Socioeconomic stratification refers to a social system in which people are hierarchically categorized into social ranks based on some strata including occupation, education, and social status ( Lenski, 2013 ). Stratification relatively positions people within categories and hence social units. Stratification involves not only quantitative differences – income and wealth – but also qualitative differences – attitudes and beliefs. As a result of stratification, unequal access to valued goods within a society is implied . These goods include education, consumption, and employment among others. Stratification is determined by some factors including social institutions that define the rules of goods allocation like welfare systems. Social mobility is a factor determining the ability to move between strata. As a result, stratification systems are either open or closed. Stratification can also be viewed from a social perspective. For instance, the functionalist perspective stratifies people based on their capacity to undertake tasks in the society. It denotes that people performing difficult tasks are entitled to more money, prestige, and power. Arguments have been sparked that inequality and stratification cause individual success or failure, and not its consequence.
Social stratification is characterized by economic and social dimensions ( Fiske et al., 2010 ). Education as social stratification shall be emphasized in this article. According to McLeod (2013 ), access to education and educational attainments are a social class function. Education is illustrated as a function of economic status, personal preferences, and pedagogy. Education stratification is a societal mechanism where people are categorized resulting in unequal opportunities and inequalities. Fiske et al . denote that a more stratified education system is prone to having more substantial inequalities . For instance, residential stratification as an educational stratification mechanism looks into people’s lives and how they can afford education. The mechanism further scrutinizes the children’s backgrounds as well as decentralization of funding and teacher hiring.
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Education is impacted by social roles, positions, and class status. The relationship between the strata is used to assess the relationship between the parents’ and their children’s classes ( Archer, 2013 ). However, the less association the lower the inequality of the educational system and the higher the social mobility, education has been depicted as a categorizing machine for students by skills and interests. The process of the social roles perpetuates inequalities. Schools have been portrayed to serve two major purposes – educate and socialize students. Schools also go beyond the academic curriculum to educate students on social skills required in the society. By undergoing the education system, the students are categorized into social classes. The acquisition of social skills, also known as human capital, entails the necessary skills and knowledge needed by a person to be more productive. People with a high capacity of human capital are perceived to be more productive in the society. As a result, they become more valuable and hence attain a more upper social class in their respective societies .
Schools have been found to put more emphasis on beliefs, societal values, and attitudes belonging to the dominant culture. The minority influences are often overlooked . The education system ranks or rather sorts their students based on their skills, interests, and family background among other societal factors. The sorting is essential for categorizing students into groups that eventually maximize their human capital and result in higher social mobility. The system allows for vocational programs as well as placement classes to enhance the human capital of some students. The entire process of sorting in the educational system is not always based on merit. The reason behind the sorting is that there are different criteria used for every program and hence it becomes an entirely cumbersome exercise. The sorting process furthers social inequalities that deny underprivileged students an opportunity to access similar provisions as privileged students. It may be as a result of incapacity of some students to access the programs owing to their poor social statuses. Different schools in the education system present unequal influence by teacher expectations as well as instructional methods. The disparity in the dissemination of the discussed human capital results in the varied performance of students and hence social inequalities.
Among the inequalities in the education system is the disparity in the performance of middle and high-income students and lower-income students ( Bastedo, & Jaquette, 2011 ). The inequality is as a result of some factors. These factors are related to resource allocation, parental involvement, education priority in families, instructional methods, and learning environments. Students belonging to the middle and high-income classes are privileged to acquire better opportunities as compared to their counterparts in the minority and lower-income students. For instance, high-income students have greater parental involvement in the schools that also avail income for tutors to offer test prep courses and other learning materials. These resources increase the human capital of the students and in turn puts them in a higher social status in the society. The students also have access to better schools with more informal education opportunities including traveling and field trips that enhance their skills and knowledge.
Sociologists have scrutinized the social inequalities in the education system and recommended that social mobility can be achieved by offering all students equal opportunities in education. The minority and low-income students ought to be catered for by providing them with the required resources. The government ought to check the imbalance in the resources allocation and offer the minorities more attention in a bid to raise their social statuses and hence address the issue of the educational inequality. By providing better roles and positions to the lower-income group shall enhance their social status and in turn address the disparity .
Works Cited
Archer, M. S. (2013). Social origins of educational systems . Routledge.
Bastedo, M. N., & Jaquette, O. (2011). ‘Running in place: Low-income students and the dynamics of higher education stratification.’ Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis , 33 (3), 318-339.
Fiske, S. T., Gilbert, D. T., & Lindzey, G. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.
Lenski, G. E. (2013). ‘ Power and privilege: A theory of social stratification .’ UNC Press Books.
McLeod, J. D. (2013). Social stratification and inequality. In Handbook of the sociology of mental health (pp. 229-253). Springer Netherlands.
