Social Stratification and its Perspectives: Functionalism (Term Paper Sample)

Social Stratification and its Perspectives
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Course Title
Institution
Introduction
Various societies around the globe strive to organize themselves in a way the best suits their productivity and work requirements. Social stratification involves the study of how societies are classified as regards to caste, class, status or privileges. Societal responsibilities influence an individual’s position and ability to achieve various aspirations meant for work mobility. Social stratification and mobility are necessary for ensuring a healthy and peaceful society. One would be only motivated to work hard if there is a force behind it, and this is the role that classification plays in society. Society can achieve social stratification in three significant ways; this paper discusses the perspectives.
Social Stratification Perspectives
Competitive labor markets, professional sports, industrial jobs and all other activities that aim at increasing productivity require social classification to achieve its goals. Division of labor at places of work helps in making stratification, through which opportunities and rewards that promote quality production arise (McLeod, 2013). Categorization of stratification is not very easy since any system is a combination of its external and internal conditions. For example, the ability to attain a given rank in an organization may be influenced by specialization or availability of such opportunities (Little, 2014). Social stratification may be discussed in three ways (perspectives):
Functionalism
Functionalism is a perspective of sociology that focuses on the operations of various organs of society (Harcourt, 2016). Functionalists argue that different parts of society play a significant role in society organization and service. Indeed, the organization serves its members in a better way experiences bigger rewards for the services it offers to the citizens. Theorists explain that social stratification should have a basis of the value that different services add to the society so that those whose duties directly influences the general productivity are rewarded accordingly because their tasks are more valuable as those who perform lighter jobs also get a proportionate share. According to Little (2014), jobs such as fire extinguishing are more valuable than, for example, a secretariat position in a warehouse. A Higher value is because the level of training required for fire-fighting is superior to that of a secretary. People would, therefore, be motivated to go to such positions if better incentives and remuneration exists.
Functionalist suggests that rewards based on skills, training, prestige, and power play a significant role in ensuring that productivity and mobility come through hard work and persistence (McLeod, 2013). The importance of a given job opportunity in society is dependent on the level of training and skill required. Jobs with fewer qualified people are the most important and the highly difficult to meet. For instance, jobs such as cleaning offices can be done almost everybody and; therefore, many applicants would always turn up in case such opportunities arises. However, other jobs like engineering and architecture require proper training and skills, and, therefore, fewer people are available.
According to functional perspective, the bond of social consensus exists in the society, and such bonds ensure that common goals are set up in place, and then people cohesively work towards achieving them. According to Little (2014), social cohesion comes in two ways. Firstly, members of the society agree with similar values and beliefs, then work together in solidarity towards ensuring that such values are upheld, this is very common in traditional societies where people associate failure to obey the norms with severe punishments and other dire consequences. Secondly, cohesion can also exist through interdependence, whereby, people appreciate various values, but work together towards achieving a common goal in the society (McLeod, 2013). In this case, cohesion works best in civilized societies and metropolitan areas where members are obliged to coexist with others from a different socio-cultural background.
In America, functionalism was discovered in 1940’s when it was first manifested regarding human behavior. During this time, human functions were classified into two: Those that are intentional and obvious, as well as those that are unintentional and non-obvious. Designing duties in functionalisms must take place in such a way that sociological approach is visible. Intentional and unintentional functions show a clear outline of the roles of different components of the society.
The theory of functionalism also has hiccups, as it cannot explain the reasons why other people such as comedians and journalists that run shows become wealthy and famous yet they undergo a similar level of training as their counterparts in other professions. Those who challenge the theory of functionalism have found grounds on this to oppose the theory. Functionalism does not take into consideration the disparities that exist in societies regarding gender, accessibility of educational facilities, or race.
Indeed, people who are not privileged to access to access engineering training institutions, for example, cannot become engineers, however, gifted they may be (Leonard, 2015). Critics also cite failure to appreciate negative functions like divorce, social stratification according to this perspective fails to recognize initiatives that lead to beneficial changes in social environment. However, social stratification is imperative since it promotes excellence by encouraging to people work harder to acquire certain classes that exist in the society.
Conflict Perspective
Conflict theory is a development of class struggles that were initially presented by the sociologist Carl Marx. The writings on class struggles laid emphasis on the contribution of society towards its stability. In contrast, conflict theory focusses on the negative aspects of society like the changes that create new conflicts (Harcourt, 2016). Conflict theorists encourage social change that can lead to instability and variation of status quo in the society. Also, those are believed to be wealthy, or have political power force social order on the less fortunate and those from humble economic backgrounds (Leonard, 2015). Conflict theorists, for instance, would formulate policies that lead to higher charges in social institutions like schools, without taking into consideration the fact that such the institutions are also meant to serve those who are less fortunate.
In early 1940’s functionalism was preferred to conflict theory. However, this changed in 1960’s when observation revealed that some sociologists gave major considerations to this perspective. Change of interest also leads to expansion of Karl Marx’s concept of economic conflicts. According to Little (2014), it is evident in the modern society, inequality do exist. People in different social classes will always differ in the way they articulate and present their ideologies regarding similar issues. The difference in opinions then causes a passive or active conflict, and the final result is an ever-changing society.
The advocators of conflict theory are opposed to social stratification as they argue that beneficiaries are just but a few, and not the whole community (Harcourt, 2016). Conflict theorists are also against the idea of bridging the gap between income earners. Critical sociologist asserts that equality concerning pay gives the corporate elites an opportunity to award themselves huge amounts of dollars in the form of bonuses and salaries (Leonard, 2015). Cooperate elites do not work harder to warrant them such earnings.
Even though working conditions have improved in the modern society, there is still a lack of good working relationships between the employers and the employees (Littles, 2014). Equality does not exist in workplaces, as the means of production is still under the control of the cooperate elites who do a little but earn a lot. A political system that is neoliberal also provides a conducive environment for the rich to remain even more prosperous as the poor serve their interests.
Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interaction uses people’s daily interactions to generalize the behaviour of society. Social interactionism focuses on the minor issues that people do to study stratification and then use the analysis to determine how social affiliati...