Offering a fresh and exciting new perspective on differentiation and inequality, this absorbing book investigates how our most personal choices (of sexual partners, friends, consumption items and lifestyle) are influenced by hierarchy and social difference. Exploring the topics of assortative mating; social capital; friendship networks and cultural identity; the book examines how hierarchy affects our tastes and leisure time activities, and who we choose (and hang on to) as our friends and partners. This book:

* introduces debates on stratification by exploring its effect on everyday social relations

* relates class inequalities to broader processes of social division and cultural differentiation, exploring the associational and cultural aspects of hierarchy

* explores how groups draw on social, economic and cultural resources, using cultural 'cues', to admit some and exclude others from their social circle

* explores new theoretical approaches to stratification: drawing on cultural theories of class, social interaction approaches, and research on differential association

The book has a novel and fresh new way of looking at a well-established area in sociology - social stratification.