Stratification Through Three Lenses

Applying the three perspectives to stratification means asking what inequality does for a society, how advantage reproduces itself, and how position is signalled and read in daily life.

Take the fact that a profession requires an unpaid internship for entry. The functionalist question, from Soc 0857, asks what the requirement accomplishes for the system: it screens for commitment, transmits practice that formal training does not cover, and supplies the field with labor while candidates are evaluated. The conflict question, from Soc 0860, asks who can accept it: only candidates whose families can support them through unpaid months, which converts family wealth into professional entry while every stated criterion remains neutral — nobody was excluded by rule, and the outcome is a filtered profession. The interactionist question, from Soc 0862, asks how it operates in the room: what the candidates who arrive already know about how to speak, dress, and behave in that setting, learned at home rather than taught, and how quickly a candidate lacking those markers is read as a poor fit. Note that the conflict account here does not require anyone to intend exclusion. That is the finding: a rule that mentions no one's income can sort by income perfectly well.