Wednesday, March 24, 1999
Announcements:

• Exam is postponed until Monday, April 5, 1999

1. Theories of Social Stratification

1. Functionalist Perspective (see March 22^nd notes)
2. The Conflictists: Karl Marx – Social inequality benefits the people in power. Capitalism leads to exploitation of workers, which promotes inequality. Poverty is due to weakness in societal institutions.

1. Economic Determinism (see January 20^th notes) – all societal behavior is determined by economic system. Capitalism creates poverty and inequality.
2. Surplus Value – difference between value workers create through labor and value of wages they receive. Example: A worker makes $2 for producing a pair of jeans that is sold for $40. The capitalists appropriate the surplus money for themselves and in doing so the exploit both the workers and the customers.
3. Ideological Hegemony – People in power create an ideological hegemony (set of cultural ideas and beliefs) that justifies the actual social arrangement. Example: slave owners justified slavery by quoting Bible verses. The Hindu caste system is justified by saying that lower caste people have bad karma.
4. False Consciousness – when people attribute their lower status to luck or the will of God or bad karma. When people suffer from false consciousness they accept their lower position in society.
5. Class Consciousness – when people begin to protest their lower status in society and start to gain equal access to societal resources. Example: Dhalits – 200 million people from the lower caste in India are finally organizing themselves after many years of accepting their position through false consciousness. The upper class people create a lower class to exploit and serve their interests. Leaders are needed to mobilize the lower class people.

1. A Synthesis of Perspectives: Lenski (Functionalist and Conflictist combined) – As society advances technologically it creates a surplus of goods and services and the need for them to be controlled. POWER is what determines the control of surplus of goods and services.

1. Global Inequality

1. Two schools of thought on labeling countries

1. Developed Nations and Developing Nations
2. Most Developed Countries (MDC’s), Less Developed Countries (LDC’s) and Least Developed Countries (LeastDC’s)
3. The Industrial Revolution started in MDC’s 200 years before it started in LDC’s and LeastDC’s.

1. Major Differences between MDC’s and LDC’s

1. PCGNP (Per Capita Gross National Product) in MDC’s is $19,310. In LDC’s the PCGNP is $1,120 and the PCGNP in LeastDC’s is $240. China and India are highly advanced technologically but their huge populations hold back any economic growth.
2. The richest 20% of humanity control 80% of the world’s total income
3. In MDC’s: Life Expectancy is 77 years, Infant Mortality is 7 in 1,000 and the literacy rate is almost 100%. In LDC’s: Life Expectancy is 56 years, Infant Mortality is 91 in 1,000 and the illiteracy rate is around 40-45% (about 1 in 3 people are illiterate).
4. 400 million people live in abject poverty, most in LDC’s.

1. Sex and Gender

1. Sex is biological but gender is culturally determined. Social characteristics are socially learned. Like racism and ethnicity, gender is learned through socialization. Example: Girls cross legs, guys don’t.
2. Gender, gender identity – characteristics guided by culture and embedded in personality through socialization

1. Margaret Meade’s research on tribes – her hypothesis stated that gender is a social construction

1. Arapesh – Both men and women had feminine characteristics
2. Mundugumar – Both men and women had masculine characteristics
3. Tchambali – The men behaved like women (gossip, beauty care, took care of kids) and the women behaved like men (hunters, providers, rational thinkers)
4. Conclusions: What it means to be male and female is a creation of society. Gender varies from culture to culture