Search

This paper suggests that, for a variety of reasons, the sociology of social stratification -- and, as a consequence, mainstream sociology more generally -- has neglected the topic of disability. Using material drawn from a range of sources, it is argued that disability is related in definite ways to social class. Further, it is also argued that disability must be considered as a factor contributing to the production and reproduction of stratification in its own right, independently of class relations. These arguments are further advanced in the course of a more detailed consideration of research evidence concerned with mental handicap. The paper ends with a consideration of the role of non-class factors -- specifically social status and citizenship -- in the stratification systems of modern industrial societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate about elderly people has been dominated by stereotypical images, while profound inequalities in the circumstances of elderly people have been neglected. This paper examines one aspect of inequality, that of personal income, showing that elderly people span the gulf between affluence and poverty, and that ageist representations of pensioners mask structured inequalities which have arisen during the working life. The paper focuses on gender inequality of occupational and private pension income and assesses the effects of the sexual division in the labour market ('the price of being female') and of women's role in the domestic economy ('the cost of caring'). Gender and marital status as well as class are found to be crucial factors in understanding income inequality among elderly people. Occupational and personal pensions are the chief means of perpetuating these divisions into later life. The paper uses data from the 1985 and 1986 General Household Survey, which provides a representative sample of over 7000 people over age 65. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What has happened to incomes, inequality and satisfaction with living standards in the first stage of transition from a communist command economy to a market economy in East Germany? This paper tests six hypotheses about the transition to capitalism. Contrary to expectations, real incomes went up not down, net income inequality scarcely increased, and those who were previously advantaged did not become better off at the expense of the previously disadvantaged. A major reason for the last two results was that the Federal Republic's taxes and benefits, which were more progressive than the Communist regime's, had the effect of counteracting the increasing inequality of household gross incomes. It is also reported that, although real net incomes increased, satisfaction with living standards declined, probably because East Germans increasingly compared themselves with western counterparts. Optimism about the future declined in 1991-92 after reaching very high levels in 1990 immediately after the revolution. This paper is based on the first three waves of the East German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) conducted in June 1990 (N=4453 individuals in 2179 households), March-April 1991 and March-April 1992. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examined the relationship between class, religion and political ideology. I proposed to show that religious beliefs and values incorporate elements of class based ideology which then serve to legitimate a militant or submissive world view. Class, in this paper, is defined as a collectivity of individuals who are conscious of their socio-economic status and interests. I distinguish between ascending, retrenching, bourgeois, and the alienated classes. Corresponding to these classes are four types of religions: inclusive and exclusive militant and submissive religions. The religious values which assume theology-like status are as follows. The religions of the ascending classes are primarily inclusive militants emphasizing the values of collectivity, equality and justice. The religions of the retrenching classes are exclusive militants which stress individualism, freedom, and Christian love. Bourgeois religions are inclusive submissive and while they incorporate the values of the above two, they also add the values of charity and decorum. The religions of the alienated classes are exclusive submissive and anti-class although they do manifest a caste-like system with an elitist self concept and a total commitment to the group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a lot of concern in recent years about what many parents and educationalists feel has been the unequal treatment of students from ethnic minority backgrounds in British schools. As a result many Local Education Authorities (LEAs) and schools have developed policies expressing their commitment to equal treatment. However, exactly what constitutes equal or unequal treatment is often not made clear, and the question of what evidence is required to establish whether either has occurred has usually been ignored. This paper attempts to clarify what is meant by equal and unequal treatment. It also discusses the type of evidence that might be required to demonstrate equality or inequality, and raises a number of methodological problems concerned with the collection of such evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the long standing and widely accepted view which since Tawney has written-off sectional differences in education as unfair and unjust. The main variants of this view are examined retrospectively, against recent educational history and current educational research, it is shown that on those occasions when it is possible to test these explanations, neither the direct explanation, which attributes such differences to educational inequality, nor the indirect explanation which attributes such differences to social inequality, actually 'fits' the reality described. It is shown that not only is there little tangible evidence of any significant link between discrimination and under-representation, but that on some occasions, such evidence as there is, speaks against such a link. It is argued that the prevailing conception of sectional differences in education, as unfair, says more about the intellectual preferences of the research establishment than it does about the impact of discrimination on educational participation. The paper concludes with an assessment of the academic and political cost of this most respectable prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper directs critical attention to Emile Durkheim's considerations about the crucial role of non-transferable, human talent resources within any coherent theory of social justice. It is argued that Durkheim's appreciation of this question anticipated all modern formulations of the issue, and has been insufficiently acknowledged in the contemporary literature. It is contended that Durkheim developed a theory of 'equal treatment' through a rigorous repudiation of Mill's theory of self-ownership, but tempered the sociological force of this idea by developing a parallel 'equal opportunity' theory, which established the basis of a coherent defence of the idea of equality of opportunity through the principle of proportionality. It is concluded that the ethical and sociological compromise for which Durkheim argued between these two egalitarian theories of social justice remains philosophically coherent and sociologically plausible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in the dimensions and sources of educational inequality in Australia. Data from a sample of the urban population is used, and divided into three education (rather than birth or age) cohorts in order to assess the effects of educational expansion over time. The results show that there has been some decline in the effect of social background on years of basic schooling and total years of education, and some increase in the effects of ability. However, the impact of social background remains important, while gender differences in qualifications and tertiary attainments are mostly undiminished. This suggests that while basic schooling has become more meritocratic with the expansion of educational opportunities, higher attainments still reflect and perpetuate systematic inequalities within the broader society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the idea of equality of opportunity should be rescued from general opprobrium. It defines a theory of competitive equality of opportunity as open competition for scarce resources. It suggests that this is an idea which demands objective tests of competence incumbent similarly and equally upon all competitors for scarce resources. Resources should be allocated to those most competent to manage them on the grounds of efficiency. This system is just if that allocation is managed to the benefit of and in the best interests of all. It is also argued that under a social system which does not impose equality of resources between citizens it is still possible to sustain equality of opportunity between individuals if public educational resources are allocated according to testable individual abilities and needs. Acknowledging that under present conditions schools make very little difference to individual life-chances it is proposed that they might do more to equalise opportunities if they were organised under principles of strict selection and separation under educational charters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines popular understanding of class inequalities in opportunity using an experimental approach to assess implicit as well as explicit comprehension. Three competing representations of popular beliefs are compared: a `class inequality' model, implying widespread belief in class-related inequalities of opportunity; a `meritocratic' view of achievement, in which emphasis is placed on individual responsibility; and an `ideological polarization' model, which assumes that beliefs emphasizing class inequality or merit vary with left-right ideology. Predictions derived from these ideas are tested using a national survey with an experimental design, in which respondents are presented with vignettes designed to elicit their beliefs as to how and why people from different class backgrounds obtain middle-class or working-class occupations. As predicted by the class inequality model, there is clear evidence of the impact of tacit assumptions about class structured inequality of opportunity on expectations, judgments of responsibility and explanations of occupational attainment. Even among right-wing respondents, who are more likely to endorse the rhetoric of individual responsibility, there remains an implicit awareness of social class influences on life-chances, suggesting the pervasive presence of these beliefs in popular understanding of social processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a model of intergenerational mobility and intragenerational inequality that allows us to explore the relationship between economic growth and social mobility. The model is used to analyse the neo-liberal theory of stratification and to assess the consequences of some of the criticisms that have been made of it. In particular, the intergenerational transmission of wealth and privilege, and the existence of ethnic, gender and other forms of ascriptive disadvantage, reduce economic efficiency, although they do not always diminish the extent of social mobility. Furthermore, excessive intragenerational inequality may inhibit, rather than encourage, economic growth. We show that there is no necessary link between rates of social mobility and levels of economic growth. This, we suggest, provides an explanation of why rates of social mobility show very little cross-national variation and display no very evident trend over time towards greater societal openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between class and status may be viewed in two distinct, if not contrasting, ways. In the first view, class and status are opposed as two different and mutually irreducible dimensions of inequality: here the stress is on distinctions of status expressing honour, dignity, worth, and so on. In the second view, class and status are opposed as one might oppose inequality and equality: here the stress is on the role of citizenship as a major force in redefining the relationship between class and status in modern industrial societies. The paper examines the different implications of defining status in terms of rights on the one hand and esteem on the other. It argues that it is not possible to guarantee equality of esteem simply by legislating equal rights for all citizens, no matter how extensively those rights are defined. For while status may be a matter of rights, it is also a matter of esteem, and the two do not necessarily move in step with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The `Willis thesis' has two component claims. The first is that class inequalities in educational outcomes occur in part through working-class misbehaviour in schools, and that underachievement is associated with male and female forms of gender traditionalism. The second claim is that this misbehaviour constitutes a working- class cultural resistance. In this paper the first component is operationalized and tested in a statistical model of student plans in Ontario, Canada. Results show that misbehaviour is a weak conduit for differential class outcomes, though expected gender patterns emerge. While noting that findings may reflect British/Canadian differences and that recent de-industrialization may mute traditional class-related student responses, I argue that Resistance theorists have over-extended their claims, and that gender, rather than class background, is a more durable source of cultural reproduction through school underachievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I attempt to construct a comparative analytical framework for the study of the state as a social relation and the regulation of gender relations. The first part of my analytical framework involves an analysis of the women's movement as an agent of political change. In the second part of my analytical framework, three typologies of regimes of gender relations are developed in order to capture the essential features of gender relations in different countries. These typologies are the egalitarian regime of gender relations, the ecclesiastical regime of gender relations and the liberal regime of gender relations. The final part of the comparative analytical framework involves an analysis of the dynamics of transformation of regimes and transition to new regimes. The main contribution of my typologies is that they analyse, on the one hand, how gender relations are regulated by the state in different parts of the economy (social reproduction included) that are relatively autonomous and identify, on the other hand, how social forces influence the nature of the state as a regulator of gender relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper published in "British Journal of Sociology," the author made the claim that despite decades of intensive investigation, not a single researcher had ever shown that class difference in education was indeed unfair and unjust. It was a charge that was underwritten by a simple, if technical, argument, which drew attention to what, in logic, would have to be shown if such a difference was to be regarded as an inequality, rather than as just another difference in a differentiated society. In this case, it was suggested that, other things being equal, the researcher would have to meet one of two conditions. He would have to show that the different classes were similarly disposed to education or, alternatively, if there were evidence, as in Great Britain, of considerable working-class indifference to education, he would need to demonstrate that such indifference was itself the result of structural or cultural inequality. Only then, it was argued, could the researcher be said to have reasonably shown that class difference in education was unfair; for only then could the researcher be reasonably sure that such a difference was not, after all, just another difference.

Trends in class inequality in attendance at selective schools are hard to interpret, since the number of places at these schools and the distribution of children by class also change over time. Reanalysing data from the Nuffield Mobility Study, it is shown that interpretation of the trends depends on which measure of association is used. By viewing stratification as a continuous hierarchy which is then sliced up into 'classes' of differing sizes, some interpretative problems can be overcome; greatest clarity is achieved by defining a top class equal in size to the number of selective school places. Reanalysing the data using this 'fixed marginals' approach, a clear pattern emerges: growing inequality before 1944, movement towards equality in the first decade after, but sharply increased inequality thereafter. An explanation is proposed to explain this pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of class formation in east Africa have maintained that economic dependency there has created nationally hegemonic bureaucratic classes whose exploitation of peasant producers retards development. This notion appears to derive from inappropriate extension of Latin American models of dependency to the substantially different African situation. This paper addresses some of the conceptual problems involved in this direct extension of dependency models to class analysis in east Africa by showing how the economic primacy of a freeholding peasantry in Bugisu District, Uganda has limited the development of inequality there. It discusses the ways in which the locally ascendant groups which emerged there have been constrained to defend the interests of local peasants against exploitation by the central state and its 'bureaucratic bourgeoisie'; The national state's economic dependency on freeholding peasants is such that a locally based intermediate class can effectively thwart the development of strong central state control, even while this class's power is limited by its dependence on peasant support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how parents' social position influences their children's educational achievement in China. In 1977, the government instituted a three-tiered examination system to choose students for junior high school, senior high school, and the university. The carefully laid out rules prevent much of the corruption which undermined the system of the early 1970s. But the system perpetuates and accentuates inequality by selecting a disproportionate number of students from the intellectual and cadre families. Given the close family units and differences in social stratifications in China, social background influences educational achievements in ways similar and yet different from the west. It is not so much the economic advantage but the encouragement and coaching of the educated parents that give these children the edge. These children do better in the examination than those from the peasant/worker families and, in turn, the examination system gives them further privileges and opportunities, widening the gap between them and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comment on a previous article that appeared in the September 1996 issue of the British Journal of Sociology. According to the author, the more interesting issues raised by sociologist Andre Beteille's paper have less to do with the mismatch between class and status than with the question of how two conceptions of status, the one focusing on unequal social esteem and the other on the equal rights of citizenship should be related to each other in a general theory of social stratification since it is not unreasonable to anticipate some difficulty when the same general concept is used to describe a major aspect of inequality and also an antidote to it. The common feature of status relations in all societies is that they are exhibited fundamentally through acts of defense, acceptance and derogation. But such interactions vary according to how they are sanctioned and maintained, and the kinds of privileges and disabilities with which they are associated. No one would wish to deny that within the limits set by the rights of citizenship, inequalities of esteem, and more particularly the social networks in which they are grounded, continue to exert their influence for the reasons Beteille so well adduces.

Nationally representative data sets are used to of social class inequality in educational attainment in England and Sweden during the twentieth century. Logit models are estimated to test hypotheses about change in class inequalities at crucial branching points in the educational system. Our analyses show that equalizations are apparent in both nations at the first branching point, where traditionally inequalities were most severe. Working class children increased their odds of clearing the first educational hurdle relative to offspring of the service class. In Sweden, children of farmers reduced their great initial disadvantage. Surprisingly, the trends involving the working classes are remarkably similar in England and Sweden. We find little evidence that any general causal mechanism was behind the equalization, and it cannot be interpreted unambiguously as the result of specific educational reforms or expansion programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a social research to develop a classificatory scheme for occupations. The research was conducted from various perspectives. Occupational status studies were aimed at providing illumination of social stratification. The attitude studies demonstrated the alienation of man and instrumentalism in work. The interactionist studies were aimed at understanding the way in which occupation provides the major source of self-imagery in modern society. The studies of professions were intended have a strong sense of social purpose and a code of moral ethics to support it.

In education, as in other respects, Ghana's position has been a lodestar from which other emerging nations chart their course. This pioneer status has attracted many eminent scholars to scrutinize the system at close quarters, and to examine the origins of Ghanaian students. Thus, within three years of the University of Ghana's inception Gustav Jahoda found that 66 per cent of its students came from the top 7 per cent of the working population, while farmers and manual workers were poorly represented. Subsequent scholars have reached similar results, although some have preferred to emphasize long-term trend toward a student body more representative of the population as a whole. Unfortunately, such optimism proves to have been somewhat premature. The debate has also illuminated the variety of interpretations of social stratification. Sociologists take the observed, inequality of life chances as axiomatic evidence of the existence of class differences. They replied that class has a psychological as well as a structural connotation, and he suggests that relative consensus over the value of education itself indicates the classlessness of Ghanaian society.

This article discusses social stratification and intellectual roles in the African American community in the U.S. The author notes the social role of African American intellectuals as symbols of racial worth and as instruments for racial protest and betterment. However, it is noted that part of the symbolic and instrumental function of the African American intellectual is the associated high socio-economic status. African Americans often self-identify with a socio-economic class well above that of the average of the African American community as a whole.

This article investigates the status of women in parliamentary elections. By the Representation of the People Act, 1918, women of thirty years of age and over were given the parliamentary franchise; and later in the same year the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act, 1918, made them eligible for election to the House of Commons. During the first ten years of this period these disappointing results might have been attributed, at least in part, to the limitation of women's suffrage to those of thirty and over. But the Representation of the People {Equal Franchise) Act, 1928, gave the vote to women on the same terms as to men; and since then women have been in a majority in the electorate. Nearly a quarter of a century has passed in these equalitarian conditions, and there have been six general elections; yet the participation of women in parliament has made little progress. The high-water mark was attained in 1945, when 24 women were elected to a House of Commons of 640 members--3 3/4 per cent of the total. The number fell to 21 in 1950 and to 17 in 1951, in a House of 625 members. Fewer than one member in 36 of the present House is a woman. Women are now in the majority in the electorate as a whole, and in all but a few of the individual constituencies: they should take steps to see that their local party organization is so constituted--or, if necessary, reconstituted--that it gives fair treatment to prospective candidates irrespective of sex. The remedy may take time and patience to apply; but it is in their own hands.