AQA A-level Sociology (7192): Paper 2 – Stratification and differentiation – Study Guide

This guide covers the Stratification and Differentiation topic of the AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021). The topic is numbered 4.2.8 in the A-level subject content (the specification at a glance also lists it as 3.2.8). It is assessed in Paper 2: Topics in Sociology, where Section B asks you to answer on “one from option 2: 4.2.5, 4.2.6, 4.2.7 or 4.2.8”.

Use it with the AQA A-level Sociology hub and the AQA A-level Sociology checklist. For how the three papers fit together, see the course structure guide.

Coverage table

Syllabus reference	What you must know or be able to do (from the specification)	Where assessed
4.2.8	Stratification and differentiation by social class, gender, ethnicity and age	Paper 2, Section B
4.2.8	Dimensions of inequality: class, status and power; differences in life-chances by social class, gender, ethnicity, age and disability	Paper 2, Section B
4.2.8	The problems of defining and measuring social class; occupation, gender and social class	Paper 2, Section B
4.2.8	Changes in structures of inequality, including globalisation and the transnational capitalist class, and the implications of these changes	Paper 2, Section B
4.2.8	The nature, extent and significance of patterns of social mobility	Paper 2, Section B

You must know “both the evidence of and the sociological explanations for” this content, linked to the core theme “social differentiation, power and stratification”.

How Paper 2 is assessed

• 2 hour written exam, 80 marks, 33.3% of A-level.
• Section A: one from option 1: 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3 or 4.2.4.
• Section B: one from option 2: 4.2.5, 4.2.6, 4.2.7 or 4.2.8.
• Section A: extended writing, 40 marks. Section B: extended writing, 40 marks.
• Approximate weightings for Paper 2: AO1 13%, AO2 11%, AO3 9% of the A-level.

So this topic sits beside Beliefs in Society, Global Development and The Media. The specification does not print how the 40 marks are split into questions; your teacher will confirm the format and the command words used.

1. Stratification and differentiation by class, gender, ethnicity and age

Stratification is the ranking of groups in a lasting hierarchy of unequal rewards. Differentiation is the process by which groups are treated as different, for example by gender or age.

Social class

Functionalism. Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, “Some Principles of Stratification” (1945), argued that stratification is functional. Some positions matter more to society and need scarce talent and long training. Higher rewards motivate the most able people to fill them.

Evaluation. Melvin Tumin (1953) replied that it is hard to show which jobs are “functionally important”. Nurses and refuse collectors are vital but poorly paid. Stratification can also block talent, because poorer children have less chance to train.

Marxism. Karl Marx saw class as a relationship to the means of production. The bourgeoisie own them and exploit the proletariat, who sell their labour. Marx expected polarisation: the middle groups would shrink and workers would become a “class for itself” with class consciousness. Ideology creates false consciousness, which delays this.

Evaluation. The middle class grew rather than shrank. Revolution did not happen in industrial capitalist societies. Neo-Marxists such as Erik Olin Wright, Classes (1985), responded with the idea of contradictory class locations: managers who control workers but are themselves employees.

Weberianism. Max Weber linked class to market situation: the skills, qualifications and property a person brings to the market. This produces many classes, not two. Weber also separated class from status (social honour) and party (organised power). These can vary independently. Goldthorpe’s multi-class scale builds on this.

Gender

Feminists argue that conventional class theory ignored women. Sylvia Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy (1990), identified six structures of patriarchy: paid work, the household, the state, violence, sexuality and culture. She argued there has been a shift from private patriarchy (in the home) to public patriarchy (in work and the state). Marxist feminists link women’s position to capitalism, for example as a cheap, flexible workforce.

Catherine Hakim’s preference theory, set out in Work-Lifestyle Choices in the 21st Century (2000), offers a different view. She argues that women choose between home-centred, adaptive and work-centred lifestyles, so differences in work patterns partly reflect choice. Critics reply that “choices” are limited by childcare costs and employer practices.

Ethnicity

John Rex and Sally Tomlinson, Colonial Immigrants in a British City (1979), studied Handsworth in Birmingham. Using a Weberian approach, they argued that many minority ethnic people faced discrimination in jobs and housing and formed an underclass below the white working class. Marxists instead link ethnic inequality to the needs of capitalism, which can use migrant labour and divide the working class. Tariq Modood, using the Fourth PSI survey, Ethnic Minorities in Britain (1997), showed large differences between minority groups. This makes a single “ethnic minority” category misleading.

Age

Elaine Cumming and William Henry, Growing Old (1961), proposed disengagement theory: ageing involves a mutual withdrawal between older people and the rest of society, so younger people can take over roles. Critics reply that many older people stay active. A Marxist view argues that capitalism values people for their labour, so people outside paid work can lose status and income.

Worked paragraph. Davis and Moore argue that higher rewards attract talent to important roles [knowledge]. Applied to the UK, this might explain why surgeons earn more than shop assistants [application]. However, it cannot explain why a person who inherits a large estate is rewarded without filling any role, which suggests rewards reflect power as well as function [analysis]. Tumin’s point that stratification limits the discovery of talent strengthens the Marxist case [evaluation].

2. Dimensions of inequality and life chances

Life chances is Weber’s term for the opportunities a person has to gain things valued in a society: good health, education, housing, income and long life. Weber’s three dimensions explain why groups differ.

• Class (economic position): income, wealth and job security.
• Status (social honour): for example, how an ethnic group or a disabled person is regarded.
• Power (party): the ability to get your way. Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (1974), described three faces: decision-making, agenda-setting and shaping what people want.

Life chances by group.

• Class: The Marmot Review, Fair Society, Healthy Lives (2010), described a social gradient in health in England: the lower a person’s social position, the worse their health tends to be. Class also shapes educational outcomes (see the education and differential achievement guide).
• Gender: horizontal segregation (men and women in different types of work) and vertical segregation (fewer women at the top of organisations) affect pay and pensions.
• Ethnicity: life chances differ between groups, as Modood showed. Explanations include discrimination, class position and differences in qualifications.
• Age: income and status change across the life course, for example after retirement.
• Disability: the medical model locates disability in the person’s impairment. The social model, set out by Michael Oliver, The Politics of Disablement (1990), argues that people are disabled by barriers in society, such as inaccessible buildings and employer attitudes. Tom Shakespeare, Disability Rights and Wrongs (2006), argued that the social model can underplay the real effects of impairment.

Worked paragraph. Weber’s concept of status helps explain disability inequality [knowledge]. A wheelchair user with a degree may hold strong market skills but still be turned down for jobs in offices without step-free access [application]. This shows the barrier is social, not only economic, which supports Oliver’s social model [analysis]. Shakespeare would add that pain or fatigue can limit work even where barriers are removed [evaluation].

3. Defining and measuring social class

Sociologists usually measure class by occupation, which is linked to life chances.

• The Registrar General’s scale was the official scale before NS-SEC. It grouped occupations by social standing.
• The National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) had its first major use in the 2001 Census. It is based on the Goldthorpe schema and groups jobs by employment relations and conditions, such as job security and promotion prospects. Its eight analytic classes run from higher managerial and professional occupations down to routine occupations, with “never worked or long-term unemployed” as the eighth.

Problems of defining and measuring class.

• Occupation misses the very wealthy who do not need to work, and people outside paid work.
• Objective class (a scale) and subjective class (how people see themselves) may not match.
• Scales based on occupation leave out cultural and social resources. Mike Savage and colleagues’ Great British Class Survey (2013, in the journal Sociology) measured economic, cultural and social capital. It produced seven classes, from the elite to the precariat. Critics noted that its web survey was self-selecting.

Occupation, gender and social class. The conventional approach classified a household by the “head of household”, usually the male earner. John Goldthorpe defended this in “Women and Class Analysis: In Defence of the Conventional View” (1983). He argued that women’s paid work was often interrupted and that the male wage shaped the household’s life chances. Joan Acker, “Women and Social Stratification: A Case of Intellectual Sexism” (1973), had already criticised this approach. Michelle Stanworth (1984) replied that women’s class position should not be merged with their husbands’. The individual approach classifies each adult by their own occupation, which can place a couple in two classes.

Worked paragraph. NS-SEC measures class through employment relations [knowledge]. In a household where one partner is a nurse and the other a delivery driver, the conventional approach would classify the household by one earner and ignore the other [application]. This hides the resources both bring and the inequality within the household [analysis]. Stanworth’s individual approach fixes this, although Goldthorpe would say the household, not the person, shares life chances [evaluation].

4. Changes in structures of inequality

Deindustrialisation and the changing class structure. Manual manufacturing jobs have declined in the UK while service and professional work has grown.

• Embourgeoisement. In the 1950s some argued that affluent manual workers were becoming middle class. Goldthorpe and Lockwood’s Affluent Worker studies of manual workers in Luton in the 1960s found little support. Many of the workers kept working-class political loyalties, such as voting Labour.
• Proletarianisation. Harry Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capital (1974), argued that routine white-collar work is being deskilled, so many clerical workers are in effect working class.
• Underclass debates. Charles Murray argued from a New Right view that welfare rewards the conditions it relieves, creating an underclass with distinct behaviour. Critics argue the poor share mainstream values but lack opportunities.
• The precariat. Guy Standing, The Precariat (2011), described a growing group in insecure, short-term work with few rights. Savage’s survey also named a precariat.

Postmodern views. Jan Pakulski and Malcolm Waters, The Death of Class (1996), argued that class is dissolving in advanced societies and that many inequalities read as class are better seen as differences of status. Ulrich Beck’s idea of individualisation holds that people in late modernity increasingly have to construct their own lives, which may weaken collective identities. Critics reply that class still shapes life chances even if people do not identify with it, as the social gradient in health shows.

Globalisation and the transnational capitalist class. Leslie Sklair, in The Transnational Capitalist Class, argued that a capitalist class now works across national borders. He identified four fractions: corporate (executives of transnational corporations), state (globalising politicians and officials), technical (globalising professionals) and consumerist (merchants and media).

Implications of these changes. Capital can move production abroad, which weakens the bargaining power of workers in one country. Inequality between countries may fall while inequality within countries rises. Critics of Sklair ask whether the TCC is truly unified, since national interests still divide business elites.

Worked paragraph. Sklair argues that a transnational capitalist class pursues profit across borders [knowledge]. When a firm moves its call centre from a UK town to another country, local workers lose jobs while shareholders gain [application]. This suggests class relations now operate globally, which supports a Marxist reading of change [analysis]. However, Pakulski and Waters would argue that class is dissolving, so the workers’ position may be better read as a status difference [evaluation].

5. Social mobility

Social mobility is movement between strata. Intergenerational mobility compares people with their parents; intragenerational mobility tracks a person over their own career. Absolute mobility is the total amount of movement. Relative mobility compares the chances of people from different backgrounds. Short-range mobility is a move to an adjacent class; long-range mobility crosses several. Elite self-recruitment is when top positions are filled from the same group.

Key studies.

• David Glass, Social Mobility in Britain (1954), drew on a 1949 survey comparing men with their fathers. Continuity was strongest at the top: sons of professional and managerial fathers were most likely to stay in that class.
• The Oxford Mobility Study (1972), reported by Goldthorpe in Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain (1980), found substantial absolute upward mobility as professional and managerial jobs expanded. Relative chances, though, stayed broadly unequal.
• Peter Saunders, Unequal but Fair? (1996), argued that ability and effort explain much of the mobility pattern, so Britain is to a large extent a meritocracy.
• Richard Breen and John Goldthorpe (1999) re-analysed Saunders’ cohort data. Merit played a part, but children from less advantaged origins needed substantially more merit to reach the same destinations.
• Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Stephen Machin (2005) compared income mobility for children born in 1958 and in 1970 and found that it had fallen.

Significance. High mobility may make inequality look fair. Low relative mobility suggests advantage is passed on through economic, cultural and social capital. Studies that compared only men with their fathers missed women’s mobility.

Worked paragraph. The Oxford Mobility Study found that absolute upward mobility rose [knowledge]. In a town where new office and professional jobs open up, many children of manual workers move up, but children of professionals keep their advantage [application]. So rising mobility does not prove the system is fair [analysis]. Saunders would reply that ability, not just class, explains who rises [evaluation].

Common errors

• Saying Weber had two classes. Weber saw many classes based on market situation.
• Treating status and class as the same thing. Weber kept them separate.
• Confusing absolute and relative mobility, or claiming more upward mobility proves a meritocracy.
• Describing NS-SEC as an income scale. It groups occupations by employment relations.
• Ignoring disability, which the specification names under life chances.

For class differences in crime, see the Crime and Deviance study guide. For designing a study of mobility or life chances, see the Methods in Context guide. Next, read the revision notes and the practice questions.

Official syllabus

This guide is 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.