Sociology - Final Exam

Social stratification

Existence of structured inequalities between groups in society in terms of their access to material or symbolic reward

Class

a large scale grouping of people who share common economic resources that strongly influence the type of lifestyle

Income

Money received from paid wages and salaries or earned from investments

Wealth

Money and material possessions held by an individual or group

Net worth

all of the assets one owns (e.g. cash, savings and checking accounts, investments in stocks and bonds, and real estate) minus one's debts (mortgages, loans, credit card balance)

Lifestyle

traditionally, income and wealth are the measures of class location
Recent measures include cultural factors such as lifestyle and consumption patterns
Individual identities are structured around lifestyle choices (how to dress/eat)
Distinction on basis of cultural tastes and leisure pursuits (=cultural capital)

Occupation

the prestigious jobs require a fair amount of either education or public service

Bourgeoisie

people who own companies, land or stocks (shares) and use these to generate economic returns

Proletariat

people who sell their labor for wages, according to Marx

Communism

a social system based on the common ownership of the means of production and sharing of the wealth it produces (=socialist system0 - technology replaces much of human labor with everyone working together for the common good

Status

the social honor or prestige a particular group is accorded by others

Social mobility

the upward or downward movement of individuals or groups between different social positions through changes in occupation, wealth or income

Intergenerational mobility

social movement across generations (children vs parents)

Intragenerational mobility

social movement during their working life

Democracy

A political system that allows the citizens to participate in political decision making or to elect representatives to government bodies

Populism

the belief that politics should reflect the needs and interests of ordinary people rather than those of elite individuals or groups

Authoritarianism

a political system governing bodies or leaders use force to maintain control

nation-state

political communities with delimited borders and shared cultures

Power

the ability of individuals or the members of a group to achieve aims or further the interests they hold

Coercion

power that people do not accept as legit

Authority

power that is accepted as legit

Civil rights

legal right held by all citizens in given national community

Political rights

rights of political participation, such as right to vote in elections and run for public office

Social rights

rights of every individual to enjoy a minimum standard of economic welfare and security (sickness payment)

Charismatic authority

Power that is legitimized on the basis of a leader's exceptional personal qualities or demonstration of extraordinary insight and accomplishment that inspires loyalty and obedience from followers

Relational-legal authority

power that is legitimized by law or written rules and regulations in organizations

Traditional authority

power that is legitimized on basis of long standing customs, handed down from generations

Interest group

a group organized to pursue specific interests in the political arena, operating primarily by lobbying the members of legislative bodies
To run as political candidate is enormously expensive, and interest groups provide much of the funding at all levels of political office

Polarization

a measure of how much a society's values and beliefs divide along political or ideological lines

Revolution

Process of political change involving the mobilizing of a mass social movement, which, by often using violence, overthrows an existing regime and forms a new government

Social movement

Collective attempts to further a common interest or secure a common goal through action outside the sphere of established institutions: large groups of people seek to accomplish, or block, social change

relative deprivation

discrepancy between people's actual lives and what they think could realistically be achieved, by comparing themselves with peers in a group (e.g. Robert Merton - an important element in deviant behavior)

Sex

physical differences of the body

Gender

social expectations about behavior regarded as appropriate for the members of each sex

Intersectionality

Recognition that gender intersects with other traits

Biological essentialism

the view that differences between men and women are natural and inevitable consequences of the intrinsic biological natures of men and women

Gender role socialization

the process of which we learn about male and female roles

Accountability

The assessment of a person's performance in terms of gender
Based on social structure

Doing gender

engaging in a behavior at the risk of gender assessment by others

Gender typing

women hold occupations of lower status and pay, such as secretarial and retail postions, and men tend to hold jobs of higher status and pay even in the same organization (managers)

Glass ceiling

a promotion barrier that prevents a women's upward mobility within an organization

Glass escalator

men's rapid ascent up the hierarchy when they work in female-dominated positions

One drop rule

classifying people as black if they have some black ancestry

Minority group

a group of people in a given society who, because of their distinct physical or cultural characteristics, find themselves in situations of inequality compared with the dominant group within that society

Race

A socially constructed category rooted in the belief that there are fundamental differences among humans associated with phenotype and ancestry

Ethnicity

A type of social identity related to ancestry (perceived or real) and cultural differences

Racism

The attribution of characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a population sharing certain physically inherited characteristics

Prejudice

holding preconceived ideas about a person or group

Discrimination

actual behavior that denies the members of a group resources or rewards available to others

Stereotyping

thinking in terms of fixed and inflexible categories

Institutional/systemic racism

Patterns of discrimination based on race that have become structured into existing social institutions: the idea that racism occurs through respected and established institutions of society rather than hateful actions of some bad people

Color-blind racism

a means of maintaining racial inequality without appearing racist (racism without racist)

Migration

movement of persons from one locality to another (within a country)

Immigration

the movement of people into one country from another for the purpose of settlement

Emigration

the movement of people out of one country to settle in another

Work

The carrying out of tasks that require the expenditure of mental and physical effort

Occupation

Any form of paid employment in which an individual regularly works (job)

Capitalisim

an economic system based on the private ownership of wealth, which is invested and reinvested in order to produce profit

Taylorism

Scientific management involved the detailed study of industrial processes to break them down into simple operations that could be precisely timed and organized

Fordism

The system of mass production tied to the cultivation of mass markets

Low-trust system

Organizational or work settings in which people are allowed little responsibility for, or control over the work task
Fordism and Taylorism involve low-trust systems, as jobs are set by management and are geared to machines

High-trust systems

Organizational or work settings in which individuals are permitted a great deal of autonomy and control over the work task

Alienation

feeling of estrangement, even hostility to one's job and eventually to the overall framework of capitalist-industrial production (Marx)

Post-Fordism

a new era of capitalistic economic production in which flexibility and innovation re maximized to meet market demands for diverse commercialized products

Monopoly

the domination by a single firm in a given industry

Oligopoly

the domination by a small number of firms in a given industry

Strike

A temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees in order to express grievance or enforce a demand

Lockout

The employers, rather than the workers, bring about a stoppage of work to force workers to accept a particular contract

Knowledge economy

a society no longer based primarily on the production of material goods but instead on the production of knowledge

Family

A group of individuals related to one another by kin connection who form an economic unit, of which adult members are responsible for the upbringing of children

Marriage

A socially acknowledged and approved sexual union between 2 individuals

Monogamy

Allowed only one spouse

Polygamy

Two or more spouses simultaneously

Cohabitation

a couple lives together in a sexual relationship without getting married

Hidden curriculum

Traits of behavior or attitudes that are learned at school but not included within the formal curriculum-for example, gender differences.

Cultural reproduction

the social process through which culture is reproduced across generations, especially through the socializing influence of major institutions

Cultural capital

the social assets of a person that promote social mobility in a stratified society

Tracking

dividing students into groups that receive different instruction on the basis of assumed similarities in ability or attainment

Literacy

the ability to read and write

Information poverty

the state of people who have little or no access to information technology, such as computers

Religion

A cultural system of commonly shared beliefs and rituals that provides sense of ultimate meaning and purpose by creating an idea of reality that is sacred, all encompassing, and supernatural

Sects

a religious subgroup that breaks away from orthodoxy (the larger organization) and follows its own unique set of rules and principles

Denomination

sects that have become institutionalized bodies rather than activist protest groups

Cults

the most loosely knit and transient religious groupings, comprising individuals who reject the values of the outside society

Secularization

The process of decline in the influence of religion

Food deserts

geographical areas with little or no access to high quality affordable food

Health

a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity

Sexual orientation

a person's identity in relation to the gender or genders to which they are sexually attracted; the fact of being heterosexual, homosexual, etc.

Sick role

A term associated with the functionalist Talcott Parsons to describe the patterns of behavior that a sick person adopts in order to minimize the disruptive impact of his or her illness on others.

Stigma

any physical or social characteristic that is labeled by society as undesirable

Demography

the study of populations

Infant mortality rate

the number of deaths in the first year of life for every 1,000 live births

life expectancy

the number of years the average person can expect to live

Urbanization

the development of towns and cities

Urbanism

A term used by Louis Wirth to denote distinctive characteristics of urban social life, such as its impersonality.

Suburbanization

the development of suburbia, areas of housing outside inner cities

Gentrification

a process of urban renewal in which older, deteriorated housing is refurbished by affluent people moving into the area

Ghettos and slums

a place where a racial or ethnic group initially comes to live as a consequence of systematic exclusion from more desirable places

Functionalist view

Functionalist explanation for stratification
All societies must be stratified because the benefits of different positions in any society are not equal
Inequality is functional because it ensures that the most qualified people, attracted by the rewards society provides, will fill the roles that are most important to the smooth functioning of a society


Critics
1 functional importance of roles if difficult to measure, 2 rewards do not reflect actual importance

Democratic elitism

a theory of the limits of democracy, which holds that in large-scale societies democratic participation is necessarily limited to the regular election of political leaders