Outline the major theories of how the world's nations became stratified (see colonialism, world system theory, culture of poverty).
Social stratification, or the dividing of a society into levels based on wealth or power, has occurred in virtually every country in the world and continues to occur today. Name any country, and you will most likely be able to identify the results of stratification somewhere in the country's society. There are multiple ways a nation can become stratified, and many theories hypothesizing about these methods. Among the theories are colonialism, the world-system perspective, and the culture of poverty theory.
Colonization can be defined as a phenomenon that "occurs when one group migrates into an area where another group is present and conquers and subordinates that indigenous group." (Farley, 107) Colonialism can develop from many different series of events. A country may be forcibly invaded and the indigenous people are subordinated, for example. Slavery in America is a prime example: Africans were imported to America as slaves and forced to live as a severely subordinated minority for many years. Even now they do not have the same advantages as caucasian whites in America. Though they have transitioned from a colonized minority (forced to enter the U.S.) to an immigrant minority (willingly entering the U.S.), they remain a disadvantaged minority to a degree.
The world-system theory was originally developed by Immanuel Wallerstein in 1974. The essence of the the theory is that "an identifiable social system exists that extends beyond the boundaries of individual societies or nations." (Shannon, 23) The societal structures of countries can be understood by looking at them in the context of a larger system. It divides countries into two categories: core nations and periphery nations. Core nations are the "higher class" of nation and dominate the periphery nations. They are independent, economically diverse, and highly industrialized, whereas periphery nations have none of these traits. Daniel Chirot (1986) defines the five most important benefits core nations receive through their domination:
The culture of poverty theory, which comes from sociologist Oscar Lewis' work, states that poor people develop a "poverty culture" to deal with difficulties arising from poverty (Farley, 88). This theory works well with the functionalist perspective because the perspective takes the stance that the poor stay poor because their culture differs from the standard and the way to fix it is to assimilate their culture into the mainstream. Proponents of the conflict perspective are harsh critics of the culture of poverty theory, arguing the approach "(1) blames the poor for their poverty, when the true cause is to be found in the exploitive behavior of those who benefit from poverty, and (2) suggests an ineffective approach to solving the problems of poverty because accepting an ideology and systems that mainly serves the interests of the 'haves' cannot possible serve the interests of the 'have-nots.'" (Farley, 88)
At the risk of repeating myself, I conclude that a balance is necessary. Each of these theories will provide a different perspective and new insights into social stratification and its effects. Each must be taken into account and used for its interesting hypotheses and innovative assumptions. They each bring something to the table and through a balanced use of multiple theories, we can understand and begin to minimize the negative effects of social stratification.
Works Cited
Farley, John E.. Majority-Minority Relations - 5th Edition. Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall, 2005
Shannon, Thomas R.. An Introduction to the World-System Perspective. Oxford: Westview Press, 1996.
Chirot, Daniel. Social Change in the Modern Era. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.
25 June, 2009