Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Around the mid-1980s in the field of societal stratification, the research program of “Class, Status, and Power” had evolved into the more powerful program of “Life Chances and Resources.” At that time, theoretical and empirical efforts undertaken by sociologists in various countries of the world began to converge. An early formulation and application of the new program was given by Lenski in 1966. This study did not so much apply concepts like class, status, and power to describe concrete societies as it presented propositions to answer questions that went beyond earlier interrogations. As Lenski put it, he had taken the liberty of reformulating the once paramount question in the field of stratification about the number and nature of strata in various human societies into the question of causes and consequences of distributive processes, or more attractively, the question of who gets what and why. Lenski's theory in answer to this problem aimed to synthesize existing theories, and the book elucidating and testing his ideas carried the catchy title Power and Privilege . Perhaps a less categorical title, like “Resources and Advantages,” would have expressed better the most general statement of the program Lenski unfolded: the members of societies who command the most resources for that reason lead a privileged existence and have the best chances in life. Lenski's two prime derivations ... log in or subscribe to read full text