ABSTRACT
Sociologists recognize the prevalence of social inequality, a setting in which individuals, families, or members of larger structures like neighborhoods or cities vary in access to such valued resources as wealth, income, education, jobs, influential and helpful individuals and groups, and health care. All societies display social stratification, a deeply embedded hierarchy providing different groups varied rewards, resources, and privileges and establishing structures, practices, and relationships that both determine and legitimate those outcomes. Most people within a given society consider that its social-stratification system represents the natural order of things. The American ideology, which emphasizes the centrality of individual achievement, equal opportunity, and the importance of hard work, receives politicians’, business leaders’, and media spokespeople’s frequent endorsement, but the actual workings producing social inequalities and social stratification tend to remain unexamined—the fine print hidden behind the ideology’s bold public claims. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
