In this lecture, we shall discuss the differences between social differentiation and social stratification.

Social differentiation involves the formation of horizontal social divisions whereas social stratification involves vertical (hierarchical) ranking of social strata.

Social Differentiation

The differentiation of tasks in society – or the division of labour – is a central focus of sociology. Sociologists have studied the effects of increasing specialization and complexity and have classified societies in terms of the nature and level of differentiation.

During the Scottish Enlightenment, writers like Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) and John Millar (1735-1801) distinguished four sociologically distinct stages of society:

• Hunters and gatherers
• Shepherd or pastoral society
• Husbandmen or agricultural society
• Commercial society

Karl Marx’s materialist conception of history represents social development in terms of successive modes of production – primitive communist society or primeval communal society or hunting and gathering economy, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society – which will inevitably and unstoppably move on to socialism, and thereafter communism. Marx introduces the idea that social differentiation is associated with inequality and that conflict among social classes is one of the principal motors of social change. We shall discuss in detail the contours of social classes in the section on social stratification.

Functionalism provides an alternative account of differentiation, concerned with the problem of interdependence among the parts of a differentiated system. Emile Durkheim set out a model of types of societies from elementary to more complex types. The two poles of this continuum were respectively characterized by mechanical and organic forms of solidarity.

Mechanical Solidarity versus Organic Solidarity