FOUNDATION OF EDUCATION :: ROLE OF EDUCATION IN SOCIAL STRATIFICATION.

In our previous blog we discussed in detail regarding social change. Today, through this blog we will discuss yet another important factor, its the  Social stratification. 
 The term Stratification is derived from Geology. As a geologist finds layers in the earth or the rock layers created by natural process of weathering, a sociologist finds layers in society or social life. He finds that how the various groups of the society are related to each other in unequal terms. How the society is distributed as rich, poor, upper, middle and lower classes, rulers and ruled ones etc. Every society is characterized by a hierarchy of rank. This is called as Social Stratification in sociology. Each and every individual are a part of the society and so this relates to every individual residing in this society.
In sociology, social stratification is a concept involving the "classification of people into groups based on shared socioeconomic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions." When differences lead to greater status, power or privilege for some groups over the other it is called Social Stratification. According to Raymond W. Murray; “Social Stratification is horizontal division of society into ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ social units.” Every society is divided into distinct groups. Even the most primitive societies had some form of social stratification. 

Social Stratification is a system by which society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy. It is based on four basic principles: 

(1) Social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences; 

(2) Social stratification carries over from generation to generation;

(3) Social stratification is universal but variable; 

(4) Social stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs as well.

  THE FEATURES:

  The main features of social stratification are;

•   It is a social and economic categorization of individuals within a societal framework.
•   It is based on Caste, Class, and Status & Power of a Community or Section of People within the framework of a society.
• Social Stratification exists because of natural differences in people’s abilities.
• Due to Social Stratification societies tend to be stable and are held together through consensus.
•  It lessens conflicts & provides structure. As the deserving and educated are placed at a good position, so it lessens the conflicts and provide a definite structure to the society as a whole.
• Social Stratification is a natural & voluntary separation according to race, social & economic status.The agents of social stratification are the family, the school and the occupation. According to Max Weber, Class is defined as a multidimensional concept, which is determined by three major variables

1. Wealth,
2. Power and
3. Prestige.

• Wealth: It refers to one's property, capital and income.
• Power: It is the ability to make major decisions or to influence others to act in one's benefit.
• Prestige: Occupation is a main factor in one's prestige. Education affects occupational status, income is related with prestige.

THE CHARACTERISTICS: 

Stratification is universal, social, historical and dynamic concept.

THE CAUSES OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION:

There are five basic points which gives clear idea about the causes of social stratification;

• Inequality – Inequality exists because of natural differences in people’s abilities.
• Conflict – Stratification occurs due to conflict between different classes, with the upper classes using superior power to take a larger share of the social resources.
• Power – Power influences one’s definition of self and the importance of ideas in defining social situations.
• Wealth – Difference in the wealth is also one of the causes of social stratification.
• Instability – Instability in the society being the cause of social stratification enhances stability and induces members of the society to work hard. 

  THE CATEGORIES OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION:

 The categories of social stratification are; social class, gender, race and ethnicity and age and disability. Some indicative features of these categories are as follows:

Social Class
• Distinction between wealth and income and their distribution in society.
• Social mobility and the link between class and life chances.
• Changing nature of class and its relationship to the economy and occupational structure.

  Gender
• Difference between biological notion of sex and the socially constructed notion of gender.
• Nature and consequences of gender-role socialization.
• Gender inequalities in terms of occupation, family and social roles and expectations.

Race and Ethnicity
• Nature, size and distribution of different racial and ethnic groups in modern society.
• Inequality relating to race and ethnicity; in particular, discrimination in education, employment and on life chances.
• Role of the mass media in the formation of stereotypes and the consequences for ethnic groups.

Age
• Social construction of the concept of age, including awareness of different notions of childhood, adolescence and old age in different societies.
• Inequalities as a result of age, such as employment, unemployment, low pay, access to benefits and restrictions on social behaviour.
• Implications of changes in the age structure of modern society.

Disability
• Social construction of disability.
• Inequality relating to disability; discrimination in education, employment and on life chances.
• Role of the mass media in the formation of negative stereotypes and the consequences for disabled individuals and groups.

The above aspects of social stratification should be studies in order to explore the nature of social relationships, processes, structures and issues. Sub-cultural, cross-cultural, historical, contemporary or anthropological examples should be used wherever possible and candidates should be encouraged to apply insights to current social issues or their own life experiences. Cross-cultural and/or anthropological examples may be drawn from the Socialization.

Two opposing theories of stratification are most often used to explain the unequal class system in our society. Class system in our society:

 EDUCATION AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION:

In Sociology and Anthropology, social stratification is the hierarchical arrangement of individuals into social classes, castes and divisions within a society. These hierarchies, which may be overtly or covertly present, or not present at all in some societies, are quite common in state-level societies. Several studies are going on the relationship between education and social stratification. Stratification is patterned social inequality. It can be open or closed based upon the interaction of various layers of the society.

In our society, we rank people according to the scarce resources they control. Money and property are scarce resources in our society and those who own a great deal of money and property, wealthy people, can use this resource to gain power. It has been said that very respected people also control another scarce resource – public respect and that they can use this resource to gain power. 

Political leaders are likewise powerful because they are able to control the members of a political party. This ranking of people according to their wealth, prestige or party position is known as Social Stratification. Stratification separates the rich from the poor, the powerful from the powerless. Those who possess scarce resources have a high rank and those who do not possess them have a low rank. 

Our place in the stratification system influences every part of our lives; where we live, go to school and work; what we eat how we vote and whom we marry. Our sexual behaviour, sports, hobbies and health are all affected by the rank society gives us. Therefore, social stratification is an area of great interest to sociologists. 

A caste system comes by birth and is allocated to the individual. A class system is based upon people falling into classes based on factors like wealth, income, education and occupation. A meritocracy is a system of social stratification that confers standing based upon personal worth and rewarding efforts. Most of these shows how access to education and educational achievements are related to the socioeconomic background. Though education leads to formation of various layers in the society. Education helps individuals to develop their abilities and aptitudes, it has also consistently been a means of equalization.

  Universal education will help reduce the disparities of wealth and power by providing able young people with skills to enable them to find a valued place and position in the society. All human beings are not born with same aptitudes but a society if so wishes can provide equal opportunities to all its members for achieving goals and aspirations of their life. 

Literature in this area of sociology of education deals with broadly three issues:

1. Caste, class and education.
2. Women Education.
3. Education of the poor and slum-dwellers.

STRATIFICATION AND EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES:

Social stratification refers to differential access to resources, power, autonomy, and status across social groups. Social stratification implies social inequality; if some groups have access to more resources than others, the distribution of those resources is inherently unequal.

Societies can be stratified on any number of dimensions.

Even though social stratification is a multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional field of study, there is a tendency to understand it mainly from the perspective of sociology. Further, most analysts perceive Indian society as a series of antinomies such as caste/class, caste/power, structure/culture and structure/process. 

Equality is said to exist only when inequality has been removed. But inequality is not eliminated. Whatever measures may be taken to ensure equality, inequality will exist to some degree. Thus, what the programs of equality do or can do is to narrow down the inequalities. It means “elimination of that level or type of Inequality which is considered undesirable or unacceptable within the society.” So, the purist of equality aims not at total equality in the philosophical sense, but at an equitable distribution of societal resources.

Modern society views education as an important societal resource and a means of achieving the goal of egalitarianism. Education is looked upon as a means of raising the social status of an individual in various ways. It is accepted as a basic human need to have a desirable quality of life. Given equal opportunity for general, vocational, technical and professional education most citizens have equal status in the society. Education is often considered as an equalizer.

Equality of educational opportunities means that an individual has equal access to education. Equality of educational opportunities is one of the goals of the ideology of Egalitarianism. However, inequality of educational opportunities exists throughout the world and more so in India.

The Education Commission (1964-1966) has observed: The main social objectives of education is to equalize opportunity, enabling the backward or underprivileged classes and individuals to use education as a lever for the improvement of their condition. Every society that values social justice and is anxious to improve a lot of the common man and cultivate all available talent must ensure progressive equality of opportunity to all sections of the population.

 

DIFFERENTIAL STANDARD OF EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS:

Children from poor families receive education in substandard institutions which are not properly equipped with teachers, teaching aids and apparatus. Usually urban schools and colleges are of better standard than rural schools and colleges. Differences in the standard of educational institutions ultimately cause inequality in the standard of students.

POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT:

To ensure equalization of educational opportunities certain measures to be taken with immediate effect. These measures may be based on the needs and status of disadvantaged groups, disabled children, and girls.

•  Primary Education: Primary education should seek to satisfy the basic needs of all people. There should not be any differentiation of curricula at this stage. Equality of educational opportunities at the primary stage requires provision of free and compulsory education for all children without any discrimination.
• Secondary Education: Individual differences among boys and girls are more prominent at the secondary stage diversified curricula should be introduced to cater to the needs, interests and capabilities of students.
• Higher Professional Education: At the stage of higher education and professional education emphasis should be placed on individual capacity or merit and maintenance of quality and standard.
• Compensatory Education: Disadvantaged children have an unstimulating environment. They attend primary schools without prerequisite learning which are necessary for successful completion of primary education.

COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM:
  Equalization of educational opportunity necessitates adoption of a common school system both at the primary and secondary stages. It will be a system with the following:

1. Open to all children without any discrimination.
2. Admission will be based on talent.
3. Adequate facilities and reasonably good standards
4. No tuition fee will be charged.
5. Meet the needs and aspirations of the middle and lower classes.

Nationalization of education system is an important step to equalize educational opportunities. There should be only one agency in the country to spread and control education. No private agency should be allowed to function in the field of education. Uniform educational facilities can only be provided in a national system of education.

FREE EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIPS:
To provide free and universal primary education for the age group 6-14 is a constitutional obligation. All Education should be tuition free. Free textbooks and writing materials should be made available to poor and meritorious students to ensure equality no limited for introducing large number of loan-scholarships, improving the method of selection.

EQUALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: 

The equalization of educational opportunities is essentially linked with the equality notions in the social system. The social system which intends to provide equal opportunities for the advancement of all must make provisions for equal educational opportunities also. Modern industrial society education has become the main agency for socializing new born into law abiding citizens and productive members of the society.

Formal education has become almost indispensable because to participate in economic production one needs to learn specialized skills which cannot be acquired through family or any other agency. Due to the indispensability of formal education in advanced industrial societies education is provided by the state as a matter of right for all its citizens. Formal institutions – schools, colleges and universities are organized for this purpose.

In most societies, today legislation exist guaranteeing equality of the right of education. In fact, to realize this ideal of equality of educational opportunities special efforts are made by the welfare states in industrial societies to provide compulsory education to the socially deprived. In developing countries like India state has assumed the responsibility to
provide universal free education at the school level. Special policy measures have been developed to spread modern scientific secular education to rural areas and policy of protective discriminating has been adopted to encourage the traditionally deprived section like SC and ST to take to modern education. However, in spite of the creation of a legal
framework in most societies to ensure quality of educational opportunity such an ideal continues to be elusive in reality even in the industrially advanced societies.

Bourdon relates the costs and benefits of course selection to family and peer group solidarity. His work has important implications for practical solutions to the problem of inequality of education opportunity.  Even if positive discrimination worked and schools could compensate for the primary effects of stratification considerable inequality of educational opportunity would remain.

Bourdon argues that there are two ways of removing the secondary effects of stratification. The first involves the educational system. If it provides a single compulsory curriculum for all students the element of choice in the selection of course and duration of stay in the system would be removed. The individual would no longer be influenced by his courses and remain in full time education for the same period. He said that more the branching points there are in the educational system point at which the student can leave or choose between alternative courses the more likely working class students are to leave or choose lower level
courses. 

The gradual raising of the school leaving age in all advanced industrial societies has reduced inequality of educational opportunity but the present trend indicates that this reduction will at best proceed at a much slower rate. Bourdon’s second solution to the problem of inequality of educational opportunity is the abolition of social stratification. He feels that this is the direction of economic equality as the most effective way of reducing inequality or educational opportunity. 

As a result, he argues that the key to equality of opportunity lies outside rather than inside the schools. Bourdon concludes: for inequality or educational opportunity to be eliminated, either a society must be un-stratified or its school system must be completely undifferentiated.

PROBLEMS CONCERNING EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITIES IN EDUCATION:

Education helps in establishing equality and ensuring social justice but the system of education itself can add to the existing inequalities or at least perpetuate the same. Inequalities of educational opportunities arise due to Poverty as the poor cannot afford to meet the expenses of education. Children studying in the rural schools must compete with the children in urban areas where there are well-equipped schools. In the places where no primary, secondary or collegiate educational institutions exist children do not get the same opportunity as those who have all these in their neighbourhood. Wide inequalities also arise from differences in home environments. A child from a rural household or slum does not have the same opportunity as a child from an upper-class home with educated parents. There is wide sex disparity in India. Here girl’s education is not given the same encouragement as boys. Girls are still secluded in the four walls of the house, they have restrictions and are pressurized to stay under the burden of taboos arising due to the mind set of family members or due to the huge responsibilities lying on the tiny shoulders. Education of backward classes including SC and ST and economically backward sections is not at par with that of other communities or classes.