Sociology 101 Exam #2

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Social Stratification

Describes the system of social standing. Refers to a society's categorization of its people into rankings based on factors like wealth, income, education, family background, and power.

Components of Stratification systems

Institutional processes that define what is valuable and desirable: “reward packages”

Rules of allocation: Which jobs/positions get the valuable and desirable and who gets the jobs/positions

Mobility mechanisms (Things that either move you up or down in the social hierarchy)

Systems of stratification → Slavery

One person owns another, as he or she would own property, and exploits the slave's labor for economic gain. Slaves possess virtually no power or wealth of their own.

Systems of Stratification → Caste

People can do little or nothing to change their social standing. People are born into their social standing and will remain in it their whole lives.

Systems of stratification → Class

A society is separated into parties whose members have different access to resources and power. An economic, natural, cultural, religious, interests and ideal rift usually exists between different classes. Based on factors like wealth, income, education, family background, and occupation and are open.

Intergenerational social mobility

Any change in status of family members between generations. Can be either achieving a higher social status than previous generation or dropping to a lower social status than the previous generation.

Intragenerational Social mobility

Someone moving up or down the social ladder within their own lifetime.

Culture of Poverty (Oscar Lewis 1968)

The theory that people in poverty develop certain habits that cause their families to remain in poverty over generations. People in poverty tend to focus on their current troubles, which causes attitudes of dependency and powerlessness.

Dependency Culture (Charles Murray 1984)

Argues that the welfare state undermines individual responsibility and effectively traps claimants within the benefits system with little or no incentive to escape. Individuals depend on state benefits such as welfare.

Structural explanation for poverty

As the percentage of people in vulnerable demographic or labor market circumstances increases, more poverty results. Also shines a light on partriarchy, capitalism, white privilege, and racism as being at the root of much poverty in western economies.

Relative poverty

The condition in which people lack the minimum amount of income needed in order to maintain the average standard of living in the society in which they live. Considered the easiest way to measure the level of poverty in an individual country.

Absolute Poverty

Characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education, and information.

Income vs. Wealth

Income → refers to the money an individual earns through work, investments, or other sources. Measured over a period of time (e.g. weekly, monthly, yearly)

• Easier to overcome than wealth

Wealth → Refers to the total value of a person’s assets (e.g. porperty, investments and cash) minus their debts.

Number of classes in the US

Four classes → Upper, middle, working, and lower

Further variation exist within the upper and middle classes (E.g. Upper-upper, lower-upper, upper middle, lower middle, etc.)

Who Occupies Each Class

Upper-upper → Arstocratic and “high-society” families with “old money who have been rich for generations. Live off the income from their inherited riches.

Lower-upper → Includes those with “new money”, or money made from investments, business ventures, etc.

Upper middle → Made up of highly educated business and professional people with high incomes, such as doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and CEOs.

Lower middle → Made up of less educaated people with lower incomes, such as managers, small business owner, teachers, and secretaries.

Working class → Minimally educated people who engage in “manual labor” with little or no prestige. Usually are underpaid and have no opportunity for career advancement (WORKING POOR). Those who are skilled, such as carpenters, plumbers and electricians may make more money than workers in middle-class (Blue collar workers)

Lower class → Typifies by poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. Only few of these people have finished high school, and are also subject to lack of medical care, adequate housing and food, decent clothing, safety, and vocational training.

Marx’s concept of means of production

The societal use and ownership of the elements of goods and services. This theory depicts who controls the land, labor, and capital of society.

Bourgeoisie → Owns the means of production and the proletariat who work for them

Proletariat → Includes everyone who does not own the means of production

Weber’s Property, Prestige, Power

Property → Refers to one’s material possessions and subsequent life chances

Prestige → Refers to the reputation or esteem associated with one’s social position

Power → The ability to do what one wants, regardless of the will of others.

Weber’s difference between class and status — Life chances vs. lifestyle

Class → A person’s economic position in a society

Status → A person’s prestige, social honor or popularity in a society.

Life chances are opportunites and possibilities that make up one’s lifestyle.

Bourdieu’s Cultural Capital

Cultural capital → Social assets of a person — education, intellect, style of speech, style of dress, social capital, etc. Whatever can be used to gain social mobility and status within a society.

Bourdieu believed these played an important, and subtle role. Bourdieu definied cultural capital as “familiarity with the legitimate culture within a society” what we might call ‘high culture’.

Examples → Investing advice or recommendations for a desirable job from a powerful friend, Parents reading to their children and helping them with homework, etc.

Race vs. Ethnicity

Race → Social construct that had been used to classify human beings according to physical or biological characteristics.

Ethnicity → Something a person acquires or ascribes to and refers to a shared culture, such as language, practices, and beliefs.

Symbolic Ethnicity/Optional ethnicity

Predominantly displayed thru symbolic and cultural practicies and events, rather lived as an everyday experience. The indivudal chooses whether to display ethnic roots and doing so incurs few social costs.

Assimilation vs. Pluralism

Assimilation → The process in which formerly distinct and separate groups come to share a common culture and merge together socially. Difference among groups decrease.

Pluralism → Exists when groups maintain their individual identities.

Example → Native American groups. Some are pluralistic and live on/near reservations and are strongly connect to their heritage. Members practice “traditional ways” and native languages as much as possible. Other Indigenous AMericans are mostly assimilated into the dominant society.

Sex vs. Gender

Sex → The different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females (reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, etc.)

Gender → The socially constructed characteristics of women and men — such as norms, roles and relatonships of and between groups of women and men.

Social Construction of gender

Gender is interactional rather than individual — it is developed through social interactions. It is also said to be omnireleveant, meaning that people are always judging our behavior to be either male or female.

Glass ceiling

A metaphorical invisible barrier that prevents certain individuals from being promoted to managerial- and executive-level positions within an organiziation or industry.

Usually applied to WOMEN

Patriarchy

A system of society/government in which the father of eldest male is head of the family. Gives men power and privilege over women in many aspects of society, including politics, economics, and culture.

Sex Segregation in the Workplace

Occurs when women and men hold the same job title at an individual establishment or company, but actually do different jobs. Women;s jobs are usually lower paid and less presitigious.

Gender Essentialism

Theorizes that gender differences are rooted in nature and biology. There are biological causes for the differences between men and women, such as women giving birth and men going out and hunting.

Radical vs. Liberal Feminism

Radical → Blame patriarchy for the continued oppression of women. They are seen as extreme by the media and other feminists, but have also taken real-world action for women’s rights.

Liberal → Focus on general gender inequalities, not just specifically for the oppression of women.

Social Institutions

A set of stable rules and relationships that regulate the social activities in which members of any society engage to meet their survival needs

E.g., Economy, state, family, education, religion, health and law

Enduring and transcends individual lives and intentions, but also change over time.

Informal Economy (Work off-the-books)

All economic activites by workers and economic units that are — in law or in practice — not covered or insufficiently covered by formal arrangements.

Examples → Domestic work, minibus driving, street vending, etc.)

Alienation (Marx’s View)

The estrangement of people from their work, their wider world, their human nature, and theirselves. It is a consequence of the division of labor in a capitalist society, wherein a human being’s life is lived as a mechanistic part of a social class.

Why do we Work?

Jobs provide identity and financial support

The degree to which it provides each is a key to an understanding of the economy as a major institution of reproducing social inequality

The Features of Capitalism in the Workplace

Private Ownership

Profit maximization as the main incentive for economic activites

Free market competition (Laissez-faire)

• No government guidance

Corporate Capitalism

Capitalism Market economy dominated by hierarchal and bureaucratic corporations that control the factors of production and profit.

Family capitalism (Small businesses. People who own and operate their companies, owners are also the managers.)

managerial capitalism (Small comanpanies having managers to breakdown the company. Owners are unable to run the business by themselves.)

welfare capitalism (Scandinavian countries. Corporations have a responsibility to provide welfare benefits, not just wages. )

institutional capitalism (Owned by millions of stockholders who are represented by financial institutions. Board of directors are from similar backgrounds. Diffused ownership but controlled.)

Family of Procreation vs. Family of Orientation

Procreation → The family that a person creates through having and/or adopting children. Also formed through marriage.

Orientation → The family that a person is born into and/or raised within.

Nuclear vs. Extended Families

Nuclear → Consists of only parents and their children.

Extended → Extends beyond the nuclear family to include grandparents and sometimes other relatives

Functionalist View on Families

Families serve 6 functions

• Reproduction

• Protection

• Socialization

• Regulation of sexual behavior

• Affection and companionship

• Provision of social status

Parsons’ Concept of Division of Labor

Parsons argues that this division of labour is based on biological differences with women ‘naturally” suited to the nurturing role and men to that of provider.

Men play an ‘instrumental’ role which means focusing on achieving success at work to be the breadwinner for the family and focusing on the financial needs of the family.

The women plays an ‘expressive/affective’ role that focuses on looking after the children and household and focusing on the family in terms of emotional needs.

Conflict Perspective on Family

Views family as a vehicle to maintain patriarchy and social inequality. The family works toward the contuance of social inequality within a society by maintaining and reinforcing the status quo. It benefits men more than women as it allows men to maintain a position of power.

Inheritance, education, aand social capital are transmitted thru the family structure. Wealthy families are able to keep their privielged social position for their members, while individuals from poor families are denied similar status.

Lareau’s Study on Class and Childrearing Practices

Middle class families: Concerted cultivation (a parenting style or parenting practice marked by a parent's attempts to foster their child's talents by incorporating organized activities in their children's lives) → sense of entitlement → cultural capital for dealing with formal institutions

Working class families: Accomplishment of natural growth ( children experience long stretches of leisure time, child-initiated play, clear boundaries between adults and children, and daily interactions with kin.) → sense of constraint → disadvantaged in institutional settings

Education as a Social Institution

Plays a vital role in shaping individuals’ beliefs and values from a young age. One of the primary roles it plays is the transmission of knowledge and skills between different generations, including academic knowledge and social and cultural norms.

Hidden Curriculum

A set of lessons “which are learned but not open intended” to be taught in school such as the norms, values, and beliefs conveyed in both the classroom and social environent.

Credentialism

An overemphasis on educational qualifications as a primary criterion for employment, social status, and economic opportunities.

Social Reproduction

The passing of social inequality across generations.

The upper class has many advantages, which provides the ability to have even more resources to get ahead in life. This is the opposite for lower classes.

Education and Class

People with a better social class backround are more likely to have greater educational achievement.

• Private vs. Public schools

• Wealthy vs. poor school districts

• Racial Segregation

• Higher Education as an industry

• Family background (Economic capital, cultural capital, social capital)

• BELL CURVE BOOK

Teacher-Expectancy effect

Impact of a teacher’s expectations on student performance

Tracking

Determined by test results, but students are also tracked by subjective factors such as neatness, politeness, and obediance to authority. Lower tracks have lower expectations and worse teachers. Students placed on lower tracks find that they are running fast while also falling behind. Their school years get increasingly difficult due to not being able to catch up.

Bell Curve

Claims IQ determines outcomes; criticisms for ignoring structural facotrs

The reason for diff in IQ tests/academic performance

IQ as a proxy for intelligence

• Criticized b/c they are the results of certain education background, not natural talents, socioeconomic class