Social Class Inequality: Functionalism
- Created by: nelliott
- Created on: 04-05-22 10:23
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- Inequality: Functionalism
- Parsons: Vale Consensus & Stratification
- In all societies, some individuals are better at achieving and deserve rewards
- In the Middle Ages, knights were highly rewarded because being a warrior was important
- Most people agree that in modern industrial societies, entrepreneurs & executives deserve high rewards
- They run businesses, creating wealth and jobs to contribute to the smooth running of society
- Davis & Moore: Social Stratification
- This has been a feature of all human society and is functionally necessary
- The main function of this is to ensure effective role allocation
- Social stratification does two things:
- Allocates the right people to the most important roles, ensuring able people can fill high positions in society
- Ensures people in these roles perform them to the highest standards
- We can tell which positions are the most important by two factors:
- Functional uniqueness: a position is functionally unique if only a small number of people can carry out the role
- The degree of dependence of others: they must make decisions and give orders to employees
- Tumin: a critique of Davis & Moore
- Is it possible to determine the functional importance of a position?
- Is there a consensus about rewards?
- Parsons: Vale Consensus & Stratification
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