The Davis-Moore Thesis
The Davis- Moore thesis was developed by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore. The thesis argues that, social satisfaction is inevitable because every society must make certain that its positions are filled in order to work properly for instance, shopkeepers, politicians and other professions. Also some positions in the society are considered to be more important than others. Important positions must be filled by those who are more qualified and in order to motivate them the society must offer them greater rewards. The rewards promote productivity efficiency and encourage the people to work harder and for longer hours. Therefore, the positions a society considers crucial, must offer great rewards to draw talented people away from less important work.
However, a few criticisms concerning the David-Moore thesis arose. The thesis suggests that those who contribute more to the society are paid more and those who contribute less are paid less. This undermines some professions causing imbalance of rewards. But the positions of higher rewards are more important, for instance, a surgeon operates and saves lives, but a janitor cleans floors. Thus the janitor is less important than a surgeon.
Calculate the cost of essay
Social stratification is found all over the world because it affects peoples’ life chances, according to Max Weber.
John Macinois’ and Weber’s argument go hand in hand, that one’s social status is lined to one’s health, values, political ideology and family life.
To the poor, adequate treatment is almost impossible for the lack of affordability of health care. Poverty is related to stress and poor diet.
Macinois argues that, the ‘old and rich’ have strong sense of family history and the affluent ones are more tolerant to controversial behavior. Macinois also argues that, for the well-off people, the protection of wealth leads to a conservative approach to economic issues, yet they had to be more liberal on social issues, likely to vote and join political organizations because they are better served by the system.
As for family life, the lower-class families are larger than the middle class and the people marry earlier and make less use of birth control. The children are also encouraged to conform to conventional norms and respect authority.
II
Many sociologists argue that we need to know the sex of a new born so that we can be able to socialize with it according to gender role expectations, like how to dress the child, what toys to give the child and how to play with the child.
The family is the most influential agent of socialization for a child’s gender role development. The family therefore, as a gender relation agent, assumes the fundamental importance in the way to decorate their children’s rooms, toys parents give to the children and their own attitudes and behavior.
At the age of schooling, children get the opportunity to understand the social importance of gender, sexuality, race and social class positions. Popularity within either boys or girls in the schools tells us about their self-esteem, a way they are dressed, about their behavior, physical features and how desirable their bodies are. This is a good way to examine social pressures on both boys and girls. This enables the children to realize how to interact with one another and places pressure on the students based on physical or social class criteria. It can also either boost or deflate their self-esteem which may affect behavior and how other people interact with them.
Benefit from Our Service: Save 25% Along with the first order offer - 15% discount, you save extra 10% since we provide 300 words/page instead of 275 words/page
The media delivers impersonal communication to a vast audience. The media is a powerful socializing agent that can introduce children to wide ranges of ideas and images. This may include harmful ideas like violence and sex. The media may have numerous negative impacts on the children’s behavior, besides its advantages like, wide area of knowledge and education.
At adolescence peer group influence becomes overwhelming. This may lead the children to substance abuse, as they tend to persuade each other. But positive parenting influences a lot in the child, as they are brought up to respect their gender responsibilities.
III
Most biologists argue that race comes from the biological characteristics based on phenotype such as facial features, skin color and hair texture.
Some biologists and anthropologists argue that migration forced humans to adapt to diverse climates, for instance, people living in regions of intense heat developed darker skin from the natural pigment, melanin that protects them from the sun.
They argue that the biological differences between hormones reflect both hereditary factors the influence of natural and social environment, in most cases, the difference are due to both.
Some biologists argue that, partly as a result of gene flow, the hereditary characteristics of human population are in a state of perpetual flux. Distinctive local populations are continually coming into and passing out of existence.
On the other hand, sociologists acknowledge that the concept of race is a group of people with inherited physical characteristics that distinguish it from another group of people.
However, the concept of comes into being only when members of a society decide that some physical traits like skin color, age, shape and other physical features actually matter. Without such classifications, we are all variations of the same race. Therefore, race only matters when we say it does.
According to sociologists, a person’s race is more dependent on the society and time period in which she/he lives rather than on her/his biological characteristics. For example, a plane ride can change your race. That is in some countries one may be considered white, on traveling to another country, they used to determine the race.
The commonly cited controversy that arises from this debate of race being either biological or social construction is mostly determined by IQ testing.
IQ testing is the idea that people as individuals differ in mental abilities and these differences can be measured.
The most often cited controversy of IQ testing is Herrnstein and murray’s study, the bell curve. They argue that intelligence is a better prediction of financial income, job performance unwanted pregnancy and involvement in crime than an individual’s parental socioeconomic status or education level.