Stratification: Social Division and Inequality

Book Preface

Why are the social backgrounds of friends so strongly related? Why is falling in love apparently constrained by our occupational position? Stratification: Social division and inequality is about who gets what, and how. It is concerned with the patterning of inequality and its enduring consequences for the lives of those who experience it. It offers a fresh perspective on the stratification debate, looking at how our most personal choices (of sexual partners, friends, consumption items and lifestyle) are influenced by hierarchy and pressures towards social similarity.

Exploring how hierarchy affects our tastes and leisure-time activities, and who we choose (and hang on to) as our friends and partners, Stratification: Social division and inequality considers how ordinary, everyday activities – going to work, spending time with our friends, pursuing hobbies and interests, socialising with family – help to reproduce inequalities in social position and resources.

This book:

• Relates class inequalities to broader processes of social division and cultural differentiation, exploring the associational and cultural aspects of hierarchy;
• Explores how groups draw on social, economic and cultural resources, using cultural ‘cues’, to admit some and exclude others from their social circle;
• Provides an accessible and lively introduction to classical and contemporary theories of stratification and hierarchy, relating theoretical debates to students’ own life experience.

Offering a radically different approach to existing texts, Stratification: Social division and inequality will be an invaluable resource for social science students.