Exam 2 - Sociology

Redlining

When banks or lenders refuse to give loans or insurance to people living in certain neighborhoods marking them as a high risk

Blockbusting

Real estate agents scare white homeowners into selling their homes cheaply by claiming minorities are moving in then sell the houses at a higher price to minority families

Urban Renewal

Government programs that tear down “run down“ areas to rebuild cities or highways but this often displaces residents instead of helping them.

Predatory Lending

Unfair or abusive loan practices that target vulnerable people with high interest rates or hidden fees trapping them in debt. 

Racialized Wealth and Education

the way wealth and education opportunities are often unequally distributed by race often because of historic discrimination like redlining and segregation.

Zoning Ordinances / Race Neutral Zoning Laws

Local laws that control how land can be used. they can be used unfairly to separate or exclude certain groups

• mostly only allows construction on white homes but not on minorities

• local laws that forbid the construction of multi family and or low income housing

White Flight

When white residents move out of their neighborhoods as more people of color move in. often leading to segregation and economic decline in the area left behind

Restrictive Covenants 

rules written into property deeds that used to say homes cannot be sold to certain racial or ethnic groups

Steering

when real estate agents guide buyers towards or away from certain neighborhoods based on race or ethnicity

Loan denial & Subprime Mortgages

Minorities are more likely to be denied regular loans and offered subprime (high interest rates) ones instead, leading to higher debt and foreclosures.

FHA of 1968

A federal law that bans housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin  

• FHA denied loans for minority families

Social Distance Theory

The idea that people prefer to live, work, and socialize with others similar to themselves — leading to racial and social segregation

Index of Dissimilarity

a measure of neighborhood segregation / integration

0 = full integration

100 = full segregation

Ethnic enclaves

race and ethnic groups tend to come together and be support for one another 

still tended to be segregated compared to the dominant race

The Ghetto

Involuntary ethnic enclave created by structural racial segregation

• limited resources for individuals 

Suburbs

A residential area located on the outskirts of a city or town 

• whites moved from the city to the suburbs in white flight 

Immigration and Migration patterns in the early 20th century 

• millions poured into the city via immigration and migration 

• clustering of ethnic and racial groups

• racial segregation supported by governments leading to the creation of ghettos 

Urban Unrest

Racial uprising int he ghettos in 1960’s as a result of violent enforcement of racial segregation 

Race Neutral Zoning Law

• local laws forbidding construction of multi family and or low income housing 

• only allow construction of higher values homes 

• discriminat9ory consequence for minorities 

How is housing inequality tied to health

Housing → quality of education → social / human capital → wealth b

Racialized Spaces

Clustering of similar racial or ethnic groups into crowded areas

Economics

New Deal 

Economic relief programs to address consequences of depression in the 1930’s. Did not include blacks and latinos.

GI Bill

Provided benefits such as college tuition and mortgages to veterans of World War 2. But they discriminated against minorities  

Reparations

compensation of harms to racial minorities

De industrialization

• decrease in well paying manufacturing jobs in 70’s and 80’s 

• disproportionate impact to minorities 

Welfare reduction

• racilization of welfare programs such as welfare quee 

• accused poor minority women for not working 

• reduce assistance

• stigmatize welfare recipients

Discrimination in the Labor Market

Audit experiment

• whites with a criminal record more likely to be called back then black people with no criminal record (pager 2003)

• white sounding names get more call backs (bertrand and mullainathan 2004)

Split Labor Market

Lower wage to race / ethnic minority 

Employers pit one group against another → interracial worker 

solidarity → keep low wage

create prejudice and interpersonal racism 

human vs social capital

• education, knowledge skills and experience possessed by an individual  

• systematic racialized inequalities in access to human capital 

• resources gained from social networks;. minorities have less social capital → less human capital 

Meritocracy

the belief that economic success comes from ones individual effort. racial groups disparities are explained by lack of effort from racial minorities. 

leads to structural inequalities 

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

De jure segrearion (required by law), ruled unconstitutional 

• black school children were psychological damaged by segregation 

• made to feel inferior and second class citizens 

• this denied them access to equal education oppurtinites 

Dejure

segregation based on law

Defacto

Is a form of colorblind inequality

Little Rock Arkansas (1957)

Nine black students attempted to go to all white high school 

Inadequate funding

• outdated textbooks / technology 

• uncertified teachers 

• inadequate infrastructure / extracurricular

Spillover of other social inequalities

students in predominately minoirt schools are often less “learning ready“

• more likely to be malnourished 

• more likely to have inadequate housing 

• more likely to have unstable home lives

• more likely to experience crime and violence

Curriculum

Literature and history courses traditionally taught largely from the white and european pov

tracking

black and Hispanic students less likely to be placed in advanced tracks even at similar achievement level 

• due to teachers biases and cultural capital 

Cultural Capital

a persons knowledge, behavior, or skills that signify higher cultural competence

• race / ethnicity itself could signal cultural capital 

Code Switching

many non white people switch their behvavioral and language patters between home and school to better fit in with teacher expectations 

Oppositonal Culture

students linguistic. behavioral and aesthetic patterns formed in opposition to main stream white culture

Stereotype threat

when an individual feels at risk of confirming negative stereotypes about their social group their performance level goes down 

• experiments suggest that high achieving African American undergraduates are more likely to struggle with grades than high achieving whites 

residential segregation & segregated schools

school attendance based on neighborhoods → segregated neighborhoods result in increasingly segregated schools 

Assimilation and segregation

• native americans forced assimilation in schools

• black people, hispanics, asians separated

San Antonio v. Rodriguez (1973)

• poorer districts inevitably have lower taxes put back into properties while richer districts put in more money which leads to better education and better economic benefits.

• the supreme court however did not believe that this violated the 14th amendment