Chapter Goals

After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

1. Understand how anthropologists analyze social structure and inequality.
2. Understand race, ethnicity, class, and caste.
3. Explain how race, ethnicity, class, and caste structure and perpetuate social inequality.
4. Appreciate practical ways Christians can address social inequality.

---

Chapter Outline

Introduction

Social Structure and Inequality

Race

Ethnicity

Class and Caste

Culture and Class

Christian Responses to Inequality

---

Terms

achieved status

ascribed status

caste

class (or social class)

cultural capital

ethnicity

institution

instrumentalism (or constructivism)

master status

power

prestige

primordialism

race

role

role conflict

role strain

social inequality

social stratification

social structure (or social organization)

status

wealth

---

Discussion Questions

1. Consider the society you live in right now. How open and flexible is the social class system? (In other words, if a person wanted to move from a lower class to a higher class, how easy or difficult might it be for them?) On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 meaning “totally open class system,” and 10 meaning “totally rigid caste system,” rate your society’s degree of social mobility. Do students in your class rate your society in different ways? What sources of information lead them to different conclusions? What are some credible sources of information that could sharpen the accuracy of your perceptions?
2. What is your ethnicity? What is your race? Is one of these easier to define than the other? Why might that be?
3. Identify an area of role conflict and an area of role strain in your life. How does the anthropological perspective, seeing individual experience linked to social structure, shape how you might address these problems in your life?

---