Ascribed status is an arbitrary system of classifying individuals that is not fixed in the way that most people think.

It may be objected that the racial stereotypes have a consistency that allows even the layman to classify individuals.

Most information distinguishing populations from each other is hidden in the correlation structure of allele frequency, making it possible to classify individuals using mathematical techniques.

Classes may classify individuals, other classes, or a combination of both.

Feil's own approach classifies individuals with cognitive impairment as having one of four stages in a continuum of dementia.

However, in the mid-1980s the Judiciary began changing this policy and classifying transgender individuals as a distinct group, separate from homosexuals, granting them legal rights.

While equality jurisprudence primarily centres around a pledge of the protection of equal laws, laws frequently classify individuals out of necessity.

But doing so requires the collection of data that classify individuals by race.

Labelling, therefore, refers to the process by which individuals and groups classify and categorise social behaviour and other individuals.