ABSTRACT
Social class is America’s dirty little secret. Even though Americans have a vague sense that they live in a culture permeated by status and taste differences, they do not like to talk about it. The subject is confused and obscure. But curiously, you can infuriate people and make them squirm in discomfort by even mentioning the topic of social classes. If you use class as an explanatory category (e.g., “Her makeup and big hair betray her lower class background”) you will silence a group (unless they laugh) and present yourself as crude, elitist, or particularly nasty. Moreover, most people are quite uninformed about social classes and the system of stratification in the United States. They believe that the only class determiner is money, which is far from true, and most people selfidentify as a member of the middle class, which they are often not.
