ABSTRACT
One’s position in the American class system defi nes the opportunities that she or he has within that system. People live in neighborhoods with others of their social class, they go to schools with people who share their social class, and they marry within their social class. The lines between the social classes act as barriers that most people never cross. In general, if you begin life in the lower class, you end life in the lower class. If you begin life in the upper class, you end life in the upper class. As Scott and Leonhardt point out in the fi rst reading, however, the line that divides the social classes is no longer as apparent as the line that existed when our grandparents, or their grandparents, were young.
