Stručni rad

Two Approaches to the Social Structure Analysis: Class and Stratification Approach

Ivan Šiber

Sažetak

Two main approaches to the problems of social structure are treated here: the class and stratification approach, the important issue being: what causes lead to the social contrasts and what are the social forms of their manifestations. The class approach is closely tied to the work of Karl Marx. It starts from the role of production relations in the development of the global society and analyzes the social structure as the mutual juxtaposition of classes which are defined »y their place in the production process.
The basic objections to the Marx's definition of the class in the modem Western sociology relate to the particular period of Marx’s activity and to the changes in society not following Marx’s predictions, as according to the opinion of many sociologists the contrasts between the working and capitalist class is not increasing, while the private property aspects are diminishing, the share of the physical work becoming less and less significant, the mediators and middle class more numerous and the working class having »something to lose«.
In accordance with these objections, the class approach of the bourgeois sociology is of three main directions:
1. Acceptance of the classes as distinctive, antagonistic groups, but denial of the private property and economic forces as the sources of the class differentiation.
2. Stressing the psychological aspects: the basis of the class differentiation is the identification of the individual with a particular class.
3. Denial of the existence of the class conflict and identification of the class with the social status.
The stratification approach analyzes the social structure in a defined time. The social structure is seen as a harmonious unity, where the changes are of a more quantitative and not qualitative kind, evolutionary' rather than revolutionary. The main thesis is of the omnipresence of the individual differences and the criterion of distinction is the place of the individual on a continuum of wealth, power and status.
These two approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive: while the class approach stresses mainly the dynamics of the social change, the stratification approach analyzes the given social structure in a defined time period. Some overlap is always present.

Ključne riječi

Hrčak ID:

156523

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/156523

Datum izdavanja:

31.3.1972.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

Posjeta: 3.347 *