>Sociological thought
Collection of scientific articles
Editor-compiler Andrey Tikhomirov
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The concept of social stratification in sociological science
Relationships between people are complex and multifaceted. Among the diversity of these relations, we will single out those that develop between relatively stable social communities, groups.
Each person belongs to one or another social community, and in turn each of them occupies a certain place in the social structure of society. What is meant by social community and social structure?
A social structure is a set of interconnected and interacting social communities and relations between them. A social community is understood as a really existing set of people characterized by any single signs related to the life of society. It can include several people and tens of millions of people, it can be short-lived (for example, passengers on a bus, spectators in a theater) or stable over centuries (for example, nations, classes). This chapter will focus on large stable social communities: socio-class (classes, social groups and strata), socio-demographic (youth, women, the elderly), socio-ethnic (nations, nationalities).
The evolution of mankind is accompanied by the accumulation of such changes in the social structure of society, which eventually lead to qualitative shifts, the emergence of new social communities, to change or replace the old ones.
In the process of development of society, the social structure becomes more diverse and complex. This increasing complexity is due to objective reasons and provides the society with stability and the possibility of further
To determine changes in the social structure of society, scientists have developed many guidelines and approaches. The theory of classes and the theory of social stratification are the most famous. Stratification (Latin; stratum – flooring, layer; facere-to do) – the division of society into layers – strata.
Social changes are ongoing. Thus, over the past decades, the social status of about half of the people who received the highest and lowest incomes has changed significantly. The definition of class belonging of people based on the level of income and their relation to ownership of the means of production (and, consequently, its products) no longer clearly reflects the alignment of social forces in the structure of modern society.
When studying the dynamics of social change, proponents of the theory of stratification often use the formula of vertical and horizontal stratification, because, in their opinion, a person in his life can move (climb or descend) from one social level to another. Or, staying at the same level, move from one social group to another.
Consider the possible movement of a person in a vertical stratification having seven levels: 1) the upper stratum of professionals, administrators; 2) middle-level technical specialists; 3) the commercial class; 4) the petty bourgeoisie;
5) technicians and workers performing managerial functions;
6) skilled workers; 7) unskilled workers. For example, a person from a family of a skilled worker, having received sufficient funds from his father, bought a cafe, i.e. he rose up the vertical stratification into the layer of the petty bourgeoisie. Later, at the expense of profits and proceeds from the sale of cafes, he acquired an average farm and thus moved from the social group of the urban bourgeoisie to the rural one. But the same person could not get the opportunity for social displacement and remain in the social group to which his father belonged.
Currently, the social structure of civil society cannot be determined by any one attribute, for this it is necessary to use their totality.
For example, people who work for hire in a modern capitalist society already have something to «lose, except their chains.» They are increasingly becoming owners: they have houses, land plots, shares, insurance policies, their own vehicles, home electronics, which have given them access to a variety of information, to world culture. Citizens gain independence, become full legal entities.
Of particular importance for the approval of the social positions of each person is the increase in the economic independence of his family. In fact, the position of the family is a barometer of the state of society, its economic and social systems. In this small social group, the contradictions of the individual and the social that arise in the process of development are most clearly and quickly manifested. The state of the family shows the degree of progress of society towards providing its citizens with real opportunities for socio-cultural development.
The family carries a great creative charge. In an effort to ensure their families’ well-being, people are actively involved in the evolutionary processes of social development. In addition, the economic independence of the family supports the process of personal emancipation, which by the end of the XX century became one of the main factors of socio-political changes.
Nowadays, economic freedom of a person is inextricably linked with political and civil freedom. People got the opportunity to go through the social hierarchy from peasant to president in one lifetime.
In the developed countries of the West, wage labor and individual work are a source of livelihood for more than 80% of their entire population. This huge social group includes people of various professions, levels of education, income, etc. At the same time, it should be noted that simultaneously with the increase in the number of employees, the number of the industrial working class is decreasing. The proletariat in its former (classical) form practically does not exist anymore. For the industrial production of modern economically developed countries, the work of workers with higher education has become the norm. And for employees of firms, service sector personnel, a high level of education is almost always the first qualification requirement.
In addition, as already noted, today employees in civil society (in the industrialized countries of the West) make up a well-off part of the population. Now it has become obvious that most of the people who work for hire can be attributed to the middle and affluent strata of society. These people are the main producers and taxpayers, and in fact they are the backbone of the social system as a whole
In modern society, the number of independent peasants (free farmers) continues to decrease, the natives of which, for the most part, join the ranks of wage laborers who sell their labor both in the city and in the countryside. In recent decades, the importance of the intelligentsia in public life has increased markedly. These people who are professionally engaged in highly skilled intellectual work, as a rule, are among the employees and belong to the middle strata of the population, but they occupy a special place in the social structure – the intellectual elite of society is formed from them. Although it is customary to call the elite a social group of the richest people, this concept also applies to people who are of particular value to the whole society (intellectual, spiritual elite).
As a result of the socio-economic development of society, social changes are becoming more and more intensive nowadays, significant social movements are taking place, giving birth to the so-called marginal strata. Their presence is a characteristic feature of modern society.
The concept of marginalization serves to denote borderline (intermediate) in relation to any social communities – class, national, cultural. The main thing in marginality is that the personality loses its belonging to any particular community. This usually happens as a result of the interaction of various social groups. For example, all over the world there are quite large social groups of people without a fixed place of residence, who are interrupted by casual earnings.
A gigantic accelerator of social change is the scientific and technological revolution, which causes profound transformations in the productive forces of society, the relationship of ownership to the means of production. Changes in this area directly lead to social shifts. So, if in the last century the small and large bourgeoisie represented a class almost exclusively consisting of individual owners, at present, as you know, in the developed countries of the West, along with individual private property, joint-stock private property is also