Social Structures as part of AQA GCSE Sociology specification.

1. What is a social structure?
1.1 Studying Society

2. • All societies are built up of different parts and
all are organised in some way.
• There are patterns of relationships and a set
of organisations that act as the scaffolding
that keeps society stable.
• All of the essential parts of society have a job
to perform and they all fit with each other to
hold society together.
– What theoretical perspective is this explanation
from?

3. Social Stratification
• Most societies have a system of
social stratification as a basic
element of their structure.
• Having different layers in a society highlights
the differences between the groups but it also
means that those in the same group have a
feeling of togetherness.

4. Social Class
• Sociologists see social class as a powerful
form of stratification but other layers can be
drawn depending on such features as age,
ethnicity, gender, etc.
• Placing people within these layers or strata
means that some will be in higher or lower
positions and some will have power, whereas
others will be relatively powerless.
Theoretical perspective?

5. Social class in modern Britain
• Social class can be measured in a number of
ways but most social class scales use your
occupation to decide where to place you.
• The scale introduced in 2001, which is now
used in all official reports, is shown in Table A
on the next slide (follow on your Nelson
Thornes handout).

6. National Statistics Socio-
Economic Classification (NS-SEC)

7. Data Analysis
• What percentage of those employed occupy
semi-routine and routine occupations?
• 31.3%
3. What types of employment occupy lower
managerial and professional occupations?
• Nurses, journalists, actors, musicians, police
and armed forces

8. Past Classifications
• The NS-SEC replaced a set of groupings known
as the Registrar General’s Classification that
had been used since 1911.
• Some of the research you might come across
could have used this classification and this can
be seen in Table B on the next slide (again
follow on your Nelson Thornes handout)

9. Registrar General’s
Classification

10. Social Grades
• Market researchers and advertisers use the
social gradeshown in Table C. shown in Table C.
classification
Market researchers and advertisers use the
social grade classification

11. Task
1. Identify 1 difference and 1 similarity between
the Registrar General’s and the NS-SEC
scales.
2. Can you identify any problems with the NS-
SEC scale?

12. NS-SEC scale Vs Registrar
• Registrar’s was based on occupation and does
not accommodate those who do not work
(students, retired, unemployed etc.)
• Registrar’s was based upon head of
household, whereas NC-SEC is based upon
whole population.

13. Problems with all scales
• Scales do not tell about an individual’s wealth
and property.
• It is not clear where the wealthy upper class
or National Lottery winners should be placed

14. Task
• Where do you place yourself on the scales in
tables, A, B and C?
• Why do you think there is no mention of
‘upper’ class in these scales?

15. Is social class important?

16. Task
• Calculate roughly the difference between higher
professionals and the routine occupations taking
A Levels
• It’s around 28% difference
• Calculate roughly the difference between higher
professionals and the routine occupations
obtaining 8 or more A* to C grades in their GCSEs
• It’s around 45% difference
What does this tell us?

18. What does this tell us about class?
• That we have different ‘life chances’:
– Infant mortality
– Life expectancy
– Educational outcomes
– Employment prospects etc etc
... are a result or consequence of belonging to a
particular class.

19. Other forms of social
division and stratification

20. Gender, Race and Age
• Gender, race and age are other forms of
stratification.
• Feminists approaches would see gender as a
more important cause of inequality than social
class – why?

21. Families
• Families structure our lives.
• They mould and shape us into individuals who
can take an active part in our society, and are
responsible for teaching us the basic values and
norms of our society.
• The structure of the family involves a
complicated set of roles and relationships that
are affected by such things as social class,
income, age and gender.

22. Education
• Between one fifth and one quarter of your lives will be
structured by the education process.
• Many babies have their days structured by care
assistants in nurseries and crèches and we are all
affected by schools, from the age of 4 or 5 through to
16.
• Most of you will choose to stay in full-time education
until you are 18 and many will go on to higher
education, leaving only when you reach 21 or 22 .

23. Work
• Many of you will have part-time jobs and most of
you will find full-time employment after you gain
skills and qualifications.
• Work is a really structured and important part of
life as it provides income, status, rivals and
friends.
• It also organises most of our waking hours by,
and full-time employment could be seen as
working a 5:2 shift with weekends being their
two days off.

24. Comparing Forms of Stratification
Achieved and Ascribed
Open and Closed

25. Different forms of stratification
• Stratification systems differ according to
whether status is ascribed or achieved
• Ascribed – social positions are fixed at birth
and unchanging over time
• Achieved – social positions are earned on the
basis of personal talents or merit.

26. Open or closed
• Open society – individuals can move up or
down between the strata
• Closed society – movement between strata is
much less likely to occur.
• Social mobility – is where people can move
between the strata
• In which type of society is social mobility most
likely to occur?

27. Ascribed Stratification
• Caste system in traditional India linked to the
Hindu religion
– Brahmin Higher status
– Kshatriyas
– Vaishyas
– Shudras
– Dalits (untoucables) Lower status

28. Ascribed Stratification
• Apartheid in South Africa (1948-1994) was
based upon a government policy of racial
segregation – ethnicity was used as the basis
for stratification.
– White Higher status
– Coloured
– Black Lower status
• Black people denied citizenship rights and opportunities
available to white people = life chances much lower /
little scope for social mobility

29. Theoretical Perspectives

30. Marxist
• Karl Marx identified 2 main classes:
– Bourgeoisie (ruling class)
– Proletariat (working class)
• Membership of these classes is based upon
economic factors: ownership and non-
ownership.
• The B owns the means of production and the
P does not and has to sell their labour to the B
in order to survive
• System is viewed as being unfair = conflict

31. Marxist
• Marx believed the rich would get richer and
the poor poorer and this would lead to
revolution.
• The class system would disappear leading to
an equal society.
• This hasn’t happened yet so perhaps society
needs a class system to function?

32. Functionalist
• The functionalist approach
argues that some positions are
vital to society, but not
everyone has the talent to fill
these posts.
• A system of inequality and
unequal rewards is functional in
all societies to attract the most
talented people to the most
important occupations.