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Meritocracy

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system of social stratification in which personal effort or merit determines social standing. High levels of effort will head to a high social position, but it is only an ideal concept.

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Caste System

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People are born into their social standing and will remain in it their whole lives. Members are assigned occupations regardless of their talents, interests, or potential.

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Endgamous Marriage

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Marrying a partner from the same social background.

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Exogamous Marriage

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Marrying a partner from a different social background.

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Standard of Living

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The level of wealth available to a certain socioeconomic class in order to acquire the material necessities and comforts to maintain its lifestyle. Based on factors such as income, employment, class, poverty rates, and affordability of housing. Closely related to quality of life.

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Percentage of Wealth

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Top 1% people with extreme wealth make up this percentage but own 1/3 of the countries wealth. Money = access to power

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Intra-generational Mobility

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Describes a difference in social class between different members of the same generation.

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Inter-generational Mobility

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Explains a difference in social class between generations of a family. Example: upper-class executive may have parents who belonged to the middle class.

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Uniqueness about US Middle Class

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The middle class is broken into upper and lower subcategories.

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Upper-middle-class

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People tend to hold bachelor's and post graduate degrees. They've studied business, management, law, medicine, etc. Tend to pursue careers that earn comfortable incomes and provide families with large homes and nice cars, vacations, and children receive quality education and health care.

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Lower-middle-class

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Members hold bachelor's or associate's degrees from two-year community or technical colleges. They hold jobs supervised by members of the upper middle class. They fill technical, lower-level management, or administrative support positions. People can afford a decent mainstream lifestyle but struggle to maintain it. Do not have enough income to build significant savings. These people are often the ones to lose their jobs.

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Global Stratification

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Compares the wealth, economic stability, status, and power of countries across the world. It highlights worldwide patterns of social inequality. Caused by the industrial revolution.

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Classification method to show nation's economy in global terms

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Rank countries according to their relative economic status or gross national product (GNP)

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Measurement of Standard of Living

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GNI, or gross national income, measures the current value of goods and services produced by a country. PPP (purchasing power parity) measures the relative power a country has to purchase those same goods and services.

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GNI refers to...

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productive output

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PPP refers to...

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buying power

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downward mobility

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Indicates a lowering of one's social class because of loss of income/status. Some people move downward because of business setbacks, unemployment, illness, dropping out of school, or becoming divorced.

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Determination of class stratification in US

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Based on occupation because they not only impact the income, but they also influence social standing through the relative levels of prestige they afford. Example: doctor=high status, teachers=general respect but not prestigious, waitress= no prestige

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What is the key to upward social mobility ?

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It is a myth.

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What is stratification determined by?

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wealth, power, income, race, and education

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Davis-Moore Thesis

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Argued that the greater the functional importance of a social role, the greater must be the reward. Social stratification represents the inherently unequal value of different work. Certain tasks in society are more valuable that others. Rewarding more important work with higher levels of income, prestige and power encourages people to work harder and longer.

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Karl Marx

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He believed that social stratification resulted from people's relationship to production. Strained working relationship between employers and employees. People either were owning factories or working in them.

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Conspicuous consumption

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refers to buying certain products to make a social statement about status. Examples: carrying expensive but eco-friendly water bottles, buying expensive trendy sneakers but never using them to play sports, having a luxury car. Each example are symbols of stratification that make social statements.

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How do symbolic interactionists examine the ways in which class is defined? What do they know about class?

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They use everyday interactions of individuals to explain society as a whole and they examine stratification from a micro-level perspective. They try to explain how people's social standing affect their everyday interactions. They know that people will interact with others who share the same social standing. It is because of social stratification that people tend to live, work, associate with others like themselves. This system groups people together.

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How do conflict theorists examine the ways in which class is defined? What do they know about class?

answer

They are deeply critical of social stratification because they believe that it creates class conflict, asserting that it benefits some people and not all of society. Many draw on the work of Karl Marx and believe that the strained working relationship between employers and workers still exist.

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How do structural functionalists examine the ways in which class is defined? What do they know about class?

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They examine how society's parts operate. Different aspects of society exist because they serve a needed purpose->the davis-moore thesis.

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What is the main issue in studying global social inequality?

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...

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What social class is quickly disappearing from modern economics?

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middle class

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What is the difference between social stratification and global stratification?

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Social stratification is a system that divides society's members into categories ranking from high to low, based on wealth power and prestige. Global stratification is a comparison of the wealth, economic stability, status, and power of countries as a whole.

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Why is Immanuel Wallerstein's Classification of Nations preferred by sociologists?

answer

...

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How do companies get away with outsourcing?

answer

...

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What entities to use gross national income to determine status and classification?

answer

...

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trends in poverty

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While men and women may have the same rate of economic poverty, women are suffering more in terms of overall well-being. It is harder for females to get credit to expand a business, to take the time to earn new skill, or to spend extra hours improving their craft

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What are the effects of absolute poverty?

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The poor experience inadequate health care, limited education, the inaccessibility of birth control, and the prevalence of crime.

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underground economy

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an unregulated economy of labor and goods that operates outside of governance, regulatory systems, or human protections.

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continent with greatest number of impoverished nations

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Africa

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continent with the greatest number of people in poverty

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Asia

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Latin American financial situations

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Poverty rates have improved recently due to investment in education.

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How do we stop companies from using child labor and sweat shops?

answer

protest!

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Neckerman and Torche's analysis of poverty

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The consequences of poverty are divided into three areas of consequence. First, the \"sedimentation of global inequality\" relates to the fact that once poverty becomes entrenched in an area, it is hard to reverse. The second is its effect on physical and mental health. Lastly, there is a prevalence of crime.

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Current definition of slavery

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Any time people are sold, treated as property, or forced to work for little or no pay. Modern day slavery goes hand-in-hand with global inequality.

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Deindustrialization

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the loss of industrial production, usually to peripheral and semi-peripheral nations where the costs are lower.

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creation of NAFTA

answer

...

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dominant race group

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The group that is the majority and holds the most power in a given society.

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racial steering

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An example of racist practices in which real estate agents direct prospective homeowners toward or away from certain neighborhoods based on their race.

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definition of the social construction of race

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the school of thought that race is not biologically identifiable

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scapegoat theory

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Suggests that the dominant group will displace their unfocused aggression onto a subordinate group.

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What is the symbolic interactionist's definition of race?

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Race and ethnicity provide strong symbols as sources of identity and some propose that the symbols of race, not race itself, are what leads to racism. Racial prejudice is formed through interactions between members of the dominant group. Without these interactions, individuals in the dominant group would not hold racist views.

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Example of symbolic interactionist's definition of race

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An individual whose beliefs about a particular group are based on images conveyed in popular media, and those are unquestionably believed because the individual has never personally met a member of that group.

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Conflict theory definition of race

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They examine the numerous past and current struggles between the white ruling class and racial and ethnic minorities, nothing specific conflicts that have arisen when the dominant group perceived a threat from the minority group. We cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes.

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Structural functionalist definition of race

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Racial and ethnic inequalities must have served an important function in order to exist as long as they have. Racism and discrimination contribute positively, but only to the dominant group.

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Discrimination

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Consists of actions against a group of people and can be based on age, religion, health, and other indicators.

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Culture of Prejudice

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Refers to the theory that prejudice is embedded in our culture. We grow up surrounded by images of stereotypes and casual expressions of racism and prejudice.

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white priviledge

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Refers to the face that dominant groups often accept their experience as the normative (and hence, superior) experience. Very few white people are willing to acknowledge the benefits thy receive simply by being white.

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expulsion

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Refers to a subordinate group being forced, by a dominant group, to leave a certain area or country. Can be a factor in genocide, but can also stand on its own as a destructive group interaction.

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segregation

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Refers to the physical separation of two groups, particularly in residence, but also in workplace and social functions.Can be separated into de jure (law enforced) segregation and de facto (without law) segregation.

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senate bill 1070

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This law requires that during a lawful stop, detention, or arrest, police officers must establish the immigration status of anyone they suspect may be here illegally. The law makes it a crime for individuals to fail to have documents confirming their legal status and it gives police officers the right to detain people they suspect may be in the country illegally. Critics say it will encourage racial profiling, making it hazardous to be caught \"driving while brown\".

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What ethnic group did Arizona state bill 1070 aim at?

answer

Mexican americans

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Model minorites

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The stereotype applied to a minority group that is seen as reaching higher educational, professional, and socioeconomic levels without protest against the majority establishment.

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Amalgamation

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The process by which a minority group and a majority group combine to form a new group. Creates the \"melting pot\" analogy. Achieved by intermarriage between races.

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Pluralism

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represented by the ideal of the US as a \"salad bowl\" : a mixture of different cultures where each culture retains its own identity and yet adds to the \"flavor\" of the whole. There is a mutual respect on the part of all cultures.

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Assimilation

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Describes the process by which a minority or group gives up its own identity by taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture. Is a function of immigration.

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stereotypes

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oversimplified ideas about groups of people

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differences of sex and gender

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The terms are not interchangeable. A person's sex is determined by biology, but it does not always correspond to his or her gender. Gender refers to social or cultural distinctions associated with being male or female.

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sexual orientation

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Someones emotional and sexual attraction to a particular sex (male or female).

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sexism

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Term that refers to the prejudiced beliefs that value one sex over another.

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transgendered

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Individuals who identify with the role that is the opposite of their biological sex.

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sexuality

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A person's capacity for sexual feelings.

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gender socialization

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This occurs through four major agents of socialization: family, education, peer groups, and mass media. Children learn at young ages that there are distinct expectations for boys and girls.

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double standard

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concept prohibits premarital sex for women but allows it for men

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men vs. women wages

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Even when a woman's employment status is equal to a man's, she will generally make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Also, women who are in the paid labor force still do the majority of the unpaid work at home (84% of women).

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conflict view of gender

answer

Society is a struggle for dominance among social groups (like women vs. men) that compete for scarce resources. Men are the dominant group, while women are the subordination group. Social problems are created when dominant groups exploit or oppress subordinate groups.

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functionalist view of gender

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They argue that gender roles were established well before the pre-industrial era when men typically took care of responsibilities outside of the home and women typically took care of the domestic responsibilities in or around the home. These roles were considered functional because women were often limited by the physical restraints of pregnancy and nursing and unable to leave the home for long periods of time.

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symbolic interactionists view of gender

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They aim to understand human behavior by analyzing the critical role of symbols in human interaction. ex: going into a bank to get a loan and appeal to the loan officer based on his/her gender by associating with values of masculinity or femininity. Also, shifts in symbolic meaning. ex: the word \"gay\"

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\"doing gender\"

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When people perform tasks or possess characteristics based on the gender role assigned to them.

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homophobia

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an extreme or irrational aversion to homosexuals

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gender stereotyping

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Involves overgeneralizing about the attitudes, traits, or behavior patterns of women or men. Gender stereotypes form the basis of sexism. Ex: women may be thought of as too timid or weak to ride a motorcycle.

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kinsey scale

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A six-point rating scale that ranges from exclusively heterosexuality to exclusively homosexuality to conceptualize sexuality as a continuum. It indicates that sexuality can be measured by more that just heterosexuality and homosexuality.

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Sweden and Sex education

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Sweden has a comprehensive sex education program in its public schools that educates participants about safe sex. The teenage birthrate is 7 per 1000 births and reported rates of gonorrhea is nearly 600 times lower.

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male vs. female learning ability myths

answer

Girls have to take home economics or humanities courses and boys have to take math and science classes. Girls are less intelligent or important than boys.

Intro to Sociology Exam 3

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