Breaking down the question
The command word is examine, which asks you to investigate each of the three dimensions carefully — explaining how each operates as a basis of ranking, showing its distinctive logic, and appraising its significance. It is more analytical than a bare describe and lighter than a full critically evaluate, but a good answer will still weigh the dimensions rather than simply list them.
The substance is a claim: that gender, ethnicity and race are major dimensions of social stratification — that is, structured, durable systems of inequality in their own right, not merely by-products of economic class. The examiner is inviting you to move beyond the class-centred models of Marx and Weber and to establish these three as independent axes along which honour, opportunity and life chances are unequally distributed.
The framing also implies a synthesis. Having examined the three separately, the strongest answers show how they intersect — how gender, ethnicity and race combine to produce compounded and specific forms of disadvantage rather than operating in isolation.
How to approach it
Begin by setting up the argument: classical theory privileged class, but stratification is multidimensional, and gender, ethnicity and race are three of its principal non-economic axes. The concepts of stratification notes provide the grounding on bases of ranking, life chances and social closure.
Then take each dimension in turn. For gender, present it as a universal stratifying structure and bring in the feminist account of patriarchy. For ethnicity, treat it as stratification by cultural distinction and group boundaries. For race, address socially constructed categories, racism and their material consequences. Keep the treatments parallel — for each, state what it ranks people by, how the inequality is reproduced, and why it counts as a major dimension.
Close by drawing the threads together through intersectionality, using an Indian and a comparative illustration, and deliver a verdict on the multidimensional nature of stratification.
Model answer
Classical sociology, in both its Marxian and Weberian forms, gave pride of place to economic class. Yet inequality is patently multidimensional. Alongside class, societies rank and divide their members by gender, by ethnicity and by race — each a structured, persistent system that shapes people's honour, resources and life chances. Weber's recognition that status stratifies independently of class opens the conceptual space in which these dimensions can be understood as major axes of stratification in their own right.
Gender. Gender is arguably the most universal dimension of stratification, present in virtually every known society. It ranks people on the basis of socially constructed differences between women and men, systematically advantaging the latter in access to power, property, income and prestige. Feminist sociologists conceptualise this as patriarchy — a distinct structure of male domination. Sylvia Walby analysed patriarchy as operating through several interlocking sites: paid employment, the household and unpaid domestic labour, the state, male violence, sexuality and culture. Gender stratification is reproduced through the gendered division of labour, unequal inheritance and property rights, the wage gap, the double burden borne by working women, and cultural devaluation. Crucially, it cuts across class: women of every class occupy a subordinate position relative to men of their class, which is precisely why gender qualifies as an independent dimension rather than a derivative of economics.
Ethnicity. Ethnicity stratifies society by cultural distinction — shared ancestry, language, religion, customs and a sense of common identity marking one group off from others. Ethnic groups are frequently ranked in hierarchies of prestige and power, with dominant ethnicities monopolising advantages and minority or migrant groups facing exclusion, discrimination and confinement to inferior positions. The mechanism is often what Weberians call social closure: the majority group closes off opportunities to preserve its privileges. Ethnic stratification is visible in the disadvantaged position of immigrant and minority communities in labour and housing markets, in majoritarian nationalism, and in conflicts over language and cultural recognition. Because ethnic ranking rests on cultural honour and boundary-drawing rather than solely on wealth, it constitutes a genuine dimension of stratification.
Race. Race stratifies people according to socially constructed physical markers — chiefly skin colour and other visible features — that carry no biological validity but immense social force. Racial ideologies rank groups into a hierarchy and use it to justify unequal treatment. The classic instances — slavery, colonial domination, apartheid in South Africa, and segregation in the United States — show race operating as a rigid, ascriptive and often legally entrenched order. Even where formal barriers have fallen, institutional racism perpetuates disadvantage in employment, policing, education and housing. Race demonstrates vividly how a stratifying category can be a pure social construction and yet produce durable, material inequality.
Intersectionality. These three dimensions rarely act in isolation; they intersect, and their combination generates forms of disadvantage distinct from any single axis. Kimberlé Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality captures how a black working-class woman, for instance, experiences an inequality that is not simply the sum of racism, sexism and class exploitation but a specific, compounded location. In India the point is illustrated by the position of Dalit and Adivasi women, whose disadvantage arises from caste, gender and often ethnicity together, and cannot be addressed by attending to any one dimension alone.
Assessment. Gender, ethnicity and race are therefore major dimensions of social stratification, each with its own logic — patriarchy, cultural closure, and racialised construction respectively — and each reproducing inequality through distinct mechanisms. They confirm that stratification is irreducibly multidimensional: class remains fundamental, but a theory confined to it cannot explain the subordination of women, the exclusion of minorities, or the persistence of racial hierarchy. The most adequate account treats these axes as analytically distinct yet empirically interwoven, and examines how, in any given society, they intersect to structure the distribution of life chances.
Examiner's perspective
The examiner is checking two things: that the candidate can treat each of the three dimensions as an independent system of stratification, and that the treatment is analytical rather than descriptive. A frequent weakness is an unbalanced answer that lavishes attention on gender and treats ethnicity and race as afterthoughts. Parallel, substantive coverage of all three is the baseline for a strong mark.
For each dimension the examiner wants the basis of ranking and the mechanism of reproduction, not just examples. Naming patriarchy and Walby for gender, social closure for ethnicity, and social construction plus institutional racism for race signals conceptual command. Precise attribution lifts the answer above the anecdotal.
The best scripts do not stop at three separate sections. They demonstrate intersectionality — ideally with an Indian illustration such as the Dalit woman's position — and conclude with an explicit statement that stratification is multidimensional. That synthesis, tying the parts into a considered verdict, is what separates a first-class answer from a merely competent one.