The Davis-Moore Thesis on Social Stratification

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Social stratification is a set of attributes and criteria that condition a community’s social stratification and structure. The division of a community occurs in different ways: by the number of people, their income and status, their demographic and individual characteristics. This division can lead to conflicts because of the complexity of accepting that each member of society has a role to play. Social stratification is expressed in the tangible division of the community into privileged and non-privileged classes.

The existence of stratification explains Davis-Moore’s statement, which is based on the potential benefits derived from one person or another. There are qualifications, higher education, and skills to build houses, design roads, or heal people (Griffiths et al., 2022). At the same time, some jobs do not require qualifications, so they are available to any segment of the population: jobs such as cashiers or janitors. Davis-Moore’s thesis indicates that this division is beneficial because it allows the unprivileged to strive for recognition and a correspondingly vertical movement in society.

The presence of stratification may not justify the pursuit of development – this is the main argument against the Davis-Moore thesis. Opponents of their thesis believe that the division into classes leads to the oppression of unprivileged structures and reduces their social significance (Griffiths et al., 2022). Not all occupations are paid according to one’s qualifications, so it is unclear what grounds low-income individuals should be expressly restricted from achieving more.

Finally, racial conflict continues to exist in the present society, echoing an outdated stratification – slavery. No basis exists from a social point of view to indicate that pressure on non-white races is necessary, so Davis-Moore’s theses do not work in this case. A similar situation can be seen in gender stratification: men and women are supposed to be equal, but historical effects unreasonably delay women’s upward movement.

Thus, the above arguments indicate that the existence of social stratification is negative rather than positive when viewed in terms of the Davis-Moore thesis. Their theses explain how qualifications affect earnings, and we can agree with that because education and training affect professional development. However, they do not indicate for what reasons descent, race, or gender should be grounds for constraint in vertical social dynamics.

Reference

Griffiths, H., Keirns, N., Strayer, E., Sadler, T., Cody-Rydzewski, S., Vyain, S., Bry, J., & Jones, F. (2022). Introduction to sociology 2. OpenStax.

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