Sociology Exam 3 Study Set

Chapters 10, 12, and 13

What resources have shaped your life chances?

Valued material, social, and cultural resources

Stratification

A structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in a society

Slavery

A system of enforced servitude in which some people are owned by others as property

Caste 

A system in which boundaries between strata are clear, relations between levels are regulated and social status is ascribed (India) 

Estate System

A system that divides power in society into three primary sectors: the church, the nobility, and the commoners

Social Class

A system primarily based on socioeconomic status both real and perceived 

Social Mobility

Movement within or between society’s strata

OPEN

A society with a system of stratification that allows for social mobility between strata

CLOSED

A society with a system of stratification that does not allow for social moblity between strata

Horizontal 

The movement from one social position to another of the same rank 

Vertical (up or down)

The movement from one social position to another of a different rank (the “American Dream”)

Intergenerational

Change in social position of children relative to their parents 

Intragenerational

Changes in social position within a person’s adult life 

Income

Money received over some period of time (wages per hour or salary) 

Gini Coefficient

Ranges between zero and one, and the larger the Gini coefficient, the greater the inequality 

Wealth 

The total value of all material assets minus debt at a single point in time (what you own - what you owe)

Absolute Poverty

A minimum level of subsistence that no family should be expected to live below (homeless)

Relative Poverty

A floating standard of deprivation by which people at the bottom of a society are judged as being disadvantaged in comparison with the nation as a whole 

Meritocracy 

Faith in opportunity manifests itself in a commitment to meritocracy - where a person’s social status is achieved through ability and effort 

Aristocracy

Social status is ascribed and membership in the privileged ranks is inherited

Karl Marx and inequality

Focused primarily on the distribution of material resources: owners and non-owners 

Bourgeoisie

The ruling class under capitalism, due to their ownership of the means of production

Proletariat

The working class under capitalism who must sell their labor power in exchange for a wage

Max Weber and inequality

Believed that both material and social resources are important to social class 

Class consciousness

The subjective awareness held by members of a class regarding their common vested interests and need for collective political action to bring about change.

False consciousness

An attitude held by members of a class that does not accurately reflect their objective position.

Pierre Bourdieu and inequality

Argued for significance of cultural resources

Cultural capital

Our tastes, knowledge, language, and ways of thinking that we exchange in interaction with others.

Class

A group of people who have a similar level of economic resources.

Status group

People who have the same perceived level of prestige.

Prestige

The respect and admiration that a particular status holds in society.

Socioeconomic Status (SES)

A measure of social class position based on a combination of education, occupation, and income.

Party

The capacity to organize to accomplish some particular goal.

Sex

The biological difference between Males and Females (chromosomes, hormones, secondary sex traits)

Frequently assigned at birth

Gender

The social and cultural significance that we attach to the biological differences of sex 

Socially constructed: based on the culture’s agreement/rules (norms) 

Intersex

A condition in which people are not biologically males or females but somewhere in between (multiple chromosomes pairings, different levels of hormones, different combinations of internal and external sex traits) 

Gender identity 

A person’s subjective or internal sense of their own gender 

Gender expression

The outwards or public display of a person’s gender 

Transgender 

A person whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth 

Cisgender 

A person whose gender identity aligns with the cultural expectations of their sex assigned at birth

Women’s (expected) gender roles

Quiet, gentle, caring, nurturing, sensitive, emotional, talkative, and expressive 

Men’s (expected) gender roles

Provide, protect, strong (less expressive with emotions), and athletic 

Gender binary

The model of gender that explains gender as dimorphic: masculine and feminine and there is no overlap, it has a clear divide (two box) 

Reimagining sex and gender > gender spectrum

A gender model that sees it as a continuum with a full range of possible combinations (sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression) allows for overlap in the middle of continuum 

Multiple masculinities 

The idea that expression of manliness can take varieties of forms beyond the culturally dominant stereotype construct of what it mean to be a man 

Gender across cultures 

Some cultures allow for more than two boxes in a gender model 

Two-spirit people in Native American indigenous societies or Indonesia with five genders (boxes)

Feminism

The belief in social, economic, and political equality for women

First Wave

Suffrage and voting mixed with abolitionism

Culminated in the 19th amendment - 1920 - White women received the right to vote

Second Wave 

Women’s right to work'/exist outside of the home maker environment 

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Frieden 

Did not include working class and women of color (BIPOC)

Birth control and sexual or reproductive rights (roe v. wade) 

Third Wave

Early 1990s, style of feminism into cultural sphere to embrace a multiplicity of voices, expressions, and experiences 

Gender emphasis on agency and subjectivity

Personal empowerment 

Open about sexuality and sexual exploration 

Celebrate diversity of gender, race, ethnicity and class  

Led to commitment to social justice and global perspective 

Standpoint theory

Because our social position shape our perceptions, a more complete understanding of social relations must incorporate the perspective of marginalized voices 

Intersectionality

Gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class must not be studied in isolation, because they have intermingled effects on our identity knowledge, and outcomes 

Sexuality

Denotes our identities and activities as sexual beings 

Identity

Who we are in ways similar to how gender, race, ethnicity, and class shape us 

Practice 

What we do (or do not do) with whom and how often

Sexual orientation

The categories of people whom we are sexually attracted to 

Heterosexual

Those who are attracted to member of the opposite sex

Homosexual

Those who are attracted to member of the same sex

Bisexual 

Those who are attracted to both men and women

Heteronormativity

The cultural presupposition that heterosexuality is the appropriate standard for sexual identity and practice and that alternative sexualities are deviant,

Instrumental leader

The person in the family who bears responsibility for the completion of tasks focuses on distant goals and manages the external relationship between one’s family and other social institutions (more masculine)  

Expressive leader

The person in the family who bears responsibility for maintenance of harmony and internal emotional affairs (more feminine) 

Sexism

The ideology that one sex is superior to the other (generally, male prejudice and discrimination against women) 

Institutional discrimination

The systematic denial of rights and opportunities to marginalized groups as a part of society’s norma operations 

Labor force

Today, millions of women are in the labor force

Occupational gender segregation confines many women to sex-type “service” roles 

Women are underrepresented in “men’s jobs” which offer greater financial rewards and prestige 

Income with gender

Today we claim to value “equal pay for equal work” 

Women do not earn as much on average as men, even in the same occupations 

Occupational segregation does not explain the wage gap which widens with age 

Glass ceiling

An invisible barrier that blocks the promotion of a qualified individual in a work environment because of the individual’s gender, race, or ethnicity

Discrimination keeps women out of the top spots and limits their ability to get qualifications needed for top positions  

Second shift

The double burden of working outside the home followed by child are and house work (more common for women) 

Politics

A higher percentage of women vote than men, but women remain underrepresented in elected office

Women have made slow but steady progress in certain political arenas: congress and supreme court

Violence against women

Is a global problem

The full extent is unknown because the crimes often go unreported and unrecognized

Likelihood of experiencing physical or sexual violence varied significantly from place to place

All ages are subject to acts of violence

Socially Constructed

Grounded in history, context, culture, ect.

Race

Presumed biological differences between humans to which people attach meaning, resulting in the creation of supposed genetically distinct subgroups within the population (skin color, hair texture, various physical features, ect.)

Ethnicity

Presumed cultural differences to which people attach meaning, resulting in the creation of supposed socially distinct subgroups (language, food, religion, traditions, or clothing) 

Carolus Linnaeus in the mid-1700s

Pseudo-science that justified enslavement/colonization (Junk science)

1)Europeaus 

2)Asiaticus 

3) Americanus 

$)Afer 

Pseudoscientific Racism 

Ranking categories and assignment of assumed character traits

The idea that humans did not descend form common ancestors

One-drop rule

The principle that, if a person had even one Black African ancestor, no matter how may generations back, the person was labeled to be Black - even if they appeared to be white 

“Separate but Equal”

Segregation in public places, Plessy vs Ferguson

Eugenics

Movement in the United States → uses selective breeding to protect ideas of genetic purity → only certain people have the right to reproduce 

Ashley Montagu

‘Race’ is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth

Interactionist Perspective on Race  

Seeks to present race as a multidimensional set of attributes based on the fluid nature of when and where people live 

Wendy Roth 

Multidimensional typology of racial classification to examine hoe we conceptualize, instionalize, and internalize race 

Racial Self-Classification

Box you check on a survey

Observed Appearance-Based Race

What others see you as based on observed characteristics (visible) 

Reflected Race (looking glass self)

The race you believe other people perceive you as

Racial Family History

Ancestors and Oral History

Racial Self-Narrative

Answer a more open ended question about racial identity 

Observed Interaction-Based Race 

What others see you as based on cue via interaction (accents) 

Racial Phenotype

Visible biological indicators of race (skin color, facial structure, hair texture)  

Racial Generic Ancestry 

Based on DNA 

Passing

When someone “passes” they are perceived as belonging to another racial category: formerly enslaved persons passing as white pole

Functionalist Perspective on Race

Prejudice and discrimination persist because they contribute to social order in some way. Possibly this occurs by reinforcing social identity and integration at the expense of others

Contact Hypothesis

The theory that interaction with people unlike ourselves decreases negative attitudes we may have about them 

Affirmative Action

Positive efforts to recruit minority groups (race, gender, ect.) members including women for jobs, promotions, and educational oppertunities 

To increase the competition for opportunities by inviting more people to apply 

Conflict Perspective on Race

Racial inequality

Racial formation

A sociohiostorical process in which racial categories are created, inhibited, transformed, and destroyed

Prejudice (and stereotypes)

A preconceived and unjustified judgement of individuals whether positive or negative based on their membership in a group (attitude) 

Sterotypes

Unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences

Implicit bias

The automatic and unconscious association of value, positive or negative, with different groups 

Discrimination (individual and institutional)

The practice of denying equal access to opportunities and resources on the basis of group membership rather than merit or rights

Institutional Discrimination

Based on society’s normal operations