SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Social
Structure

SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Social inequality is
characterized by the
existence of unequal
opportunities
and
rewards for different
social positions or
statuses
within
a
group or society.
It contains structured and recurrent patterns
of unequal distributions of goods, wealth,
opportunities, rewards, and punishments

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

refers to social patterns that guide

our behavior in everyday life.
-J.J. Macionis

Building
Blocks
STATUS

a social
position that is
part of our
social identity
and that
defines our
relationships
to others

ROLE
the action
expected of a
person who
holds a
particular
status

STATUS
-a social position that is part of our
social identity and that defines our
relationships to others
Asc
ribe
d
Stat
us
a social position a
person takes on
voluntarily that
reflects personal
ability and effort

Ach
iev
ed
Stat
us

a social position a
person receives at
birth or takes on
involuntarily later in
life

STATUS
status set - all the
statuses a person
holds at a given time

master status- status that

has special importance for
social identity, often shaping
a persons entire life

ROLE
-the action expected of a
person who holds a
particular status

role set - a number

of roles attached to a
single status

ROLE

Rol
e
Co
nfli
ct
tension among
the roles
connected to a
single status

Rol
e
Str
ain

conflict among
the roles
connected to
two or more
statuses

PERSPECTIVES
Claude Levi
Strauss

conceived of social structure

as logic behind reality

while
social
relations
constitute the raw materials
out of which the models
making
up
the
social
structure
are
built,
the
structure itself cannot be
reduced to an ensemble of
social relations rather such
relations themselves result
from
such
re-existing

PERSPECTIVES
Siegfried Frederick
Nadel

views social structure as

reality itself
regards the role system of
any society with its given
coherence as the matrix of
the social structure
two specific advantages of
structural analysis:
1.
2.

lending a higher degree of

comparability to social data
rendering such data more

PERSPECTIVES
George Peter
Murdock

his principal concern is the

ethnographic facts and the
taxonomic classification of
societies on the basis of
manifest readily discernible
characteristics
The taxonomy established by
Murdock
is
based
on
statistical correlation rather
than the functional analysis.

REFERENCES

Macionis, J. J. (2012). Sociology (14th

ed.). Pearson Education.

Palispis, E. S. (2007). Introduction to

Sociology and Anthropology (Revised
ed.). Rex Book Store, Inc.