Intro to Sociology - Exam 2

Social stratification

Persistent sorting of social groups into enduring hierarchies

• Modes of differentiation and discrimination

• Systems of relationships and related hierarchies

Social class

Economically-based system for classification & stratification

• Wealth - income and wealth ownership

• Status - prestige of social position

• Power - influence

Wealth

Monetary value of everything one owns, minus debt (sum of assets - debt = wealth)

Income

Amount of money brought into a household from various sources during a given period

Socio-economic status/Life chances

An individual’s position in a stratified social order; life chances

Impacts…

• Health

• Education

• Work opportunities

• Family life

• Lifestyles, values

• Politics

Meritocracy/achievement ideology

Ideology held by many Americans that explains that distribution of wealth, social status, and political power as a result of individual effort and merit in an open system

Social mobility

Movement between groups/individuals from one social class to another a result of changes in income, occupation, or wealth

Intragenerational mobility

Change in social positon occurring in person’s life

Intergenerational mobility

Change in social position of children a result of their parents change in position

Social reproduction in relation to social mobility

Children of those with higher or lower status tend to have relatively similar status to their parents

How do families impact social mobility?

• Inherited capital

• Childrearing based on class (Lareau)

How does education impact social mobility?

• Hidden curriculum

• Tracking

• Unequal funding

Status attainment model

Approach that ranks one by socio-economic status for identifying the attributes of people in more valued occupations

Best predictor of upward or downward mobility?

The education and net worth of one’s parents

Capitalism

Economic system designed to maximize productivity and profit, but also generates higher levels of economic inequality and concentrates wealth

Proletariat

Those employed by others, and work for a wage (workers)

Bourgeois

Those who employ workers (owners)

Means of production

Resources for the creation of wealth (ex: land, factories, money, etc.)

Wage labor

Proletariat paid wages (cash payments) for labor

• Incentive for bourgeois to pay proletariat as low wage as possibly to increase their own profit

Free market capitilism

System of capitalism with little to no government regulation

Concentration of wealth

Loose regulation from government allowed bourgeois to build large amounts of wealth, while proletariat were paid low wages, leading to wealth gap

Alienation

Feeling of dissatisfaction and disconnection from rewards of one’s labor

Exploitation

An abuse of one’s power over another

• Bourgeois exploits proletariat because free market system means that have full control over condition of workers

Class consciousness

An understanding by proletariat that they are a collective with shared economic interests

Labor unions

Associations that organize workers so that they can negotiate with employers as group

Welfare capitalism

Version of capitalism with some socialist policy aimed at creating more even distribution of profit across population

Social safety net

Patchwork of government programs made to ensure basic necessities to the economically vulnerable

New Gilded Age of capitalism

Current economic condition of US starting from roughly around 2000 to now in which there is unusually high inequality in the distribution of wealth and income

Causes of New Gilded Age

• Policy of Reagan Administration

• Shift to service and information economy

• Policy of Obama Administration

• Policy of Trump Administration

• COVID-19 pandemic

Types of inequality

• Opportunity - everyone has same opportunities

• Outcome - everyone ends up with the same reward

• Condition - everyone has same treatment in society

Wade’s 4 questions on economic inequality

1. How much inequality is acceptable?

2. How poor is too poor?

3. How much opportunity should we expect?

4. What is the coorelation between money and status?

Scientific racism

Implicit bias

The attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious matter

• Stereotypes and labels

• Controlling images

Microaggression

Unintentional, or subtle incidents of discrimination against marginalized groups

Prejudice

Thoughts and feelings towards a group which leas to preconceived notion and judgements

Discrimination

Harmful or negative acts against people deemed inferior because of their social background regardless of their individual character

Institutional racism

Institutions and social dynamics that may seem race-neutral, but actually disadvantage minority groups while advantaging others

Residential segregation

The sorting of different types of people into different neighborhoods

Redlining

The outlining of predominantly minority neighborhoods by loan companies in order to profit off of fears of integration and to perpetuate segregation/discrimination

Block busting

Business practice of moving black people into white neighborhoods so that white residents would sell their homes at below market value out of fears of integration

White flight

The tendency of white homeowners to move upon black people moving into the same neighborhood

Urban renewal

The destruction of impoverished neighborhoods in order to build better infrastructure in their place, which displaced many black people from their homes

Environmental racism

Practice of exposing racial minorities to harmful toxins and pollutants more than white people

Race relations

Relational system of group privilege and disadvantage

Rituals of subordination

Ways in which people are coerced into following created and enforced roles in society

(ex: advertising and women)