AFM280 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Social Inequality

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Accounting & Financial Management
• Course: AFM280
• Professor: Van Dijk Maarten

Document Summary

There are many sectors that separate, formulate and postulate society. Social inequality is the structure of socially designed sectors of people, ranked differently in regards to gender, age, class, ethnicity, etc. (walker, d. , 2009). There are many theories as to why this occurs in society. Two main theories are the functionalist theory and the conflict theory. The functionalist theory is an idea that society represents a complex, interconnected system working together in its specific roles (smithwick, n. , The conflict theory is based on the impression that people are often grouped to create competition, power and dominance (smithwick, n. , 2015). Both the functionalist and conflict theory can be applied to help with the understanding of why social inequality arises in civilization. Formed on the belief that society is built on dependent parts, inequality in society allows for people to assume their proper roles in order to have a balanced system.