SOC 100 Exam 3 CSU

What is social stratification?

A system by which a society ranks and categorizes people in a hierarchy of inequality.

What is social inequality?

A disparity in income, wealth, power, prestige, and other resources.

What are the four basic principles of social stratification?

1- A trait of society, not a reflection of individual differences

2- Carries over from generation to generation, a trait of societies, not individuals

3- Universal but variable- what and how a system is unequal varies

4- involved not just inequality but beliefs as well-defined as “fair”

What are social categories?

Categories of people who share common characteristics without necessarily interacting or identifying with one another. 

What is achieved status?

Social position is linked to a person’s acquisition of socially valued credentials or skills. 

What is ascribed status?

Social position is linked to characteristics that are socially significant but cannot generally be altered.

What is wealth?

Value of everything a person owns, minus the value of everything owed.

What’s the wealth gap?

The gap of wealth gap between groups

What’s the wealth gap ratio between white to African Americans?

8:1

What’s the ratio of the wealth gap between white to Latino.

12:1

What’s the caste system?

People status is determined at birth.

What is the class system?

People’s status is based on the ownership and control of resources on the type of work they do.

What is slavery?

Some people are owned by others

What is an open system?

permit munch more social mobility

What is meritocracy?

Social stratification based on personal merit

What is social mobility?

Change in position within the social hierarchy.

What is status consistency?

Degree of uniformity in a person’s social standing across various dimensions of social inequality.

What is the underclass?

A class of unemployed, unemployables, and underemployed who are more and more hopelessly set apart from the nation at large.

What is the working class?

People who perform manual labor or work in low-wage sectors such as food service and retail jobs. 

What is the middle class?

Those who provide skilled services of some kind and work for someone else. 

What is the upper class?

Those who own or exercise substantial financial control over large businesses, financial institutions, or factories.

What are life chances?

Opportunities and obstacles encounter in education, social life, work, and other areas critical to social mobility are influenced by class.

What is class?

Economic position in society

What is ideology?

The power behind stratification

What is color-blindness?

The assumption that we are living in a world that is “post-race”, where race no longer matters, when in fact it is still a prevalent issue.

What was Davis-Moore’s Thesis?

Inequality is not only inevitable but also necessary for the smooth functioning of society?

What type of perspective did Davis-Moore have?

Functional Perspective

Inequality is the result of what?

Conflict

What is Karl Marx: Class Conflict?

Social stratification is rooted in peoples relationship to the means of production.

What is alientation?

The experience of isolation and misery resulting from powerlessness.

What is the functional sociological therie?

A framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.

what is the social-conflict theory?

Groups in society are engaged in a continuous power struggle for control of scarce resources.

What is the symbolic interactionist therier?

Focuses on the specific integration among people. 

What is race?

A socially constructed category of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important.

What is the social component of race?

Group identity, a group must be recognized in some way by its own members or by others as a distinct group or at least have some characteristics in common.

What is the physical component of race?

Every race is generally regarded as being somehow different in appearance from other races.

what is culture?

The beliefs, norms, behaviors, languages, and products common to the members of a particular group that bring meaning to their social worlds.

What is ethnicity?

Characteristics of groups associated with national origins, languages, and cultural and religious practices.

What is an ethnic group?

People who are generally recognized by themselves or others as a distinct group, based entirely on social or cultural characteristics. A social characteristic that passes from gen. to gen. 

What is a stigma?

An attribute that is discrediting to an individual or group because it overshadows other attributes and merits that the individual or group may possess. 

What are mixed contacts?

Interactions between those who are stigmatized and members of the dominant non-stigmatized group.

What is a minority group?

Any group that is assigned an inferior status in society. A group that has less that its proportionate share of wealth, power, and social status.

What is a majority group?

Any group that is dominant in society. Any group that enjoys more than a proportionate share of the wealth, power, or social status in society. 

What is prejudice?

Rigid and unfair generalization about an entire category of people.

What is a stereotype?

An exaggerated description applied to every person in some category.

What is assimilation?

The absorption of a minority group into the dominant culture.

What is Cultural pluralism?

The coexistence of different racial and ethnic groups as characterized by the acceptance of one another’s differences.

What is segregation?

The practice of separating people spatially or socially on the basis of race or ethnicity. 

What is cultural relativism?

A worldview whereby the practices of a society are understood sociologically in terms of the society’s norms and values, and not the norms and values of another society.

What is discrimination?

The unequal treatment of individuals on the basis of their membership in a group.

What is racism?

The idea that one racial or ethnic group is inherently superior to another often results in institutionalized relationships between dominant and minority groups that create a structure of economic, social, and political inequality based on socially constructed racial or ethnic categories. 

What is white privilege?

Inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by inequality and injustice. 

What is the critical race theory?

A set of ideas holding that racial bias is inherent in many parts of western society, especially in its legal and social institutions, on the basis of their having been primarily designed for and implemented by white people.