Excerpt: Great Divides

Shapiro, Thomas M. [2004] 2005. "Great Divides". Pp. 136-143 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

In the introductory essay of his own anthology, Thomas M. Shapiro refers to the Great U-Turn (a curious trend in which all measures of social inequality in the modern era decrease during the 20th Century, reach their low point in the 1970s, and then begin to rise up exponentially) and suggests that this reversal could be the result of economic restructuring. As American society becomes increasingly unequal, it is increasingly important that we understand how these social strata are formed, what qualities characterize them, what shape the hierarchy takes, and the nature of interactions between and among members of the different strata.

He points this out in opposition to the American belief of the "American Dream", one in which every one is equal and has the same opportunities to succeed: "As Americans, we do not favor the idea that some people or groups are privileged by their background, while others are systematically blocked from success. Economic opportunity and social equality are two pillars of the American belief system."

As an overview, the excerpt defines such terms as "strata" and "stratification" along with the highly relevant notions of "ascribed status" and "achieved status", which combine to characterize various positions within the social hierarchy.

Unlike Marx, who views economic class as the sole determinant for one's social position, Shapiro claims that it is a combination of "three dimensions of social stratification: socioeconomic class, race and ethnicity, and gender", which must always be considered as "different and interrelated". He goes on to briefly summarize these three dimensions and concludes by remarking that intergroup conflicts extend into what many Americans regard as the remedy for inequality--education--as those who seek upwards mobility attempt to implement change and those who seek to maintain the status quo fight to stay the same, or to implement their own changes.

It's a brief but powerful outline for what's called intersectionality theory in college courses. The three dimensions certainly are interwoven, as any statistical analysis will show, and a good deal of thought must be put into considering why this is so, and how it came to be so.

Relevance: 4/5 (relevant)
Salience: 4/5 (salient)

References:

• Henry Ford - as an example. "Restructuring includes a variety of strategies, policies, and practices... [including changes] from Fordist (mass assembly line) production to more flexible and decentralized production..."
• Grusky, David B., ed. 1994. Social Stratification: Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. - cited in agreement.
  
• Fisher, Claude S., Michael Hout, Martin Sanchez Jankowski, Samual R. Lucas, Ann Swidler, and Kim Voss. 1996. Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. - as an example.
• Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black Feminist Thought. New York: Routledge. - cited in agreement.
• Karl Marx, Max Weber - cited as a cause. "The two major sociological explanations of class derive from its two most influential contributors, Karl Marx and Max Weber."
• Winant, Howard. 1994. Racial Conditions. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. - cited in agreement.
• Erickson, Robert, and John H. Goldthorpe. 1992. "Individual or Family? Results from Two Approaches to Class Assignment." Acta Sociologica 35:95-105. - as an example.
• Rubin, Lillian B. 1994. Families on the Fault Line. New York: HarperCollins. - as an example.
• Min, Pyong Gap. 1996. Caught in the Middle: Korean Merchants in America's Multiethnic Cities. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. - as an example.