stratification
stratificationThe term stratification in sociology is usually applied to studies of structured social inequality; that is, studies of any systematic inequalities between groups of people, which arise as the unintended consequence of social processes and relationships. When we ask why there is poverty; why Black people or women in the United States are disadvantaged vis-à-vis (respectively) Whites and men; or what chances someone born into the working class has of achieving a middle-class position; we are posing questions about social stratification.
Social stratification is thus at the heart of macrosociology—the study of whole societies, in comparative perspective, in an attempt to understand processes of social stability and change. Social stratification begins from Weber's limiting...
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