Social Diversity

Social diversity is all of the ways that people within a single culture are
set apart from each other.
Elements of social diversity can include ethnicity, lifestyle, religion,
language, tastes and preferences
Social Sciences 101: What Is Social Diversity? (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.reference.com/world-view/social-diversity-32474254a8c3dce2#
Social Diversity
Learning Outcome
Understanding Race and Ethnicity
Understanding what is Social Status
Social stratification
Social Mobility
Social Diversity

Race Ethnicity
• Race is a socially constructed • Ethnicity is a social category of
category based on physical people who share a common
criteria/biological traits. culture.

Race and Ethnicity. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/race-and-ethnicity
Social Diversity
Social Status

Ascribed status Achieved status

• Status into which people enter • Status that people acquire
automatically without choice, through their own individual
usually at birth or some special accomplishments and actions in
event in the life cycle. life.
• Some cultures "ascribe" status • Some cultures confer status
based upon your social class, based upon what you personally
title, family background, age, have “achieved”, whether at
gender and other factors. work, sports, financially, or
socially.
Differences Between Ascribed and Achieved Status | Difference Between. (2017,
September 28). Retrieved from http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/legal-
miscellaneous/differences-between-ascribed-and-achieved-status/
Minority vs Majority

• Minority Group
• The definitive feature of a
minority group is that its
members systematically
experience lesser income,
authority, and power than other
members of their society.
• A minority group is not
necessarily a smaller population
than other groups.
The Tujia ethnic group has a population of over 8
million, and is distributed in provinces of Hunan, Hubei,
Sichuan and Guizhou.
http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/nationality/tujia.htm
Social Mobility
• Refers to the movement within
a social structure, from one
position to another.
• It represents a change in social
status.
• All societies provide some form
of opportunity for social
mobility
• but societies differ from each
other in regards to the extent of
the opportunities.
• The greater the amount of
social mobility the more open
the class structure while the
opposite is true of a closed
structure.
Social Mobility

Types of social mobility

Movement occurs in multiple Inter vs Intra generational mobility
directions • inter-generational mobility -
• from lower to higher changes occur from one generation
(upward/vertical mobility) to another
• from higher to lower • e.g. child changes status by taking
(downward/vertical mobility) occupation of higher or lower
ranking with that of his/her father.
• between two positions at the same
• intra-generational mobility -
level (horizontal mobility)
changes occur within one
generation
• e.g. change in fathers occupational
changes their social status.
Intergenerational and intragenerational mobility social mobility. (n.d.). Retrieved
from https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/social-inequality/social-
class/v/intergenerational-and-intragenerational-mobility-social-mobility
Social Mobility
Mobility is a collective effort that
involves kin and sometimes
community.
• Upward Mobility • Downward Mobility
• People who are upwardly mobile • As income distribution is
are often expected to distance becoming more skewed toward
themselves from their origins. the top, many in the middle class
are experiencing mobility
downward
Poverty Around The World — Global Issues. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.globalissues.org/article/4/poverty-around-the-world
Social
Differentiation

The process by which different statuses

develop in any group, organisation, or
society.
• In a business organisation, owners,
stock holders, managers, salesmen,
clerks, cleaners, and customers all
have a different status within the
organisation.
A relatively fixed, hierarchical arrangement
in society by which groups have different
access to resources, power, and perceived
social worth.
Think of it this way….
In a business organisation:
• Owners control the resources of the
business.
• Managers earn high salaries, yet do not
control the business resources.
• Stock holders provide the resources.
• Customers provide revenue.

Social Stratification
 Social
Stratification

Types of Stratification systems

• Estate - Elite owns property and
has control over resources.
• Caste - rigid hierarchy of classes.
• Class - status is partially
achieved, there is some potential
for movement between classes.