Some definitions:
(Social) stratification: ranking some individuals and groups as more deserving than others; from this a social hierarchy is formed which is a set of ranked statuses from highest to lowest. (The word social is in parentheses because in sociology it is often presumed you are referring to the social, i.e. groups of people interacting together rather than one individual by themselves.)
or
(Social) stratification: a form of inequality in which categories of people are systematically ranked in a hierarchy on the basis of their access to scarce but valued resources.
This is different from social inequality which is a condition in which people have unequal access to wealth, power and prestige; and
social differentiation which is a process in which people are set apart for differential treatment by virtue of their statuses, roles, and other social characteristics.
You can substitute the word social with more specific characteristic such as age, race/ethnicity, gender, etc...
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