Final answer:
Social stratification is a society's ranking of people into socioeconomic tiers based on various factors including wealth and power. These systems can be closed or open, influencing an individual's social mobility. This concept is a key aspect of understanding how societies are structured and how inequalities are perpetuated.
Step-by-step explanation:
Social Stratification Defined
Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power. It is a hierarchical organization of different groups of people, and it can be influenced by various elements such as family ancestry, race, ethnicity, age, and gender. Stratification systems are structured to be either 'closed', allowing little change in social position, or 'open', permitting movement and interaction between the layers.
Understanding Social Stratification
Stratification reflects an unequal distribution of resources, often resulting in varying levels of authority and respect, commonly referred to as power and prestige. The types of stratification systems include castes, classes, and meritocracies, though a pure meritocracy has never truly existed. Societies' cultural beliefs and values shape and reinforce these inequalities.
On a global scale, stratification examines the wealth, economic stability, and power of countries, classifying them based on their productivity and the income they generate. Different sociological perspectives, such as functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, offer varied interpretations of social stratification and its implications.