SOC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Social Stratification, Structural Functionalism, Meritocracy

• School: Ball State University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 100
• Professor: Fang Gong

Document Summary

One problem that arises from social class is absolute poverty. Absolute poverty is defined as the condition of having too little income to buy or access to necessities such as food, water, clothing etc. This social inequality is apparent to everyone; however, some believe that social class is dependent on work ethic, with complete lack of the other factors that determine social status such as family wealth, race, gender, etc. This is the basic idea behind meritocracy, which is defined as a system of social stratification where position is based on ability and effort rather than class or wealth. In my opinion, meritocracy is an excuse to justify the inequalities that result from social class, and is backed by the structural functionalist theory. This theory concludes that social class is necessary for society to function normally, and that people of society get what they deserve in terms of class status.