Chapter 9 – Global Stratification
Learning Objectives • Define social stratification and explain why it is sociologically significant. • Describe and provide examples of the four major systems of social stratification. • Discuss the relationship between gender and social stratification. • Describe the major points of disagreement between Karl Marx and Max Weber regarding the meaning of social class in industrialized societies. • As articulated by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, list the functions that social stratification provides for society. • Discuss Melvin Tumin's rebuttal to Davis and Moore's functionalist view of social stratification. • Explain the conflict perspective's view of social stratification as it relates to class conflict and scarce resources. • Evaluate Gerhard Lenski's attempt to synthesize the functionalist and conflict perspectives' views on social stratification. • Define ideology and understand how elite classes use it to maintain social stratification. • Compare the social stratification system in Great Britain and the former Soviet Union to the social stratification system in the United States. • Identify the major characteristics associated with the Most Industrialized Nations, Industrializing Nations, and Least Industrialized Nations. • Describe and evaluate the major theories pertaining to the origins of and maintenance of global stratification.

Chapter Summary
Social stratification is the division of large numbers of people into layers according to their relative power, property, and prestige. It applies to both nations and to people within a nation, society, or other group. Social stratification affects all of one's life chances from the access to material processions to their position in society to their life expectancy. Although they may differ as to which