AQA A-level Sociology (7192): Paper 2 – Stratification and differentiation – Revision Notes

These notes condense the Stratification and differentiation study guide. Read the guide first for full explanations and worked paragraphs.

They cover the Stratification and Differentiation topic of the AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021), numbered 4.2.8 in the A-level subject content. It is assessed in Paper 2: Topics in Sociology (2 hours, 80 marks, 33.3% of A-level). Section B is “one from option 2: 4.2.5, 4.2.6, 4.2.7 or 4.2.8”, and it is worth 40 marks of extended writing.

Use them with the AQA A-level Sociology hub and checklist. Test yourself with the practice questions.

The five content points

1. Stratification and differentiation by social class, gender, ethnicity and age.
2. Dimensions of inequality: class, status and power; differences in life-chances by social class, gender, ethnicity, age and disability.
3. The problems of defining and measuring social class; occupation, gender and social class.
4. Changes in structures of inequality, including globalisation and the transnational capitalist class, and the implications of these changes.
5. The nature, extent and significance of patterns of social mobility.

Key terms

Term	Meaning
Stratification	Ranking of groups in a lasting hierarchy of unequal rewards
Differentiation	Treating groups as different, for example by gender or age
Life chances	Weber’s term: chances of gaining valued things such as health, education and income
Market situation	Weber: the skills, qualifications and property a person brings to the market
Status	Social honour or prestige given to a group
Party (power)	Organised attempts to gain power; the ability to get your way
Means of production	Marx: land, factories and capital used to produce goods
False consciousness	Marx: accepting ideas that hide exploitation
Polarisation	Marx’s prediction that classes would split into two hostile camps
Contradictory class location	Wright: positions, such as managers, that share features of two classes
NS-SEC	National Statistics Socio-economic Classification: eight analytic classes based on employment relations
Conventional approach	Classifying a household by the male “head of household”
Individual approach	Classifying each adult by their own occupation
Embourgeoisement	Claim that affluent manual workers become middle class
Proletarianisation	Claim that routine white-collar workers are deskilled into the working class
Precariat	A group in insecure, short-term work (Standing; Savage)
Transnational capitalist class	Sklair: a capitalist class working across national borders
Absolute mobility	The total amount of movement between classes
Relative mobility	The chances of people from different origins reaching the same position
Elite self-recruitment	Top positions filled from the same privileged group

Theorists and studies at a glance

Who	What	Finding or claim	One evaluation point
Davis and Moore (1945)	Functionalist theory	Higher rewards attract talent to important roles	Tumin (1953): importance is hard to measure and stratification blocks talent
Marx	Conflict theory	Two classes defined by the means of production; polarisation	The middle class grew instead
Weber	Class, status, party	Many classes based on market situation; status and power vary separately	Marxists say it hides the core owner/worker divide
Wright (1985)	Neo-Marxist	Contradictory class locations	Adds complexity Marx did not foresee
Walby (1990)	Feminist	Six structures of patriarchy; private to public patriarchy	Hakim says women’s work patterns partly reflect choice
Hakim (2000)	Preference theory	Home-centred, adaptive and work-centred women	Choices are limited by childcare and employers
Rex and Tomlinson (1979)	Weberian, ethnicity	Minority ethnic underclass in Handsworth	Modood shows big differences between groups
Cumming and Henry (1961)	Age	Disengagement theory: mutual withdrawal of older people and society	Many older people stay active
Oliver (1990)	Social model of disability	Society, not impairment, disables people	Shakespeare (2006): impairment still matters
Goldthorpe (1983)	Gender and class	Defends the conventional household approach	Acker (1973) and Stanworth (1984) call it sexist
Savage and colleagues (2013)	Great British Class Survey	Seven classes from elite to precariat using three capitals	Self-selecting web survey
Goldthorpe and Lockwood (1960s)	Affluent Worker	Little support for embourgeoisement in Luton; Labour loyalties kept	Small, specific sample
Braverman (1974)	Proletarianisation	Clerical work deskilled	Many white-collar workers have gained skills
Pakulski and Waters (1996)	Postmodern	The death of class; many inequalities are status, not class	Class still shapes life chances
Sklair	Globalisation	TCC with corporate, state, technical and consumerist fractions	Business elites still divided by nation
Glass (1954)	Mobility	Strongest continuity at the top (elite self-recruitment)	Compared only men with their fathers
Goldthorpe (1980)	Oxford Mobility Study	More absolute upward mobility; relative chances still unequal	Saunders says ability and effort explain more
Saunders (1996)	Meritocracy	Ability and effort explain much mobility	Breen and Goldthorpe (1999): less advantaged children need more merit to reach the same place
Blanden, Gregg and Machin (2005)	Income mobility	Fell between the 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts	Income is only one measure

Must-know distinctions

• Class vs status. Class is economic position; status is social honour. A lottery winner may gain class position without status.
• Marx vs Weber. Marx: two classes, ownership. Weber: many classes, market situation, plus status and party.
• Medical vs social model of disability. Impairment as the problem vs barriers in society as the problem.
• Objective vs subjective class. A scale’s label vs how a person sees themselves.
• Conventional vs individual approach. Household head vs each adult’s own job.
• Absolute vs relative mobility. More upward movement can happen while relative chances stay unequal.
• Intergenerational vs intragenerational. Compared with parents vs within one career.
• Embourgeoisement vs proletarianisation. Workers moving up vs white-collar workers moving down.

Mini essay plan

Question type: “Evaluate the view that social class is no longer the most important source of inequality in the UK.”

1. Introduction. Define class and stratification. Name the view (postmodern; some feminist and ethnicity theorists) and the challenge (Marxist and Weberian).
2. For the view. Pakulski and Waters: class is dissolving. Beck: individualisation. Walby: gender inequality is structural. Rex and Tomlinson, Modood: ethnicity shapes life chances. Disability and age create their own inequalities.
3. Against the view. Marmot’s social gradient in health. Goldthorpe: relative mobility still unequal. Blanden and colleagues: income mobility fell. Savage: a seven-class model from elite to precariat, built on economic, cultural and social capital.
4. Globalisation. Sklair’s TCC suggests class power has grown, not faded. Standing’s precariat shows new class insecurity.
5. Intersection. Class, gender, ethnicity and age interact; Weber’s three dimensions explain this.
6. Conclusion. Reach a judgement that follows from your evidence. One possible line: class remains important, but it works together with other sources of inequality.

Quick self-test

1. Name Weber’s three dimensions of inequality.
2. What did Tumin argue against Davis and Moore?
3. What is a contradictory class location, and who proposed it?
4. When did NS-SEC have its first major use?
5. Name the three types of capital in the Great British Class Survey.
6. Who argued for the conventional approach to women and class in 1983?
7. Name Sklair’s four fractions of the transnational capitalist class.
8. Define relative mobility.
9. What did Blanden, Gregg and Machin find?
10. What is the social model of disability?

Answers

1. Class, status and party (power).
2. That functional importance is hard to measure and stratification limits the discovery of talent.
3. A position, such as a manager, that shares features of two classes; Erik Olin Wright.
4. The 2001 Census.
5. Economic, cultural and social capital.
6. John Goldthorpe.
7. Corporate, state, technical and consumerist.
8. The chances of people from different class origins reaching the same position, compared with each other.
9. Income mobility fell between children born in 1958 and those born in 1970.
10. The view that people are disabled by barriers in society rather than by their impairment (Oliver).

Where marks are usually lost

• Describing Marx and Weber side by side without saying where they disagree.
• Writing “Weber said there are three classes”. His three dimensions are class, status and party.
• Using “life chances” loosely; it needs concrete examples such as health or education.
• Leaving out disability, even though the specification names it under life chances.
• Calling NS-SEC an income measure rather than a classification of occupations.
• Treating absolute mobility as proof of meritocracy.
• Mentioning globalisation without linking it to Sklair’s transnational capitalist class.
• Listing studies with no evaluation, so analysis and evaluation marks are missed.
• Reaching a conclusion that does not follow from the evidence you gave.

Links to other topics

The specification asks you to draw out links between topics. Do not reteach other units in this answer, but a short link can support analysis.

• Class and the distribution of poverty, wealth and income: Work, Poverty and Welfare.
• Class, gender, ethnicity and health chances: Health.
• Class identity and consumption: Culture and Identity.
• Global inequality between societies: Global Development.

For class patterns in education and crime, see the education revision notes and the Crime and Deviance revision notes.

Official syllabus

These notes are based on the AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021), section 4.2.8 Stratification and Differentiation. Check the latest version on the AQA website. Your teacher will confirm any details of question format not printed in the specification.