Major Functions OF Social Stratification PDF

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The sight of the cultures of the world demonstrates that no society is ‘classless’, that is, uncertified. All the known established societies of the world are stratified in one manner or the other. According to Wilbert Moore and Kingsley Davis, the stratification system arose in all the cultures due...

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MAJOR FUNCTIONS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION 1 INTRODUCTION: The sight of the cultures of the world demonstrates that no society is ‘classless’, that is, uncertified. All the known established societies of the world are stratified in one manner or the other. According to Wilbert Moore and Kingsley Davis, the stratification system arose in all the cultures due to the functional necessity. As they have pointed out, the main functional necessity of the system is: ‘… the demand faced by any society of positioning and motivating individuals in the social structure… Social inequality is, thus, an unintentionally developed technique by which societies assure that the most important posts are conscientiously occupied by the most competent persons.’ As assessed by famous sociologist H. M. Johnson, certain aspects here can be highlighted concerning the ‘functional necessity’ of the class stratification system.

2 ENCOURAGES HARD WORK One of the key functions of class stratification is to push people to work hard to live up to the values. Those who best fulfil the values of a specific society are generally rewarded with more prominence and social acceptance by others. It is recognised that vocations are ranked high if their responsibilities are highly

significant and the requisite staff is quite scarce. Hard effort, extended training and significant amount of duty are connected with such vocational jobs. People undertaking such services are rewarded with money, prestige, luxuries, and so on. Still we cannot argue that all those positions which are deemed as significant are suitably rewarded for.

3 ENSURES CIRCULATION OF ELITES To some extent, class stratification helps to ensure what is often called ‘the circulation of the elite’. When a high degree of prestige conveniences and other incentives are available for specific positions, there will be some rivalry for them. This process of competition serves to ensure that the most efficient people are able to advance to the top, where their talent may best be utilised.

4 SERVES AN ECONOMIC ROLE The competitive aspect has a kind of economic function in that it serves to ensure the rational use of available talent. It is also functionally important to offer differential rewards if the positions at the top are mostly attributed as it is in the case of the caste system. Even with the caste system, the people at the top can lose their respect if they fail to uphold certain norms. Hence, differential benefits give the incentives for the upper classes to work at maintaining their positions.

5 PREVENTS WASTE OF RESOURCES The stratification system prevents the squandering of precious resources. The males in the top class truly possess scarce and socially valued abilities and traits, whether they are inherited or earned. Because of their possession of these attributes, their enjoyment of some benefits, such as additional comfort and immunity from doing menial labour, are operationally justifiable. It becomes operationally helpful for the society to make use of their skills without being wasted. For example, it would be a waste to pour the resources of society into the training of doctors and engineers, and then make them work as peons and attendants. When once certain individuals are picked and are trained for certain demanding positions, it would be dysfunctional to squander their time and energy on duties for which there is enough workforce.

6 STABILIZES AND REINFORCES THE ATTITUDES AND SKILLS: Members of a class normallytry to confine their ties to their own class. More close relationships are generally found between fellow class-members. Even this propensity has its own function. It tends to stabilise and reinforce the attitudes and talents that may be the basis of upper-class standing. Those that have similar ideals and interests prefer to associate well with one another. Their regular association itself indicates their common ideals and interests.

7 HELPS TO PURSUE OTHER PROFESSIONS OR JOBS: The values, attitudes and qualities of different classes do differ. This divergence is also practical for society to some extent because society needs manual as well as non- manual workers. Many vocations are not attractive to highly skilled or ‘refined’ people for they are conditioned to aspire for specific other jobs. Because of the early effect of family and socialisation, the individuals imbibe in them particular values, attitudes and attributes related to the social class to which they belong. This will impact their choices of jobs.

8 SOCIAL CONTROL: Further to the extent that ‘lower class’ cultural features are vital to society, the classes are, of course, functional. In reality, certain level of reciprocal animosity between social classes is also functional. To some extent, upper-class and lowerclass groups might operate as negative reference groups for each other. Thus, they operate as a tool of social control also.

9 CONTROLLING INFLUENCE ON THE ‘SHADY’ WORLD:

Class stratification has another social control role. Even in the ‘shady’ world of gamblers and in the underworld of lower criminals, black-marketers, racketeers, smugglers, and so on, the legitimate class structure has achieved credibility. They know that money is not substitute for reputation but just a recompense for surrendering it. Hence, instead of staying in a successful murky career, such people seek to achieve reputation for their money and for their children, and they try to enter legitimate fields and become philanthropists and patrons of the arts. Thus, the respectable class structure continues to attract the shady classes and the underworld. This attraction performs a social control role....