According to structural-functionalists, stratification and inequality are authentically constructive phenomena that benefit society: they ascertain that the best people are at the top of the hierarchy and those who are less worthy are at the bottom. Those at the top are given power and rewards because of high facilities, and the high rewards subsist to provide incentive for qualified people to do the most paramount work in high status vocations. According to this logic, inequality ascertains that the most functionally consequential jobs are filled by the best qualified people.
The conflict-theory approach offers a critique of structural-functionalism. First, the critique asserts that it is arduous to determine the functional consequentiality …show more content…
According to this theory, stratification benefits the opulent and puissant at the expense of the poor—those in high-status positions continually build on their wealth, only further entrenching the gap between high-status and low-status people. For example, many opulent families pay low wages to nannies to care for their children, gardeners to incline to their yards, and maids to immaculate their homes. Conflict theorists believe that this competitive system, together with structural barriers to upward mobility ends up engendering and perpetuating stratification systems. Conflict theorists hold that competition and inequality are not inevitably ineluctable but are engendered and maintained by people. Meanwhile, structural-functionalists rebut that people do not always act solely out of economic self-interest
Source: Boundless. “Explaining Poverty: The Sociological Debate.” Boundless Sociology. Boundless, 28 Jun. 2016. Retrieved 13 Jul. 2016 from
The conflict-theory approach offers a critique of structural-functionalism. First, the critique asserts that it is arduous to determine the functional consequentiality …show more content…
According to this theory, stratification benefits the opulent and puissant at the expense of the poor—those in high-status positions continually build on their wealth, only further entrenching the gap between high-status and low-status people. For example, many opulent families pay low wages to nannies to care for their children, gardeners to incline to their yards, and maids to immaculate their homes. Conflict theorists believe that this competitive system, together with structural barriers to upward mobility ends up engendering and perpetuating stratification systems. Conflict theorists hold that competition and inequality are not inevitably ineluctable but are engendered and maintained by people. Meanwhile, structural-functionalists rebut that people do not always act solely out of economic self-interest
Source: Boundless. “Explaining Poverty: The Sociological Debate.” Boundless Sociology. Boundless, 28 Jun. 2016. Retrieved 13 Jul. 2016 from