SOC 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Toronto City, Class Consciousness, White Trash
Class and Social Stratification
1) Stratification : Society's structure is a system of layers, categories and classes
- social stratification is the categorization of people into socioeconomic status based upon their
occupation, income, wealth and social status
2) Universal but variable
- Societies have it at all different levels
3) Persists over time
- mobility moving up the system of stratification
- Over time the system evolves
Income & Wealth
•Components of stratification
-Income : economic gain people make from salary (individual)
-Wealth : everything of value that a person owns (house, car, investments, etc).
•Both income & wealth are unevenly distributed in Canada
•Income :
- Top 20% earn 47% of all the income in Canada/year
- Bottom 20% earn 4% of all the income in Canada/year
- The average CEO makes 7.3 million/year while average Canadian makes 43,000$/year
•Wealth :
- Top 20% hold 70% of Canada's wealth
- Top 10% hold 53% of Canada’s wealth
- Bottom 20% have less than 1% of Canada’s wealth
Ideology
: set of opinions of beliefs
•dog eat dog rank of individualism - examples : Forbes magazine, reality shows that focus on wealthy
people
•Ideological Hegemony : idea that ruling class has control over society belief system
Class
•Tend to focus on status (position held within society - generally power but we tend to focus on gender,
religion, race,etc) rather than focusing on class but Class is a central tool in society.
•More towards neoliberalism ideology that there is no discussion of class in this country. People have no
sense of class consciousness . (when asked people think they are in the middle class when they are
not)
•Made up of the Owning Class (rich & powerful) and the Working Class (wage workers who engage in
production) - lots of controversies of what the working class is
•Classes can not exist unless there is another class that corresponds. (no upperclass unless it could
compare to middle class)
•Classes are in conflict
•Classes change over time by expanding or contracting
•Marxist - inequality of ownership and power V.S. stratification - socioeconomic status
3 City Thesis
•UFT study that shows the shifting of landscape in Toronto over last 40 years
•Income and wealth have districted into geographical areas in Toronto
•City 1 : high income - see increase relative to everyones income - central city - 2005 it was 88,000$
•City 2 : Middle income - income increase matches the city as a whole
•City 3 : Low income - biggest sector - average income in 2005 was 27,000$ - fastest growing
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Class and social strati cation: strati cation : society"s structure is a system of layers, categories and classes. Social strati cation is the categorization of people into socioeconomic status based upon their occupation, income, wealth and social status: universal but variable. Societies have it at all different levels: persists over time. Mobility moving up the system of strati cation. Income : economic gain people make from salary (individual) Wealth : everything of value that a person owns (house, car, investments, etc): both income & wealth are unevenly distributed in canada, income : Top 20% earn 47% of all the income in canada/year. Bottom 20% earn 4% of all the income in canada/year. The average ceo makes 7. 3 million/year while average canadian makes 43,000$/year: wealth : Top 20% hold 70% of canada"s wealth. Top 10% hold 53% of canada"s wealth. Bottom 20% have less than 1% of canada"s wealth.
