CHAPTER 11

Grouping by Gender, Age, Common Interest and Class

WHAT PRINCIPLES DO PEOPLE USE TO ORGANIZE SOCIETIES?

Besides kinship and marriage, people group themselves by gender, age, common interest, and class or social rank within a society to deal with problems not conveniently handled by marriage, the family and/or household, descent group, or kindred.

WHAT IS AGE GRADING?

The formation of groups on an age basis—is a widely used means of organizing people in societies, including those of Europe and North America.

In addition to age grades, some societies feature age sets—formally established groups of people born during a certain time span who move through the series of age-grade categories together.

WHAT ARE COMMON-INTEREST ASSOCIATIONS?

Common-interest associations are formed to deal with specific challenges or opportunities.

Membership may be voluntary or compulsory. Common-interest associations have been a

feature of human societies since the appearance of the first farming villages several thousand years ago.

WHAT IS SOCIAL STRATIFICATION?

Stratification is the division of society into two or more social classes of people who do not share equally in basic resources, power, or prestige.

Such a hierarchical social structure is characteristic of all of the world’s societies having large and heterogeneous populations with centralized political control.

GROUPING BY GENDER

Separates men and women to varying degrees in different societies.

In some societies, they may be together much of the time.

In other societies they may spend much time apart, even to the extreme of eating and sleeping separately.

GROUPING BY AGE

Age gradeAn organized category of people based on

age; every individual passes through a series of such categories over his or her lifetime.

Age setGroups of persons simultaneously initiated

into age grades at the same time and who move through the series of categories together.

AGE GRADES

A category of persons, usually of the same sex, organized by age.

Some societies divide age grades into sets, which include individuals who move together through a series of life stages.

A specific time is often ritually established for moving from a younger to an older age grade.

AGE GROUPING: TIRIKI

Seven named age sets pass through four successive age grades.

Each age set embraces a 15-year span and opens to accept new initiates every 105 years.

In principle, the system resembles our college classes.

AGE GRADES

Maasai subclans of western Kenya at the opening parade of the elaborate eunoto ceremony, marking the coming of age of morans (warriors). At the end of the ceremony, these men will be in the next age grade— junior adults—ready to marry and start families.

COMMON-INTEREST ASSOCIATIONS

Linked with rapid social change and urbanization.

Increasingly assumed roles formerly played by kinship or age groups.

Membership may range from voluntary to legally compulsory.

GENDER AND COMMON-INTEREST ASSOCIATIONS

Social scientists used to view women’s associations as less developed than men’s.

Still a question of why women are barred from associations in some societies, while in others they participate equally with men.

Participation in conventional associations has declined as online associations have grown in popularity.

GENDER ASSOCIATIONS

Since the United Nations Decade for Women (1976–1985), the number of women’s associations all around the world has grown from the local to the global.

Here members of a women’s craft association in Bakingili, Cameroon (Africa), tie-dye fabric together.

ONLINE COMMON INTEREST ASSOCIATIONS

With computer technology has come the rise of online common interest associations.

Here, Inuit students in Canada use a computer to learn the Inuktitut syllabary—a phonetic writing system consisting of symbols representing syllables.

GROUPINGS IN SOCIETY

Stratified society: divided into categories of people who do not share equally in resources, influence, or prestige.

Egalitarian society - has as many valued positions as persons capable of filling them.

TYPES OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

Gender Age Social class Caste

CASTE SYSTEMS

A social class in which membership is determined by birth and fixed for life.

Children automatically belong to their parents’ caste.

INDIA’S CASTE SYSTEM

Dalits, known as “untouchables” in India’s traditional caste system, light 100 “candles of freedom” at the 2004 World Social Forum held in Mumbai.

STRATIFICATION

In the United States 70% of wealth is in the hands of 10% of the population.

WAYS OF EXPRESSING SOCIAL CLASS

Verbal evaluation What people say about other people in their

society. Patterns of association

Who interacts with whom, how, and in what context.

WAYS OF EXPRESSING SOCIAL CLASS

Symbolic indicators Activities and possessions indicative of class

position. Differences in life chances

High-status people generally live longer and in better health than people of low status.

SOCIAL MOBILITY

Open-class societies are those with the easiest mobility.

Degree of mobility is related to education or type of family organization that prevails in a society.

Where the extended family is the norm, mobility tends to be severely limited.

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION: CRITERIA

Wealth Legal status Birth Personal qualities Ideology