social differentiation

Also known as: social hierarchy, social stratification

Learn about this topic in these articles:

Assorted References

  • African dance
    • rock painting of a dance performance
      In African dance: The social context

      In societies that stress horizontal stratification into age sets, the qualities proper to a particular age are expressed in dances, as in those that keep young men physically fit and teach them the discipline necessary in warfare. The dances of young Zulu and Ndebele men in Southern Africa recall the…

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  • class structure
    • Karl Marx
      In social structure: Structure and social organization

      …formless but is, in fact, differentiated into certain groups, positions, and institutions that are interdependent or functionally interrelated. Third, individual choices are shaped and circumscribed by the social environment, because social groups, although constituted by the social activities of individuals, are not a direct result of the wishes and intentions…

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  • consumption and luxury goods
    • Versailles, Palace of; Le Nôtre, André
      In luxury: Economic aspect

      …it the increase and the differentiation of wants. The fact that the fundamental needs of mankind for a minimum of food, clothing, and protection from the weather are relatively soon satisfied gives rise to a demand for greater variety and finer qualities as soon as income rises above the bare…

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  • development of sociology
    • Charles Booth
      In sociology: Social stratification

      Since social stratification is the most binding and central concern of sociology, changes in the study of social stratification reflect trends in the entire discipline. The founders of sociology—including Weber—thought that the United States, unlike Europe, was a classless society with a high…

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  • dietary laws and food customs
    • Ramadan
      In dietary law: Complex societies

      …on the prior assumption of social stratification, traditional privilege, and social, familial, and moral lines that cannot be crossed. Taboos and other regulations in connection with food are incompatible with the idea of an open society. Nevertheless, complex nations were characterized by caste organizations that, in almost all cases, religion…

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  • ethnic groups
    • In ethnic group

      social group or category of the population that, in a larger society, is set apart and bound together by common ties of race, language, nationality, or culture.

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  • fads
    • Haiti earthquake of 2010: search and rescue
      In collective behaviour: Fashion

      …a potential challenge to the class structure of society, fashion generally flows from the higher levels to the lower levels, providing a continuous verification of class differences. Continuous change is essential if the higher classes are to maintain their distinctiveness after copies of their clothing styles appear at lower levels.…

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  • industrialization and modernization
    • Max Weber
      In modernization: Social structure

      …relationships become the key to social position and class membership. This is new, at least in its extent. While wealth or the lack of it were always important in determining social position, they were not usually the sole or even the central determinant. In all nonindustrial societies, attributes of tribal…

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  • land ownership
  • language
    • language
      In language: Language and social differentiation and assimilation

      The part played by variations within a language in differentiating social and occupational groups in a society has already been referred to above. In language transmission this tends to be self-perpetuating unless deliberately interfered with. Children are in general brought up…

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  • Marxian theory of warfare
    • Korean War
      In war: Socialist analyses

      …of states but to the class structure of society. To him wars occurred not as an often voluntary instrument of state policy but as the result of a clash of social forces. To Marx the state was merely a political superstructure; the primary, determining factor lies in the capitalist mode…

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  • social change
    • Karl Marx
      In social change: Combined patterns of change

      …the division of labour and social differentiation. The control of natural forces, and the ensuing social progress, was achieved only by utilizing the division of labour—and the corresponding specialization of knowledge—to raise productivity beyond natural limits. One consequence of this growth of productivity and technological innovation, however, was social differentiation.…

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  • social Darwinism
    • Herbert Spencer
      In social Darwinism

      …on the basis of “natural” inequalities among individuals, for the control of property was said to be a correlate of superior and inherent moral attributes such as industriousness, temperance, and frugality. Attempts to reform society through state intervention or other means would, therefore, interfere with natural processes; unrestricted competition and…

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  • work and employment
    • In history of the organization of work: Age, sex, and class

      …division of labour based upon class. The challenges of providing food made it necessary for the whole group to contribute, so there could be no leisure class or even a class of full-time specialists producing articles not directly related to the food supply. There were, however, part-time specialists; a person…

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  • work of Geiger
    • In Theodor Julius Geiger

      His work on social stratification and mobility included studies of Danish intellectuals and a detailed examination of the people of Århus, Soziale Umschichtungen in einer dänischen Mittelstadt (1951; “Social Changes in a Medium-Sized Danish City”). Long interested in the sociology of public order, he wrote Vorstudien zu einer…

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cultures

    American Indians

      • American Subarctic
      • Northwest Coast Indians
        • Distribution of Northwest Coast Indians
          In Northwest Coast Indian: Stratification and social structure

          …Northwest encouraged the development of social stratification. The region’s traditional cultures typically had a ruling elite that controlled use rights to corporately held or communal property, with a “house society” form of social organization. The best analogues for such cultures are generally agreed to be the medieval societies of Europe,…

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      • Southeast Indians
        • Distribution of Southeast American Indian cultures
          In Southeast Indian: Political organization

          Social stratification was highly developed in some parts of the Southeast and insignificant in others. Although much has been written about the so-called caste systems among the tribes of the lower Mississippi, the Chitimachas appear to have been the only society to have possessed true…

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      China

        • Ming dynasty
          • China
            In China: Local government

            …considered the basis of all social order. Each family was classified according to hereditary status—the chief categories being civilian, military, and artisan—and neighboring families of the same category were organized into groups for purposes of self-government and mutual help and surveillance. Civilians were grouped into “tithings” of 10 families, and…

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        • Qing dynasty
          • China
            In China: Qing society

            …society continued to be highly stratified during the early Qing. Hereditary status groups ranged from the descendants of the imperial line down to the “mean people” at the bottom of the social ladder. Many professions were hereditary: bannermen, brewers, dyers, doctors, navigators, and Daoist priests usually passed on their occupations…

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        • Yuan dynasty

        Europe

          • ancient Europe
            • Encyclopædia Britannica: first edition, map of Europe
              In history of Europe: Prestige and status

              …changes through time suggest increased social differentiation, but there also are periods, such as the Urnfield Culture, in which social differentiations are less obviously expressed in graves. The grave can, therefore, be used mainly to establish relative differentiation within one community rather than pronouncing absolute historical trends. One such study…

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            • Encyclopædia Britannica: first edition, map of Europe
              In history of Europe: Prestige and status

              During the Iron Age, stratification became common and marked throughout Europe. Differences in wealth and status in terms of both individuals and households were reflected in graves as well as settlements. Settlements reveal internal division of houses according to size and function, and the population of any village was…

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            • Encyclopædia Britannica: first edition, map of Europe
              In history of Europe: The people of the Metal Ages

              …the society had become so differentiated that some people lived a life protected from hard labour and physical toils while others worked extensively and had a poor diet.

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          • ancient Greece
            • the gods on Olympus
              In Greek religion: The gods

              Homeric society is stratified, from Zeus to the meanest beggar. To behave in accordance with one’s share is to behave in accordance with one’s status; even a beggar may go beyond his share, though he is likely to be punished for it. Zeus, the most powerful…

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          • England
            • United Kingdom
              In United Kingdom: Economy and society

              English society was organized hierarchically with a tightly defined ascending order of privileges and responsibilities. This hierarchy was as apparent in the family as it was in the state. In the family, as elsewhere, male domination was the rule; husbands ruled their wives, masters their servants, parents their children.…

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          • Germanic tribes
            • Germany
              In Germany: Ancient history

              Clear evidence of social differentiation appears in these cultures. Richly furnished burials (containing jewelry and sometimes weapons) have been uncovered in many areas, showing that a wealthy warrior elite was developing. Powerful chiefs became a standard feature of Germanic society, and archaeologists have uncovered the halls where they…

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          • 17th- and 18th-century Europe
            • Encyclopædia Britannica: first edition, map of Europe
              In history of Europe: Corporate society

              The political history of Europe is inevitably the history of privileged minorities. In states of the eastern and northern fringes, “the political nation”—comprising those individuals who had some notion of loyalties beyond the parish and civil duties, if only at a local level,…

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          Oceania

            • Micronesia
              • Bairiki islet
                In Micronesian culture: Social hierarchy and political organization

                A certain amount of hereditary social stratification was found in Micronesia, but its degree varied considerably from some of the smaller Carolinian atolls, which had nominal hereditary chiefs with little special power or wealth, to the high island of Yap, which had several ranked endogamous castes. Other cultures that showed…

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            • Polynesia
              • In Oceanic music and dance: Polynesia

                Genealogical rank is a distinctive feature of Polynesian societies, and music and dance pay allegiance to the rank-based sociopolitical structure, reflecting and validating the system of social distinctions and interpersonal relationships. In these societies, where power resides in the office and the regime is long and…

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              • moai statue, Easter Island
                In Polynesian culture: Stratification

                Social stratification was an inherent feature of Polynesian society, and cultures generally had social classes that were clearly defined in terms of rights, duties, behaviour, and lifestyle.

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            • Vanuatu
              • dilly bag; Aboriginal Australian art, Northern Territory, Australia
                In Oceanic art and architecture: Vanuatu

                …of Vanuatu was the graded society, a hierarchical system of ceremonies performed by men and women to attain greater prestige. The number of grades and their names, as well as the name of the system itself, varied from place to place, but in all areas the grade ceremonies included the…

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            • Latin America
              • Latin America
                In history of Latin America: The central areas in the mature period

                …Spaniards resorted to an ethnic hierarchy, ranking each mixed type according to its physical and cultural closeness to a Spanish ideal. As mixture proceeded across the generations, the types proliferated until finally, at the time of independence, the system collapsed under its own weight. The new categorizations were all at…

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              • Latin America
                In history of Latin America: Mobility and hierarchy

                The Creole elites who had headed the independence cause throughout Latin America had no intention of losing their social, economic, and political power in the construction of new nations. Managing to solidify and even expand their influence after the removal of colonial administration, these…

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            • West Indies
              • West Indies
                In West Indies: Emancipation

                …structure of the grossly inegalitarian societies of the West Indies after emancipation. Colour-class and culture-class correlations persisted in a situation where—excepting the French West Indies from the late 19th century—democracy was systematically denied. The complexity of the social hierarchy of Blacks, whites, and people of mixed ethnicity was compounded on…

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