Upper class
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Illustration:Liberty Leading the People (1831, detail) by Eugène Delacroix.
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Upper class is a concept in sociology that refers to the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class often have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.
The phrase "upper class" has had a complex range of meanings and usages. In many traditional societies, membership of the upper class was hard or even impossible to acquire by any means other than being born into it. Despite this chance of upward mobility, the upper class is, according to many sociologists, unattainable to those not born into upper-class families.
Contrast
See also
- Aristocracy (class)
- Debutante
- International Debutante Ball
- Nobility
- Gentry
- Landed gentry
- Patrician (post-Roman Europe)
- Grand Burgher (German Großbürger)
- Bildungsbürgertum
- Hanseaten (class)
- Celebutante
- Fat cat (term)
- Nouveau riche
- Old Money
- High culture
- Social environment
- Social status
- Symbolic capital
- Honour
- Mentifact
- Habitus (sociology)
- La Distinction
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