Sociology 001 Exam 3

Endogamy

Marriage to someone within one’s social group. Involves cultural or legal sanctions against marrying outside one’s race, class, caste

Exogamy

Marriage to someone outside one’s social group. Legal in Western world, but not always culturally accepted. Total exogamy rare (marriage of people from totally different social categories)

Loving v Virginia

1967 Supreme Court case antimiscegenation laws (interracial couples could now marry)

Nuclear family

familial form consisting of a father, a mother, and their children. Idealized model of a male breadwinner and female homemaker post WWII

Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski

Argued that family is a universal phenomenon that fulfills the task of child rearing in society.

Extended family

Kin networks that extend outside or beyond the nuclear family

Cohabitation

living together in an intimate relationship without formal legal or religious sanctioning

Preindustrial families

Functioned like a small business in 19th century. Home was a site for work and production, and the entire family was involved (made own food, clothes, goods. Minimal division of labor between sexes.)

Postindustrial families

Result of rise of industry, cash economy, formal schooling, and family as private sphere. Childhood became a distinct period where full-time mothering emerged.

Kinship networks

String of relationships between people related by blood and co-residence (i.e. marriage). Families receive help through these networks

Cult of domesticity

The notion that true womanhood centers on domestic responsibility and child rearing. Though women make half the workforce, they still do most of the housework/childcare

Period of optimism

Depression over, US won war and dominates world economy. Manufacturing increased, white Americans move to suburbs to homes w/ low down payments, women quit wartime jobs and baby boom begins

Rising divorce rates, declining marriage rates, plummeting fertility rates, more women joining workforce

Factors that have changed the organization of work and family life since the 1970’s

adult daughters and sons have same income

When mothers raising children work (working role model)…

gender pay gap widens for adult children (daughters make 8000 less than sons and are 15% less likely to finish college)

When mothers raising children stay home…

Feminist theories

Suggest gender roles are learned in the family because it can be a battleground for power over decisions about chores, housing, raising children, spending money, etc.

Feminist Sarah Fenstermaker Berk

Viewed family as a “gender factory” where women and men learn distinct roles that parallel and divide between private and public spheres.

Feminist Betty Friedan (Feminine Mystique)

Critiqued the limits of being a homemaker and said that women were dissatisfied, struggling, and yearning

Second shift

Women’s responsibility for housework and child care —everything from cooking dinner to doing laundry, bathing children, reading bedtime stories…

Fathers with short tempers and mothers who use physical punishment

Sibling on sibling violence is predicted by…

Intimate partner violence (IPV)

What is the leading cause of homicides for women?

high rate of female-headed families in black community is result of racial oppression and poverty, not a cause of it

WEB Du Bois argued…

Patricia Hill Collins

Argued Black women never fit into model of ideal nuclear family and that afrocentric world view sees alternative concepts of family and community

Latinx family common characteristics

strong family/commuinty ties, adherence to traditional gender roles, devout Catholicism, high marriage rates, low divorce rates

Asian American family characteristics

More likely to live in a multigenerational home. Children may become “language brokers” —family translators and public face with teachers, bankers, doctors, etc.

Poverty and single motherhood

Lack of support for single mothers in US puts their families at greater risk of poverty. Impacts non-white communities greater than white communities

Divorce

Timing and parent’s hostility can influence a kid’s educational attainment, future earnings, and socioeconomic success. Some research shows it increases kid’s depression, but others say kids are no better or worse off

Divorce paradox

In the US 85-90% get married but we have the highest divorce rate in the West, especially in conservative states

Blended family

Family with stepparents, stepchildren, and stepsiblings

Miscengenation

The technical term for interracial marriage, which is politically and historically charged

Immigrant struggles

Tend to be poorer and hold fewer educational credits

Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)

Signed by Clinton in 1996 saying that marriage is heterosexual

2013; 2015

Year DOMA was struck down; Year same-sex marriage was legalized

LGBTQ+ family struggles

Restrictions on caregiving, medical decision-making, more likely to lack health insurance

Education

Process through which academic, social, and cultural skills are developed. We expect schools to teach basic skills and impart knowledge, but not all schools achieve this goal

Functional literacy

the ability to read or write well enough to function in society (21% of Americans 16-65 are illiterate)

Human capital

Skills, knowledge, and experience possessed by a person or group that can yield economic benefits. Can be invested by going to college, taking a night class, or learning a trade, making us more productive and bankable

To educate and socialize

Two main functions of schools:

Hidden curriculum

The nonacademic and less overt socialization functions of schooling (ex. nationalism/patriotism w pledge). Serves to form a more cohesive society but has also been used to integrate immigrants and others to instill dominant cultural values

Forced assimilation

Socialization that takes place in schools that is part of a larger power structure (ex. boarding schools forcing Native Americans to assimilate to white, Christian, English culture)

Marxist theories on education

Schools play suspect role by teaching dominant culture values, and are pawns of the capitalist classes. They teach skills to maintain dominant/subordinate roles in workplace (ex. self-discipline, obedience)

Sorokin and Lunden theories on education

Schools sort students according to likely future careers, then prepare them. “Best and brightest” are socialized toward specific roles, but results in inequalities like lower-class students attaining vocational roles

Impact on COVID-19 pandemic on learning

4 in 5 students experienced significant learning losses, the greatest losses occurring among most disadvantaged students and rural poor

Coleman Report (1966)

showed that differences in achievement among students were explained by family background and peers rather than by differences in school resources

Post-Coleman Reports research

Found links between students’ achievement and school characteristics, like reducing class sizes

James Coleman

Conducted Coleman Report when schools were still segregated and there were bigger gaps between Black and White student outcomes. Black students did better in majority-White schools, and lower-income kids did better in middle-income schools

Project STAR

4-year study that looked at the impact of class size on student learning. Found students benefit from smaller class sizes, experiencing fewer disciplinary problems and achieving much higher test scores/graduation rates

Private school students

Perform better academically than public school peers, in part due to academic and behavioral differences

Catholic schools

Shown to be most successful in preparing students academically, especially in preparing students from disadvantaged backgrounds

Social capital

The information, knowledge of people, and connections that help individuals enter, gain power in, and leverage social networks. (ex. thinking Catholic schools are close communities where students, parents, and teachers impact each other)

Functionalist

Talcott Parsons’s claim that the nuclear family was necessary to modern industrial society because it fulfilled society’s need for productive workers (fathers) and child rearers (mothers) is an example of a __________ approach to sociology.  

a father, mother, and children

The nuclear family consists of 

families produced the food, clothing and other goods they needed to survive 

Which statement describes characteristics of the preindustrial family? 

it reflect the inequalities of society

A feminist perspective on the family is that

Blended family

Josephine’s parents divorced when she was five years old. By the time she was eight, both her parents had remarried, and she had two stepsiblings on her father’s side and a half-brother on her mother’s side. Josephine’s two new families are examples of which type of family? 

Academic differences in private vs public school

Private school students did more HW, enrolled in academic programs, and took more college prep courses

Behavioral differences in private vs public school

Private school students had better attendance and were involved in fewer fights/threatened teachers less

Amanda Lewis and John Diamond

Found that racial inequalities were perpetuated by different expectations and disparities in discipline (ex. white parents used privilege to push to get their kids into AP and pushing to reduce kids’ punishments)

Tracking

A way of dividing students into different classes by ability or future plans. Intended to create a better learning environment, because student’s goals are matched to their curricula (academic/vocational/general prep)

Research on tracking

Students in the college track have higher math achievement, better chance of graduating, Students on vocational track are less likely to be unemployed and more likely to be skilled laborers

Negatives of tracking

General track students suffer. Privileged & White students more likely to be in college track, while POC and low income students are overrepresented in non-college tracks

Individual teachers matter more than intellectual dynamic of classroom. Students in different classes may obtain different kinds of instruction of varying quality.

Teacher’s effects on instruction

Pygmalion effect

Some teachers hold varying expectations for some students and change their behavior toward them accordingly. Students respond by meeting those high and low expectations

Minimizing class time lost to activities other than instruction, having clear behavior expectations and consequences, maintaining a fixed routine, and setting high standards for classwork

Best teaching methods

Peers effects on classroom

Academic characteristics of classmates affect their peers. Classrooms with high achievers have generally higher success, while disruptive classrooms can take away from learning

Regulating behavior in school

Too little discipline means some unruly students will hurt their own learning and also that of others; too much means the risk of stigmatizing kids and causing them to internalize the message that they are troublemakers. 

School-to-prison pipeline

School suspension has a causal association with higher rates of incarceration

Stop-and-frisk policing

Law enforcement officers stop and potentially frisk individuals they suspect of being involved in, or about to commit, a crime. Targets young black males

Supply and demand increases and more technical jobs in the 20th century

Functionalist belief on cause of increase in education

Conflict theorists belief on cause of increase in education

Competing interests, 20th century views of education, and expansion of school system. High levels of education tell employers your indoctrinated in values

Credentialism

Overemphasis on credentials (ex. college degrees) for signaling social status or qualifications for a job.

Conflict theorist view on cause of credentialism

As increasing numbers of people meet the qualifications for certain types of jobs, employers upgrade the requirements in order to weed out more people. 

SAT

Predicts college outcomes/first year GPA for White students. Predictive power mostly comes from correlation between test scores and family background

Affirmative Action

A set of policies granting preferential treatment to a number of particular subgroups within the population—typically, women and historically disadvantaged racial minorities. Intended to balance structural inequalities

Realities of Affirmative Action

Preference is based on many characteristics beyond race, like legacy status, athletes, rural students, and those with an unusual life. These preferences equal or surpass those given to Black/Hispanic students

Adult learning

Education trends suggest that many of us will train and retrain ourselves—that is, getting more education through some means—throughout our lives. 

Socioeconomic status (SES)

An individual’s position in a stratified social order. Made up of a combination of parental educational attainment, parental occupational status, family income, and family wealth. 

High SES

Attains more years of schooling, gets better grades, and scores higher on cognitive tests (access best schools, tutoring, college counseling, etc.)

Low SES

Less access to help, get less structured help at home (parents work in “essential services” jobs), more economic stressors, etc. 

Cultural capital

The symbolic and interactional resources that people use to their advantage in various situations. Through the lifestyle they were born into, wealthier students can navigate their world with more assertiveness and ease. 

Embodied

Type of cultural capital where skills rests in our body (ex. piano-playing)

Objectified

Type of cultural capital where skill requires investment of time (ex. money for piano lessons)

Institutionalized

Type of cultural capital where skill is legitimized through formal systems (ex. piano conservatory training)

High SES parents

Tend to not have greater desire than lower-income parents for kids to succeed; they just see education as a shared responsibility, and they may have time/resources to be involved. 

Causes of disparities in Black student lower cognitive test scores/higher suspension rate 

Unequal distribution of school discipline based on race, and economic disparities between Black families and White ones.

Inclusive curriculum

Approach to close disparities gap between white and black student achievements, making course material more relevant to diverse students

Black family structural inequalities

Highest poverty rate, lowest wealth rate, lower test scores, housing tending to be in more violent neighborhoods (result of poverty disparities)

Summer setbacks

During the summer, wealthier students continue to gain through learning opportunities at home, in communities, and at summer camps, and by fall they’ve significantly moved ahead of their less-wealthy peers. 

Stereotype threat

When members of a negatively stereotyped group are placed in a situation where they fear they may confirm those stereotypes 

The Gene Movement

Despite mass contrary evidence, is the idea that racial differences in intelligence are genetic (Bell Curve)

Hispanic student disparities

Score lower on the SATs, have a higher rate of repeating grades or dropping out, and are suspended or expelled at higher rates than White students. 

Boy-girl achievement gap

Girls of all backgrounds started doing equally well as boys while boys from lower-class backgrounds started doing worse. 

Resource dilution model

Hypothesis stating that parental resources are finite and that each additional child gets a smaller amount of them. Only-children tend to outperform children with siblings and enjoy monopoly on family resources

Functionalist

A _____ response to the question of why there's been a significant increase in the number of high school and college graduates in the US over the past century might point to the simple rules of supply and demand: a need for a more educated workforce has encouraged more people to stay in school longer 

Cultural capital

A parent’s decision to become actively involved in the PTA at their child’s school may be related to the parent’s level of 

Collective action

Action that takes place in groups and diverges from the social norms of the situation

Crowd collective action

face-to-face with other members of your group

Mass collective action

Members don’t have to physically be together (ex. letter-writing campaign)

Convergence theory

Theory of collective action stating that collective action happens when people with similar ideas and tendencies gather in the same place. Doesn’t necessarily require planning and setting isn’t important.

Contagion theory

Theory of collective action claiming that collective action arises because of people’s tendency to conform to the behavior of others with whom they are in close contact. Movements grow like diseases spread, from one person through entire group