Directions: Apply the knowledge you have gained from Chapter 9 to select the best answer to the questions about the following reading passage. Class Societies
¹A social class is a segment of a population whose members share similar lifestyles and levels of wealth, power, and prestige. The United States is a good example of a class society. In some areas of the United States, such as coalmining towns in Appalachia, there may be only two classes: the haves and the have-nots. More often, however, social scientists have identified a number of social classes: capitalist (upper), upper middle, middle, working, working poor, and underclass.
²The capitalist class comprises approximately 1 percent of the population, consists of old wealth, corporate CEOs, and owners of lucrative businesses, whose income derives largely from returns on assets such as stocks, bonds, securities, and real estate. The ownership of the means of production by the capitalist class affords them the power over jobs for the rest of society. ³The upper middle class, comprising about 14 percent of the U.S. population, is made up of business and professional people with high incomes and considerable amounts of overall wealth. This is the class that is most shaped by education. Nearly all members of the upper middle class are college educated, and many have postgraduate degrees. These people are professionals (such as doctors and lawyers), own their own businesses, or manage the corporations owned by members of the capitalist class.
⁴The middle class, constituting approximately 30 percent of the population, is made up of hardworking people of modest income, such as small entrepreneurs, teachers, nurses, civil servants, and lower-level managers. People in this class make a modest income, enjoy relative security (threatened occasionally by rising taxes and inflation), and have the potential for upward social mobility.
⁵Comprising approximately 30 percent of the population, members of the working class hold occupations that tend to be fairly routine, closely supervised, and usually require no more than a high school education (blue-collar and some white-collar jobs). Included in this category are factory workers, sales clerks, construction workers, office workers, and appliance repairpersons. Because of their lack of higher education members of this group tend to have little social mobility. Vulnerable to downturns in the economy, working class people are subject to layoffs during recessions and justifiably feel threatened by our increasingly globalized economy, in which many jobs are going to workers abroad.
⁶The underclass occupies the lowest sector of U.S. society. Some have suggested that the underclass actually represents the people who are beneath the class structure, a type of caste-like group that has little or no chance of ever making it to the first rung of the social ladder. The underclass are unemployed (or severely underemployed), are homeless, and often suffer from substance abuse and in some cases mental illness. They are almost always confined to blighted urban areas plagued by violence, gangs, and drugs. -adapted from Ferraro, Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective , pp. 326-327
Use the information in the reading passage to complete the list outline:

A)haves and have-nots
B)upper middle class
C)factory workers
D)college educated

Directions: Apply the Knowledge You Have Gained from Chapter 9

Multiple Choice

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