Chapter 8 Social Stratification Key Terms

social stratification The systematic process by which people are divided into categories that are ranked on a scale of social worth. life chances A critical set of potential social advantages.

ascribed characteristics Attributes that people have at birth, develop over time, or possess through no effort or fault of their own. achieved characteristics Attributes acquired through some combination of choice, effort, and ability.

status value The value that some characteristics impart to those who posses them, causing those individuals to be regarded and treated as more valuable or more worthy than persons who possess features from other categories. caste system A system in which people are ranked on the basis of traits over which they have no control.

class system A system in which people are ranked on the basis of merit, talent, ability, or past performance. apartheid A system of laws in which everyone in South Africa was put into a racial category and issued an identify card denoting his or her race.

apartheid policies Policies centered on maintaining separate black and white areas. social mobility Movement from one class to another.

vertical mobility Movement that occurs when a change in class status corresponds to a gain or loss in rank. downward mobility A loss of rank or status.

upward mobility A gain in status or rank. Intragenerational mobility Movement during an individual’s lifetime.

intergenerational mobility A change in rank over one or more generations. class A category that designates a person’s overall status in society.

“negatively provided” property class Person’s completely unskilled, lacking property, and dependent on seasonal or sporadic employment who constitute the very bottom of the class system. “positively privileged” social class Those individuals at the very top of the class system.

status group An amorphous group of persons held together by virtue of a lifestyle that has come to be expected of all those who wish to belong to the circle. political parties Organizations oriented toward the planned acquisition of social power and toward influencing social action, no matter what its content may be.

urban underclass The group of families and individuals in the inner city who are outside the mainstream of the U.S. occupational system and who consequently represent the very bottom of the economic hierarchy.