Abstract
A simulation called Star Power provides an invaluable means to help students understand structural social inequality. This paper explains how Star Power achieves this goal and provides suggestions on how to inculcate the following points that are both central to sociology and difficult to adequately convey to students: 1) Students see how those in power maintain their position by structuring the system to their advantage; 2) they learn how the structure of this system makes advancement for others difficult; 3) privileged students begin to recognize the impact of their own family's social position that they tend to overlook in favor of their personal effort and merit. By becoming more aware of structural inequalities, students realize that for the lower classes to join the most powerful in society, they must triumph over a system in which those in power make rules that protect their own interests, usually at someone else's expense.
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