This best-selling anthology surveys how and why the categories of race, class, gender, and sexuality are constructed, maintained, experienced, and transformed. The Social Construction of Difference and Inequality then moves beyond simply discussing various forms of stratification and the impact of these on members of marginalized groups by providing a thorough discussion of how such systems of stratification are formed, perpetuated, and interconnected. Readers are then challenged at the end of each reading with critical thinking questions to relate content to their lives and understand how their own attitudes, actions, and perspectives may serve to perpetuate a stratified system.