Social Dominance - An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression - Grand Format

This volume focuses on two questions : Why do people from one social group oppress and discriminate against people from other groups ? Why is this oppression so difficult to eliminate ? The authors approach these questions using the conceptual framework of social dominance theory. This theory argues that the major forms of intergroup conflict, such as racism, classism, and patriarchy, all derive from the basic human predisposition to form and maintain hierarchical and group-based systems of social organization.
In essence, social dominance theory presumes that, beneath major and sometimes profound differences between different human societies, there is also a grammar of social power shared by all societies. Drs. Sidanius and Pratto use social dominance theory in an attempt to identify the elements of this grammar and to understand how these elements interact and reinforce each other to produce and maintain group-based social hierarchy.