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A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, [1] the most common being the working class, middle class, and upper class. Membership of a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network. [2]
Most definitions of a class structure group its members according to wealth, income, education, type of occupation, and membership within a hierarchy, specific subculture, or social network. Most concepts of American social class do not focus on race or ethnicity as a characteristic within the stratification system, although these factors are ...
In modern Western societies, stratification is often broadly classified into three major divisions of social class: upper class, middle class, and lower class. Each of these classes can be further subdivided into smaller classes (e.g. "upper middle"). [5] Social strata may also be delineated on the basis of kinship ties or caste relations.
The social structure of the United Kingdom has historically been highly influenced by the concept of social class, which continues to affect British society today. [1] [2] British society, like its European neighbours and most societies in world history, was traditionally (before the Industrial Revolution) divided hierarchically within a system that involved the hereditary transmission of ...
Although the social hierarchy is most obvious at the extremes, differences between classes begin to become blurred when moving away from one of the extremes and towards the centre to where the middle and working classes are. It is difficult to get a precise classification.
Social class is an important theme for historians of the United States for decades. The subject touches on many other elements of American history such as that of changing U.S. education, with greater education attainment leading to expanding household incomes for many social groups.
Fussell argues that social class in the United States is more complex in structure than simply three (upper, middle, and lower) classes.According to Bruce Weber, writing for the New York Times, Fussell divided American society into nine strata — from the idle rich, which he called "the top out-of-sight," to the institutionalized and imprisoned, which he labeled "the bottom out-of-sight."
There are three conditions for a social class to be steady, that of class cohesiveness, the self-consciousness of classes, and the self-awareness of one's own class. [3] It is also important in the modern study of organizations, as an organization's structure may determine its flexibility, capacity to change, and success.