Modernization theorists operating within the Durkheimian framework have
stressed increasing differentiation as a prime component of the modernization
process (see, for example, Eisenstadt, 1957; Smelser, 1963; Smelser and
Lipset, 1966). Structural differentiation concerns changes in and the proliferation
of social roles. For example, modernization produces in its wake
new social roles associated with increased literacy and higher levels of educational
attainment, changes in the educational curriculum, industrial and
occupational transformation, the monetization of the economy and the ecological
separation of place of work and residence. However, as Matras (1973:
144) has suggested, ". . . societies sharing social roles and social systems
may vary with respect to the way in which their members are distributed among
them." Given deficiencies in a society's allocative mechanism, through restrictions
on access or recruitment to emergent social roles, various societal
subgroups are differentially distributed across a society's role structure.
Ascriptive criteria present at birth such as age, sex, place of birth, race
and ethnicity oftentimes form the cornerstone for restrictive entree to
emergent social roles in the process of modernization and, hence, differen-'
tial and, more often than not, inferior placement of selected societal subgroups
within the total" role structure of the society.