Unequal by origin or by necessity? Popular explanations of inequality and their legitimatory implications

Abstract

According to an implicit assumption underlying stratification theory and research, citizens in modern societies are supposed to regard inequality as caused by social factors, and therefore in need of legitimation. Based on qualitative interviews with people from both lower and upper social classes in Germany, the article questions this assumption. From the interviews, I reconstruct two divergent interpretive frames that are used to understand the causes of inequality. While one indeed highlights social origin as a prominent social-structural factor and suggests critical normative orientations towards the status quo (‘inequality by origin’), at the same time explanations regarding inequality as an inevitable element of social order exist which suspend legitimatory pressures (‘inevitable inequalities’). Importantly, both interpretive frames co-exist and are used simultaneously within respondents’ reasoning; to the extent that this is the case, the critique evoked by the ‘inequality by origin’ interpretation is eventually undermined.