The Concept of Social Stratification

Poverty, Politics, and Profit is a short film based on the issues of affordable housing. The film, introduces viewers to low-income residents, affordable housing developers, and local opponents of development. The viewer will become aware of the obstacles residents and housing developers face. As well as the many, other components involved to create affordable housing deals. The journalist, Laura Sullivan (NPR) also discusses the racial history of housing, low-income housing credit and suspicion of housing programs. This topic and the issues surrounding it pertain to social stratification, stereotype, poverty, deviance, and race.

The functionalism and conflict theory perspectives will explain these concepts.

Social stratification is the ranking of people in society due to their possession of wealth, power, and prestige. Functionalists’ perspective is that stratification is necessary and inevitable. They believe each individual has their own place in society due to their social class. “The former take advantage of their position at the top of society to stay at the top, even if it means oppressing those at the bottom.

At a minimum, they can heavily influence the law, the media, and other institutions in a way that maintains society’s class structure.” (2016, March 25, Social Problems: Continuity and Change)

A concept that can derive from this is stereotyping, which is an exaggerated generalization about people. Stereotypes can be either negative or positive; overall, they give a false outlook of reality An opponent of the housing program, Nicole Humphrey expresses this perspective in the film. In regard to people of low-income, the opponent states,” It’s just not people who are, — of the same class as us.

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” The opponent also goes on to admit that she is stereotyping low-income individuals and that she — “holds a little bit of stigma against people who are different.”(Humphrey).

Conflict theorists believe that stratification harms society. This belief is based on the wealthy owning capital and the means of production such as factories, land, banks, etc. (bourgeoisie). Another part of this belief is the proletariat, which are the workers who work for wages, which normally is not enough to support themselves. In the film, Sullivan and low income residents (proletariat) discuss this matter. The residents expressed their struggles with jobs and their lack of income, which made it hard for them to afford stable living environments. Conflict theory states, “Stratification results from lack of opportunity and from discrimination and prejudice against the poor, women, and people of color.” (2016, March 25, Social Problems: Continuity and Change)

In addition to social stratification affecting affordable housing and leading to poverty, there is urbanization. Sociologists, Feagin and Parker had a theory about factors that pertained to political and economic leaders controlling urban growth. “First, these leaders work alongside each other to influence urban growth and decline, determining where money flows and how land use is regulated. Second, exchange value and use value of land are balanced to favor the middle and upper classes so that, for example, public land in poor neighborhoods may be rezoned for use as industrial land.(College, O. S. (2012, January 30).

In reference to the belief of bourgeoisie, it is similar to gentrification, which is a factor of urbanization. Gentrification is the act of upper and middle class people buying and renovating houses and stores in downtown urban neighborhoods. This act is encouraged by the governments due to their desire of increasing the population. This ultimately leads to the increase of rent, which displaces low-income residents. Displacing residents has significantly led to poverty. Residents have to either sleep and/or live in their vehicle, hotels, shelters, or the homes of other relatives. As mentioned in the film, traffic congestion and overcrowding (schools) were the main concerns of some residents.

Functionalists examine these urban dysfunctions, which include poverty and deviant behavior. Functionalists’ perspective believe that deviance consists of two roles in in social stability. “First, systems of recognizing and punishing deviance create norms and tell members of a given society how to behave by laying out patterns of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Second, these social parameters create boundaries between populations and enable an “us-versus-them” mentality within different groups.”(Boundless Sociology)

As for conflict theorists, their belief is that deviant behavior didn’t go along with social institutions. However, “Marx himself did not write about deviant behavior, but he wrote about alienation amongst the proletariat, as well as between the proletariat and the finished product, which causes conflict and, thus, deviant behavior. (Boundless Sociology)

”Long time black residents have complained that aggressive policing tactics like stopping and frisking people in the street increase when wealthier people move into a neighborhood.”(Benokraitis)

According to Poverty, Politics, and Profit an incident between police officers and African American youth was the result of tensions over housing. Residents told the youth to “Go back to your section 8 housing”. This led to policing and an officer physically assaulting a teenage African American girl. Unfortunately, this is not anything unheard of, as it has happened in previous periods. Federal policies in the 1930s created segregation in public housing. This huge conflict continued to escalate until the 1960s. The Fair Housing Act was signed just days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The Fair Housing Act prohibited the discrimination of race, religion, and sex concerning the rental, financing, or sale of houses.

In conclusion, there are many factors that affect public housing. It is not limited to the power of wealthy individuals. However, it does play a major role that cannot be ignored. Conflict theorist and functionalists both have there concerns on this issue and the others that encompass it. The lack of affordable housing is far from ignored; it may seem like a simple process, but a lot is required for it to be obtained. Lastly, the issues may not be the biggest concern of most people but it is an issue that can create many other issues that can negatively affect the economy and society.