Question

The Caribbean has been described as highly heterogeneous in its composition. Discuss whether this makes social stratification more complex for Caribbean sociologists to explore and explain.

Answer 1

Social stratification is the system where people are ranked and organised into various groups involving more than one criteria. In this system, one social group would be ranked and considered higher or above the other. In the Caribbean, there are a number of groups, not only black, but whites and the colour named as mulatto or the intermediate colour. Yes, this would make social stratification more complex for the sociologists who would want to explore the Caribbean. This is because, with the number of different types of people residing in the Caribbean, with people belonging to different ethnicities, the sociologist requires to understand all of the different cultural values and the make of the society, which makes it very difficult to place one group over the other and arrange the, into a hierarchy.