SOC 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Conspicuous Consumption, Social Stratification, Status Attainment
24 Nov 2017
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Intro: (social) stratification: a relatively fixed, hierarchical arrangement (or ranking) in society by which groups have different access to resources, power, and perceived social worth. Social stratification is a system of structured social inequality. Stratification systems: estate system, caste system, and class systems. Social class: the social structural position that groups hold relative to the economic, social, political, and cultural resources of society. According to weber, stratification affects people"s life chances the opportunities people have in common by virtue of belonging to a particular class. Class is a structural phenomenon; it cannot be directly observed. Nonetheless, we can see class through various displays that people project (intentionally and unintentionally) about their class status. Theorist veblen described the class habits of americans as Conspicuous consumption: the ostentatious display of goods to define one"s social class; connected to mass consumerism. Because sociologists cannot isolate and measure social class directly, they use indicators to serve as measures of class.
