Davis and Moore
Davis and Moore's functionalist theory of stratification posits that social inequality is necessary for the smooth functioning of society. They argue that certain positions in society are more important and require more skill and training, and thus should be rewarded with higher social status and rewards. This theory has been influential in shaping discussions around social inequality and the role of meritocracy in society.
8 Key excerpts on "Davis and Moore"
- Christopher B. Doob(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore (1945) produced a well-known version of structural-functional theory, arguing that social stratification is inevitable and necessary. They contended that because some positions require special ability or training, individuals qualified to do these jobs are in short supply. For medical doctors the arduous, taxing years of training, which are costly and restrict them in earning money, are a sacrifice they would not endure without the likelihood that they would eventually be well paid. Indeed, Davis and Moore claimed, because of the importance of what they do and the scarcity of individuals with their qualifications, medical doctors and others in functionally critical occupations must be well compensated, demonstrating the inevitable necessity for social stratification in modern societies. For an individual in an elevated profession like medicine, the benefits of high placement in the social-stratification system include a lot of money, but there needs to be more. Davis and Moore’s characterization of such jobs was that “the position must be high in the social scale—must command great prestige, high salary, ample leisure, and the like” (Davis and Moore 1945, 244). In the structural-functional tradition, Davis and Moore described a smoothly running social-stratification system in which people in elevated positions receive sufficient rewards “to draw talent and motivate training” (Davis and Moore 1945, 247). As a member of the same sociology department at Princeton, Melvin Tumin rejected the Davis and Moore theory, dismissing the idea that individuals in well-paid positions are compensated for talent and training. In rebuttal Tumin raised several points: Well-paid people are not necessarily more valuable than less affluent individuals. For instance, for the survival of a factory, the unskilled workers are as essential as the engineers...
eBook - ePub- Peter Saunders(Author)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The fact that highly trained people swiftly make up their loss of earnings once they enter the labour market does not mean that training is not a sacrifice. Indeed, such evidence supports the theory rather than refuting it! It is precisely because training is a sacrifice that our society finds it necessary to offer high rewards to those who complete it. In the case of engineering, for example, it seems clear that career prospects need to be made even more attractive than they are if sufficient numbers of suitably able and trained people are to fill the vacancies in the future. An evaluation of the functionalist theory of stratification The debate over the issues raised by the functionalist theory of stratification rumbled on for some years, particularly in the USA. By the mid-1960s, however, the debate seemed to run out of steam. As is so often the case in sociology, argument was met with counter-argument and few people on either side seemed very impressed by the case put by their opponents. During the 1960s, functionalist theory itself fell out of fashion as phenomenological and Marxist approaches seized the imagination of a new generation of scholars. The Davis and Moore thesis was never really refuted; it was simply pushed aside as sociologists turned to other more novel concerns. The arguments developed by Davis and Moore are, however, crucial to any consideration of social stratification. Even their critics accepted their starting premiss – that all societies appear to have been stratified. Melvin Tumin opened his well-known critique, for example, by recognising that, ‘The fact of social inequality in human society is marked by its ubiquity and its antiquity. Every known society, past and present, distributes its scarce and demanded goods and other critics parted company with Davis and Moore was over services unequally’ (Tumin 1966: 53). Where Tumin and the explanation and implications of this fact. The argument really boils down to two simple questions...
eBook - ePubInequality and Stratification
Race, Class, and Gender
- Robert A. Rothman(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...“Social inequality is thus an unconsciously evolved device by which societies ensure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled by the most qualified persons” (Davis and Moore, 1945: 249) Medicine is an apt example; training is costly, arduous, and long, and people would be less inclined to become physicians without the lure of societal re-wards The Davis-Moore functional theory of stratification can thus be reduced to a series of propositions (Case Study). Case Study A Functional Theory of Social Stratification Some positions in society are functionally more important than others for the survival of the society The continuation of society requires that these positions be filled by qualified people. The number of people with the talent to fill these roles is limited. Translating this natural talent into useful skills requires a period of pro-longed training. People must be induced to make the sacrifices of time, effort, and cost to undertake the training. Therefore, society allocates proportionately greater rewards to those positions that are more important and require unusual or scare talents. Inequality is thus a socially evolved mechanism for enhancing the potential survival of society. Inequality and stratification are both indispensable and positively functional for society. Sources: Adapted from Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E Moore, “Some principles of stratification,” American Sociological Review (1945) 10: 242–249, and Kingsley Davis, “Reply to Tumin,” American Sociological...
eBook - ePubSocial Stratification
Class, Race, and Gender in Sociological Perspective
- David B. Grusky(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...It is therefore most curious that the basic premises and implications of the assumption have only been most casually explored by American sociologists. The most systematic treatment is to be found in the well-known article by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, entitled “Some Principles of Stratification.” 1 More than twelve years have passed since its publication, and though it is one of the very few treatments of stratification on a high level of generalization, it is difficult to locate a single systematic analysis of its reasoning. It will be the principal concern of this paper to present the beginnings of such an analysis. The central argument advanced by Davis and Moore can be stated in a number of sequential propositions, as follows: 1. Certain positions in any society are functionally more important than others, and require special skills for their performance. 2. Only a limited number of individuals in any society have the talents which can be trained into the skills appropriate to these positions. 3. The conversion of talents into skills involves a training period during which sacrifices of one kind or another are made by those undergoing the training. 4. In order to induce the talented persons to undergo these sacrifices and acquire the training, their future positions must carry an inducement value in the form of differential, i.e., privileged and disproportionate access to the scarce and desired rewards which the society has to offer. 2 5. These scarce and desired goods consist of the rights and perquisites attached to, or built into, the positions, and can be classified into those things which contribute to (a) sustenance and comfort, (b) humor and diversion, (c) self-respect and ego expansion. 6. This differential access to the basic rewards of the society has as a consequence the differentiation of the prestige and esteem which various strata acquire...
eBook - ePubInequality
Classic Readings in Race, Class, and Gender
- David Grusky, Szonja Szelenyi(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...7 The most systematic treatment is to be found in the well-known article by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, entitled “Some Principles of Stratification.” 1 More than twelve years have passed since its publication, and though it is one of the very few treatments of stratification on a high level of generalization, it is difficult to locate a single systematic analysis of its reasoning. It will be the principal concern of this paper to present the beginnings of such an analysis. The central argument advanced by Davis and Moore can be stated in a number of sequential propositions, as follows: Certain positions in any society are functionally more important than others, and require special skills for their performance. Only a limited number of individuals in any society have the talents which can be trained into the skills appropriate to these positions. The conversion of talents into skills involves a training period during which sacrifices of one kind or another are made by those undergoing the training. In order to induce the talented persons to undergo these sacrifices and acquire the training, their future positions must carry an inducement value in the form of differential, i.e., privileged and disproportionate access to the scarce and desired rewards which the society has to offer. 2 These scarce and desired goods consist of the rights and perquisites attached to, or built into, the positions, and can be classified into those things which contribute to (a) sustenance and comfort, (b) humor and diversion, (c) self-respect and ego expansion. This differential access to the basic rewards of the society has as a consequence the differentiation of the prestige and esteem which various strata acquire...
eBook - ePubFamilies
A Social Class Perspective
- Shirley A. Hill(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...Some positions required more sacrifice, skills, and investment than others and deserved to be better compensated. This idea was articulated in a popular article written by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore in the mid-1940s—an era when few Americans were concerned about the supply of jobs available for those willing to work hard. Davis and Moore (1944) argued that there was a universal necessity for social stratification systems. According to these theorists, social inequality was an “unconsciously devised system” that differentially rewarded workers based on two factors: the importance of their job and, in accordance with the principles of supply and demand, the availability of workers who were willing to fill the position. Social class inequality could become problematic, however, if economic position was based on factors such as inheritance and favoritism rather than merit. Durkheim, for example, believed that the maintenance of social solidarity depended on people being placed in positions that were suited to their abilities and talents (Lehmann 1995). Still, there was little concern among structural functionalists about the relegation of people of color to low-status jobs or the exclusion of women from the labor market. As Jennifer Lehmann has explained, theorists like Durkheim held fairly essentialist views of people of color and women and believed their secondary statuses were consistent with their nature and abilities. Sex role theory dominated, and the focus on the necessity of women as full-time homemakers muted criticism of gender inequality. Structural Functionalism and the Family Structural functionalism theorized families through the lens of macro-level economic, evolutionary, and developmental forces that were fostering modernity in all institutions. Families were among those social institutions being modernized: The family had lost many of its traditional functions, but it also was taking on new functions...
eBook - ePubKingsley Davis
A Biography and Selections from His Writings
- David M. Heer(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Some Principles of Stratification Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore In a previous paper some concepts for handling the phenomena of social inequality were presented. 1 In the present paper a further step in stratification theory is undertaken—an attempt to show the relationship between stratification and the rest of the social order. 2 Starting from the proposition that no society is “classless,” or unstratified, an effort is made to explain, in functional terms, the universal necessity which calls forth stratification in any social system. Next, an attempt is made to explain the roughly uniform distribution of prestige as between the major types of positions in every society. Since, however, there occur between one society and another great differences in the degree and kind of stratification, some attention is also given to the varieties of social inequality and the variable factors that give rise to them. Clearly, the present task requires two different lines of analysis—one to understand the universal, the other to understand the variable features of stratification. Naturally each line of inquiry aids the other and is indispensable, and in the treatment that follows the two will be interwoven, although, because of space limitations, the emphasis will be on the universals. Throughout, it will be necessary to keep in mind one thing—namely, that the discussion relates to the system of positions, not to the individuals occupying those positions. It is one thing to ask why different positions carry different degrees of prestige, and quite another to ask how certain individuals get into those positions. Although, as the argument will try to show, both questions are related, it is essential to keep them separate in our thinking. Most of the literature on stratification has tried to answer the second question (particularly with regard to the ease or difficulty of mobility between strata) without tackling the first...
eBook - ePubProblems of Reflexivity and Dialectics in Sociological Inquiry (RLE Social Theory)
Language Theorizing Difference
- Barry Sandywell, David Silverman, Maurice Roche, Paul Filmer, Michael Phillipson(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 3 Davis and Moore, MARKET SPEECH AND COMMUNITY David Silverman This begins with an analysis of the theory of social stratification first proposed by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore almost thirty years ago (Some Principles of Stratification, ‘American Soc. Review’, 1945, pp. 242–9). It locates a reading of the grounds of that theory in what I call market speech. However, as will become clear, this is not offered as a conventional critique – for that would be to criticize their form of life and, as I conclude, their form of life is ultimately my own. Instead, I address Davis and Moore’s text as an occasion to make reference to my own speech (its commitments, its community, its author). So one unfamiliar thing about this paper is that it makes no claim to get you (or me) ‘closer’ to that about which it speaks. It derives its authority not as an accurate (insightful, unbiased) interpretation of Davis and Moore’s theory but from that which provides for any text’s intelligibility (ourselves, our community). Yet this is not to be solipsistic. We cannot choose any interpretation we like, for this would be to choose our form of life. In recognizing this, our project becomes dependent on the joint work of writer and audience in their attempt to address the mode of existence which unites them. Perhaps the other unfamiliar thing about my paper is that it is not one, but two. Further, the second part does not ‘advance’ the argument (in the sense of providing additional information, points of criticism, etc.) but ‘goes back’ in order to address the intelligibility of what has already been said. This second part has only been possible because of the violent readings which colleagues have made of the first part. For, in writing one necessarily glosses over what makes one’s text possible and must call upon others to formulate that which the writing relies upon but cannot say. But further violent readings are not only possible but required...
