Social Class

The social class of individuals or groups refers to their hierarchical position in society. The bases of class are complex and sometimes ambiguous and vary among societies and historical periods. In contemporary industrialized societies, social class is generally determined by a small set of socioeconomic factors including educational attainment, occupation, income, and ownership of assets. In such societies, we may refer to an individual's membership in a social class, being a group of people who typically have a designated name or label (such as working class or upper middle class). However, this categorical judgment is not as simple as it seems. For example, people with low-prestige occupations may nonetheless be very wealthy. Relatively uneducated people may rise to very prestigious occupations in corporate life or ...