SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
India is a very self-conscious society. The term ‘stratification’ refers to the system of ranking of persons that a society adopts. In this system, rank of some strata is higher, some lower. Their sum constitutes the stratification system of that particular society. It indicates the location of a person in society. It also involves the division of population into unequal layers (upper and lower layers) or strata based on income, wealth, gender, ethnicity, power, status, age, or some other characteristic. Its basis and very essence consist in an unequal distribution of rights and privileges, duties and responsibilities, social values and privation, social power and influences among the members of society.
DEFINITION OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
Social stratification can be referred to as dividing society into strata or layers that are superimposed above the other.
According to Raymond W. Murry, “social stratification is a horizontal division of society into ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ social units.”
Kurt B. Mayer defined it as “an arrangement of positions in a graded hierarchy of socially superior and inferior ranks.”
Anthony Giddens writes, “Stratification can be defined as structured inequalities between different groupings of people.”
According to Mayer, “Social Stratification is a system of differentiation which includes a hierarchy of social positions whose occupants are treated as superior, equal or inferior, relative to one another in socially important respects.”
(Any one definition)
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