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Sociology · Chapter 8

Caste & Class: Closed and Open Systems

Every society ranks its members. What separates them is a single question — can the ranking ever change? At one end sits the caste system, where position is handed to you at birth and sealed there for life. At the other sits meritocracy, a pure ideal no society has reached. Class systems live in between. Tap each ladder, then sort twelve societies and watch the tidy binary come apart.

Three ladders, one continuum

Systems of stratificationtap a ladder to begin

Why societies stratify at all