Social Stratification

Class, gender, ethnicity & social mobility — A-Level Sociology

Social Class & Stratification

Stratification is the hierarchical ranking of groups in society based on factors like wealth, income, occupation, and status. In the UK, the main system is social class.

Upper class — inherited wealth, land, power
Middle class — professionals, managers, white-collar
Working class — manual, routine, semi-skilled
Underclass? — long-term unemployed, welfare-dependent (contested)

Marxist View

Marx, Althusser, Gramsci

Society is divided into two main classes based on ownership of the means of production. The bourgeoisie (capitalist class) exploit the proletariat (working class) by extracting surplus value from their labour. Class conflict is the driving force of social change. The state, media, and education serve ruling-class interests.

Weberian View

Weber, Goldthorpe

Class is based not just on economic factors but also on status (social prestige) and party (political power). A person's market situation (skills, qualifications) determines their life chances. Stratification is multi-dimensional, not just about ownership.

Functionalist View

Davis & Moore, Parsons

Stratification is inevitable and functional. Unequal rewards motivate the most talented to fill the most important roles (meritocracy). Inequality is necessary for society to function efficiently.

Criticism: Who decides which roles are "most important"? Ignores inherited wealth and barriers to mobility.

Bourdieu — Forms of Capital

Bourdieu (1984)

Economic capital: wealth and income. Cultural capital: knowledge, education, tastes valued by the dominant class. Social capital: networks and connections. Class reproduction occurs because middle-class families pass on all three forms of capital to their children.

Gender Inequality

Gender Pay Gap

Women in the UK earn on average ~15% less than men (full-time median). Causes include occupational segregation, part-time work, the "motherhood penalty," and discrimination.

Glass Ceiling

Invisible barriers preventing women from reaching senior positions. Despite progress, women remain underrepresented in boardrooms, parliament, and STEM fields.

Triple Shift (Duncombe & Marsden)

Women perform paid work, domestic labour, AND emotional labour ("emotion work"). Despite men doing more housework than before, women still do significantly more.

Intersectionality (Crenshaw)

Gender inequality intersects with race, class, sexuality, and disability. A working-class Black woman faces qualitatively different barriers than a middle-class white woman. Single-axis analysis is insufficient.

Ethnic Inequality

Ethnic minorities in the UK face inequalities in education, employment, housing, health, and the criminal justice system — though experiences vary significantly between ethnic groups.

Institutional Racism

The Macpherson Report (1999) defined this as the collective failure of an organisation to provide appropriate service due to unwitting prejudice, ignorance, and stereotyping. Applied to the Metropolitan Police after the Stephen Lawrence case.

Employment Patterns

Higher unemployment rates among some ethnic minorities. Overrepresentation in low-paid work. But: Chinese and Indian groups often achieve higher educational attainment and earnings than the white British average — patterns are complex.

Cultural vs Structural Explanations

Cultural explanations focus on values, family structure, and attitudes (controversial — can lead to victim-blaming). Structural explanations focus on racism, discrimination, and unequal access to resources. Most sociologists favour structural explanations.
Exam tip: Avoid treating "ethnic minorities" as a homogeneous group. Always specify which ethnic group you're discussing and acknowledge diversity of experience. Using specific data and studies (e.g., the Runnymede Trust, EHRC reports) demonstrates sophisticated understanding.

Social Mobility

The movement of individuals or groups between social positions. A society with high mobility is seen as more meritocratic.

Intragenerational Mobility

Movement within a person's own lifetime. E.g., starting as a shop assistant and becoming a manager. Can be upward or downward.

Intergenerational Mobility

Movement between generations. Comparing a person's occupation with their parents'. This is the main measure of social mobility.

Goldthorpe (Oxford Mobility Study, 1980)

Found that while there was more absolute upward mobility (due to expansion of middle-class jobs), relative mobility had barely changed — working-class children were still far less likely than middle-class children to reach professional occupations. The "1:2:4 rule" — a service-class child was roughly 4 times more likely to enter the service class than a working-class child, with the intermediate class about 2 times more likely.

Barriers to Social Mobility

Economic capital (private education costs), cultural capital (knowledge of "the game"), social capital (networks and connections), geographical inequality, housing market, credential inflation, and structural discrimination. Bourdieu's concept of habitus — internalised dispositions shaped by class that limit or enable action.

Exam tip: Distinguish clearly between absolute and relative mobility. The expansion of middle-class jobs created more room at the top (absolute mobility ↑), but this doesn't mean the playing field is level. Relative mobility reveals persistent class advantages — this is the sociologically important measure.