Social stratification in W.L. Warner research

Abstract

The relevance of the work is due to the transformations of the system of social stratification and opportunities for social mobility, as well as the need to search for relevant approaches for their study in Europe and the United States in the 30–40s of the XX century. The article is devoted to the analysis of studies of the class structure of the American sociologist and social anthropologist William Lloyd Warner. His vision of the social structure of American society is original and based on extensive empirical research. The article analyzes the methodological foundations and features of Warner’s empirical research. One of the tasks set by the author of the article is to consider the heuristic potential of one of the most well-known approaches to the study of social stratification in world sociology. W.L. Warner was instrumental in transforming the sociological explanation of the system of social stratification in the first half of the twentieth century. He described the main characteristics of the social structure of society in the 30–40s of the XX century, for the first time showing it in a new light, as consisting of six classes. Warner is credited with introducing the method of participatory observation into sociology in the study of the system of social stratification, as well as updating the categorical apparatus introduced by the sociologist from his own experience in anthropological research. Warner's research group developed the standard index of status characteristics, well-known in world sociology, which simplifies complex quantitative calculations, which is still used in empirical sociology. The author of the article made an attempt to trace the research logic of the American sociologist, as well as to show the relationship between various methodological components of the theory of social stratification and innovative methods of empirical sociology.