Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). It is a hierarchy within groups that ascribe them to different levels of privileges.[1] As such, stratification is the relative social position of persons within a social group, category, geographic region, or social unit.[2][3][4]
In modern Western societies, social stratification is defined in terms of three social classes: an upper class, a middle class, and a lower class; in turn, each class can be subdivided into an upper-stratum, a middle-stratum, and a lower stratum.[5] Moreover, a social stratum can be formed upon the bases of kinship, clan, tribe, or caste, or all four.
The categorization of people by social stratum occurs most clearly in complex state-based, polycentric, or feudal societies, the latter being based upon socio-economic relations among classes of nobility and classes of peasants. Whether social stratification first appeared in hunter-gatherer, tribal, and band societies or whether it began with agriculture and large-scale means of social exchange remains a matter of debate in the social sciences.[6] Determining the structures of social stratification arises from inequalities of status among persons, therefore, the degree of social inequality determines a person's social stratum. Generally, the greater the social complexity of a society, the more social stratification exists, by way of social differentiation.[7]
Stratification can yield various consequences. For instance, the stratification of neighborhoods based on spatial and racial factors can influence disparate access to mortgage credit.[8]
^Blundell, Jonathan (2014). Cambridge IGCSE® sociology coursebook. Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-64513-4.
^"What Is Social Stratification?". Archived from the original on 4 March 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
^"6.S: Social Stratification (Summary)". 13 December 2016. Archived from the original on 12 December 2019. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
^"What Is Social Stratification, and Why Does It Matter?". Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
^Saunders, Peter (1990). Social Class and Stratification. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-04125-6.
^Toye, David L. (May 2004). "The Emergence of Complex Societies: A Comparative Approach". World History Connected. 11 (2). Archived from the original on 2014-06-27. Retrieved 2014-06-27.
^Grusky, David B. (2011). "Theories of Stratification and Inequality". In Ritzer, George and J. Michael Ryan (ed.). The Concise Encyclopedia of Sociology. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 622–624. doi:10.1002/9781405165518. ISBN 978-1405124331. Archived from the original on 1 September 2016. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
^Loya, Jose (2023). "Differential Access in Mortgage Credit: The Role of Neighborhood Spatial and Racial Stratification". Rural Sociology. 88 (2): 546–577. doi:10.1111/ruso.12485. S2CID 257658592. Archived from the original on 2023-04-16. Retrieved 2023-04-16.
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