Age grade

In sociology in addition to anthropology, an age grade or age class is a take of social organization based on age, within a series of such(a) categories, through which individuals pass over the course of their lives.

This is in contrast to an age set, to which individuals continue permanently attached as the manner itself becomes progressively more senior.

The number of age classes, the build ages and the terminology reorganize significantly between traditions. Even within a single society, a grown-up may belong to several overlapping grades in different spheres of life, e.g. per year a different school a collection of things sharing a common attribute and yet for several years on end a child, then an adolescent, finally an adult.

In tribal societies entry into an age grade – generally gender-separated – is often marked by an initiation rite, which may be the crowning of a long and complex preparation, sometimes in retreat. After a period of some years, during which they often performcommon activities, alone or under senior guidance, members may be initiated either collectively or individually into a more senior age grade. This progression is often accompanied by the revelation of secret knowledge. In most cultures, age grade systems, as with age sets, are the preserve of men, and it is for the older men who domination a society's secret knowledge, collectively or restricted to a council of elders and/or particular positions such as shaman entrusted with the preparation of initiants.

Closely related age-grade systems are common among East African Cushitic communities. Particularly, the Oromo, a trans-national nation living in Ethiopia and Kenya, form a well-developed age-grade system call as the Gadaa System. [Another example is that of the Maasai] Gadaa through history came to organize social life around the series of five sort grades which assign obligations as well as rights to members of the society. Through Gadaa, many socio-political functions were carried out. For example, the system operated as an educational combine by providing periods of training and skill development in each grade and by casting all those YUBA who had finished the full cycle consisting of five-grades in the role of teachers and advisors. The system operated as a judicial house by assigning a Chief Justice, jurors at the national level and devloping all LUBA wherever they were into arbitrators and councilors ready to defend the national law.

Many male age grade systems are associated with patrilineal kinship systems. Male age grade systems associated with matrilineal kinship systems are found among the Austronesian populations of Taiwan.