level than the previous one, while intragenerational mobility describes a situation in which the same individual changes social positions several times throughout his life (the phenomenon of a social career).

Moving in the social hierarchy is carried out with the help of "social lifts", which are legalized ways and means of changing the current social status. Some researchers identify six standard "elevators" (ways to increase status):

• 1) economic activity through which a poor, enterprising person can become a millionaire;
• 2) an area of ​​politics where one can make a political career with all the favorable consequences that follow from this;
• 3) service in the army, where an ordinary soldier can rise to the rank of general;
• 4) serving God as a way to achieve a high position in the church hierarchy;
• 5) scientific activity, which allows, although not immediately, thanks to great efforts to achieve a high position;
• 6) a successful marriage, with the help of which you can instantly improve your social status and financial situation.

The presence and nature of social mobility make it possible to characterize societies as closed and open. The first are social systems in which mobility is difficult, and some of its types are prohibited (caste and class societies). The latter approve and encourage social mobility, create conditions for the subject to move up the social ladder. However, it should be remembered that the division into closed and open societies is a rather ideological construction that appeared during the Cold War to describe the advantages of the West over the USSR and does not always stand up to criticism.

The concept of marginalism, which was introduced in the 1920s, is closely related to the concept of social mobility. 20th century American sociologist R. Park to designate the socio-psychological consequences of the inability of immigrants to adapt to a new environment.

Marginality(from lat. margo- on the edge) the state of a social subject (individual or group), which is characterized by borderlines with respect to socially significant structures, social groups or strata. Marginality as a social phenomenon includes the following characteristics:

The main factors of marginalization, researchers include poverty, closely related unemployment, urbanization processes (when the rural population is forced to change their way of life), high rates of modernization of traditional spheres of public and individual life.

Social stratification - an attributive sign of society - arises to a small extent already in primitive society (the stratification of the tribal community is not bright). The further development of society brings to life various historical systems (types) of stratification, among which the following are most often distinguished:

• slavery, where the main historically relevant stratification feature was the subject's personal freedom/unfreedom;
• castes- the main features are religious purity and the origin of the individual (a classic example is Indian society);
• estates- the stratification sign here is the origin (feudal Europe, in which the estates initially, according to the law and (or) traditions, have unequal rights);
• classes- with this system of stratification, a number of stratification signs of economic, political, cultural content (income, education, power, profession, prestige) are distinguished, there are no formal social boundaries, equality of opportunity is legalized, the right of everyone to change their position is declared.

The first three historical systems of stratification are typical for closed societies, the last - for open ones.

The fact of social stratification, i.e. the existence of real social inequality among members of society has always given rise to the problem of its assessment and explanation. In modern social theory, four methodological approaches to the assessment of social inequality have been formed: functionalist, evolutionary, conflictological and symbolic.

Functionalists insist on the inevitability, naturalness and necessity of stratification (inequality), which is determined by the variety of needs of social subjects, the multiplicity of their roles and functions. Stratification, in their opinion, ensures the optimal functioning of society, and through the system of mobility ensures a fair distribution of benefits and resources.

Evolutionists note the dual nature of stratification - it cannot be unequivocally assessed as a positive and necessary phenomenon: the system of inequality is not always associated with justice, is not always useful and necessary, since it arises not only due to the natural needs of society, but also as a result of provoked conflicts over about the distribution of scarce resources; the existing system of stratification is capable of not only ensuring the development of society, but also hindering it.

Representatives of conflictological logic see the source of the formation of a system of inequality in intergroup conflicts and do not consider it fair (it serves the interests of the elite).

Symbolists do not focus on its "functionality - dysfunctionality" or "fairness - injustice", but on its content. From their point of view, the system of inequality evolves from overt, physical justification for the better position of the elite to forms of covert, symbolic elite violence and the distribution of social benefits; the modern system of social inequality is a system of symbolic distinction between the top and bottom of the social pyramid.

As for the social stratification of modern society, all sociologists talk about its complexity and the ambiguity of the criteria for distinguishing strata and classes, but the dominant point of view remains that is associated with the exploitation of the economic indicators of the subject (income, type of work, profession, consumption structure, etc.). ). For example, Russian researchers I.I. Sanzharevsky, V.A. Titarenko and others, according to their place in the system of social production, distinguish production (material production), commercial (exchange), state-distribution (distribution and redistribution) and service (ensuring the normal functioning of production, exchange and distribution) classes, declassed elements.

On the example of Great Britain, E. Giddens proposes to single out (according to the level of economic well-being) the upper class, the middle class: the old middle class (small businesses and farmers), the upper middle class (managers and high-level specialists) and the lower middle class (small clerks, sellers, teachers, nurses) working class: the upper working class (skilled workers - the "labor aristocracy") and the lower working class (low-skilled workers); lower class.

In modern Belarus, there are five levels of stratification (depending on income and consumption patterns): 1) the bottom layer (employees without a specialty, low-skilled workers, pensioners, disabled people, housewives, unemployed);

2) the base layer (specialists of mass professions, pensioners, workers of medium qualification); 3) the middle layer (highly qualified specialists, highly skilled workers, medium-sized entrepreneurs); 4) the top layer (specialists in demand, successful entrepreneurs, the most skilled workers); 5) elite (highly paid employees, entrepreneurs). In the Republic of Belarus, the middle class makes up about 30%, the basic and lower class - about 70%.

• Sociological Encyclopedia / ed. rsd. A.N. Danilova. Minsk, 2003.S. 349-352.
• Sociological Encyclopedia / ed. ed. A.N. Danilova. pp. 351-352.
• There. S. 348.

6.4. social stratification

The sociological concept of stratification (from Latin stratum - layer, layer) reflects the stratification of society, differences in the social status of its members. Social stratification - it is a system of social inequality, consisting of hierarchically arranged social strata (strata). A stratum is understood as a set of people united by common status features.

Considering social stratification as a multidimensional, hierarchically organized social space, sociologists explain its nature and causes of origin in different ways. Thus, Marxist researchers believe that the social inequality that determines the stratification system of society is based on property relations, the nature and form of ownership of the means of production. According to the supporters of the functional approach (K. Davis and W. Moore), the distribution of individuals into social strata occurs in accordance with their contribution to the achievement of society's goals, depending on the importance of their professional activities. According to the theory of social exchange (Zh. Homans), inequality in society arises in the process of unequal exchange of the results of human activity.

To determine belonging to a particular social stratum, sociologists offer a variety of parameters and criteria. One of the creators of the stratification theory, P. Sorokin (2.7), distinguished three types of stratification: 1) economic (according to the criteria of income and wealth); 2) political (according to the criteria of influence and power); 3) professional (according to the criteria of mastery, professional skills, successful performance of social roles).

In turn, the founder of structural functionalism T. Parsons (2.8) identified three groups of signs of social stratification:

Qualitative characteristics of members of society that they possess from birth (origin, family ties, gender and age characteristics, personal qualities, innate characteristics, etc.);

Role characteristics determined by the set of roles that an individual performs in society (education, profession, position, qualifications, various types of work, etc.);

Characteristics associated with the possession of material and spiritual values ​​(wealth, property, works of art, social privileges, the ability to influence other people, etc.).

In modern sociology, as a rule, the following main criteria for social stratification are distinguished:

income - the amount of cash receipts for a certain period (month, year);

wealth - accumulated income, i.e., the amount of cash or embodied money (in the second case, they act in the form of movable or immovable property);

power - the ability and ability to exercise one's will, to determine and control the activities of people using various means (authority, law, violence, etc.). Power is measured by the number of people affected by the decision;

education - a set of knowledge, skills and abilities acquired in the learning process. The level of education is measured by the number of years of education (for example, in the Soviet school it was accepted: primary education - 4 years, incomplete secondary education - 8 years, complete secondary education - 10 years);

prestige - public assessment of the significance, attractiveness of a particular profession, position, a certain type of occupation. Professional prestige acts as a subjective indicator of people's attitude to a particular type of activity.

Income, power, education and prestige determine the total socio-economic status, which is a generalized indicator of position in social stratification. Some sociologists offer other criteria for identifying strata in society. Thus, the American sociologist B. Barber stratified according to six indicators: 1) prestige, profession, power and might; 2) income or wealth; 3) education or knowledge; 4) religious or ritual purity; 5) the situation of relatives; 6) ethnicity. The French sociologist A. Touraine, on the contrary, believes that at present the ranking of social positions is carried out not in relation to property, prestige, power, ethnicity, but in terms of access to information: the dominant position is occupied by the one who owns the largest amount of knowledge and information.

In modern sociology, there are many models of social stratification. Sociologists mainly distinguish three main classes: the highest, the middle and the lowest. At the same time, the share of the upper class is approximately 5–7%, the middle class is 60–80%, and the lower class is 13–35%.

The upper class includes those who occupy the highest positions in terms of wealth, power, prestige, and education. These are influential politicians and public figures, the military elite, big businessmen, bankers, managers of leading firms, prominent representatives of the scientific and creative intelligentsia.

The middle class includes medium and small entrepreneurs, managers, civil servants, military personnel, financial workers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, representatives of the scientific and humanitarian intelligentsia, engineering and technical workers, highly skilled workers, farmers and some other categories.

According to most sociologists, the middle class is a kind of social core of society, thanks to which it maintains stability and stability. As the famous English philosopher and historian A. Toynbee emphasized, modern Western civilization is primarily a middle class civilization: Western society became modern after it managed to create a large and competent middle class.

The lower class is made up of people with low incomes and mainly engaged in unskilled labor (loaders, cleaners, auxiliary workers, etc.), as well as various declassed elements (chronic unemployed, homeless, vagrants, beggars, etc.).

In a number of cases, sociologists make a certain division within each class. Thus, the American sociologist W. L. Warner, in his famous study of Yankee City, identified six classes:

? top - top class(representatives of influential and wealthy dynasties with significant resources of power, wealth and prestige);

? lower - upper class(“new rich”, who do not have a noble origin and did not have time to create powerful tribal clans);

? upper-middle class(lawyers, entrepreneurs, managers, scientists, doctors, engineers, journalists, cultural and art figures);

? lower-middle class(clerks, secretaries, employees and other categories that are commonly called "white collars");

? upper-lower class(workers engaged mainly in physical labor);

? lower - lower class(chronic unemployed, homeless, vagrants and other declassed elements).

There are other schemes of social stratification. Thus, some sociologists believe that the working class constitutes an independent group that occupies an intermediate position between the middle and lower classes. Others include highly skilled workers in the middle class, but in its lower stratum. Still others suggest distinguishing two strata in the working class: upper and lower, and three strata in the middle class: upper, middle, and lower. The variations vary, but they all boil down to this: non-basic classes arise by adding strata or layers that lie within one of the three main classes - rich, wealthy, and poor.

Thus, social stratification reflects the inequality between people, which manifests itself in their social life and acquires the character of a hierarchical ranking of various activities. The objective need for such a ranking is related to the need to motivate people to perform their social roles more effectively.

Social stratification is fixed and supported by various social institutions, constantly reproduced and modernized, which is an important condition for the normal functioning and development of any society.

Annotation: The purpose of the lecture is to reveal the concept of social stratification associated with the concept of a social stratum (stratum), to describe models and types of stratification, as well as types of stratification systems.

The stratification dimension is the allocation of layers (strata) within communities, which allows a more detailed analysis of the social structure. According to the theory of V.F. Anurin and A.I. Kravchenko, the concepts of classification and stratification should be distinguished. Classification - the division of society into classes, i.e. very large social groups that have some common feature. The stratification model is a deepening, detailing of the class approach.

In sociology, the vertical structure of society is explained with the help of such a concept, transferred from geology, as "stratum"(layer). Society is presented as an object, which is divided into layers, piling up on each other. The allocation of layers in the hierarchical structure of society is called social stratification.

Here we should dwell on the concept of "stratum of society". Until now, we have used the concept of "social community". What is the relationship between these two concepts? First, the concept of a social stratum is used, as a rule, to characterize only the vertical structure (that is, the layers are layered on top of each other). Secondly, this concept indicates that representatives of the most diverse communities belong to the same status in the social hierarchy. The composition of one layer can include representatives of both men and women, and generations, and various professional, ethnic, racial, confessional, territorial communities. But these communities are included in the layer not entirely, but partially, since other representatives of the communities can be included in other layers. Thus, social strata consist of representatives of various social communities, and social communities are represented in various social strata. We are not talking about equal representation of communities in the layers. For example, women are larger than men, usually represented in the strata located on the lower rungs of the social ladder. Representatives of professional, ethnic, racial, territorial and other communities of people are also unevenly represented in social communities.

When talking about the social status of communities of people, we are dealing with average ideas, while in reality there is a certain "scatter" of social statuses within a social community (for example, women who are on different steps of the social ladder). When talking about social strata, they mean representatives of different communities of people who have the same hierarchical status (for example, the same level of income).

Models of social stratification

Usually, three largest strata are distinguished in social stratification - the lower, middle and upper strata of society. Each of them can also be divided into three more. Based on the number of people belonging to these layers, we can also build stratification models that give us a general idea of ​​a real society.

Of all the societies known to us, the upper strata have always been a minority. As one ancient Greek philosopher said, the worst are always the majority. Accordingly, the "best" (rich) cannot be more than the middle and lower. As for the "sizes" of the middle and lower layers, they can be in different proportions (larger either in the lower or in the middle layers). Proceeding from this, it is possible to build formal models of the stratification of society, which we will conditionally call as "pyramid" and "rhombus". In the pyramidal model of stratification, the majority of the population belongs to the social bottom, and in the diamond-shaped stratification model, to the middle strata of society, but in both models, the top is a minority.

Formal models clearly show the nature of the distribution of the population over various social strata and the features of the hierarchical structure of society.

Types of social stratification

Due to the fact that the resources and power that separate hierarchically located social strata can be economic, political, personal, informational, intellectual and spiritual in nature, stratification characterizes the economic, political, personal, informational, intellectual and spheres of society. Accordingly, it is possible to single out the main varieties of social stratification - socio-economic, socio-political, socio-personal, socio-informational and socio-spiritual.

Consider varieties socio-economic stratification.

In the public mind, stratification appears primarily in the form of dividing society into "rich" and "poor". This, apparently, is not accidental, because it is precisely the differences in the level of income and material consumption that are "striking" By income level such strata of society as the poor, the poor, the wealthy, rich and the super rich.

Social "lower classes" on this basis represent the poor and the poor. The beggars, who represent the "bottom" of society, have the income necessary for the physiological survival of a person (so as not to die of hunger and other factors that threaten a person's life). As a rule, beggars subsist on alms, social benefits, or other sources (collecting bottles, searching for food and clothes among the garbage, petty theft). However, some may be classified as beggars. categories workers, if the size of their wages allows satisfying only physiological needs.

The poor include people who have incomes at the level necessary for the social survival of a person to maintain their social status. In social statistics, this level of income is called the social subsistence minimum.

The middle strata of society in terms of income are represented by people who can be called "wealthy", "prosperous", etc. Income secured p exceed the living wage. To be secure means to have the income necessary not only for social existence (simple reproduction of oneself as a social being), but also for social development (expanded reproduction of oneself as a social being). The possibility of expanded social reproduction of a person suggests that he can improve his social status. The middle strata of society, in comparison with the poor, have different clothes, food, housing, their leisure time, social circle, etc. are qualitatively changing.

The upper strata of society in terms of income are represented by rich and super rich. There is no clear criterion for distinguishing between the wealthy and the rich, the rich and the super-rich. Economic criterion wealth - the liquidity of available values. Liquidity refers to the ability to be sold at any moment. Consequently, the things the wealthy own tend to rise in value: real estate, art, stocks of successful businesses, and so on. Incomes at the level of wealth go beyond even expanded social reproduction and acquire a symbolic, prestigious character, defining a person's belonging to the upper strata. The social status of the rich and super-rich requires a certain symbolic reinforcement (as a rule, these are luxury goods).

Rich and poor strata (strata) in society can also be distinguished according to ownership of the means of production. To do this, it is necessary to decipher the very concept of "ownership of the means of production" (in the terminology of Western science - "control over economic resources"). Sociologists and economists distinguish three components in property - ownership of the means of production, disposal of them, and their use. Therefore, in this case, we can talk about how, to what extent certain strata can own, dispose of and use the means of production.

The social lower classes of society are represented by layers that do not own the means of production (neither the enterprises themselves, nor their shares). At the same time, among them, one can single out those who cannot and use them as employees or tenants (as a rule, they are unemployed), who are at the very bottom. Slightly higher are those who can use the means of production, the owners of which are not.

The middle strata of society include those who are usually called small proprietors. These are those who own the means of production or other means of generating income (shops, services, etc.), but the level of these incomes does not allow them to expand their business. The middle strata also include those who manage enterprises that do not belong to them. In most cases, these are managers (with the exception of top managers). It should be emphasized that the middle strata also include people who are not related to property, but receive income through their highly qualified work (doctors, scientists, engineers, etc.).

Those who receive incomes at the level of wealth and super-wealth thanks to property (who live off property) belong to the social "tops". These are either the owners of large enterprises or a network of enterprises (controlling shareholders), or top managers of large enterprises participating in profits.

Income depends both on the size of the property and on qualification (complexity) of labor. The level of income is the dependent variable of these two main factors. Both property and the complexity of the work performed are practically meaningless without the income they provide. Therefore, not the profession itself (qualification), but how it provides a person's social status (mainly in the form of income), is a sign of stratification. In the public mind, this manifests itself as the prestige of professions. Occupations themselves can be very complex, requiring high qualifications, or quite simple, requiring low qualifications. At the same time, the complexity of a profession is not always equivalent to its prestige (as you know, representatives of complex professions can receive wages that are inadequate to their qualifications and the amount of work). Thus, stratification by property AND professional stratification| make sense only when they are built within stratification by income level. Taken as a whole, they represent the socio-economic stratification of "society".

Let's move on to the characteristics socio-political stratification of society. The main feature of this stratification is the distribution political power between strata.

Political power is usually understood as the ability of any strata or communities to spread their will in relation to other strata or communities, regardless of the desire of the latter to obey. This will can be distributed in a variety of ways - with the help of force, authority or law, legal (legal) or illegal (illegal) methods, openly or in a secret (form, etc.). In pre-capitalist societies, different classes had different amounts of rights and obligations (the "higher", the more rights, the "lower", the more obligations). In modern countries, all strata have, from a legal point of view, the same rights and obligations. However, equality does not mean political equality. Depending on the scale of ownership, income levels, control over the media, position and other resources, different strata have different opportunities to influence the development, adoption and implementation of political decisions.

In sociology and political science, the upper strata of society, which have a "controlling stake" in political power, are usually called political elite(sometimes use the concept of "ruling class"). Thanks to financial resources, social connections, control over the media and other factors, the elite determines the course of political processes, nominates political leaders from its ranks, selects from other sectors of society those who have shown their special abilities and at the same time do not threaten its well-being. At the same time, the elite is distinguished by a high level of organization (at the level of the highest state bureaucracy, the top of political parties, the business elite, informal connections, etc.).

An important role in the monopolization of political power is played by inheritance within the elite. In a traditional society, political inheritance carried out by transferring titles and class affiliation to children. In modern societies, inheritance within the elite is carried out in many ways. This includes elite education, and elite marriages, and protectionism in career growth, and so on.

With a triangular stratification, the rest of society is made up of the so-called masses - effectively deprived of power, controlled by an elite, politically unorganized layers. With diamond-shaped stratification, the masses form only the lower strata of society. As for the middle strata, most of their representatives are politically organized to one degree or another. These are various political parties, associations representing the interests of professional, territorial, ethnic or other communities, producers and consumers, women, youth, etc. The main function of these organizations is to represent the interests of social strata in the structure of political power by putting pressure on this power. Conventionally, such layers that, without having real power, exert pressure in an organized form on the process of preparing, adopting and implementing political decisions in order to protect their interests, can be called interest groups, pressure groups (in the West, lobby groups protecting the interests of certain communities). Thus, in political stratification, three layers can be distinguished - "elite", "interest groups" and "masses".

Socio-personal stratification studied within the framework of sociological socionics. In particular, it is possible to single out groups of sociotypes, conditionally named as leaders and performers. Leaders and performers, in turn, are divided into formal and informal. Thus, we get 4 groups of sociotypes: formal leaders, informal leaders, formal performers, informal performers. In socionics, the relationship between social status and belonging to certain sociotypes is theoretically and empirically substantiated. In other words, innate personal qualities affect the position in the system of social stratification. There is an individual inequality associated with differences in the types of intelligence and energy-information exchange.

Social information stratification reflects the access of various layers to the information resources of society and communication channels. Indeed, access to information goods, compared with access to economic and political goods, was a minor factor in the social stratification of traditional and even industrial societies. In today's world, access to economic and political resources increasingly begins to depend on the level and nature of education, on access to economic and political information. Previous societies were characterized by the fact that each stratum, distinguished by economic and political characteristics, also differed from others in terms of education and awareness. However, socio-economic and socio-political stratification did not depend much on the nature of access of one or another layer to the information resources of society.

Quite often, the society that replaces the industrial type is called informational, thus denoting the special importance of information in the functioning and development of the society of the future. At the same time, information becomes so complicated that access to it is associated not only with the economic and political opportunities of certain strata, this requires an appropriate level of professionalism, qualifications, and education.

Modern economic information can only be accessible to economically educated strata. Political information also requires appropriate political and legal education. Therefore, the degree of accessibility of a particular education for different strata becomes the most important sign of the stratification of a post-industrial society. The nature of the education received is of great importance. In many countries of Western Europe, for example, members of the elite receive social and humanitarian education (law, economics, journalism, etc.), which will further facilitate their ability to maintain their elite affiliation. Most representatives of the middle strata receive an engineering and technical education, which, while creating the possibility of a prosperous life, nevertheless does not imply wide access to economic and political information. As for our country, the same trends have also begun to emerge over the past decade.

Today we can talk about what is beginning to take shape socio-spiritual stratification as a relatively independent type of stratification of society. The use of the term "cultural stratification" is not entirely correct, given that culture can be both physical, and spiritual, and political, and economic, and so on.

The socio-spiritual stratification of society is determined not only by inequality in access to spiritual resources, but also inequality of opportunity spiritual impact different strata on each other and on society as a whole. We are talking about the possibilities of ideological influence, which are possessed by the "tops", "middle layers" and "bottoms". Thanks to control over the media, influence on the process of artistic and literary creativity (especially cinematography), on the content of education (what subjects and how to teach in the system of general and vocational education), the "tops" can manipulate public consciousness, primarily such a state of it, as public opinion. So, in modern Russia, in the system of secondary and higher education, hours for teaching the natural and social sciences are being reduced, at the same time, religious ideology, theology and other non-scientific subjects that do not contribute to the adaptation of young people to modern society and economic modernization are increasingly penetrating into schools and universities. .

In sociological science, there are two methods of studying stratification society - one-dimensional and multidimensional. One-dimensional stratification is based on one feature (it can be income, property, profession, power, or some other feature). Multidimensional stratification is based on a combination of various features. One-dimensional stratification is a simpler task than multidimensional stratification.

Economic, political, informational and spiritual varieties of stratification are closely related and intertwined. As a result, social stratification is something of a single whole, a system. However position of the same layer in different types of stratification may not always be the same. For example, the largest entrepreneurs in political stratification have a lower social status than the top bureaucracy. Is it then possible to single out one integrated position of the various strata, their place in the social stratification of society as a whole, and not in one or another of its types? Statistical approach (method averaging statuses in various types of stratification) is impossible in this case.

In order to build a multidimensional stratification, it is necessary to answer the question of which attribute primarily determines the position of one or another layer, which attribute (property, income, power, information, etc.) is "leading", and which is " led." Thus, in Russia, politics traditionally dominates the economy, art, science, the social sphere, and computer science. When studying various historical types of societies, it turns out that their stratification has its own internal hierarchy, i.e. a certain subordination of its economic, political and spiritual varieties. On this basis, various models of the system of stratification of society are distinguished in sociology.

Types of stratification systems

There are several main types of inequality. Sociological literature usually distinguishes three systems stratification - caste, estate and class. The caste system has been studied least of all. The reason for this is that such a system, in the form of vestiges, existed until recently in India, as for other countries, the caste system can be judged approximately on the basis of surviving historical documents. In a number of countries there was no caste system at all. What is caste stratification?

In all likelihood, it arose as a result of the conquest of some ethnic groups by others, which formed hierarchically arranged strata. Caste stratification is supported by religious rituals (castes have different levels of access to religious benefits; in India, for example, the lowest caste of the untouchables is not allowed to the ritual of purification), heredity of caste, and almost complete secrecy. It was impossible to move from a caste to another caste. Depending on ethno-religious affiliation, caste stratification determines the level of access to economic (primarily in the form of division of labor and professional affiliation) and political (by regulating rights and obligations) resources. Therefore, the caste type of stratification is based on a spiritual and ideological (religious) form inequalities

Unlike the caste system, class stratification is based on political and legal inequality, primarily, inequality. Class stratification is carried out not on the basis of "wealth", but

social stratification- hierarchically organized structures of social inequality (ranks, status groups, etc.) that exist in any society.

In sociology, four main types of stratification are distinguished: slavery, castes, estates and classes. It is customary to identify them with the historical types of social organization observed in the modern world or already irrevocably gone into the past.

Slavery- an economic, social and legal form of enslavement of people, bordering on complete lack of rights and an extreme degree of inequality. Slavery has historically evolved. There are two forms of slavery:

1) under patriarchal slavery the slave had all the rights of the youngest member of the family: he lived in the same house with the owners, participated in public life, married the free, inherited the property of the owner. It was forbidden to kill him;

2) under classical slavery the slave was finally enslaved: he lived in a separate room, did not participate in anything, did not inherit anything, did not marry and had no family. He was allowed to be killed. He did not own property, but he himself was considered the property of the owner ("talking tool").

Castoy called a social group, membership in which a person owes solely to his birth.

Each person falls into the appropriate caste, depending on what his behavior was in a previous life: if it was bad, then after the next birth he should fall into a lower caste, and vice versa.

estate- a social group that has fixed custom or legal law, inherited rights and obligations.

The estate system, which includes several strata, is characterized by a hierarchy, expressed in the inequality of position and privileges. Europe was a classic example of a class organization, where at the turn of the XIV-XV centuries. society was divided into upper classes (nobility and clergy) and an unprivileged third estate (artisans, merchants, peasants).

In the X-XIII centuries. There were three main estates: the clergy, the nobility and the peasantry. In Russia since the second half of the XVIII century. the class division into the nobility, the clergy, the merchants, the peasantry and the bourgeoisie was established. Estates were based on landed property.

The rights and obligations of each estate were determined by legal law and consecrated by religious doctrine. Membership in the estate was determined by inheritance. Social barriers between estates were quite rigid, so social mobility existed not so much between estates as within them. Each estate included many layers, ranks, levels, professions, ranks. The aristocracy was considered a military class (chivalry).

class approach often opposed to stratification.

Classes are social groups of politically and legally free citizens. The differences between these groups lie in the nature and extent of ownership of the means of production and the product produced, as well as in the level of income received and personal material well-being.

19. Basic elements of culture

Studying small and large, traditional and modern societies, sociologists, culturologists, anthropologists and psychologists have gradually identified certain elements that are necessarily present in every social culture.

In sociology, culture is considered in an aspect that is directly related to the regulation of human behavior, social groups, the functioning and development of society as a whole.

Language, social values, social norms, traditions and rituals are distinguished as the main, most stable elements of culture.

Language is a system of signs and symbols endowed with a special meaning. It arises at a certain stage in the development of society to satisfy many needs. Its main functions are the creation, storage and transmission of information.

The language also plays the role of a distributor (retroslater) of culture.

Social values ​​are socially approved and accepted beliefs about what a person should strive for. They form the basis of moral principles. Different cultures may prefer different values ​​(heroism on the battlefield, artistic creativity, asceticism). Each social system determines what is a value and what is not. It should be noted that the value-regulatory mechanism is a complex organized system in which the general regulation of human behavior, in addition to values, is also carried out by norms - peculiar rules of behavior.

Social norms are rules, patterns and standards of human behavior in accordance with the values ​​of a particular culture. Norms express the specificity, originality of the culture within which they function. A culture that points to standards of correct behavior is called a normative culture. A cultural norm is a system of behavioral expectations, a model of how people are supposed to act. From this position, norms are a means of social regulation of the behavior of individuals and social groups. Usually, social norms are based on traditions and rituals, the totality of which forms another important component of culture.

Habits are the habitual, most convenient and widespread ways of group activity that are recommended to be followed. If customs pass from one generation to another, they acquire the character of traditions.

Traditions are elements of social and cultural heritage that are passed down from generation to generation and preserved for a long time. Traditions function in all social systems and are a necessary condition for their life. Tradition often breeds stagnation and conservatism in public life.

A rite is a set of symbolic collective actions determined by customs and traditions and embodying norms and values. They reflect certain religious beliefs or everyday traditions. Rites are not limited to one social group, but apply to all segments of the population.

Rites accompany important moments of human life.