social hierarchy essay questions

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5.1 Social Structure: The Building Blocks of Social Life

Learning objectives.

• Describe the difference between a status and a role.
• Understand the difference between an ascribed status, an achieved status, and a master status.
• List the major social institutions.

Social life is composed of many levels of building blocks, from the very micro to the very macro. These building blocks combine to form the social structure . As Chapter 1 “Sociology and the Sociological Perspective” explained, social structure refers to the social patterns through which a society is organized and can be horizontal or vertical. To recall, horizontal social structure refers to the social relationships and the social and physical characteristics of communities to which individuals belong, while vertical social structure , more commonly called social inequality , refers to ways in which a society or group ranks people in a hierarchy. This chapter’s discussion of social structure focuses primarily on horizontal social structure, while Chapter 8 “Social Stratification” through Chapter 12 “Aging and the Elderly” , as well as much material in other chapters, examine dimensions of social inequality. The (horizontal) social structure comprises several components, to which we now turn, starting with the most micro and ending with the most macro. Our discussion of social interaction in the second half of this chapter incorporates several of these components.

Status has many meanings in the dictionary and also within sociology, but for now we will define it as the position that someone occupies in society. This position is often a job title, but many other types of positions exist: student, parent, sibling, relative, friend, and so forth. It should be clear that status as used in this way conveys nothing about the prestige of the position, to use a common synonym for status. A physician’s job is a status with much prestige, but a shoeshiner’s job is a status with no prestige.

Any one individual often occupies several different statuses at the same time, and someone can simultaneously be a banker, Girl Scout troop leader, mother, school board member, volunteer at a homeless shelter, and spouse. This someone would be very busy! We call all the positions an individual occupies that person’s status set (see Figure 5.1 “Example of a Status Set” ).

Figure 5.1 Example of a Status Set

Sociologists usually speak of three types of statuses. The first type is ascribed status , which is the status that someone is born with and has no control over. There are relatively few ascribed statuses; the most common ones are our biological sex, race, parents’ social class and religious affiliation, and biological relationships (child, grandchild, sibling, and so forth).

Status refers to the position an individual occupies. Used in this way, a person’s status is not related to the prestige of that status. The jobs of physician and shoeshiner are both statuses, even though one of these jobs is much more prestigious than the other job.

Public Domain Images – CC0 public domain.

The second kind of status is called achieved status , which, as the name implies, is a status you achieve, at some point after birth, sometimes through your own efforts and sometimes because good or bad luck befalls you. The status of student is an achieved status, as is the status of restaurant server or romantic partner, to cite just two of the many achieved statuses that exist.

Two things about achieved statuses should be kept in mind. First, our ascribed statuses, and in particular our sex, race and ethnicity, and social class, often affect our ability to acquire and maintain many achieved statuses (such as college graduate). Second, achieved statuses can be viewed positively or negatively. Our society usually views achieved statuses such as physician, professor, or college student positively, but it certainly views achieved statuses such as burglar, prostitute, and pimp negatively.

The third type of status is called a master status . This is a status that is so important that it overrides other statuses you may hold. In terms of people’s reactions, master statuses can be either positive or negative for an individual depending on the particular master status they hold. Barack Obama now holds the positive master status of president of the United States: his status as president overrides all the other statuses he holds (husband, father, and so forth), and millions of Americans respect him, whether or not they voted for him or now favor his policies, because of this status. Many other positive master statuses exist in the political and entertainment worlds and in other spheres of life.

Some master statuses have negative consequences. To recall the medical student and nursing home news story that began this chapter, a physical disability often becomes such a master status. If you are bound to a wheelchair, for example, this fact becomes more important than the other statuses you have and may prompt people to perceive and interact with you negatively. In particular, they perceive you more in terms of your master status (someone bound to a wheelchair) than as the “person beneath” the master status, to cite Matt’s words. For similar reasons, gender, race, and sexual orientation may also be considered master statuses, as these statuses often subject women, people of color, and gays and lesbians, respectively, to discrimination and other problems, no matter what other statuses they may have.

Whatever status we occupy, certain objects signify any particular status. These objects are called status symbols . In popular terms, status symbol usually means something like a Rolls-Royce or BMW that shows off someone’s wealth or success, and many status symbols of this type exist. But sociologists use the term more generally than that. For example, the wheelchair that Matt the medical student rode for 12 days was a status symbol that signified his master status of someone with a (feigned) disability. If someone is pushing a stroller, the stroller is a status symbol that signifies that the person pushing it is a parent or caretaker of a young child.

Whatever its type, every status is accompanied by a role , which is the behavior expected of someone—and in fact everyone —with a certain status. You and most other people reading this book are students. Despite all the other differences among you, you have at least this one status in common. As such, there is a role expected of you as a student (at least by your professors); this role includes coming to class regularly, doing all the reading assigned from this textbook, and studying the best you can for exams. Roles for given statuses existed long before we were born, and they will continue long after we are no longer alive. A major dimension of socialization is learning the roles our society has and then behaving in the way a particular role demands.

Roles help us interact because we are familiar with the behavior associated with roles. Because shoppers and cashiers know what to expect of each other, their social interaction is possible.

David Tan – Cashier – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Because roles are the behavior expected of people in various statuses, they help us interact because we are familiar with the roles in the first place, a point to which the second half of this chapter returns. Suppose you are shopping in a department store. Your status is a shopper, and the role expected of you as a shopper—and of all shoppers—involves looking quietly at various items in the store, taking the ones you want to purchase to a checkout line, and paying for them. The person who takes your money is occupying another status in the store that we often call a cashier. The role expected of that cashier—and of all cashiers not only in that store but in every other store—is to accept your payment in a businesslike way and put your items in a bag. Because shoppers and cashiers all have these mutual expectations, their social interaction is possible.

Social Networks

Modern life seems increasingly characterized by social networks. A social network is the totality of relationships that link us to other people and groups and through them to still other people and groups. As Facebook and other social media show so clearly, social networks can be incredibly extensive. Social networks can be so large, of course, that an individual in a network may know little or nothing of another individual in the network (e.g., a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend). But these “friends of friends” can sometimes be an important source of practical advice and other kinds of help. They can “open doors” in the job market, they can introduce you to a potential romantic partner, they can pass through some tickets to the next big basketball game. As a key building block of social structure, social networks receive a fuller discussion in Chapter 6 “Groups and Organizations” .

Groups and Organizations

Groups and organizations are the next component of social structure. Because Chapter 6 “Groups and Organizations” discusses groups and organizations extensively, here we will simply define them and say one or two things about them.

A social group (hereafter just group ) consists of two or more people who regularly interact on the basis of mutual expectations and who share a common identity. To paraphrase John Donne, the 17th-century English poet, no one is an island; almost all people are members of many groups, including families, groups of friends, and groups of coworkers in a workplace. Sociology is sometimes called the study of group life, and it is difficult to imagine a modern society without many types of groups and a small, traditional society without at least some groups.

In terms of size, emotional bonding, and other characteristics, many types of groups exist, as Chapter 6 “Groups and Organizations” explains. But one of the most important types is the formal organization (also just organization ), which is a large group that follows explicit rules and procedures to achieve specific goals and tasks. For better and for worse, organizations are an essential feature of modern societies. Our banks, our hospitals, our schools, and so many other examples are all organizations, even if they differ from one another in many respects. In terms of their goals and other characteristics, several types of organizations exist, as Chapter 6 “Groups and Organizations” will again discuss.

Social Institutions

Yet another component of social structure is the social institution , or patterns of beliefs and behavior that help a society meet its basic needs. Modern society is filled with many social institutions that all help society meet its needs and achieve other goals and thus have a profound impact not only on the society as a whole but also on virtually every individual in a society. Examples of social institutions include the family, the economy, the polity (government), education, religion, and medicine. Chapter 13 “Work and the Economy” through Chapter 18 “Health and Medicine” examine each of these social institutions separately.

As those chapters will show, these social institutions all help the United States meet its basic needs, but they also have failings that prevent the United States from meeting all its needs. A particular problem is social inequality, to recall the vertical dimension of social structure, as our social institutions often fail many people because of their social class, race, ethnicity, gender, or all four. These chapters will also indicate that American society could better fulfill its needs if it followed certain practices and policies of other democracies that often help their societies “work” better than our own.

The largest component of social structure is, of course, society itself. Chapter 1 “Sociology and the Sociological Perspective” defined society as a group of people who live within a defined territory and who share a culture. Societies certainly differ in many ways; some are larger in population and some are smaller, some are modern and some are less modern. Since the origins of sociology during the 19th century, sociologists have tried to understand how and why modern, industrial society developed. Part of this understanding involves determining the differences between industrial societies and traditional ones.

One of the key differences between traditional and industrial societies is the emphasis placed on the community versus the emphasis placed on the individual. In traditional societies, community feeling and group commitment are usually the cornerstones of social life. In contrast, industrial society is more individualistic and impersonal. Whereas the people in traditional societies have close daily ties, those in industrial societies have many relationships in which one person barely knows the other person. Commitment to the group and community become less important in industrial societies, and individualism becomes more important.

Sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies (1887/1963) long ago characterized these key characteristics of traditional and industrial societies with the German words Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft . Gemeinschaft means human community, and Tönnies said that a sense of community characterizes traditional societies, where family, kin, and community ties are quite strong. As societies grew and industrialized and as people moved to cities, Tönnies said, social ties weakened and became more impersonal. Tönnies called this situation Gesellschaft and found it dismaying. Chapter 5 “Social Structure and Social Interaction” , Section 5.2 “The Development of Modern Society” discusses the development of societies in more detail.

Key Takeaways

• The major components of social structure are statuses, roles, social networks, groups and organizations, social institutions, and society.
• Specific types of statuses include the ascribed status, achieved status, and master status. Depending on the type of master status, an individual may be viewed positively or negatively because of a master status.

For Your Review

• Take a moment and list every status that you now occupy. Next to each status, indicate whether it is an ascribed status, achieved status, or master status.
• Take a moment and list every group to which you belong. Write a brief essay in which you comment on which of the groups are more meaningful to you and which are less meaningful to you.

Tönnies, F. (1963). Community and society . New York, NY: Harper and Row. (Original work published 1887).

Sociology Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour

Antony s. r. manstead.

1 Cardiff University, UK

Drawing on recent research on the psychology of social class, I argue that the material conditions in which people grow up and live have a lasting impact on their personal and social identities and that this influences both the way they think and feel about their social environment and key aspects of their social behaviour. Relative to middle‐class counterparts, lower/working‐class individuals are less likely to define themselves in terms of their socioeconomic status and are more likely to have interdependent self‐concepts; they are also more inclined to explain social events in situational terms, as a result of having a lower sense of personal control. Working‐class people score higher on measures of empathy and are more likely to help others in distress. The widely held view that working‐class individuals are more prejudiced towards immigrants and ethnic minorities is shown to be a function of economic threat, in that highly educated people also express prejudice towards these groups when the latter are described as highly educated and therefore pose an economic threat. The fact that middle‐class norms of independence prevail in universities and prestigious workplaces makes working‐class people less likely to apply for positions in such institutions, less likely to be selected and less likely to stay if selected. In other words, social class differences in identity, cognition, feelings, and behaviour make it less likely that working‐class individuals can benefit from educational and occupational opportunities to improve their material circumstances. This means that redistributive policies are needed to break the cycle of deprivation that limits opportunities and threatens social cohesion.

We are all middle class now. John Prescott, former Labour Deputy Prime Minister, 1997

Class is a Communist concept. It groups people as bundles and sets them against one another. Margaret Thatcher, former Conservative Prime Minister, 1992

One of the ironies of modern Western societies, with their emphasis on meritocratic values that promote the notion that people can achieve what they want if they have enough talent and are prepared to work hard, is that the divisions between social classes are becoming wider, not narrower. In the United Kingdom, for example, figures from the Equality Trust ( 2017 ) show that the top one‐fifth of households have 40% of national income, whereas the bottom one‐fifth have just 8%. These figures are based on 2012 data. Between 1938 and 1979, income inequality in the United Kingdom did reduce to some extent, but in subsequent decades, this process has reversed. Between 1979 and 2009/2010, the top 10% of the population increased its share of national income from 21% to 31%, whereas the share received by the bottom 10% fell from 4% to 1%. Wealth inequality is even starker than income inequality. Figures from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS, 2014 ) show that in the period 2012–2014, the wealthiest 10% of households in Great Britain owned 45% of household wealth, whereas the least wealthy 50% of households owned <9%. How can these very large divisions in material income and wealth be reconciled with the view that the class structure that used to prevail in the United Kingdom until at least the mid‐20th century is no longer relevant, because the traditional working class has ‘disappeared’, as asserted by John Prescott in one of the opening quotes, and reflected in the thesis of embourgeoisement analysed by Goldthorpe and Lockwood ( 1963 )? More pertinently for the present article, what implications do these changing patterns of wealth and income distribution have for class identity, social cognition, and social behaviour?

The first point to address concerns the supposed disappearance of the class system. As recent sociological research has conclusively shown, the class system in the United Kingdom is very much still in existence, albeit in a way that differs from the more traditional forms that were based primarily on occupation. In one of the more comprehensive recent studies, Savage et al . ( 2013 ) analysed the results of a large survey of social class in the United Kingdom, the BBC's 2011 Great British Class Survey, which involved 161,400 web respondents, along with the results of a nationally representative sample survey. Using latent class analysis, the authors identified seven classes, ranging from an ‘elite’, with an average annual household income of £89,000, to a ‘precariat’ with an average annual household income of £8,000. Among the many interesting results is the fact that the ‘traditional working‐class’ category formed only 14% of the population. This undoubtedly reflects the impact of de‐industrialization and is almost certainly the basis of the widely held view that the ‘old’ class system in the United Kingdom no longer applies. As Savage et al .'s research clearly shows, the old class system has been reconfigured as a result of economic and political developments, but it is patently true that the members of the different classes identified by these researchers inhabit worlds that rarely intersect, let alone overlap. The research by Savage et al . revealed that the differences between the social classes they identified extended beyond differences in financial circumstances. There were also marked differences in social and cultural capital, as indexed by size of social network and extent of engagement with different cultural activities, respectively. From a social psychological perspective, it seems likely that growing up and living under such different social and economic contexts would have a considerable impact on people's thoughts, feelings and behaviours. The central aim of this article was to examine the nature of this impact.

One interesting reflection of the complicated ways in which objective and subjective indicators of social class intersect can be found in an analysis of data from the British Social Attitudes survey (Evans & Mellon, 2016 ). Despite the fact that there has been a dramatic decline in traditional working‐class occupations, large numbers of UK citizens still describe themselves as being ‘working class’. Overall, around 60% of respondents define themselves as working class, and the proportion of people who do so has hardly changed during the past 33 years. One might reasonably ask whether and how much it matters that many people whose occupational status suggests that they are middle class describe themselves as working class. Evans and Mellon ( 2016 ) show quite persuasively that this self‐identification does matter. In all occupational classes other than managerial and professional, whether respondents identified themselves as working class or middle class made a substantial difference to their political attitudes, with those identifying as working class being less likely to be classed as right‐wing. No wonder Margaret Thatcher was keen to dispense with the concept of class, as evidenced by the quotation at the start of this paper. Moreover, self‐identification as working class was significantly associated with social attitudes in all occupational classes. For example, these respondents were more likely to have authoritarian attitudes and less likely to be in favour of immigration, a point I will return to later. It is clear from this research that subjective class identity is linked to quite marked differences in socio‐political attitudes.

A note on terminology

In what follows, I will refer to a set of concepts that are related but by no means interchangeable. As we have already seen, there is a distinction to be drawn between objective and subjective indicators of social class. In Marxist terms, class is defined objectively in terms of one's relationship to the means of production. You either have ownership of the means of production, in which case you belong to the bourgeoisie, or you sell your labour, in which case you belong to the proletariat, and there is a clear qualitative difference between the two classes. This worked well when most people could be classified either as owners or as workers. As we have seen, such an approach has become harder to sustain in an era when traditional occupations have been shrinking or have already disappeared, a sizeable middle‐class of managers and professionals has emerged, and class divisions are based on wealth and social and cultural capital.

An alternative approach is one that focuses on quantitative differences in socioeconomic status (SES), which is generally defined in terms of an individual's economic position and educational attainment, relative to others, as well as his or her occupation. As will be shown below, when people are asked about their identities, they think more readily in terms of SES than in terms of social class. This is probably because they have a reasonable sense of where they stand, relative to others, in terms of economic factors and educational attainment, and perhaps recognize that traditional boundaries between social classes have become less distinct. For these reasons, much of the social psychological literature on social class has focused on SES as indexed by income and educational attainment, and/or on subjective social class, rather than social class defined in terms of relationship to the means of production. For present purposes, the terms ‘working class’, which tends to be used more by European researchers, and ‘lower class’, which tends to be used by US researchers, are used interchangeably. Similarly, the terms ‘middle class’ and ‘upper class’ will be used interchangeably, despite the different connotations of the latter term in the United States and in Europe, where it tends to be reserved for members of the land‐owning aristocracy. A final point about terminology concerns ‘ideology’, which will here be used to refer to a set of beliefs, norms and values, examples being the meritocratic ideology that pervades most education systems and the (related) ideology of social mobility that is prominent in the United States.

Socioeconomic status and identity

Social psychological analyses of identity have traditionally not paid much attention to social class or SES as a component of identity. Instead, the focus has been on categories such as race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality and age. Easterbrook, Kuppens, and Manstead ( 2018 ) analysed data from two large, representative samples of British adults and showed that respondents placed high subjective importance on their identities that are indicative of SES. Indeed, they attached at least as much importance to their SES identities as they did to identities (such as ethnicity or gender) more commonly studied by self and identity researchers. Easterbrook and colleagues also showed that objective indicators of a person's SES were robust and powerful predictors of the importance they placed on different types of identities within their self‐concepts: Those with higher SES attached more importance to identities that are indicative of their SES position, but less importance on identities that are rooted in basic demographics or related to their sociocultural orientation (and vice versa).

To arrive at these conclusions, Easterbook and colleagues analysed data from two large British surveys: The Citizenship Survey (CS; Department for Communities and Local Government, 2012 ); and Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study (USS; Buck & McFall, 2012 ). The CS is a (now discontinued) biannual survey of a regionally representative sample of around 10,000 adults in England and Wales, with an ethnic minority boost sample of around 5,000. The researchers analysed the most recent data, collected via interviews in 2010–2011. The USS is an annual longitudinal household panel survey that began in 2009. Easterbrook and colleagues analysed Wave 5 (2013–2014), the more recent of the two waves in which the majority of respondents answered questions relevant to class and other social identities.

Both the CS and the USS included a question about the extent to which respondents incorporated different identities into their sense of self. Respondents were asked how important these identities were ‘to your sense of who you are’. The CS included a broad range of identities, including profession, ethnic background, family, gender, age/life stage, income and education. The USS included a shorter list of identities, including profession, education, ethnic background, family, gender and age/life stage. When the responses to these questions were factor analysed, Easterbrook and colleagues found three factors that were common to the two datasets: SES‐based identities (e.g., income), basic‐demographic identities (e.g., age), and identities based on sociocultural orientation (e.g., ethnic background). In both datasets, the importance of each of these three identities was systematically related to objective indicators of the respondents’ SES: As the respondent's SES increased, the subjective importance of SES‐related identities increased, whereas the importance of basic‐demographic and (to a lesser extent) sociocultural identities decreased. Interestingly, these findings echo those of a qualitative, interview‐based study conducted with American college students: Aries and Seider ( 2007 ) found that affluent respondents were more likely than their less affluent counterparts to acknowledge the importance of social class in shaping their identities. As the researchers put it, ‘The affluent students were well aware of the educational benefits that had accrued from their economically privileged status and of the opportunities that they had to travel and pursue their interests. The lower‐income students were more likely to downplay class in their conception of their own identities than were the affluent students’ (p. 151).

Thus, despite SES receiving relatively scant attention from self and identity researchers, there is converging quantitative and qualitative evidence that SES plays an important role in structuring the self‐concept.

Contexts that shape self‐construal: Home, school, and work

Stephens, Markus, and Phillips ( 2014 ) have analysed the ways in which social class shapes the self‐concept through the ‘gateway contexts’ of home, school, and work. With a focus on the United States, but with broader implications, they argue that social class gives rise to culture‐specific selves and patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. One type of self they label ‘hard interdependence.’ This, they argue, is characteristic of those who grow up in low‐income, working‐class environments. As the authors put it, ‘With higher levels of material constraints and fewer opportunities for influence, choice, and control, working‐class contexts tend to afford an understanding of the self and behavior as interdependent with others and the social context’ (p. 615). The ‘hard’ aspect of this self derives from the resilience that is needed to cope with adversity. The other type of self the authors identify is ‘expressive independence’, which is argued to be typical of those who grow up in affluent, middle‐class contexts. By comparison with working‐class people, those who grow up in middle‐class households ‘need to worry far less about making ends meet or overcoming persistent threats … Instead, middle‐class contexts enable people to act in ways that reflect and further reinforce the independent cultural ideal – expressing their personal preferences, influencing their social contexts, standing out from others, and developing and exploring their own interests’ (p. 615). Stephens and colleagues review a wide range of work on socialization that supports their argument that the contexts of home, school and workplace foster these different self‐conceptions. They also argue that middle‐class schools and workplaces use expressive independence as a standard for measuring success, and thereby create institutional barriers to upward social mobility.

The idea that schools are contexts in which social class inequalities are reinforced may initially seem puzzling, given that schools are supposed to be meritocratic environments in which achievement is shaped by ability and effort, rather than by any advantage conferred by class background. However, as Bourdieu and Passeron ( 1990 ) have argued, the school system reproduces social inequalities by promoting norms and values that are more familiar to children from middle‐class backgrounds. To the extent that this helps middle‐class children to outperform their working‐class peers, the ‘meritocratic’ belief that such performance differences are due to differences in ability and/or effort will serve to ‘explain’ and legitimate unequal performance. Consistent with this argument, Darnon, Wiederkehr, Dompnier, and Martinot ( 2018 ) primed the concept of merit in French fifth‐grade schoolchildren and found that this led to lower scores on language and mathematics tests – but that this only applied to low‐SES children. Moreover, the effect of the merit prime on test performance was mediated by the extent to which the children endorsed meritocratic beliefs. Here, then, is evidence that the ideology of meritocracy helps to reproduce social class differences in school settings.

Subjective social class

Stephens et al .’s ( 2014 ) conceptualization of culture‐specific selves that vary as a function of social class is compatible with the ‘subjective social rank’ argument advanced by Kraus, Piff, and Keltner ( 2011 ). The latter authors argue that the differences in material resources available to working‐ and middle‐class people create cultural identities that are based on subjective perceptions of social rank in relation to others. These perceptions are based on distinctive patterns of observable behaviour arising from differences in wealth, education, and occupation. ‘To the extent that these patterns of behavior are both observable and reliably associated with individual wealth, occupational prestige, and education, they become potential signals to others of a person's social class’ (Kraus et al ., 2011 , p. 246). Among the signals of social class is non‐verbal behaviour. Kraus and Keltner ( 2009 ) studied non‐verbal behaviour in pairs of people from different social class backgrounds and found that whereas upper‐class individuals were more disengaged non‐verbally, lower‐class individuals exhibited more socially engaged eye contact, head nods, and laughter. Furthermore, when naïve observers were shown 60‐s excerpts of these interactions, they used these disengaged versus engaged non‐verbal behavioural styles to make judgements of the educational and income backgrounds of the people they had seen with above‐chance accuracy. In other words, social class differences are reflected in social signals, and these signals can be used by individuals to assess their subjective social rank. By comparing their wealth, education, occupation, aesthetic tastes, and behaviour with those of others, individuals can determine where they stand in the social hierarchy, and this subjective social rank then shapes other aspects of their social behaviour. More recent research has confirmed these findings. Becker, Kraus, and Rheinschmidt‐Same ( 2017 ) found that people's social class could be judged with above‐chance accuracy from uploaded Facebook photographs, while Kraus, Park, and Tan ( 2017 ) found that when Americans were asked to judge a speaker's social class from just seven spoken words, the accuracy of their judgments was again above chance.

The fact that there are behavioural signals of social class also opens up the potential for others to hold prejudiced attitudes and to engage in discriminatory behaviour towards those from a lower social class, although Kraus et al . ( 2011 ) focus is on how the social comparison process affects the self‐perception of social rank, and how this in turn affects other aspects of social behaviour. These authors argue that subjective social rank ‘exerts broad influences on thought, emotion, and social behavior independently of the substance of objective social class’ (p. 248). The relation between objective and subjective social class is an interesting issue in its own right. Objective social class is generally operationalized in terms of wealth and income, educational attainment, and occupation. These are the three ‘gateway contexts’ identified by Stephens et al . ( 2014 ). As argued by them, these contexts have a powerful influence on individual cognition and behaviour who operate within them, but they do not fully determine how individuals developing and living in these contexts think, feel, and act. Likewise, there will be circumstances in which individuals who objectively are, say, middle‐class construe themselves as having low subjective social rank as a result of the context in which they live.

There is evidence from health psychology that measures of objective and subjective social class have independent effects on health outcomes, with subjective social class explaining variation in health outcomes over and above what can be accounted for in terms of objective social class (Adler, Epel, Castellazzo, & Ickovics, 2000 ; Cohen et al ., 2008 ). For example, in the prospective study by Cohen et al . ( 2008 ), 193 volunteers were exposed to a cold or influenza virus and monitored in quarantine for objective and subjective signs of illness. Higher subjective class was associated with less risk of becoming ill as a result of virus exposure, and this relation was independent of objective social class. Additional analyses suggested that the impact of subjective social class on likelihood of becoming ill was due in part to differences in sleep quantity and quality. The most plausible explanation for such findings is that low subjective social class is associated with greater stress. It may be that seeing oneself as being low in subjective class is itself a source of stress, or that it increases vulnerability to the effects of stress.

Below I organize the social psychological literature on social class in terms of the impact of class on three types of outcome: thought , encompassing social cognition and attitudes; emotion , with a focus on moral emotions and prosocial behaviour; and behaviour in high‐prestige educational and workplace settings. I will show that these impacts of social class are consistent with the view that the different construals of the self that are fostered by growing up in low versus high social class contexts have lasting psychological consequences.

Social cognition and attitudes

The ways in which these differences in self‐construal shape social cognition have been synthesized into a theoretical model by Kraus, Piff, Mendoza‐Denton, Rheinschmidt, and Keltner ( 2012 ). This model is shown in Figure  1 . They characterize the way lower‐class individuals think about the social environment as ‘contextualism’, meaning a psychological orientation that is motivated by the need to deal with external constraints and threats; and the way that upper‐class people think about the social environment as ‘solipsism’, meaning an orientation that is motivated by internal states such as emotion and by personal goals. One way in which these different orientations manifest themselves is in differences in responses to threat. The premise here is that lower‐class contexts are objectively characterized by greater levels of threat, as reflected in less security in employment, housing, personal safety, and health. These chronic threats foster the development of a ‘threat detection system’, with the result that people who grow up in such environments have a heightened vigilance to threat.

Model of the way in which middle‐ and working‐class contexts shape social cognition, as proposed by Kraus et al . ( 2012 ). From Kraus et al . ( 2012 ), published by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.

Another important difference between the contextualist lower‐class orientation and the solipsistic upper‐class one, according to Kraus et al . ( 2012 ), is in perceived control. Perceived control is closely related to other key psychological constructs, such as attributions. The evidence shows very clearly that those with lower subjective social class are also lower in their sense of personal control, and it also suggests that this reduced sense of control is related to a preference for situational (rather than dispositional) attributions for a range of social phenomena, including social inequality. The logic connecting social class to perceptions of control is straightforward: Those who grow up in middle‐ or upper‐class environments are likely to have more material and psychological resources available to them, and as a result have stronger beliefs about the extent to which they can shape their own social outcomes; by contrast, those who grow up in lower‐class environments are likely to have fewer resources available to them, and as a result have weaker beliefs about their ability to control their outcomes. There is good empirical support for these linkages. In a series of four studies, Kraus, Piff, and Keltner ( 2009 ) found that, by comparison with their higher subjective social class counterparts, lower subjective social class individuals (1) reported lower perceived control and (2) were more likely to explain various phenomena, ranging from income inequality to broader social outcomes like getting into medical school, contracting HIV, or being obese, as caused by external factors, ones that are beyond the control of the individual. Moreover, consistent with the authors’ reasoning, there was a significant indirect effect of subjective social class on the tendency to see phenomena as caused by external factors, via perceived control.

Another important social cognition measure in relation to social class is prejudice. There are two aspects of prejudice in this context. One is prejudice against people of a different class than one's own and especially attitudes towards those who are poor or unemployed; the other is the degree to which people's prejudiced attitudes about other social groups are associated with their own social class. Regarding attitudes to people who belong to a different social class, the UK evidence clearly shows that attitudes to poverty have changed over the last three decades, in that there is a rising trend for people to believe that those who live in need do so because of a lack of willpower, or because of laziness, accompanied by a corresponding decline in the belief that people live in need because of societal injustice (Clery, Lee, & Kunz, 2013 ). Interestingly, in their analysis of British Social Attitudes data over a period of 28 years, Clery et al . conclude that ‘there are no clear patterns of change in the views of different social classes, suggesting changing economic circumstances exert an impact on attitudes to poverty across society, not just among those most likely to be affected by them’ (p. 18). Given the changing attitudes to poverty, it is unsurprising to find that public attitudes to welfare spending and to redistributive taxation have also changed in a way that reflects less sympathy for those living in poverty. For example, attitudes to benefits for the unemployed have changed sharply in the United Kingdom since 1997, when a majority of respondents still believed that benefits were too low. By 2008, an overwhelming majority of respondents believed that these benefits were too high (Taylor‐Gooby, 2013 ). The way in which economic austerity has affected attitudes to these issues was the subject of qualitative research conducted by Valentine ( 2014 ). Interviews with 90 people in northern England, drawn from a range of social and ethnic backgrounds, showed that many respondents believed that unemployment is due to personal, rather than structural, failings, and that it is a ‘lifestyle choice’, leading interviewees to blame the unemployed for their lack of work and to have negative attitudes to welfare provision. Valentine ( 2014 , p. 2) observed that ‘a moralised sense of poverty as the result of individual choice, rather than structural disadvantage and inequality, was in evidence across the majority of respondents’, and that ‘Negative attitudes to welfare provision were identified across a variety of social positions and were not exclusively reserved to individuals from either working class or middle class backgrounds’.

Turning to the attitudes to broader social issues held by members of different social classes, there is a long tradition in social science of arguing that working‐class people are more prejudiced on a number of issues, especially with respect to ethnic minorities and immigrants (e.g., Lipset, 1959 ). Indeed, there is no shortage of evidence showing that working‐class white people do express more negative attitudes towards these groups. One explanation for this association is that working‐class people tend to be more authoritarian – a view that can be traced back to the early research on the authoritarian personality (Adorno, Frenkel‐Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950 ). Recent research providing evidence in favour of this view is reported by Carvacho et al . ( 2013 ). Using a combination of cross‐sectional surveys and longitudinal studies conducted in Europe and Chile, these authors focused on the role of ideological attitudes, in the shape of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer, 1998 ) and social dominance orientation (SDO; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999 ), as mediators of the relation between social class and prejudice. To test their predictions, the researchers analysed four public opinion datasets: one based on eight representative samples in Germany; a second based on representative samples from four European countries (France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands); a third based on longitudinal research in Germany; and a fourth based on longitudinal research in Chile. Consistent with previous research, the researchers found that income and education, the two indices of social class that they used, predicted higher scores on a range of measures of prejudice, such that lower income and education were associated with greater prejudice – although education proved to be a more consistently significant predictor of prejudice than income did. RWA and SDO were negatively associated with income and education, such that higher scores on income and education predicted lower scores on RWA and SDO. Finally, there was also evidence consistent with the mediation hypothesis: The associations between income and education, on the one hand, and measures of prejudice, on the other, were often (but not always) mediated by SDO and (more consistently) RWA. Carvacho and colleagues concluded that ‘the working class seems to develop and reproduce an ideological configuration that is generally well suited for legitimating the social system’ (p. 283).

Indeed, a theme that emerges from research on social class and attitudes is that ideological factors have a powerful influence on attitudes. The neoliberal ideology that has dominated political discourse in most Western, industrialized societies in the past three decades has influenced attitudes to such an extent that even supporters of left‐of‐centre political parties, such as the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, regard poverty as arising from individual factors and tend to hold negative beliefs about the level of welfare benefits for the unemployed. Such attitudes are shared to a perhaps surprising extent by working‐class people (Clery et al ., 2013 ) and, as we have seen, the research by Carvacho et al . ( 2013 ) suggests that working‐class people endorse ideologies that endorse and preserve a social system that materially disadvantages them.

The notion that people who are disadvantaged by a social system are especially likely to support it is known as the ‘system justification hypothesis’, which holds that ‘people who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it’ (Jost, Pelham, Sheldon, & Sullivan, 2003 , p. 13). The rationale for this prediction derives in part from cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957 ), the idea being that it is psychologically inconsistent to experience oppression but not to protest against the system that causes it. One way to reduce the resulting dissonance is to support the system even more strongly, in the same way that those who have to go through an unpleasant initiation rite in order to join a group or organization become more strongly committed to it.

Two large‐scale studies of survey data (Brandt, 2013 ; Caricati, 2017 ) have cast considerable doubt on the validity of this hypothesis, showing that any tendency for people who are at the bottom of a social system to be more likely to support the system than are their advantaged counterparts is, at best, far from robust. Moreover, it has been argued that there is in any case a basic theoretical inconsistency between system justification theory and cognitive dissonance theory (Owuamalam, Rubin, & Spears, 2016 ). However, the fact that working‐class people may not be more supportive of the capitalist system than their middle‐ and upper‐class counterparts does not mean that they do not support the system. Thus, the importance of Carvacho et al .'s ( 2013 ) findings is not necessarily undermined by the results reported by Brandt ( 2013 ) and Caricati ( 2017 ). Being willing to legitimate the system is not the same thing as having a stronger tendency to do this than people who derive greater advantages from the system.

The finding that there is an association between social class and prejudice has also been explained in terms of economic threat. The idea here is that members of ethnic minorities and immigrants also tend to be low in social status and are therefore more likely to be competing with working‐class people than with middle‐class people for jobs, housing, and other services. A strong way to test the economic threat explanation would be to assess whether higher‐class people are prejudiced when confronted with immigrants who are highly educated and likely to be competing with them for access to employment and housing. Such a test was conducted by Kuppens, Spears, Manstead, and Tausch ( 2018 ). These researchers examined whether more highly educated participants would express negative attitudes towards highly educated immigrants, especially when threat to the respondents’ own jobs was made salient, either by drawing attention to the negative economic outlook or by subtly implying that the respondents’ own qualifications might be insufficient in the current job market. Consistent with the economic threat hypothesis, a series of experimental studies with student participants in different European countries showed that attitudes to immigrants were most negative when the immigrants also had a university education.

The same researchers also combined US census data with American National Election Study survey data to examine whether symbolic racism was higher in areas where there was a higher number of Blacks with a similar education to that of the White participants. In areas where Blacks were on average less educated, a higher number Blacks was associated with more symbolic racism among Whites who had less education, but in areas where Blacks were on average highly educated, a higher number of Blacks was associated with more symbolic racism on the part of highly educated White people. Again, these findings are consistent with the view that prejudice arises from economic threat.

Research reported by Jetten, Mols, Healy, and Spears ( 2017 ) is also relevant to this issue. These authors examined how economic instability affects low‐SES and high‐SES people. Unsurprisingly, they found that collective angst was higher among low‐SES participants. However, they also found that high‐SES participants expressed anxiety when they were presented with information suggesting that there was high economic instability, that is, that the ‘economic bubble’ might be about to burst. Moreover, they were more likely to oppose immigration when economic instability was said to be high, rather than low. These results reflect the fact that high‐SES people have a lot to lose in times of economic crisis, and that this ‘fear of falling’ is associated with opposition to immigration.

Together, these results provide good support for an explanation of the association between social class and prejudice in terms of differential threat to the group (see also Brandt & Henry, 2012 ; Brandt & Van Tongeren, 2017 ). Ethnic minorities and immigrants typically pose most threat to the economic well‐being of working‐class people who have low educational qualifications, and this provides the basis for the observation that working‐class people are more likely to be prejudiced. The fact that higher‐educated and high‐SES people express negative views towards ethnic minorities and immigrants when their economic well‐being is threatened shows that it is perceived threat to one's group's interests that underpins this prejudice. It is also worth noting that the perception of threat to a group's economic interests is likely to be greater during times of economic recession.

Emotion and prosocial behaviour

A strong theme emerging from research investigating the relation between social class and emotion is that lower‐class individuals score more highly on measures of empathy. The rationale for expecting such a link is that because lower‐class individuals are more inclined to explain events in terms of external factors, they should be more sensitive to the ways in which external events shape the emotions of others, and therefore better at judging other people's emotions. A complementary rationale is that the tendency for lower social class individuals to be more socially engaged and to have more interdependent social relationships should result in greater awareness of the emotions experienced by others. This reasoning was tested in three studies reported by Kraus, Côté, and Keltner ( 2010 ).

In the first of these studies, the authors examined the relation between educational attainment (a proxy for social class) and scores on the emotion recognition subscale of the Mayer‐Salovey‐Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002 ). High‐school‐educated participants attained a higher score than did their college‐educated counterparts. In a second study, pairs of participants took part in a hypothetical job interview in which an experimenter asked each of them a set of standard questions. This interaction provided the basis for the measure of empathic accuracy, in that each participant was asked to rate both their own emotions and their partner's emotions during the interview. Subjective social class was again related to empathic accuracy, with lower‐class participants achieving a higher score. Moreover, lower‐class participants were more inclined to explain decisions they made in terms of situational rather than dispositional factors, and the relation between subjective social class and empathy was found to be mediated by this tendency to explain decisions in terms of situational factors. The researchers conducted a third study in which they manipulated subjective social class. This time they assessed empathic accuracy using the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (Baron‐Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001 ). Participants who were temporarily induced to experience lower social class were better at recognizing emotions from the subtle cues available from the eye region of the face.

These findings are compatible with the view that lower social class individuals are more sensitive to contextual variation and more inclined to explain events in situational terms. However, some aspects of the results are quite surprising. For example, there seems to be no compelling reason to predict that greater sensitivity to contextual variation would be helpful in judging static facial expressions, which were the stimuli in Studies 1 and 3 of Kraus et al .'s ( 2010 ) research. Thus, the relation between social class and emotion recognition in these studies would seem to depend on the notion that the greater interdependence that is characteristic of lower‐class social environments fosters greater experience with, and therefore knowledge of, the relation between facial movement and subjective emotion, although it still seems surprising that a temporary induction of lower subjective social class, as used in Study 3, should elicit the same effect as extensive real‐life experience of inhabiting lower‐class environments.

If lower‐class individuals are more empathic than their higher‐class counterparts, and are therefore better at recognizing the distress or need of others, this is likely to influence their behaviour in settings where people are distressed and/or in need. This, indeed, is what the evidence suggests. In a series of four studies, Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, and Keltner ( 2010 ) found a consistent tendency for higher‐class individuals to be less inclined to help others than were their lower‐class counterparts. In Study 1, participants low in subjective social class made larger allocations in a dictator game (a game where you are free to allocate as much or as little of a resource to another person as you want) played with an anonymous other than did participants high in subjective social class. In Study 2, subjective social class was manipulated by asking participants to compare themselves to people either at the very top or very bottom of the status hierarchy ladder, the idea being that subjective social class should be lower for those making upward comparisons and higher for those making downward comparisons. Prosocial behaviour was measured by asking participants to indicate the percentage of income that people should spend on a variety of goods and services, one of which was charitable donations. Participants who were induced to experience lower subjective social class indicated that a greater percentage of people's annual salary should be spent on charitable donations compared to participants who were induced to experience higher subjective social class. In Study 3, the researchers used a combination of educational attainment and household income to assess social class and used social value orientation (Van Lange, De Bruin, Otten, & Joireman, 1997 ) as a measure of egalitarian values. These two variables were used to predict behaviour in a trust game. Consistent with predictions, lower‐class participants showed greater trust in their anonymous partner than did their higher‐class counterparts, and this relation was mediated by egalitarian values. In their final study, the researchers manipulated compassion by asking participants in the compassion condition to view a 46‐s video about child poverty. Higher‐ and lower‐class participants were then given the chance to help someone in need. The researchers predicted that helping would only be moderated by compassion among higher‐class participants, on the grounds that lower‐class participants would already be disposed to help, and the results were consistent with this prediction. Overall, these four studies are consistent in showing that, relative to higher‐class people, lower‐class people are more generous, support charity to a greater extent, are more trusting towards a stranger, and more likely to help a person in distress.

The reliability of this finding has been called into question by Korndörfer, Egloff, and Schmukle ( 2015 ), who found contrary evidence in a series of studies. One way to resolve these apparently discrepant findings is to argue, as Kraus and Callaghan ( 2016 ) did, that the relation between social class and prosocial behaviour is moderated by a number of factors, including whether the context is a public or private one. To test this idea, Kraus and Callaghan ( 2016 ) conducted a series of studies in which they manipulated whether donations made to an anonymous other in a dictator game were made in a private or public context. In the private context, the donor remained anonymous. In the public context, the donor's name and city of residence were announced, along with the donation. Lower‐class participants were more generous in private than in public, whereas the reverse was true for higher‐class participants. Interestingly, higher‐class participants were more likely to expect to feel proud about acting prosocially, and this difference in anticipated pride mediated the effect of social class on the difference between public and private donations.

The fact that lower‐class people have been found to hold more egalitarian values and to be more likely to help regardless of compassion level suggests that it is the greater resources of higher‐class participants that makes them more selfish and therefore less likely to help others. This ‘selfishness’ account of the social class effect on prosocial behaviour is supported by another series of studies reported by Piff, Stancato, Côté, Mendoza‐Denton, and Keltner ( 2012 ), who found that, relative to lower‐class individuals, higher‐class people were more likely to show unethical decision‐making tendencies, to take valued goods from others, to lie in a negotiation, to cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize and to endorse unethical behaviour at work. There was also evidence that these unethical tendencies were partly accounted for by more favourable attitudes towards greed among higher‐class people. Later research shows that the relation between social class and unethical behaviour is moderated by whether the behaviour benefits the self or others. Dubois, Rucker, and Galinsky ( 2015 ) varied who benefited from unethical behaviour and showed that the previously reported tendency for higher‐class people to make more unethical decisions was only observed when the outcome was beneficial to the self. These findings are consistent with the view that the greater resources enjoyed by higher‐class individuals result in a stronger focus on the self and a reduced concern for the welfare of others.

Interestingly, this stronger self‐focus and lesser concern for others’ welfare on the part of higher‐class people are more evident in contexts characterized by high economic inequality. This was shown by Côté, House, and Willer ( 2015 ), who analysed results from a nationally representative US survey and showed that higher‐income respondents were only less generous in the offers they made to an anonymous other in a dictator game than their lower‐income counterparts in areas that were high in economic inequality, as reflected in the Gini coefficient. Indeed, in low inequality areas, there was evidence that higher‐income respondents were more generous than their lower‐income counterparts. To test the causality of this differential association between income and generosity in high and low inequality areas, the authors conducted an experiment in which participants were led to believe that their home state was characterized by high or low degree of economic inequality and then played a dictator game with an anonymous other. High‐income participants were less generous than their low‐income counterparts in the high inequality condition but not in the low inequality condition.

A possible issue with Côté et al . ( 2015 ) research in the current context is that it focuses on income rather than class. Although these variables are clearly connected, class is generally thought to be indexed by more than income. The research nevertheless suggests that economic inequality plays a key role in shaping the attitudes and behaviours of higher‐class individuals. There are at least three (not mutually exclusive) explanations for this influence of inequality. One is that inequality increases the sense of entitlement in higher‐class people, because they engage more often in downward social comparisons. Another is that higher‐class people may be more concerned about losing their privileged position in society if they perceive a large gap between the rich and the poor. A final explanation is that higher‐class people may be more highly motivated to justify their privileged position in society when the gap between rich and poor is a large one. Whichever of these explanations is correct – and they may all be to some extent – the fact that prosocial behaviour on the part of higher‐class individuals decreases under conditions of high economic inequality is important, given that the United States is one of the most economically unequal societies in the industrialized world. In unequal societies, then, it seems safe to conclude that on average, higher‐class individuals are less likely than their lower‐class counterparts to behave prosocially, especially where the prosocial behaviour is not public in nature.

Universities and workplaces

The selective nature of higher education (HE), involving economic and/or qualification requirements to gain entry, makes a university a high‐status context. Working‐class people seeking to attain university‐level qualifications are therefore faced with working in an environment in which they may feel out of place. Highly selective universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in the United Kingdom, or Harvard, Stanford, and Yale in the United States, are especially likely to appear to be high in status and therefore out of reach. Indeed, the proportion of working‐class students at Oxford and Cambridge is strikingly low. According to the UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency , the percentage of students at Oxford and Cambridge who were from routine/manual occupational backgrounds was 11.5 and 12.6, respectively, in the academic year 2008/9. This compares with an ONS figure of 37% of all people aged between 16 and 63 in the United Kingdom being classified with such backgrounds. The figures for Oxford and Cambridge are extreme, but they illustrate a more general phenomenon, both in the United Kingdom and internationally: students at elite, research‐led universities are more likely to come from middle‐ and upper‐class backgrounds than from working‐class backgrounds (Jerrim, 2013 ).

The reasons for the very low representation of working‐class students at these elite institutions are complex (Chowdry, Crawford, Dearden, Goodman, & Vignoles, 2013 ), but at least one factor is that many working‐class students do not consider applying because they do not see themselves as feeling at home there. They see a mismatch between the identity conferred by their social backgrounds and the identity they associate with being a student at an elite university. This is evident from ethnographic research. For example, Reay, Crozier, and Clayton ( 2010 ) interviewed students from working‐class backgrounds who were attending one of four HE institutions, including an elite university (named Southern in the report). A student at Southern said this about her mother's reaction to her attending this elite university: ‘I don't think my mother really approves of me going to Southern. It's not what her daughter should be doing so I don't really mention it when I go home. It's kind of uncomfortable to talk about it’ (p. 116). In a separate paper, Reay, Crozier, and Clayton ( 2009 ) focus on the nine students attending Southern, examining whether these students felt like ‘fish out of water’. Indeed, there was evidence of difficulty in adjusting to the new environment, both socially and academically. One student said, ‘I wasn't keen on Southern as a place and all my preconceptions were “Oh, it's full of posh boarding school types”. And it was all true … it was a bit of a culture shock’ (p. 1111), while another said, ‘If you were the best at your secondary school … you're certainly not going to be the best here’ (p. 1112). A similar picture emerges from research in Canada by Lehmann ( 2009 , 2013 ), who interviewed working‐class students attending a research‐intensive university, and found that the students experienced uncomfortable conflicts between their new identities as university students and the ties they had with family members and non‐student friends.

Such is the reputation of elite, research‐intensive universities that working‐class high‐school students are unlikely to imagine themselves attending such institutions, even if they are academically able. Perceptions of these universities as elitist are likely to deter such students from applying. Evidence of this deterrence comes from research conducted by Nieuwenhuis, Easterbrook, and Manstead ( 2018 ). They report two studies in which 16‐ to 18‐year‐old secondary school students in the United Kingdom were asked about the universities they intended to apply to. The studies were designed to test the theoretical model shown in Figure  2 , which was influenced by prior work on the role of identity compatibility conducted by Jetten, Iyer, Tsivrikos, and Young ( 2008 ). According to the model in Figure  2 , SES influences university choice partly through its impact on perceived identity compatibility and anticipated acceptance at low‐ and high‐status universities.

Theoretical model of the way in which the socioeconomic status ( SES ) influences application to high‐status universities as a result of social identity factors and academic achievement, as proposed by Nieuwenhuis et al . ( 2018 ).

In the first study conducted by Nieuwenhuis and colleagues, students who were 6 months away from making their university applications responded to questions about their perceptions of two universities, one a research‐intensive, selective university (SU), the other a less selective university (LSU). Both universities were located in the same geographical region, not far from the schools where the participants were recruited. In the second study, students who were 6 weeks away from making their university applications responded to similar questions, but this time about three universities in the region, two of which were the same as those in Study 1, while the third was a highly selective institution (HSU). The questions put to respondents measured their perceptions of identity compatibility (e.g., consistency between family background and decision to go to university) and anticipated acceptance (e.g., anticipated identification with students at the university in question). Measures of parental education and academic achievement in previous examinations were taken, as well as the three universities to which they would most like to apply, which were scored in accordance with a published national league table.

In both studies, it was found that relatively disadvantaged students (whose parents had low levels of educational attainment) scored lower on identity compatibility and that low scores on identity compatibility were associated with lower anticipated acceptance at the SU (Study 1) or at the HSU (Study 2). These anticipated acceptance scores, in turn, predicted the type of university to which participants wanted to apply, with those who anticipated feeling accepted at more selective universities being more likely to apply to higher status universities. All of these relations were significant while controlling for academic achievement. Together, the results of these studies show that perceptions of acceptance at different types of university are associated with HE choices independently of students’ academic ability. This helps to explain why highly able students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to settle for less prestigious universities.

Alternatively, working‐class students may opt out of HE altogether. Hutchings and Archer ( 2001 ) interviewed young working‐class people who were not participating in HE and found that a key reason for their non‐participation was a perception that the kinds of HE institutions that were realistically available to them were second‐rate: ‘[O]ur respondents constructed two very different pictures of HE. One was of Oxbridge and campus universities, pleasant environments in which middle‐class students … can look forward to achieving prestigious degrees and careers. The second construction was of rather unattractive buildings in which “skint” working‐class students … have to work hard under considerable pressure, combining study with a job and having little time for social life. This second picture was the sort of HE that our respondents generally talked about as available to them, and they saw it as inferior to ‘real’ HE’ (p. 87).

Despite the deterrent effect of perceived identity incompatibility and lack of psychological fit, some working‐class students do gain entry to high‐status universities. Once there, they are confronted with the same issues of fit. Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, Johnson, and Covarrubias ( 2012 ) describe this as ‘cultural mismatch’, arguing that the interdependent norms that characterize the working‐class backgrounds of most first‐generation college students in the United States do not match the middle‐class independent norms that prevail in universities offering 4‐year degrees and that this mismatch leads to greater discomfort and poorer academic performance. Their cultural mismatch model is summarized in Figure  3 .

Model of cultural mismatch proposed by Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al . ( 2012 ). The mismatch is between first‐generation college students’ norms, which are more interdependent than those of continuing‐generation students, and the norms of independence that prevail in universities. From Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al . ( 2012 ), published by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.

To test this model, Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al . ( 2012 ) surveyed university administrators at the top 50 national universities and the top 25 liberal arts colleges. The majority of the 261 respondents were deans. They were asked to respond to items expressing interdependent (e.g., learn to work together with others) or independent (e.g., learn to express oneself) norms, selecting those that characterized their institution's culture or choosing statements reflecting what was more often emphasized by the institution. More than 70% of the respondents chose items reflecting a greater emphasis on independence than on interdependence. Similar results were found in a follow‐up study involving 50 administrators at second‐tier universities and liberal arts colleges, showing that this stronger focus on independence was not only true of elite institutions. Moreover, a longitudinal study of first‐generation students found that this focus on independence did not match the students’ interdependent motives for going to college, in that first‐generation students selected fewer independent motives (e.g., become an independent thinker) and twice as many interdependent motives (e.g., give back to the community), compared to their continuing‐generation counterparts, and that this greater focus on interdependent motives was associated with lower grades in the first 2 years of study, even after controlling for race and SAT scores.

As Stephens and her colleagues have shown elsewhere (e.g., Stephens, Brannon, Markus, & Nelson, 2015 ), there are steps that can be taken to reduce working‐class students’ perception that they do not fit with their university environment. These authors argue that ‘a key goal of interventions should be to fortify and to elaborate school‐relevant selves – the understanding that getting a college degree is central to “who I am”, “who I hope to become”, and “the future I envision for myself”’ (p. 3). Among the interventions that they advocate as ways of creating a more inclusive culture at university are: providing working‐class role models; diversifying the way in which university experience is represented, so that university culture also provides ways of achieving interdependent goals that may be more compatible with working‐class students’ values; and ensuring that working‐class students have a voice, for example, by providing forums in which they can express shared interests and concerns.

Although there is a less well‐developed line of work on the ways in which high‐status places of work affect the aspirations and behaviours of working‐class employees, there is good reason to assume that the effects and processes identified in research on universities as places to study generalize to prestigious employment organizations as places to work (Côté, 2011 ). To the extent that many workplaces are dominated by middle‐class values and practices, working‐class employees are likely to feel out of place (Ridgway & Fisk, 2012 ). This applies both to gaining entry to the workplace, by negotiating the application and selection process (Rivera, 2012 ), and (if successful) to the daily interactions between employees in the workplace. In the view of Stephens, Fryberg, and Markus ( 2012 ), many workplaces are characterized by cultures of expressive independence, where working‐class employees are less likely to feel at home. As Stephens et al . ( 2014 , p. 626) argue, ‘This mismatch between working‐class employees and their middle‐class colleagues and institutions could also reduce employees’ job security and satisfaction, continuing the cycle of disadvantage for working‐class employees.’

Towards an integrative model

The work reviewed here provides the basis for an integrative model of how social class affects thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. The model is shown in Figure  4 and builds on the work of others, especially that of Nicole Stephens and colleagues and that of Michael Kraus and colleagues. At the base of the model are differences in the material circumstances of working‐class and middle‐class people. These differences in income and wealth are associated with differences in social capital, in the form of friendship networks, and cultural capital, in the form of tacit knowledge about how systems work, that have a profound effect on the ways in which individuals who grow up in these different contexts construe themselves and their social environments. For example, if you have family members or friends who have university degrees and/or professional qualifications, you are more likely to entertain these as possible futures than if you do not have these networks; and if through these networks you have been exposed to libraries, museums, interviews, and so on, you are more likely to know how these cultural institutions work, less likely to be intimidated by them, and more likely to make use of them. In sum, a middle‐class upbringing is more likely to promote the perception that the environment is one full of challenges that can be met rather than threats that need to be avoided. These differences in self‐construal and models of interpersonal relations translate into differences in social emotions and behaviours that are noticeable to self and others, creating the opportunity for people to rank themselves and others, and for differences in norms and values to emerge. To the extent that high‐status institutions in society, such as elite universities and prestigious employers, are characterized by norms and values that are different from those that are familiar to working‐class people, the latter will feel uncomfortable in such institutions and will perform below their true potential.

Integrative model of how differences in material conditions generate social class differences and differences in social cognition, emotion, and behaviour.

Also depicted in Figure  4 is the way in which ideology moderates the relations between social class, on the one hand, and social cognition and social behaviour, on the other, and the ways in which economic inequality and threat moderate the relations between psychological dispositions and social behaviour. Although there is good evidence for many of the proposed relations depicted in the model, there is relatively little hard evidence concerning the moderating roles of ideology and economic inequality and threat. There is evidence that economic threat is associated with prejudice (e.g., Billiet, Meuleman, & De Witte, 2014 ), and that this also applies to higher‐educated people (e.g., Kuppens et al ., 2018 ). There is also evidence that high economic inequality increases the tendency for high‐income people to be less generous to others (Côté et al ., 2015 ), but these are influences that need further examination. Likewise, there is evidence of the moderating impact of ideology on the translation from social class to social cognition and behaviour (e.g., Wiederkehr, Bonnot, Krauth‐Gruber, & Darnon, 2015 ), but this, too, is an influence that merits additional investigation. A further point worth making is that much of the work on which this integrative model is based was conducted in the United States, which raises the question of the extent to which it is applicable to other contexts. There are some differences between the United States and other Western, industrialized countries that are relevant to the model. For example, the United States is more economically unequal than virtually every other industrialized country (Piketty & Saez, 2014 ). At the same time, the perceived degree of social mobility is greater in the United States than in other countries (Isaacs, 2008 ) – although the reality is that social mobility is lower in the United States (and indeed in the United Kingdom; see Social Mobility Commission, 2017 ) than in many other industrialized counties (Isaacs, 2008 ). These differences in economic inequality and ideology mean that the moderating roles played by these factors may vary from one country to another. For example, there is evidence that those in Europe who are poor or on the left of the political spectrum are more concerned with and unhappy about inequality than are their American counterparts, which may be related to different beliefs about social mobility (Alesina, Di Tella, & MacCulloch, 2004 ). Although there seems to be no good reason to question the generalizability of the other relations posited in the model, there is an obvious need to expand the research base on which the model is founded.

Prospects for social change

The cycle of disadvantage that starts with poor material conditions and ends with lower chances of entering and succeeding in the very contexts (universities and high‐status workplaces) that could increase social mobility is not going to be changed in the absence of substantial pressure for social change. It is therefore interesting that when people are asked about social inequality, they generally say that they are in favour of greater equality.

Norton and Ariely ( 2011 ) asked a nationally representative sample of more than 5,500 Americans to estimate the (then) current wealth distribution in the United States and also to express their preferences for how wealth should be distributed. The key findings from this research were (1) that respondents greatly underestimated the degree of wealth inequality in the United States, believing that the wealthiest 20% of the population owned 59% of the wealth, where the actual figure is 84% and (2) that their preferred distribution of wealth among citizens was closer to equality than even their own incorrect estimations of the distribution (e.g., they expressed a preference that the top 20% should own 32% of the nation's wealth). This also held for wealthy respondents and Republican voters – albeit to a lesser extent than their poorer and Democrat counterparts. Similar results for Australian respondents were reported by Norton, Neal, Govan, Ariely, and Holland ( 2014 ).

These studies have been criticized on the grounds that the ‘quintile’ methodology they use provides respondents with an anchor (20%) from which they adjust upwards or downwards. However, when Eriksson and Simpson ( 2012 ) used a different methodology, they found that although American respondents’ preferences for wealth distribution were more unequal than those found using the quintile methodology, they were still much more egalitarian than the actual distribution. Similar conclusions were reached in a study of American adolescents conducted by Flanagan and Kornbluh ( 2017 ), where participants expressed a strong preference for a much more egalitarian society than the degree of stratification they perceived to exist in the United States. It is also worth noting that similar findings have been reported in a study of preferences for income inequality (Kiatpongsan & Norton, 2014 ), where it was found that American respondents underestimated the actual difference in income between CEOs and unskilled workers (354:1), and that their preferences regarding this difference (7:1) were more egalitarian than were their estimates (30:1).

Given the evidence that citizens consistently express a preference for less wealth and income inequality than what currently prevails in many societies, it is worth considering why there is not greater support for redistributive policies. It is known that one factor that weakens support for such policies is a belief in social mobility. American participants have been found to overestimate the degree of social mobility in the United States (Davidai & Gilovich, 2015 ; Kraus & Tan, 2015 ), and Shariff, Wiwad, and Aknin ( 2016 ) have shown, using a combination of survey and experimental methods, that higher perceived mobility leads to greater acceptance of income inequality. These authors also showed that the effect of their manipulation of perceived income mobility on tolerance for inequality was mediated by two factors: the expectation that respondents’ children would be upwardly mobile; and perceptions of the degree to which someone's economic standing was the result of effort, rather than luck. This suggests that people's attitudes to income inequality – and therefore their support for steps to reduce it – are shaped by their perceptions that (1) higher incomes are possible to achieve, at least for their children, and (2) when these higher incomes are achieved, they are deserved. It follows that any intervention that reduces the tendency to overestimate income mobility should increase support for redistributive policies.

Another factor that helps to account for lack of support for redistribution is people's perceptions of their own social standing or rank. Brown‐Iannuzzi, Lundberg, Kay, and Payne ( 2015 ) have shown that subjective status is correlated with support for redistributive policies, and that experimentally altering subjective status leads to changes in such support. In both cases, lower subjective status was associated with stronger support for redistribution, even when actual resources and self‐interest were held constant. So one's perception of one's own relative social rank influences support for redistribution. This points to the importance of social comparisons and suggests that those who compare themselves with others who have a lower social standing are less likely to be supportive of redistribution.

Evidence that people's attitudes to inequality and to policies that would reduce it can be influenced by quite straightforward interventions comes from research reported by McCall, Burk, Laperrière, and Richeson ( 2017 ). In three studies, these researchers show that exposing American participants to information about the rising economic inequality, compared to control information, led to stronger perceptions that economic success is due to structural factors rather than individual effort. In the largest of the three studies, involving a representative sample of American adults, it was also found that information about rising inequality led to greater endorsement of policies that could be implemented by government and by business to reduce inequality. This research shows that, under the right conditions, even those living in a society that is traditionally opposed to government intervention would support government policies to reduce inequality.

Also relevant to the likelihood of people taking social action on this issue is how descriptions of inequality are framed. Bruckmüller, Reese, and Martiny ( 2017 ) have shown that relatively subtle variations in such framing, such as whether an advantaged group is described as having more or a disadvantaged group is described as having less, influence perceptions of the legitimacy of these differences; larger differences between groups were evaluated as less legitimate when the disadvantaged group was described as having less. Perceptions of the illegitimacy of inequality in group outcomes are likely to evoke group‐based anger, which in turn is known to be one of the predictors of collective action (Van Zomeren, Spears, Fischer, & Leach, 2004 ).

There is solid evidence that the material circumstances in which people develop and live their lives have a profound influence on the ways in which they construe themselves and their social environments. The resulting differences in the ways that working‐class and middle‐ and upper‐class people think and act serve to reinforce these influences of social class background, making it harder for working‐class individuals to benefit from the kinds of educational and employment opportunities that would increase social mobility and thereby improve their material circumstances. At a time when economic inequality is increasing in many countries, this lack of mobility puts a strain on social cohesion. Most people believe that economic inequality is undesirable and, when presented with the evidence of growing inequality, say that they would support government policies designed to reduce it. Given that the social class differences reviewed here have their origins in economic inequality, it follows that redistributive (or ‘predistributive’; Taylor‐Gooby, 2013 ) policies are urgently needed to create greater equality.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Colin Foad, Matt Easterbrook, Russell Spears and John Drury for their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.

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Social Stratification: Definition, Types & Examples

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Key Takeaways

• The term social stratification refers to how societies categorize people based on factors such as wealth, income, education, family background, and power.
• Social stratification exists in all societies in some form. However, it is easier to move up socially in some than others. Societies with more vertical social mobility have open stratification systems, and those with low vertical mobility have closed stratification systems.
• The importance of stratification is that those at the top of the hierarchy have greater access to scarce resources than those at the bottom.
• Sociologists have created four main categories of social stratification systems: class systems, caste systems, slavery, and meritocracy. The last of these is a largely hypothetical system.
• Class consistency refers to the variability of one”s social status among many dimensions (such as education and wealth) during one”s lifetime. More open stratification systems tend to encourage lower class consistency than closed stratification systems.
• Social stratification can work along multiple dimensions, such as those of race, gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, and so on. Intersectionality is a method for studying systems of social stratification through the lens of multiple identities.

What is Meant by Social Stratification?

Social stratification refers to a society”s categorization of its people into rankings based on factors such as wealth, income, education, family background, and power. Someones” place within a system of social stratification is called their socioeconomic status.

Social stratification is a relatively fixed, hierarchical arrangement in society by which groups have different access to resources, power, and perceived social worth.

Although many people and institutions in Western Societies indicate that they value equality — the belief that everyone has an equal chance at success and that hard work and talent — not inherited wealth, prejudicial treatment, racism, or societal values — determine social mobility , sociologists recognize social stratification as a society-wide system that makes inequalities apparent.

While there are inequalities between individuals, sociologists are interested in large social patterns. That is to say, sociologists look to see if those with similar backgrounds, group memberships, identities, and geographic locations share the same social stratification.

While some cultures may outwardly say that one’s climb and descent in socioeconomic status depends on individual choices, sociologists see how the structure of society affects a person’s social standing and, therefore, is created and supported by society.

Origins Social Stratification

Human social stratification has taken on many forms throughout the course of history. In foraging societies, for example, social status usually depended on hunting and leadership ability, particularly in males (Gurven & von Rueden, 2006).

Those who brought back meat for meals were held in higher status than those who rarely succeeded at hunting.

Meanwhile, in parts of the world where agriculture has replaced hunting and gathering, Anne’s land holdings often form the basis for social stratification. These holdings tend to be transmitted throughout generations.

This intergenerational transfer of wealth gave rise to what is known as estates, which were dominant in medieval Europe (Ertman, 1997).

The rise of agriculture also brought the emergence of cities, each with its own forms of stratification, now centered on one”‘s occupation. As the skills needed for acquiring certain occupational skills grew, so did the intergenerational transmission of status according to one”‘s occupational class.

One example of stratification according to occupational classes are guilds (Gibert, 1986). More rigid occupational classes are called castes, which exist both in and outside India.

Examples of Stratification

The factors that define stratification vary from society to society. In many societies, stratification is an economic system based on wealth, or the net values of the money and assets a person has, and income, their wages or income from investments.

However, there are other important factors that influence social standing. In some cultures, for instance, prestige — be it obtained through going to a prestigious university, working for a prestigious company, or coming from an illustrious family — is valued. In others, social stratification is based on age.

The elderly may be either esteemed or disparaged and ignored. The cultural beliefs of societies often reinforce stratification.

Broadly, these factors define how societies are classified or stratified:

Economic condition: the amount someone earns;

Social class: classification based on, for example, economy and caste;

Social networks: the connections that people have — and the opportunities these allow people in finding jobs, partners, and so on.

One determinant of social standing is one”s parents. Parents tend to pass their social position onto their children, as well as the cultural norms, values, and beliefs that accompany a certain lifestyle. Parents can also transfer a network of friends and family members that provide resources and support.

This is why, in situations where someone who was born into one social status enters the environment of another — such as the child of an uneducated family entering college, the individual may fare worse than others; they lack the resources and support often provided to those whose parents have gone to college (Gutierrez et al., 2022).

A society’s occupational structure can also determine social stratification. For example, societies may consider some jobs — such as teaching, or nursing — to be noble professions, which people should do out of love and the greater good rather than for money.

In contrast, those in other professions, such as athletes and C-suite executives, do not receive this attitude. Thus, those who are highly-educated may receive relatively low pay (Gutierrez et al., 2022).

Types of Stratification

Slavery and indentured servitude are likely the most rigid types of social stratification. Both of these involve people being treated as actual property and are often based on race or ethnicity. The owner of a slave exploits a slave”s labor for economic gain.

Slavery is one of the lowest levels in any stratification system, as they possess virtually no power or wealth of their own.

Slavery is thought to have begun 10,000 years ago, after agricultural societies developed, as people in these societies made prisoners of war work on their farm.

As in other social stratification systems, the status of one”s parents often defines whether or not someone will be put into slavery. However on a historic level, slavery has also been used as a punishment for crimes and as a way of controlling those in invaded or enemy territories.

For example, ancient Roman slaves were in large part from conquered regions (Gutierrez et al., 2022).

Slavery regained its property after the European colonization of the Western Hemisphere in the 1500s. Portuguese and Spanish colonists who settled in Brazil and the Caribbean enslaved native populations, and people from Africa were shipped to the “new world” to carry out various tasks.

Notably, the United State’s early gricultural economy was one intertwined with slavery, a fact that would help lead the Civil War after it won its independence from Britain.

Slavery still exists in many parts of the world.

Modern slaves include those taken as prisoners of war in ethnic conflicts, girls and women captured and kidnapped and used as prostitutes or sex slaves, children sold by their parents to be child laborers, and workers paying off debts who are abused, or even tortured, to the extent that they are unable to leave (Bales, 2007).

Even in societies that have officially outlawed slavery, the practice continues to have wide-ranging repercussions on socioeconomic standing. For example, some observers believe that a caste system existed in the southern part of the United States until the civil rights movement ended legal racial segregation. Rights, such as the right to vote and to a fair trial, were denied in practice, and lynchings were common for many decade (Litwack, 2009).

South Africa, meanwhile, had an official caste system known as apartheid until the 1990s. Although black people constituted the majority of the nation”s population, they had the worst jobs, could not vote, and lived in poor, segregated neighborhoods.

Both systems have, to the consensus of many sociologists, provided those of color with lower intergenerational wealth and higher levels of prejudice than their white counterparts, systematically hampering vertical class mobility.

Caste Systems

Caste systems are closed stratification systems, meaning that people can do very little to change the social standing of their birth. Caste systems determine all aspects of an individual”s life, such as appropriate occupations, marriage partners, and housing.

Those who defy the expectations of their caste may descend to a lower one. Individual talents and interests do not provide opportunities to improve one”s social standing.

The Indian caste system is based on the principles of Hinduism.

Those who are in higher castes are considered to be more spiritually pure, and those in lower castes — most notably, the “untouchable” — are said to be paying remuneration for misbehavior in past lives. In sociological terms, the belief used to support a system of stratification is called an ideology, and underlies the social systems of every culture (Gutierrez et al., 2022).

In caste systems, people are expected to work in an occupation and to enter into a marriage based on their caste. Accepting this social standing is a moral duty, and acceptance of one”s social standing is socialized from childhood.

While the Indian caste system has been dismantled on an official, constitutional level, it is still deeply embedded in Indian society outside of urban areas.

The Class System

Class systems are based on both social factors and individual achievement. Classes consist of sets of people who have similar status based on factors such as wealth, income, education, family background, and occupation.

Class systems, unlike caste systems, are open. This means that people can move to a different level of education or employment status than their parents. A combination of personal choice, opportunity, and one’s beginning status in society each play a role.

Those in class systems can socialize with and marry members of other classes.

In a case where spouses come from different social classes, they form an exogamous marriage. Often, these exogamous marriages focus on values such as love and compatibility.

Though there are social conformities that encourage people to marry those within their own class, people are not prohibited from choosing partners based solely on social ranking (Giddens et al., 1991).

Meritocracy (as an ideal system of stratification)

Meritocracy , meanwhile, is a hypothetical social stratification system in which one’s socioeconomic status is determined by personal effort and merit.

However, sociologists agree that no societies in history have determined social standing solely on merit.

Nonetheless, sociologists see aspects of meritocracies in modern societies when they study the role of academic and job performance and the systems in place intended to evaluate and reward achievement in these areas (Giddens et al., 1991).

Systems of Stratification

Sociologists have distinguished between two systems of stratification: closed and open. Closed systems accommodate for little change in social position.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for people to shift levels and social relationships between levels are largely verboten.

For example, estates, slavery, and caste systems are all closed systems. In contrast, open systems of social stratification are — nominatively, at least — based on achievement and allow for movement and interaction between layers and classes (Giddens et al., 1991).

What is Status Consistency?

The term status consistency describes the consistency — or lack thereof — of an individual”s rank across factors that determine social stratification within a lifetime. For example, a child in a class system may fail to finish high school — a trait of the lower class — and take up a manual job at a store”s warehouse — consistent with the lower or working class.

However, through persistence and favor with their employers, this person may work their way up to managing the store or even joining the corporation”s higher level management – an occupation consistent with the upper-middle class.

The discrepancies between someone’s educational level, occupation, and income represent low status consistency. Caste and closed systems, meanwhile, have high status consistency, as one”‘s birth status tends to control various aspects of one’s life.

The Role of Intersectionality

Intersectionality is an approach to the sociological study of social stratification. Sociologists have preferred it because it does not reduce the complexity of power constructions along a single social division, as has often been the case in stratification theories.

Generally, societies are stratified against one or more lines. These include race and ethnicity, sex and gender, age, religion, disability, and social class. Kimberle Crenshaw introduced the concept of intersectionality as a way of analyzing the intersection of race and gender (2017).

Crenshaw analyzed legal cases involving discrimination experienced by African American roman along the lines of both racism and sexist. The essence of intersectionality, as articulated by the sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (1990), is that sociologists cannot separate the effects of race, social class, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, and so on in understanding social stratification (Gutierrez et al., 2022).

Bales, K. (2007). What predicts human trafficking?. International journal of comparative and applied criminal justice, 31 (2), 269-279.

Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought in the matrix of domination. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment, 138 (1990), 221-238.

Crenshaw, K. W. (2017). On intersectionality: Essential writings. The New Press.

Ertman, T. (1997). Birth of the Leviathan: Building states and regimes in medieval and early modern Europe. Cambridge University Press. Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Appelbaum, R. P., & Carr, D. S. (1991). Introduction to sociology . Norton.

Gilbert, G. N. (1986). Occupational classes and inter-class mobility. British Journal of Sociology , 370-391.

Grusky, D. (2019). Social stratification, class, race, and gender in sociological perspective . Routledge.

Grusky, D. B., & Sørensen, J. B. (1998). Can class analysis be salvaged ?. American journal of Sociology, 103(5), 1187-1234.

Gurven, M., & Von Rueden, C. (2006). Hunting, social status and biological fitness. Social biology, 53(1-2), 81-99.

Gutierrez, E., Hund, J., Johnson, S., Ramos, C., Rodriguez, L., & Tsuhako, J. (2022). Social Stratification and Intersectionality .

Litwack, L. F. (2009). How free is free?: The long death of Jim Crow (Vol. 6). Harvard University Press.

What is social stratification?

Social stratification refers to the way in which society is organized into layers or strata, based on various factors like wealth, occupation, education level, race, or gender.

It’s essentially a kind of social hierarchy where individuals and groups are classified on the basis of esteemed social values and the unequal distribution of resources and power.

What is the main purpose of social stratification?

Ensures Roles are Filled by the Competent: Stratification means that positions are given to those who have the ability and skill to execute the duties of the job. People in higher strata often have higher education and skills.

Maintains Social Order: By establishing a hierarchy and clear societal roles, stratification can contribute to overall societal stability and order.

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9.1 What Is Social Stratification?

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

• Differentiate between open and closed stratification systems
• Distinguish between caste and class systems
• Explain why meritocracy is considered an ideal system of stratification

Sociologists use the term social stratification to describe the system of social standing. Social stratification refers to a society’s categorization of its people into rankings based on factors like wealth, income, education, family background, and power.

Geologists also use the word “stratification” to describe the distinct vertical layers found in rock. Typically, society’s layers, made of people, represent the uneven distribution of society’s resources. Society views the people with more resources as the top layer of the social structure of stratification. Other groups of people, with fewer and fewer resources, represent the lower layers. An individual’s place within this stratification is called socioeconomic status (SES) .

Most people and institutions in the United States indicate that they value equality, a belief that everyone has an equal chance at success. In other words, hard work and talent—not inherited wealth, prejudicial treatment, institutional racism, or societal values—determine social mobility. This emphasis on choice, motivation, and self-effort perpetuates the American belief that people control their own social standing.

However, sociologists recognize social stratification as a society-wide system that makes inequalities apparent. While inequalities exist between individuals, sociologists are interested in larger social patterns. Sociologists look to see if individuals with similar backgrounds, group memberships, identities, and location in the country share the same social stratification. No individual, rich or poor, can be blamed for social inequalities, but instead all participate in a system where some rise and others fall. Most Americans believe the rising and falling is based on individual choices. But sociologists see how the structure of society affects a person's social standing and therefore is created and supported by society.

Factors that define stratification vary in different societies. In most societies, stratification is an economic system, based on wealth , the net value of money and assets a person has, and income , a person’s wages or investment dividends. While people are regularly categorized based on how rich or poor they are, other important factors influence social standing. For example, in some cultures, prestige is valued, and people who have them are revered more than those who don’t. In some cultures, the elderly are esteemed, while in others, the elderly are disparaged or overlooked. Societies’ cultural beliefs often reinforce stratification.

One key determinant of social standing is our parents. Parents tend to pass their social position on to their children. People inherit not only social standing but also the cultural norms, values, and beliefs that accompany a certain lifestyle. They share these with a network of friends and family members that provide resources and support. This is one of the reasons first-generation college students do not fare as well as other students. They lack access to the resources and support commonly provided to those whose parents have gone to college.

Other determinants are found in a society’s occupational structure. Teachers, for example, often have high levels of education but receive relatively low pay. Many believe that teaching is a noble profession, so teachers should do their jobs for love of their profession and the good of their students—not for money. Yet, the same attitude is not applied to professional athletes, executives, or those working in corporate world. Cultural attitudes and beliefs like these support and perpetuate social and economic inequalities.

Systems of Stratification

Sociologists distinguish between two types of systems of stratification. Closed systems accommodate little change in social position. They do not allow people to shift levels and do not permit social relationships between levels. Closed systems include estate, slavery, and caste systems. Open systems are based on achievement and allow for movement and interaction between layers and classes. How different systems operate reflect, emphasize, and foster specific cultural values, shaping individual beliefs. In this section, we’ll review class and caste stratification systems, plus discuss the ideal system of meritocracy.

The Caste System

Caste systems are closed stratification systems where people can do little or nothing to change the social standing of their birth. The caste system determines all aspects of an individual’s life: occupations, marriage partners, and housing. Individual talents, interests, or potential do not provide opportunities to improve a person's social position.

In the Hindu caste tradition, people expect to work in an occupation and to enter into a marriage based on their caste. Accepting this social standing is considered a moral duty and people are socialized to accept their social standing. Cultural values reinforced the system. Caste systems promote beliefs in fate, destiny, and the will of a higher power, rather than promoting individual freedom as a value. This belief system is an ideology. Every culture has an ideology that supports its system of stratification.

The caste system in India has been officially dismantled, but is still deeply embedded in Indian society, particularly in rural areas. In India’s larger cities, people now have more opportunities to choose their own career paths and marriage partners. As a global center of employment, corporations have introduced merit-based hiring and employment to the nation shifting the cultural expectations of the caste system.

The Class System

A class system is based on both social factors and individual achievement. A class consists of a set of people who share similar status based on factors like wealth, income, education, family background, and occupation. Unlike caste systems, class systems are open. People may move to a different level (vertical movement) of education or employment status than their parents. Though family and other societal models help guide a person toward a career, personal choice and opportunity play a role.

They can also socialize with and marry members of other classes. People have the option to form an exogamous marriage , a union of spouses from different social categories. Exogamous marriages often focus on values such as love and compatibility. Though social conformities still exist that encourage people to choose partners within their own class, called an endogamous marriage , people are not as pressured to choose marriage partners based solely on their social location.

Meritocracy

Meritocracy is a hypothetical system in which social stratification is determined by personal effort and merit. The concept of meritocracy is an ideal because no society has ever existed where social standing was based entirely on merit. Rather, multiple factors influence social standing, including processes like socialization and the realities of inequality within economic systems. While a meritocracy has never existed, sociologists see aspects of meritocracies in modern societies when they study the role of academic and job performance and the systems in place for evaluating and rewarding achievement in these areas.

The differences between an open and closed system are explored further in the example below.

Status Consistency

Sociologists use the term status consistency to describe the consistency, or lack thereof, of an individual’s rank across the factors that determine social stratification within a lifetime. Caste systems correlate with high status consistency, due to the inability to move out of a class, whereas the more flexible class system demonstrates lower status consistency.

To illustrate, let’s consider Serena. Serena earned her high school diploma but did not go to college. Completing high school but not college is a trait more common to the lower-middle class. After high school, she began landscaping, which, as manual labor, tracks with lower-middle class or even lower class. However, over time, Serena started her own company. She hired employees. She won larger contracts. Serena became a business owner and earned more money. Those traits represent the upper-middle class. Inconsistencies between Serena’s educational level, her occupation, and income show Serena’s flexibility in her social status, giving her low status consistency. In a class system, hard work, new opportunities, coupled with a lower education status still allow a person movement into middle or upper class, whereas in a caste system, that would not be possible. In a class system, low status consistency correlates with having more choices and opportunities.

Social Policy and Debate

Leaving royalty behind.

Meghan Markle, who married a member of the British royal family, for years endured unceasing negative media attention, invasion of privacy, and racially abusive comments. She and her husband–Prince Harry, grandson to Queen Elizabeth–undertook a series of legal actions to push back against overly aggressive media outlets. But because of the continued harassment and disagreements with others in the royal family, Meghan and Harry decided to step down from their royal obligations and begin a disassociation from the British monarchy. In doing so, they gave up honorary positions, titles, and financial support. For Meghan, who had been born in the U.S. and had earned her wealth through a successful career, these changes may not be so jarring. Prince Harry, however, had been "His Royal Highness" since he was born; by nature of his ancestry he was entitled to vast sums of money, property, and cultural-political positions such as Honorary Air Commandant, Commodore-in-Chief, and President of the Queen's Commonwealth Trust. Harry would also lose the military rank he had earned through almost ten years of military service, including two combat deployments to Afghanistan. Would Megxit work for him? What gave him those honors in the first place?

Britain’s monarchy arose during the Middle Ages. Its social hierarchy placed royalty at the top and commoners on the bottom. This was generally a closed system, with people born into positions of nobility. Wealth was passed from generation to generation through primogeniture , a law stating that all property would be inherited by the firstborn son. If the family had no son, the land went to the next closest male relation. Women could not inherit property, and their social standing was primarily determined through marriage.

The arrival of the Industrial Revolution changed Britain’s social structure. Commoners moved to cities, got jobs, and made better livings. Gradually, people found new opportunities to increase their wealth and power. Today, the government is a constitutional monarchy with the prime minister and other ministers elected to their positions, and with the royal family’s role being largely ceremonial. The long-ago differences between nobility and commoners have blurred, and the modern class system in Britain is similar to that of the United States (McKee 1996).

Today, the royal family still commands wealth, power, and a great deal of attention. After the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, Prince Charles ascended the throne. When he retires or passes away, the position will go to Prince William, Prince Harry's older brother.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, meanwhile, moved to Los Angeles and signed a voiceover deal with Disney while also joining Netflix in a series production. They founded an organization focusing on non-profit activities and media ventures. Living in LA and working to some extent in entertainment, they will likely be considered a different type of royalty.

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Social Hierarchy: Definition and 14 Examples

A social hierarchy is a ranking system that organizes society so that some people have greater social status than others.

There are many types of social hierarchies, including caste systems, social class hierarchies, gender hierarchies, and so on (I’ll explore a ton of them if you scroll down!)

However, different societies have different approaches to hierarchies. For example, traditional societies tend to have more extreme gender hierarchies than liberal societies, while class-based societies tend to have more extreme income inequality than egalitarian societies .

Social Hierarchy Definition

Social hierarchies are means by which societies rank, classify, and distribute privileges and roles to their members.

Those higher up within the hierarchic system tend to be afforded greater privileges and status than those lower in the system and have higher social dominance orientations .

Hierarchies can be established on a range of social factors , such as gender, race, income, culture, ethnicity, and so on.

Another way in which we can categorize hierarchies is the extent to which they are established based on achieved or ascribed status:

• Ascribed Status : This is a status that is given to someone at birth and remains relatively stable throughout life. For example, being born into royalty is ascribed to you, and you will remain high on the hierarchy for life. Similarly, in patriarchal societies, you will be ascribed male or female based on your sex, and this will largely determine your social status for the remainder of your life.
• Achieved Status : This is a status that is earned throughout your life, such as being a “doctor”, which is achieved through education. Another example is self-made wealth/

Societies with social hierarchies that value achieved over ascribed status tend to be seen as more meritocratic. However, this may be simply symbolic, given that social mobility (the ability to move up and down the hierarchy) may still be curtailed in any form of hierarchy .

Are Social Hierarchies Natural?

While social hierarchies appear to be natural in human societies – and even in many primate societies – they are nonetheless considered to lead to injustices and inequalities.

Many sociologists therefore advocate for social systems that curtail the excesses of social hierarchies and, to the greatest extent possible, establish equality of opportunity within societies to achieve maximum possible social mobility and meritocracy .

There is also a case made by distributive justice advocates that we should ensure people lower in social hierarchies have their fundamental rights and basic needs attended to in order to further curtail the injustices inherent in a hierarchic system.

Social Hierarchy Examples

1. caste systems.

Some social hierarchies are incredibly rigid, such as with caste systems.

Famously, India had a strict caste system wherein people were assigned social roles and jobs within their castes and were only allowed to marry within their caste (known as endogamy). Similarly, people were only allowed to associate within their castes in social situations.

This system was significantly deconstructed in the second half of the 20th Century, but its remnants are still influential today (Deshpande, 2011).

This would be an example of a social hierarchy that is based on ascribed status and where social mobility is intentionally curtailed.

2. Class Systems

A class system refers to a social system wherein the rich, middle-income, and poor tend only to mix with others of similar wealth and professional status.

This, over time, lead to subcultural groups whereby people are stratified not only by wealth, but also cultures and tastes – wherein the rich have different accents and tastes to the middle-income and poor.

This class system, which combines factors like wealth, profession, and taste, among other factors, is represented by three broad types of social class :

• Working-class: Tending to work in physical labor or blue-collar jobs , living from paycheck to paycheck, and consuming sports, foods, and products designed for mass consumption.
• Middle-class : Tending to enjoy home ownership but with mortgages, and working in professional and managerial roles.
• Upper-class: With refined and expensive tastes, a preference for service and experience, and high income.

Many contemporary societies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have a class-based social structure which tends to be a natural consequence of capitalism. However, class systems tend to be less rigid than in the past due to diminishing prejudices and enhanced social mobility compared to 19th Century societies (Kerbo, 2012).

3. Racial and Ethnic Hierarchies

Some societies may organize people into explicit or subtle hierarchies based on race or ethnicity.

In these structures, the dominant racial or ethnic group typically has more privileges and a higher social status than minority groups .

A pertinent example is the United States, where systemic racism has resulted in substantial racial disparities (Bonilla-Silva, 2017). While significant progress has been made in breaking down race-based discrimination, statistics show it still exists to this day.

Other societies with overt and explicit ethnicity and race-based hierarchies include 1990s South Africa and present-day Myanmar.

4. Patriarchy

Many societies are structured around gender hierarchies, often favoring men over women.

Patriarchal systems , where men are deemed superior and hold most power and authority, have resulted in various forms of gender inequality, such as wage disparities and underrepresentation in leadership roles (Connell, 2009).

While the patriarchy has been diluted substantially in the west, it remains a prominent issue, especially in the workplace where the glass ceiling effect – where women struggle to make it to the upper echelons of their professions – remains. We can see this, for example, in the fact that until 2018, there were more men named John than the total number of women as CEOs in America.

5. Gerontocracy

Certain societies value age and the accompanying wisdom , resulting in a social structure known as a gerontocracy.

In these societies, elders hold the most esteemed social status and power to make key decisions.

This type of hierarchy is common in tribal societies but can also be observed in modern contexts, such as in the business world.

Notably, however, there is also a reverse effect, known as ageism , where beauty and youth are implicitly seen as more desirable traits than age. (Silverstein & Giarrusso, 2010).

6. Education-Based Hierarchy

In many societies, educational attainment is a key factor determining one’s place in the social hierarchy. Educational status may in this case be a proxy for an intelligence and intellect hierarchy.

Individuals with higher levels of education typically hold more prestigious positions, earn higher wages, and possess a higher social status.

This is especially prevalent in knowledge-based economies where highly educated individuals are often rewarded with greater economic opportunities and wield more societal influence (Torche, 2011).

Furthermore, certain fields of study, such as medicine and law, often come with higher prestige attached (Rivera, 2015).

7. Religious Hierarchies

Many religions and societies exhibit hierarchies based on religious roles, where clergy and religious leaders possess a higher social status than laypeople.

For instance, in the Catholic Church, the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons each hold varying degrees of authority and influence. This was certainly true, for example, in pre-Enlightenment Europe.

Perhaps the most stark example of a society with a strict religious hierarchy today is Iran, whose theocracy holds elite Imams up as the most respected and laudable members of the society (Ebaugh, 2006).

8. Ability/Disability Hierarchy

In many societies, individuals with disabilities are often marginalized and experience lower social status compared to those without disabilities, leading to what is often referred to as ableism .

This hierarchy is reinforced by societal attitudes and structures that privilege able-bodied individuals and disadvantage those with disabilities, resulting in disparities in access to resources, opportunities, and social inclusion (Campbell, 2009).

A key vehicle for undermining this has been the social model of disability , which has put pressure on societies to ensure all services and businesses to become accessible for people with physical and mental disabilities, to ensure people with disabilities enjoy equal opportunities.

9. Sexual Orientation Hierarchy

Societies often stratify individuals based on sexual orientation, with heterosexuality generally being privileged.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals often face discrimination and marginalization due to societal norms and laws that uphold heteronormativity, leading to a hierarchy that privileges heterosexual individuals (Herek, 2007).

For example, until very recently, western society had banned gay couples from marrying. This created a hierarchy where some people’s relationships were more validated by society than others’.

10. Occupational Hierarchy

Occupations often come with associated prestige and societal value, forming a distinct hierarchy.

Doctors, lawyers, and engineers, for example, tend to have higher status due to the perceived importance of their work and the extensive training required.

In contrast, jobs like custodial work, food service, and manual labor are often deemed lower status due to lower pay and societal perceptions (Weeden & Grusky, 2005).

On an anecdotal level, we can see this when parents pressure their young adult children into becoming doctors and lawyers – the point here is that the parents want their children to have a degree of social status, usually to make the parents feel good about themselves rather than for the happiness of the adult children!

11. Bureaucratic Hierarchy

In many organizations, bureaucracies create clear hierarchies. Positions at the top—like CEOs, presidents, or directors—hold the most power, make key decisions, and usually earn the highest salaries.

Lower levels have less power and lower wages, with each successive level having a lesser degree of autonomy and decision-making authority (Weber, 2013).

This is perhaps one of the most legitimized forms of hierarchy in today’s world, with acknowledgment that the most experienced and competent people should make the most important strategic decisions because they are best placed to do so.

Of course, there are still issues with this model, especially when we look at the intersection of job promotions with other social hierarchies like gender-based hierarchies, which as we have seen, tend to make it more difficult for women to receive promotions into upper-level roles.

12. Political Hierarchy

In political systems, there is a clear hierarchy, with those in positions of power (presidents, prime ministers, senators, etc.) wielding more influence and often enjoying higher social status than ordinary citizens.

This power structure determines who gets to make decisions that affect the larger populace (Dahl, 2006). As with workplace hierarchies, these are overt hierarchies that make sense and, ideally, should be meritocratic.

Problems do arise, however, when societies become oligarchies or plutocracies , where a small group of political elites (oligarchies) or economic elites (plutocracies) consolidate political power, creating an undemocratic situation.

13. Attractiveness Hierarchy

An informal way in which we rank people is through their degrees of attractiveness. This is often based on comparisons to a cultural ideal .

For example, in today’s society, it’s generally perceived that women who have soft skin, thin bodies, and toned muscles meet the idealized version. Women are constantly compared and ranked against this ideal, and often, more beautiful people are treated more kindly, in what we call the beauty bias.

The same goes for cultural norms around idealized male bodies.

14. Hierarchies of Masculinity and Femininity

Attractiveness is not the only way men and women are placed on hierarchies. They are also ranked based on personality traits.

For example, there are idealized versions of masculinity (known as hegemonic masculinity ), which tend to refer both to physical traits (e.g. big muscles) and personality traits (aggressiveness, protectiveness, leadership qualities ).

Men who are more gentle, interested in caring for children, or interested in feminized professions, may be informally seen as inferior.

The same goes for cultural norms around idealized femininity .

See Also: Masculinity vs Femininity

Pros and Cons of Social Hierarchies

So far I have been somewhat critical of social hierarchies (they do, after all, lead to substantial unwarranted discrimination and prejudice).

However, there is also clear evidence for their social value in many circumstances. In such circumstances, the benefits are seen to outweigh the damages.

Advantages of hierarchies include:

• Organizational efficiency: Hierarchical structures provide clear, predefined roles and responsibilities, helping to organize tasks and manage workload effectively. This results in enhanced productivity and efficiency, which was a key argument of Weber’s theory of bureaucratization (Weber, 1940).
• Defined paths of communication and command: Hierarchies establish clear lines of authority and communication. This streamlines decision-making processes and enables effective communication within organizations. Hence, we see explicit hierarchies in business, political, and military organizations (Carzo & Yanouzas, 1969).
• Stability and predictability: A structural-functionalist argument for hierarchies is that they provide stability and predictability, as each individual knows their place and responsibilities within the structure. This reduces uncertainty and promotes order (Krackhardt, 1994).

Disadvantages of hierarchies include:

• Inequality and Power Imbalances : Hierarchies inherently create power imbalances and can perpetuate inequality. Those in upper levels may exploit or neglect those at lower levels, leading to feelings of disenfranchisement (Leavitt, 2005).
• Stifling creativity and initiative: Hierarchical structures can inhibit creativity and initiative, particularly in those at lower levels who may not feel empowered to express new ideas or challenge the status quo .
• Resistance to change: Hierarchies can also foster resistance to change. Those at the top of the hierarchy may be reluctant to implement changes that could disrupt their position of power.

Here is a summary table:

Social Cues and Projecting Status

People can project social status to strangers in a range of ways, known as social cues , to improve others’ social perception of them and improve their social reputation.

This is a strategy used to demonstrate dominance and power, or similarly, subversion, in the case of countercultural groups. Every time we are in social interactions, the behaviors and signals we send demonstrate our status on the hierarchy.

Examples include:

• Dress codes: Dressing in a suit and tie for a man can project power, while dressing in flip-flops and an old, raggy shirt and symbolize rebellion against the hierarchy’s symbology. Similarly, some elite schools insist on school dress codes and uniforms as a way to project the school’s higher status among other schools in the region
• Posture and voice projection (behavioral cues): Standing straight and speaking in a steady, clear voice tends to demonstrate confidence and control, which can be interpreted as being a person of power and social status. Vocal and speech characteristics that demonstrate low status may include a working-class accent, hesitancy in speech, or use of crass language.
• Assigned titles: Societies assign titles, like PhD, as a way to confer status upon people and help us to situate someone higher-up on social hierarchies.
• Possessions: Many people spend a lot of money on the newest cars and gadgets in order to project power and status to others. Ironically, often wealthy people don’t do this, while poor people go into debt in order to project a false sense of status.

Many social cues that project status are culturally-defined, and depending upon your culture, you may be able to project status in different ways. That’s why sometimes we call them context cues .

Social hierarchies appear to be natural in all societies of humans and, indeed, the societies primates like gorillas and chimps. But what is of most interest to sociologists is that social hierarchies come with power struggles, revealing what societies value, how they value and devalue one another, and how they treat those with lowest status.

Aghion, P., & Tirole, J. (1997). Formal and real authority in organizations. Journal of political economy, 105 (1), 1-29. doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/262063

Barnard, C. I. (1938). The functions of the executive. Harvard University Press.

Carzo, R., & Yanouzas, J. N. (1969). Effects of flat and tall organization structure. Administrative Science Quarterly , 178-191. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2391096

Cheng, Y.T., & Van de Ven, A. H. (1996). Learning the innovation journey: Order out of chaos? Organization science, 7 (6), 593-614. doi: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.7.6.593

Krackhardt, D. (1994). Graph theoretical dimensions of informal organizations. Computational organization theory, 89 , 112.

Leavitt, H. J. (2005). Top down: Why hierarchies are here to stay and how to manage them more effectively . Harvard: Harvard Business School Press.

Kerbo, H., 2012). Social Stratification and Inequality: Class Conflict in the United States . New York: McGraw-Hill Education.

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2017). Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America . Los Angeles: Rowman & Littlefield.

Connell, R. W. (2009). Gender: In World Perspective (2nd ed.). Sydney: Polity.

Silverstein, M., & Giarrusso, R. (2010). Aging and Generational Relations over the Life Course: A Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective . London: De Gruyter.

Weber, M. (1947/1922). The theory of social and economic organization (A. M. Henderson & T. Parsons, Trans.). New York: Free Press.

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121 Social Class Essay Topics & Examples

🏆 best social class questions and topics, ⭐ simple & easy social class research questions and ideas, 📌 most interesting social class topics, 👍 good topics and questions about social status, ❓ research questions about social class.

• Essay on Social Class Inequality & Discrimination In this paper, I analyze three articles on social class and inequality to find out whether the authors’ views agree with mine on the negative attitudes towards the poor by the middle class and the […]
• Social Class Status Differences Social class is the status of the society in which individuals are classified on basis of political, economic and cultural perspectives.
• Social Classes in “Metropolis” Film by Fritz Lang Some of the most important issues raised in Metropolis are the class division in the society, the gap between the rich and the poor, loyalty, brotherhood, and friendship, the tyranny and autocracy of politicians, the […]
• How Social Class Influences Mental Health After a thorough evaluation of class differences in mental health, it becomes clearer that people from the working classes face more problems with mental health in comparison to people from the middle class: downward drift, […]
• Can physical traits assess a person’s social class? Middle class are the members of a society with white collar jobs and a post degree education and lastly the lower class level; the semi skilled manual.
• How an individual’s ascribed social class position at birth may affect life chances Therefore the social class that one belongs to is a key determinant of the ability of an individual to attain most of the valued ‘things’ of the society as Max Weber described.
• Marxist Theory and Social Classes According to the Marxist theory, the current structure of the factors of production is in direct relation to the structure of social classes in the society.
• Income and Social Class in Marketing Strategy Consumers of different social classes and levels of income have different buying behaviors and this scenario is a function of marketing orientations that are taken to meet expectations and demands or needs of different customers […]
• Race and Social Class Relationship The formation of the society and the pace of its development directly depend on people living in it and determining the norms of life.
• Does Social Class Make a Difference? In most cases, individuals of high social class tend to have no barrier in social mobility in comparison to their counterparts in lower social ladder.
• Cultural Representation of Social Class Viewing the society in a hierarchical manner, the Upper class can be considered as the group of people at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Middle class and then the Lower class at […]
• Social Class Questionnaire and Analysis I know how to get someone out of jail. I know how to live without a checking account.
• Warner’s Model of Social Classes According to the description given to this social class as those professionals whose earnings and their level of education is considerably of a higher standing in comparison to those of the lower middle class workers. […]
• Families and Social Class: Chapter 4 of “The Family” by Philip N. Cohen In conclusion, Chapter 4 provides an overview of the theories of the American class structure, social class, the American class structure, mobility, and persistence, as well as the impact of social class on family dynamics […]
• The Impact of Social Class and Poverty on Schooling Aspects such as the American social class and socioeconomic status have significantly affected the efficiency and reliability of the education system.
• A Preliminary Look at Social Class in the US The existence of the rich and the poor illustrates the class division because it represents the extremes in the level of life and income.
• Social Classes in American Society Sociologists dispute the range of social groups in the United States, although the traditional belief is that there are four: upper, middle, laboring, and lower.
• Social Class and Race From 1865 to 1920 In the late 1870s, the Farmers Alliance was established to fight for the lower social classes’ freedom and success. The 1890s marked a significant evolution of the Alliance to the People’s Party that did not […]
• Social Class: The Stratification of Society The current system relies on the principle of social mobility, meaning that a combination of subjective and objective factors determines a person’s class and ensures the possibility of changing it.
• Social Class Impact on Public Health This is because they live in communities that are under-developed in terms of physical and social infrastructure and as a result, they are exposed to poor health conditions.
• Poverty, Social Class, and Intersectionality I prefer the structural approach to the issue as I believe the created structures are responsible for the existence of diverse types of oppression.
• Social Class: Stratification on the Menu In economic differences, it is essential to know the status and honor of the person in the society as earned from the respective occupation.
• Smoking Differentials Across Social Classes The author inferred her affirmations from the participant’s words and therefore came to the right conclusion; that low income workers had the least justification for smoking and therefore took on a passive approach to their […]
• Shopping Patterns: Social Class and Consumption Preferences The analysis of the grocery stores in Jacksonville FL shows that there are certain differences in consumption patterns caused by race, class and family traditions. In sum, the analysis shows that social class and consumption […]
• Social Class and Health: Qualitative Research The effects of class also affects mortality and lifespan of people in lower strata is of society, since chronic poor health and disease cuts down the life span and accelerates mortality The right to good […]
• Identity and Social Class Issue A social class provides the child with a sense of identity, a set of values, and the motivational base for his later actions, while the school provides him with the knowledge and skills necessary to […]
• The Question of Social Class Inequality The difference between the indicators used determines the various views on the problem of social class inequality. The rules which the people in power establish are expected to be followed by the rest of the […]
• Social Class, Stratification, and Group Pressures Formal group pressures are the dominant force in this equation, as poverty and social stratification is often a result of poor governance.
• Social Classes and Their Role in American Society One of the best examples of class division in the system of education is the existence of boarding schools, the so-called “elite” schools for privileged young people.
• Social Class and Religious Affiliation in the US The most powerful people, who have a lot of money, are the ones that belong to the high class. These people have the capability to influence the rest in terms of ideas and decision-making.
• Karl Marx on Social Classes in a Letter to John Mayer I share your sentiments on alienation and pain in lower-class imprisonment by the ruling class who have the resources to manipulate and twist social, religious, development, and political aspects of the society as opined by […]
• Gender Roles and Social Classes in Wartime The message is as simple as “The women of Britain say ‘Go.’” It points to the role of both men and women in wartime.
• Social Class Lesson and Implications To enhance the learning environment in the classroom, one has to consider the implications of social class on schooling. Consequently, this aspect creates a wrong perception of a student in the classroom and leads to […]
• Social Class and New Form of Consumption Marx describes the workers as ‘a class in itself’ in the sense that they share the same objectives and relationships to the means of production, that is, they are laborers who are paid in wages.
• Social Class and University Education Correlation The main goals of the research paper is to investigate the number of aspects that affect the level of enrolment into institutions of higher education of undergraduates from lower social circles; to determine the comparative […]
• Racial and Social Class in South Africa No doubt, the anti-apartheid movement was found and directed mainly to oppose the racial segregation in South Africa, but racial segregation in the country defined everything else notably; the economic and social status of the […]
• Poorer Social Classes in Hindu and Islamic Religions The caste system leads to the isolation and exploitation of the weak classes of the society by the upper privileged classes, since the Hindu religion and traditions view poverty and their respective social classes as […]
• Relationships of Social Class and Happiness In the United States, for instance, the gap between the rich and the poor has been on the rise and the government seems to be doing very little to curb the sad realities of the […]
• What Is Social Class and How Does It Contribute to Our Understanding of the Social Determinants of Health? This section of the population normally consists of individuals with useful skill sets or levels of educational attainment that are valued by companies resulting in people from this class obtaining high paying jobs that allow […]
• Children’s Social Class Origins and Educational Attainment In order to explain the differences in education attainment between the children of the rich and those of the poor, it is important to decompose the social origins of the children into parental status, parental […]
• The Role of Gender and Social Class in Media Presentation: A Case Study of Roseanne and the Female Working Class Over the years, the place of the woman in the society has remained in the home. In addition, she is depicted as a member of the lower middle class.
• The balance between different social classes in Qin In this case, the law dictates that the needs of the meritorious people should be addressed before those of the less fortunate.
• Social Classes and Class Structure Marx and Engels argue that the communist in the manifesto ‘…the history of all hitherto existing in the society is the class struggles”.
• Social Class and Stratification The discussion in the chapter revolves around two main issues: the impact of social class on youth criminalization and the impact of globalization on social inequality.
• The Paradox of Social Class and Sports Involvement The study in that article was to establish the role of sports involvement in the creation of social classes within the society.
• Social Class and Voting patterns in Britain In fact, people in the upper working class and lower working class tended to vote for the Labour Party while people in the middle class mostly voted for the Conservative Party.
• Stratification: Social Class in American Society Americans have a weak sense of class consciousness, and in addition, this class consciousness is not the same for the upper class and the middle class.
• Exploring the Topic of Class and Its Impact on Dreams Achievement How class affects one’s education The relationship between class and education can be evident in the article by Leonhardt and Scott, who observe that the number of students who belong to the upper class in […]
• Naturalistic Observation of Racial, Gender and Social Class Stereotyping in Serving Clients in Public Catering The focus of our investigation is manifestations of gender, racial and social class stereotyping in serving clients in public catering: we will observe behavior of waitresses in “Cafe” and analyze it from the perspective of […]
• Social Class and Alienation On the other hand, the proletariats are the workers, owners of labor and they are the majority in numbers but are powerless since they are oppressed and exploited by the rich and they always lose […]
• The Relationship Between Social Class And Educational Achievement
• The Great Recession and the Changing Distribution of Economic Vulnerability by Social Class: The Irish Case
• Social Class Structures During 19th Century France
• Cultural Representations Of Social Class
• Social Class And The Hidden Curriculum Of Work By Jean Anyon
• Women’s Body Dissatisfaction, Social Class, and Social Mobility
• Love and Loyalty vs. The Pursuit of Social Class and Wealth
• Economic Behavior, Social Class Income, and Consumer Behavior
• Social Class And Public Health: Determining Your Health
• The Benefits and the Negatives of the Impact of Social Class in the Pieces by Staples, Graff, Rose and Barry
• From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work
• Social Class Theories and Social Stratification
• Cognition and Cultural Change in Social Class
• Agency and Communion From the Perspective of Self Versus Others: The Moderating Role of Social Class
• Assess Different Marxist Views of the Relationship Between Crime and Social Class
• How Social Class Affects The Educational Attainment Of Boys And Girls
• Absolutism: Social Class and Absolute Ruler
• Video Games And Its Effects On Social Class
• The Correlation Between Education, Social Class And Success
• Compare And Contrast Social Class In 16th Century England
• White Collar Crime The Influences of the Social Class
• Buying Tesla and the Social Class of Green Technology
• Social Class Between The South During The 1930s
• Social Class and Conversion Capacity: Deprivation Trends in the Great Recession in Ireland
• Social Class, Alcohol Business, and Crime During the Prohibition in the 1920’s
• Gender Inequality and Social Class Differences in Society
• Feudalism: Social Class and National Government
• Lifestyle, Health and Social Class in Adolescence
• The Relationship Between Social Class And Delinquency
• Education And The Effect Of Selfishness, Social Class And Consumerism
• Rethinking the Health Consequences of Social Class and Social Mobility
• How Social Class Can Influence the Buying Behavioral Pattern of Consumers
• Race, Gender And Social Class Within The School System
• Social Class, Social Support And Obesity Risk In Children
• What Are Three Effects of Social Class on Family Life
• Home Factors May Affect Social Class Differences in Educational Achievement
• What Role Does Social Class Play in Great Expectations?
• Social Class, Power, and Unethical Behavior Relationship
• Sex, Gender, And Social Class Influence Institutions Of Society
• Social Class Affect Childs Attainment Levels In Education Education
• How Can Social Class Help Us Understand Conflict in Contemporary Britain?
• Does Social Class Affect Nutrition Knowledge and Food Preferences Among Chinese Urban Adults?
• How Does Dickens Present Social Class in Great Expectations?
• Does Social Class Affect the Probability of Being Sexually Attractive?
• How Does Marx’s Analysis of Social Class Differ From Theories of Today?
• Does Social Class Affect the Probability of Suffering From Sexual Violence?
• How Does Social Class Affect Education?
• Does Social Class Have Any Correlation With Education?
• How Does Social Class Affect Life Chances?
• Does Social Class Have Any Impact on Voting Behavior?
• How Does Social Class Affect the Quality of Education?
• Does the Association Between Self-Rated Health and Mortality Vary by Social Class?
• How Does Social Class Influence Parenting and Child Development?
• Does Your Social Class Determine Your Future?
• How Does Social Class Shape Religious Affiliation?
• What Accounts for the Relationship Between Social Class and Smoking Cessation?
• How Far Would You Agree That Marriage Is Based on Social Class?
• What Are Effects of Social Class on Family Life?
• How Does Social Class Affect Happiness?
• What Does Language Usage Affect a Person’s Social Class?
• How Does Social Class Affect the Educational Attainment of Boys and Girls?
• What Does Social Class Mean?
• How Does Social Class Affect Us Who Live in America?
• What Problems Are Associated With Trying to Measure Social Class?
• How Can Social Class and Power Affect the Lives of Different Individuals?
• How Do Social Class and Race Limit Opportunity?
• How Can Social Class Be Defined Within Different Ways?
• Why Has ‘Social Class’ Been of Such Significance in the History of Nineteenth-Century Britain?
• How Can Social Class Influence the Buying Behavioral?
• How Does Social Class Shape Adolescent Financial Socialization?
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by George Orwell

1984 essay questions.

Compare and contrast Julia and Winston. How does each rebel against the Party, and are these rebellions at all effective?

Trace Winston's path towards destruction. Where do we first see his fatalistic outlook? Is his defeat inevitable?

Discuss the role of technology in Oceania. In what areas is technology highly advanced, and in what areas has its progress stalled? Why?

Discuss the role of Big Brother in Oceania and in Winston's life. What role does Big Brother play in each?

Discuss contradiction in Oceania and the Party's governance, i.e. Ministry of Love, Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Plenty, Ministry of Peace. Why is such contradiction accepted so widely?

Discuss and analyze the role O'Brien plays in Winston's life. Why is he such a revered and respected character, even during Winston's time in the Ministry of Love?

Discuss the symbolic importance of the prole woman singing in the yard behind Mr. Charrington's apartment. What does she represent for Winston, and what does she represent for Julia?

1984 is a presentation of Orwell's definition of dystopia and was meant as a warning to those of the modern era. What specifically is Orwell warning us against, and how does he achieve this?

Analyze the interactions between Winston and the old man in the pub, Syme, and Mr. Charrington. How do Winston's interactions with these individuals guide him towards his ultimate arrest?

Analyze the Party's level of power over its citizens, specifically through the lens of psychological manipulation. Name the tools the Party uses to maintain this control and discuss their effectiveness.

Outline the social hierarchy of Oceania. How does this hierarchy support the Party and its goals?

1984 Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for 1984 is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Describe O’Briens apartment and lifestyle. How do they differ from Winston’s?

From the text:

It was only on very rare occasions that one saw inside the dwelling-places of the Inner Party, or even penetrated into the quarter of the town where they lived. The whole atmosphere of the huge block of flats, the richness and...

What was the result of Washington exam

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how is one put into the inner or outer party in the book 1984

The Outer Party is a huge government bureaucracy. They hold positions of trust but are largely responsible for keeping the totalitarian structure of Big Brother functional. The Outer Party numbers around 18 to 19 percent of the population and the...

Study Guide for 1984

1984 study guide contains a biography of George Orwell, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• 1984 Summary
• Character List

Essays for 1984

1984 essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of 1984 by George Orwell.

• The Reflection of George Orwell
• Totalitarian Collectivism in 1984, or, Big Brother Loves You
• Sex as Rebellion
• Class Ties: The Dealings of Human Nature Depicted through Social Classes in 1984
• 1984: The Ultimate Parody of the Utopian World

Lesson Plan for 1984

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to 1984
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• 1984 Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for 1984

• Introduction
• Writing and publication

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'The Secret River' - Social Hierarchy

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

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22 February 2018

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'The Secret River' resource bundle

Ten resources on 'The Secret River' to help students prepare for their IGCSE English Literature exam (some resources are double lessons). I appreciate all constructive criticism, so I hope you are able to take time to review this scheme. \*\*Like what you see? Please check out my other resources at https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/sae5 and join my followers.\*\* Character analysis: Using the medium of Twitter, this lesson allows students to chart Thornhill's development over 'The Secret River'. This can be done over the course of reading the novel or at the end, and can be used as a helpful revision activity. Differentiation for this task includes the extent to which quotes are used for tweets, assigning characters other than Thornhill, and scaffolding key events to signpost students towards. In addition, homework tasks can be set for students to create a Twitter page for less major characters. Files in this resource: Character analysis - PowerPoint of lesson Twitter Template - Word document of Twitter template - this activity can then be completed by hand or electronically. Social hierarchy: A two-part lesson that explores the theme social hierarchy in 'The Green River' by Kate Grenville, specifically focusing students on an extended extract to analyse. To help prepare students for IGCSE English Literature Paper 1, the lesson begins reviewing the exam outline, assessment objectives and qualities of an A-grade student. The main body of the lesson is analysing a section of the novel, leading up to the 'green slippers' incident, with students working individually, in pairs, and finally in a group to prepare a mini-presentation. The final part of the lesson moves towards creating a plan for the exam question. Whilst the extract for this question is considerably longer than what students will face in the exam, it will provide useful practice on how to closely analyse an extract for this type of question, whilst also providing detail revision notes and familiarising students with the context of this scene. In addition, the question asks students to make links with other parts of the novel, again helping to develop their overall knowledge of the text and therefore helping them prepare for the essay-based question. Files in this resource: Social hierarchy - PowerPoint Social hierarchy extract - Word document Thornhill and Sal: This lesson allows students to explore the importance of Thornhill and Sal's relationship in Kate Grenville's, 'The Secret River'. With opportunity to work individually or in groups, the lesson encourages students to find pivotal moments in the novel that reflect the importance of their relationship. The lesson allows students to build on their knowledge across the entire novel, leading to a practise exam question to answer at the end. It is anticipated that this lesson will cover more than one hour to allow for the essay writing, subsequently providing a useful assessment piece for the unit. References to AOs and the mark scheme are taken from the current IGCSE specification. Collarbone's death: Focusing on Collarbone's execution, this lesson allows students to work in groups to annotate an extract, similar in length to what would be expected in the IGCSE English Literature paper. With key questions, students prepare a mini-presentation that the rest of the class use to take notes for, in preparation for a mock exam question. Further pair work is involved with planning a response and peer assessment for the plenary. This lesson could then be continued in a second session with students completing their essay response, or this could be written for homework. The lesson also reminds students of AOs and skills to demonstrate for a top level answer. Files in this resource: Collarbone's death - PowerPoint of lesson Collarbone's death extract - Word document of extract Hope: This two-part lesson allows students to explore the theme of hope in the novel, 'The Secret River'. Building up to answering a practice exam question (lesson 2), the lesson begins evaluating the importance of hope. Students then analyse a selected quote in detail which will not only act as a useful revision aid, but also become an essay plan. In the second lesson, students feedback their mind-map ideas which could be used for a classroom display. There are reminders on AOs and how to achieve high marks, to help direct students with their response. Mr Middleton: Exploring the character of Mr Middleton and his relationship with Thornhill, this lesson looks at three short passages, encouraging students to consider how Grenville presents this relationship and the influence it has on Thornhill. The lesson moves to an analysis of how Grenville presents Mr Middleton's death and what changes this signifies for Thornhill. The essay-style question for this lesson focuses on foreshadowing and Mr Middleton's death. Setting: Exploring setting in 'The Secret River', this resource allows students to consider language techniques and how setting is important to the development of the story. Likely to cover two lessons, students work in groups to annotate six different extracts from the novel. It is recommended that the teacher creates a booklet of these settings to allow students to have a comprehensive set of notes and annotations which will be useful for revision purposes. Each extract has line numbers to help with discussions and there is a range to allow access for different abilities. Files in this resource: Setting - PowerPoint of the lesson Starter task - Word document 6x extracts for the main focus of the lesson - Word documents The Prologue: This lesson encourages students to explore the significance of the Prologue. Beginning with an analysis of the extract, students consider how the Prologue foreshadows later events in the novel. The lesson works towards pair planning an essay question which is then developed with further pair work. The question could then be completed as an assessment or Homework task. Files in this resources: Strangers - PowerPoint of lesson Strangers - Word document of Prologue Essay Round Robin: A lesson that allows group work and collaboration, with hopefully little teacher input! Ideal for classes revising 'The Secret River', this lesson allows students to tackle four different exam questions independently before having whole-class feedback. The lesson could be rolled over into a second session to allow for a detailed review of each question and could also be developed to use as an assessment piece. Files in this resource: Essay round robin - PowerPoint of the lesson Essay questions - Word document of the four essay questions to print for each essay "station" Racial differences: Completing hierarchy pyramids to start, students consider how racial differences influence society in 'The Secret River'. Two hierarchy pyramids are completed: the first has no parameters and therefore encourages students to consider what they base their pyramids on; the second is wholly based on race, therefore leading towards the planning of an essay question. Characters are provided for both tasks. The lesson develops towards paired planning of an essay question, using the AOs as a rough checklist to ensure students are demonstrating the key skills required. This is also used to shape the plenary. This lesson could be continued to a second session with the option of paired writing or a formal assessment. Files in this resource: Racial differences: PowerPoint of the lesson Hierarchy pyramid 1: Word document for Starter task Hierarchy pyramid 2: Word document for development task

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HBSE Class 9 Social Science Syllabus 2024-25: Download Haryana Board Syllabus PDF

Haryana board social science syllabus 2024-25: read this article to get the hbse class 9 social science syllabus 2024-25 pdfs for all subjects. also, get detailed information about question paper design, marking scheme, and exam pattern..

HBSE 9th Social Science Syllabus 2024-2025: The HBSE Class 9 Social Science syllabus for the academic year 2024-25 is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of history, geography, political science, and economics. This curriculum not only covers essential knowledge but also develops critical thinking and analytical skills. Key topics include the Contemporary India, the physical features and climatic conditions of India, democratic politics, and the basics of the Indian economy.

HBSE Class 9 Social Science Course Structure 2024-25

Hbse class 9 social science syllabus 2024-25.

Map work History section:-

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Birth place of Mahatama Gandhi (Porbandar , Gujarat), The places where Mahatama Gandhi lead his starting Satyagraha (Champaran, Khera , Ahemdabad -Strike by Cotton Mill workers), , The place from where Civil- Disobedience movement was started (Dandi, Gujarat) The place from where Quit India Movement was started in 1942 (Mumbai), Puran Swaraj resolution was passed (Lahore)

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India’ Neighbours

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HBSE Class 9 Social Science Question Paper Design 2024-25

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