Social Stratification Practice Test

Inequality arising from power struggles and coercive domination by those in control is a hallmark of conflict theory. This view sees society as a arena where groups compete for scarce resources—wealth, status, political influence—and those with power use coercion and the wielding of institutions like laws, policing, and policy to protect their advantages. Because these structures reproduce benefits for the dominant groups while restricting opportunities for others, inequality is seen as actively produced and reinforced to serve the interests of those at the top. This macro-level lens focuses on how social arrangements sustain hierarchy and conflict, rather than on stability or individual interactions. By contrast, functionalist theory emphasizes stability and function, symbolic interactionism looks at everyday meanings in micro-interactions, and feminist theory analyzes gender-based power, though it can intersect with the broader power analysis that conflict theory foregrounds.