9 (10 new book) Social Class Sociology

Statuses that are the result of individual efforts and accomplishments

• Achieved Status

• Caste System

• Corporate Class

• life chances

A closed system of social inequality in which status is determined at birth, people are locked into their parents’ social position and differences of purity or prestige form the basis of hierarchy

• caste system

• corporate class

• middle class

• open stratification system

Also called a closed class system, a social class system in which it is difficult or impossible to move up the social hierarchy (stratification layers)

• closed stratification system

• corporate class

• income

• middle class

In America, the social class consisting of people who have a great deal of bureaucratic authority in major corporations (and government) usually not based on ownership of those corporations

• corporate class

• middle class

• lower class

• stratification

What people earn during a particular time period, either from employment or investments.

• income

• excome

• prestige

• respect

The opportunities to realize health, long life, and happiness in a social system

• life chances

• lower classes

• middle class

• structural mobility

In America, the social class that includes people who don’t own property, who frequently have no job, and who have no authority and usually no prestige.

• lower class

• upper class

• corporate class

• middle class

In America, the social class that comprises of people who own relatively little property, but whose occupations provide them with high-to-middle income, prestige, and authority. The middle class can be subdivided into the upper middle class and lower middle class.

• middle class

• upper class

• poverty class

• welfare class

A stratification system in which there are few obstacles to social mobility, positions are awarded on the basis of merit, and rank is tied to individual achievement.

• open stratification system

• closed stratification system

• achieved system

• ascribed system

Social esteem, respect, or approval that is awarded to people because they possess attributes that their society considers admirable.

• prestige

• social class

• social mobility

• structural mobility