Critical Overview
Broadly defined, social stratification is constituted by the division of a society into hierarchical layers of wealth, power, and prestige. These layers, or strata, have been related to a variety of social categories, such as:
- Race
- Class
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Religion
Sociologists have paid more attention to stratification based on race, class, gender, and ethnicity than they have to stratification based on religion. However, recent research suggests that religious stratification deserves more attention than it usually gets. It is a common development in religiously diverse societies. Once it becomes embedded in societies' laws, customs, and ideologies, it tends to persist. It also has societal consequences. Thus, it is important in its own right, but also in relation to other forms of stratification.
Read more about this topic: Religious Stratification
Famous quotes containing the word critical:
“If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)