THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In sociology, social stratification is a concept involving the classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions. A relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions. For Max Weber, social class pertaining broadly to material wealth is distinguished from status class which is based on such variables as honor, prestige and religious affiliation. Talcott Parsons argued that the forces of societal differentiation and the following pattern of institutionalized individualization would strongly diminish the role of class (as a major stratification factor) as social evolution went along. It is debatable whether the earliest hunter-gatherer groups may be defined as 'stratified', or if such differentials began with agriculture and broad acts of exchange between groups. One of the ongoing issues in determining social stratification arises from the point that status inequalities between individuals are common, so it becomes a quantitative issue to determine how much inequality qualifies as stratification. Social stratification has been shown to cause many social problems. A comprehensive study of major world economies revealed that homicide, infant mortality, obesity, teenage pregnancies, emotional depression, teen suicide, and prison population all correlate with higher social inequality. The rankings apply to social categories of people who share a common characteristic without necessarily interacting or identifying with each other. The process of being ranked can be changed by the person being ranked. Peoples life experiences and opportunities depend on their social category. This characteristic can be changed by the amount of work a person can put into their interests. The ranks of different social categories change slowly over time. This has occurred frequently and laws have been altered several times to specify rights for everyone.

The Status refers to the relative rank that an individual holds; this includes attendant rights, duties, and lifestyle, in a social hierarchy based upon honor or prestige. Status has two different types that come along with it: achieved, and ascribed. The word status refers to social stratification on a vertical scale. In society, pariah status groups are regarded with disdain or treated as outcasts by the majority of the population. The term derives from the Paraiyar (Pariah caste), members of which are treated as outcasts in Hindu society. In modern societies, occupation is usually thought of as the main determinant of status, but other memberships or affiliations (such as ethnic group, religion, gender, voluntary associations, fandom, hobby) can have an influence. The importance of social status can be seen in the peer status hierarchy of geeks, athletes, cheerleaders, nerds,

and weirdos in Hollywood stereotypes of American high schools.[1][2] Achieved status is when people are placed in the stratification structure based on their individual merits or achievements. This status can be achieved through education, occupation, and marital status. Their place within the stratification structure is determined by society's bar, which often judges them on success, success being financial, academic, political and so on. America most commonly uses this form of status with jobs. The higher you are in rank the better off you are and the more control you have over your co-workers. In pre-modern societies, status differentiation is widely varied. In some cases it can be quite rigid and class based, such as with the Indian caste system. In other cases, status exists without class and/or informally, as is true with some HunterGatherer societies such as the Khoisan, and some Indigenous Australian societies. In these cases, status is limited to specific personal relationships. For example, a Khoisan man is expected to take his wife's mother quite seriously (a non-joking relationship), although the mother-in-law has no special "status" over anyone except her son-in-law and only then in specific contexts. All societies have a form of social status. Status is an important idea in social stratification. Max Weber distinguishes status from social class,[3] though some contemporary empirical sociologists add the two ideas to create socioeconomic status or SES, usually operationalised as a simple index of income, education and occupational prestige.

The family is one of the most vital factors for primary socialisation and secondary socialisation for children. Class socialisation refers to the everyday experiences associated with a persons class location and beliefs and attitudes. So does the familys social class affect the childs socialisation? Sociologists argue this matter some agreeing and suggesting that your social class does affect the norms and values you possess. Children of the upper class and middle class have mannerisms and values that are distinct from those of other social classes. Upper class children are socialised into high culture, for example, being taken to the opera or playing a musical instrument. This contrasts to the popular culture of the working class who might watch celebrity television programs or have a McDonalds meal. Even their speech has diversity as the middle class speak with an elaborated code, in contrast to the restricted code, the working class use according to Bernstein. A social class research by Diana Kendall showed how the family continues to pass on cultural and economic capital. Kendall also showed that member of social classes have different lifestyle from and educational outcomes. From the IBSS website I found that the working class is associated with single parenthood, then it is likely that children within that class will also become a single parent. Recent surveys have also shown that Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rates. These teenage

pregnancies are often linked to the working class. In addition to this, the rising divorce rates in contemporary society are often related to poverty to low income and reliance on state benefits. A study by Joann Miller and Ted. M Brimeyer looks at class socialisation and how it effects students aspirations. The research showed how studying the past, present and anticipated or aspired future class locations is necessary for understanding the attitude and beliefs associated with class. Obviously, depending on whether you are born into a privileged class location or a working class network provides different material resources. These will directly and indirectly shape their ideas on beliefs and values. In 1996 a survey showed how a number of first-year students, coming from families with a modest income, didnt feel the need to get a job to pay for college. Smith and Powell (1990) saw how students from advantaged families may inaccurately assume that they will be better off financially after college than what they are likely to experience. In comparison, only 22.3 percent of working class students said that feel secure about future employment. However, they tended to anticipate occupations that rank higher in status than their parents occupations. With todays economic crisis, it is likely that the working class family structure will move to extended. This supplies extra role models for children whilst also providing more emotional support. These additional members within the family are unlikely to appear in an upper class family unit. There is often a very close relationship between social class and life chances. The higher the class position of a childs parents, the more likely the child is to attain high educational qualifications and a well paid, high status job. Research from Reay shows how middle class mothers are able to influence their childrens primary schooling more than the working class mothers. This research shows how demands of the working class mothers affect their time to devote to the children. Therefore the children will miss out on important socialisation with their mothers. In contemporary society it is clear to see that social class does affect the socialisation of children. The working class families often lack role models and quality time with their parents, creating a vicious circle of teenage pregnancies, which is a big issue today. The upper and middle class also create norms, values and expectations that pass down through generations. Even though class divisions are getting more blurred, socialisation between these families is still very much present. The German sociologist Max Weber developed a theory proposing that stratification is based on three factors that have become known as "the three p's of stratification": property, prestige and power. He claimed that social stratification is a result of the interaction of wealth, prestige and power. The three Ps are as follows:
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Property refers to one's material possessions and their life chances. If someone has control of property, that person has power over others and can use the property to his or her own benefit.

Prestige is also a significant factor in determining one's place in the stratification system. The ownership of property is not always going to assure power, but there are frequently people with prestige and little property. Power is the ability to do what one wants, regardless of the will of others. (Domination, a closely related concept, is the power to make others' behavior conform to one's commands). This refers to two different types of power, which are possession of power and exercising power. For example, some people in charge of the government have an immense amount of power, and yet they do not make much money.

Max Weber developed various ways that societies are organized in hierarchical systems of power. These ways are social status, class power and political power.
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Social Status: If you view someone as a social superior, that person will have power over you because you believe that person has a higher status than you do. Class Power: This refers to unequal access to resources. If you have access to something that someone else needs, that can make you more powerful than the person in need. The person with the resource thus has bargaining power over the other. Political Power: Political power can influence the hierarchical system of power because those that can influence what laws are passed and how they are applied can exercise power over others.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu developed theories of social stratification based on aesthetic taste in his work Distinction. Bourdieu claims that how one chooses to present one's social space to the world, one's aesthetic dispositions, depicts one's status and distances oneself from lower groups. Specifically, Bourdieu hypothesizes that these dispositions are internalized at an early age and guide the young towards their appropriate social positions, towards the behaviors that are suitable for them, and an aversion towards other lifestyles. Bourdieu theorizes that class fractions teach aesthetic preferences to their young. Class fractions are determined by a combination of the varying degrees of social, economic, and cultural capital. Society incorporates "symbolic goods, especially those regarded as the attributes of excellence, as the ideal weapon in strategies of distinction". Those attributes deemed excellent are shaped by the interests of the dominating class. He emphasizes the dominance of cultural capital early on by stating that "differences in cultural capital mark the differences between the classes". Aesthetic dispositions are the result of social origin rather than accumulated capital and experience over time. The acquisition of cultural capital depends heavily on "total, early, imperceptible learning, performed within the family from the earliest days of

life".Bourdieu hypothetically guarantees that the opinions of the young are those that they are born into, the accepted "definitions that their elders offer them". He asserts the primacy of social origin and cultural capital by claiming that social capital and economic capital, though acquired cumulatively over time, depend upon it. Bourdieu claims that "one has to take account of all the characteristics of social condition which are (statistically) associated from earliest childhood with possession of high or low income and which tend to shape tastes adjusted to these conditions". According to Bourdieu, tastes in food, culture and presentation, are indicators of class, because trends in their consumption seemingly correlate with an individual's fit in society. Each fraction of the dominant class develops its own aesthetic criteria. A multitude of consumer interests based on differing social positions necessitates that each fraction "has its own artists and philosophers, newspapers and critics, just as it has its hairdresser, interior decorator or tailor." Bourdieu does not wholly disregard the importance of social capital and economic capital in the formation of cultural capital. In fact, the production of art and the ability to play an instrument "presuppose not only dispositions associated with long establishment in the world of art and culture but also economic meansand spare time". However, regardless of one's ability to act upon one's preferences, Bourdieu specifies that "respondents are only required to express a status-induced familiarity with legitimate... culture". "Taste functions as a sort of social orientation, a 'sense of one's place', guiding the occupants of a given... social space towards the social positions adjusted to their properties, and towards the practices or goods which befit the occupants of that position".[ Thus, different modes of acquisition yield differences in the nature of preferences. These "cognitive structuresare internalized, 'embodied' social structures", becoming a natural entity to the individual. Different tastes are thus seen as unnatural and rejected, resulting in "disgust provoked by horror or visceral intolerance ('sickmaking') of the tastes of others." Bourdieu himself believes class distinction and preferences are "most marked in the ordinary choices of everyday existence, such as furniture, clothing or cooking, which are particularly revealing of deep-rooted and long-standing dispositions because, lying outside the scope of the educational system, they have to be confronted, as it were, by naked taste".Indeed, Bordieu believes that "the strongest and most indelible mark of infant learning" would probably be in the tastes of food. Bourdieu thinks that meals served on special occasions are "an interesting indicator of the mode of selfpresentation adopted in 'showing off' a life-style (in which furniture also plays a part)". The idea is that their likes and dislikes should mirror those of their class fractions.

Children from the lower end of the social hierarchy are predicted to choose "heavy, fatty fattening foods, which are also cheap" in their dinner layouts, opting for "plentiful and good" meals as opposed to foods that are "original and exotic". These potential outcomes would reinforce Bourdieu's "ethic of sobriety for the sake of slimness, which is most recognized at the highest levels of the social hierarchy," that contrasts the "convivial indulgence" characteristic of the lower classes. Demonstrations of the tastes of luxury (or freedom) and the tastes of necessity reveal a distinction among the social classes. The degree to which social origin affects these preferences surpasses both educational and economic capital. In fact, at equivalent levels of educational capital, social origin remains an influential factor in determining these dispositions. How one describes one's social environment relates closely to social origin because the instinctive narrative springs from early stages of development. Also, across the divisions of labor "economic constraints tend to relax without any fundamental change in the pattern of spending".This observation reinforces the idea that social origin, more than economic capital, produces aesthetic preferences because regardless of economic capability consumption patterns remain stable.