STRATIFICATION

Social stratification to describe the system of social

standing.
• It refers to what sociologists call it as “institutionalized inequality” of individual or
“social injustice” due to social categories (Ariola 2012)
• It is an institutionalized pattern of inequality in which social categories are ranked on
the basis of their access to scarce resources Brinkerhoff & White, 1988).
• It is the way people are ranked and ordered in society (Cole, 2019)
• It is a system whereby people rank and evaluate each other as superior and inferior
and, on the basis such evaluation, unequally reward one another with wealth,
authority, power, prestige. One result of each differentiation is the creation of a
number of levels within the society. (Hebding & Glick, 1992)
• It is the hierarchical arrangement establishment of social categories that evolve into a
social group together with statues and their correspondingroles (Panopio el al., 1994)
• It is the differentiation of a given population into hierarchically superposed classes.
 SOCIAL STRATIFICATION IS
DISTINGUISHED FROM SOCIAL
DIFFERENTIATION
SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION
• Refer to how people can be
distinguished from one another.
People in a group may differ in skin
color, hair color, race, mental and
physical ability, and the like
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
• Refer to the ranking of people in a
society. In closed stratification,
people cannot change their ranks
while those in open social
stratification is the separation of
people into social categories and
these categories are ranked as
higher or lower.
INDICATORS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
STATUS – THE INDIVIDUAL’S POSITION IN THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE
STATUES- THE HIGHER OR LOWER POSITIONS THAT COME
THROUGH SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

ASCRIBED STATUS ACHIEVED STATUS

• Are assigned or given by the society • Are earned by the individual

or group on the basis of some fixed
category, without regard to a
person’s abilities or performance.
These include sex, family
background, race and ethnic
heritage
because of his or her talent,
skills, occupation and
perseverance. These include
degree or educational
attainment, promotion, position,
earned wealth and the like.
 PRESTIGE
Refers to the evaluation of
status. You have prestige
according to your. Status.
According to Max Weber, most societies would favor those with power,
prestige, status, wealth or class. According to Weber’s Component theory on
Social Stratification, these three would determine a person’s standing in
his/her community.

POWER
• Refers to the ability to influence
other people. It is getting what they
want despite the unwillingness of
others to others to give in to their
desires.
PRESTIGE
• Refers to the person’s position in
the society. This refers to having
a certain status that enables
someone to have resources or
opportunities
WEALTH
• Refers to the amount
of resources that a
person has (Arcinas,
2016)
As mentioned by Ariola (2012) in his book, one may be viewed as
belonging to the upper social strata or lower, social strata
depending on the following dimension:
SOURCES OF INCOME
OCCUPATION
• There are different sources of income.
These are inherited wealth, earned • What people do for a living
wealth, profits, professional fees, determines, to a large extent, the
salaries, wages, private reliefs, among social position of the person.
others. Wealth is everything that is Occupation may be classified
owned by a person. Inherited wealth is into: professionals, non-
acquired since birth and without effort. professionals (clerks, drivers, etc)
Acquired wealth is achieved through proprietors of small business,
ones effort either talent, income or skilled workers, semi skilled
marriage. Income refers to the amount
workers, and unskilled workers.
of money a person receives.
Examination of the mentioned occupations indicates disparities in
prestige, income and power
EDUCATION
• Educational attainment of a person
may be categorized as masteral or
doctoral degree holder, college
graduate, high school graduate,
elementary school drop-out,
among others. Possession of the
person of any of these educational
backgrounds may characterize the
person’s status in the community
TYPES OF HOUSE DWELLINGS
• Dwellings can be categorized as
permanent house(concrete and
excellent in appearance), semi-
permanent house (semi-concrete and
very good in appearance and
construction), temporary house
(wood and fair in appearance and
construction), and poorly constructed
house ( houses founded in squatter
areas, or those considered below-
the-bridge houses).
LOCATION OF RESIDENCE
• Power, prestige and wealth are
also attached to the location of
residence. There is disparity of
social status when one residence
is located in Forbes Park, White
Plain, squatters area,
mountainous-rugged area, in
subdivisionand non subdividion
area.
KINSHIP FAMILY
• In the Philippines, when a
persons belongs to the Ayala’s,
Soriano’s, Zobel’s, Villar’s, that
person is regarded as belonging
to the upper class (rich) status.
Children of sultans and datus are
highly regarded as rich. If a
person is from a family whose
house is situated in the
squatter’s area, that person is
regarded as poor or belonging to
lower class status.
TYPES OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND THEIR
CHARACTERISTICS
Generally, there are three (3) known types of social stratification: open-systems, closed-systems and ethnic systems (Ariola, 2012)
Sociologists distinguish between two types of stratification – open system and closed system. For the anthropologists, they include the ethnic
systems as another type of social stratification.
A. OPEN SYSTEM
GENERAL CHARACTERISITICS CATEGORIES
The class structure is an open • Upper class – The people in this class
system. It encourages people to strive have great wealth and sources of
and achieve something. People income. They constitute the elite
belonging to one social class have wealthy group in the society. They have
similar opportunities, similar lifestyles, high reputation in terms of power and
attitudes, behavior and possibly similar prestige. They live in exclusive residential
socio-economic positions. area, belong to exclusive private clubs,
and may have strong political influence
It is based on achievement, allow in the system of government. They own
movement and interaction between several cars and properties and their
layers and classes. One person can children may study in exclusive schools.
move up or down to class
Through intermarriages,
opportunities, or
achievement. People have
equal chance to succeed.
Whether people do
something to improve their
lives or not this greatly
depends on them.
• Middle class – The people in this class may belong to
the upper-middle class which is often made up of
highly educated business and professional people with
high income, such as doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers,
and CEOs or to the lower-middle class often made up
of people with lower incomes, such as managers,
small business owners, teachers, and secretaries.
Aside from generally command of high income,
people belonging to the upper-middle class often have
college education, live in comfortable homes, own
properties, have some money savings, and active in
community activities. People in the lower-middle class
have not achieved the same lifestyle of the upper-
middle class but somehow have modest income and
live in simple life.
• Lower class – The lower class is typified by poverty,
homelessness, and unemployment. The people in this class
belongs to the bottom of socio-economic ladder. They may
be categorized into two: upper-lower class, and lower-lower
class. In the upper-lower class, people are considered as the
working class or laborers. They have acquired little
education, little time to be involved in civic and community
activities. Some of them are underemployed, have many
socio-economic problems, with little or no luxuries at all.
The people in the lower-lower class are unemployed, or no
source of income except by begging or dependent from
private and government relief. Many of them live in squatter
areas., under the bridge, in street corridors, or with no
house at all. Many of them are liabilities of society because
they may be involved in drug addiction and criminalities.
B. CLOSED SYSTEMS
General Characteristics
• Closed system accommodates
little change in social position.
They do not allow people to shift
levels and do not permit social
relationships between levels.
CATEGORIES
• Caste system – It is regarded as closed
stratification system in which people
can do little or nothing to change their
social standing. Social contact is rigid
and clearly defined. People are born
and die in their caste. Contact between
and among the caste is minimal and
governed by a set of rules- especially
those who belong to the lower degree,
as this will tend to bring them down.
 we do not practice caste system in the Philippines. It existed for
centuries in India and this includes the Brahmans who are associated
with the priesthood, the kahatryias (the warriors, the Vaishyus (the
businessmen traders), and the Shudrus (the servants)

Estate system- It is somewhat a closed system in which the person’s

social standing is based on ownership of land, birth, or military
strength. Individuals who were born into one of the estates remained
there throughout life but in extreme cases there is social mobility,
that is people could change their status. In the middle ages there are
three (3) major estates in Europe – nobility, clergy, and the peasants.
c. ETHNIC SYSTEM

General Characteristics
• This type of social stratification is based on national origin, language and
religion. Ethnicity sets segments of society apart and each group has a sense
of identity. People interact more freely with those people belonging to the
same ethnic category. During the Spanish and American colonial systems in
the Philippines, the colonizers perceived themselves to be occupying the
upper social class than the Filipinos or the natives whom they called as Indios.
• Immi usually belong to a lower status than the in habitants. The Gaddangs,
Itawis, Ituweraw, Ilonngots, and other ethnic minority groups are considered
inferior than the others.
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY
SOCIAL MOBILITY
• Thus people in society continue to
• Refers to the movement within the
social structure, from one social
position to another. It means a
change in social status. All societies
provide some opportunity for
social mobility. But the societies
differ from each other to extent in
which individuals can move from
one class or status level to another.
move up down the status scale. This
movement is called “social mobility”.
For example, the poor people become
rich bank open may become bank
officers, farmers may become
ministers, a petty businessmen may
become a big industrialist and so on.
At the same time a big businessman
become bankrupt and ruling class may
be turned out of office and so on.
 KINDS OF SOCIAL MOBILITY
SOCIAL MOBILITY
• For example the movement of
• Refer to the movement upward or
downward among the social positions
in any given social stratification It may
be upward (vertical) mobility and
downward (horizontal) mobility.
Vertical mobility refers to the
movement of people of groups from
one status to another. It involves
change in class , occupation or power.
people from the poor class to middle
class. Horizontal mobility is change in
position without the change in
status. It indicates a change in
position within the rage of the status.
A change in status may come about
through one’s occupation, marrying
into a certain family and others. Or
example, an engineer working in a
factory may resign from his job and
join another factory.
GEOGRAPHICAL MOBILITY
• Is otherwise known physical mobility. It may be a
voluntary movement of people from geographical
area to an another due to change in residence,
communiting for home to office, making business
trips, and voluntary migration from one country to
another. It may also a forced migration which include
forced relocation or residence, eviction,
dispossession of unwanted people, transportation of
slaves.
ROLE MOBILITY
• Is the individual’s shifting from role to role. Every
member of a society has roles to play. Different situations
call for enactment of various role. For example, the
father is the bread earner of the family but may be a
teacher in school, or the leader at home or a follower in
the school or office. A daughter may be submissive at
home but very active and active as a campus student
leader. A teacher may have varied roles such as being a
mother, a wife, a guidance counselor, a community
leader and many more (Ariola, 2012)
THEORITICAL PERSPECTIVE AND ANALYSIS OF
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
Theoretical Perspective Major Assumptions/Analysis

Structural-Functionalism Stratification is necessary to induce people with special

intelligence, knowledge, and skills to enter the most important
occupations. For this reason, stratification is necessary and
inevitable
Conflict Stratification results from lack of opportunity and from discrimination
and prejudice against the poor, women, and people of color. It is
neither necessary nor inevitable.

Symbolic-Interactionism Stratification affects people’s beliefs, lifestyle, daily interaction and

conceptions of themselves
GOOD DAY