Sociology Exam #2

Social stratification

Structured hierarchies of inequality and privilege that shape access to resources and power.

Open stratification system

A hierarchy that allows movement between social positions.

Closed stratification system

A hierarchy that strongly restricts movement between social positions.

Social status

A socially recognized position or category occupied by a person.

Ascribed status

A social position assigned rather than earned, often at birth.

Achieved status

A social position gained through actions or accomplishments.

Master status

A status that strongly shapes how others see and treat a person.

Status set

All the social statuses a person holds at the same time.

Social class

A large group of people with similar economic resources and life chances.

Socioeconomic status (SES)

A measure of social position using income, wealth, education, occupation, and lifestyle.

Income

Money received over a period of time, such as wages or salaries.

Wealth

The total value of assets owned minus debts owed.

Life chances

Opportunities people have to achieve desirable outcomes, shaped by social position.

Max Weber

Associated social class with life chances and opportunities for economic prosperity.

Karl Marx

Emphasized class relations and class consciousness.

Class consciousness

Awareness of one's social class and shared interests with others in that class.

Myth of classlessness

The belief that meaningful social class divisions do not exist in America.

American Creed

Beliefs emphasizing equality, individual freedom, and opportunity.

Egalitarianism

The belief that people should have equal rights and opportunities.

Meritocracy

A system in which rewards are supposedly based on talent and effort.

Middle-class identity bias

The tendency of Americans across different economic positions to identify as middle class.

Economic inequality

Unequal distribution of income, wealth, and economic resources.

Gilded Age

Period around 1870–1900 marked by monopolies, political corruption, and extreme inequality.

Robber barons

Powerful industrial business leaders associated with monopolies and concentrated wealth.

Thomas Piketty

Economist cited for research showing the growth of economic inequality.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Argued that humans are naturally good and social inequality is created by society.

Natural inequality

Unequal physical or personal characteristics rather than socially created advantages.

Social inequality

Unequal advantages and disadvantages produced by social organization.

Adam Ferguson and John Millar

Argued that inequality can motivate people and encourage social progress.

Thomas Malthus

Argued that inequality and human suffering could help limit population growth.

Surplus

Resources produced beyond immediate needs, allowing more complex stratification.

Hunter-gatherer society

Society with limited surplus and generally less complex economic stratification.

Agrarian society

Society centered on farming, where growing surplus allows greater stratification.

Industrial/capitalist society

Society organized around industrial production, private ownership, and complex class divisions.

Means of production

Resources such as land, factories, and equipment used to produce goods.

Davis-Moore Thesis

Functionalist argument that unequal rewards motivate people to fill important social positions.

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore

Sociologists who argued in 1945 that stratification serves necessary social functions.

Functionalist view of inequality

Inequality helps motivate people to train for and perform socially important roles.

Herbert Gans

Argued that poverty persists partly because it benefits more powerful groups.

Positive functions of poverty

Benefits that poverty provides to some groups economically, politically, or culturally.

Economic mobility

Movement between economic or class positions.

Vertical mobility

Movement upward or downward in economic or social standing.

Horizontal mobility

Movement between positions at approximately the same social level.

Intergenerational mobility

Change in class position between parents and their children.

Intragenerational mobility

Change in class position during one person's lifetime.

Relative mobility

A person's mobility compared with others in the social hierarchy.

Structural mobility

Mobility caused by large changes in the economy or occupational structure.

Cumulative advantage

Benefits that build over time and create further opportunities.

Cumulative disadvantage

Disadvantages that build over time and create further barriers.

Inherited wealth

Assets passed between generations that influence economic opportunity.

Race

A socially constructed category based on physical traits a society treats as significant.

Ethnicity

A shared cultural or national heritage involving language, traditions, origins, or religion.

Social construction of race

The process through which societies create and change racial meanings and categories.

Racialization

The process by which social, political, and economic forces assign racial meanings to people or groups.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Writer who argued that racism creates racial categories rather than race naturally causing racism.

Racism

Beliefs, actions, and social systems that produce or maintain racial inequality.

Individual racism

Racial prejudice or discrimination expressed through individual actions.

Institutional racism

Policies or practices within institutions that produce racial disadvantages.

Systemic or structural racism

Racial inequalities built into interconnected social institutions and structures.

Individualistic fallacy

The mistaken belief that racism exists only through individual prejudiced people.

Legalistic fallacy

The mistaken belief that ending discriminatory laws eliminates racism.

Tokenistic fallacy

The mistaken belief that a few successful minority individuals prove racism is gone.

Ahistorical fallacy

The mistaken belief that past racism has no effect on present inequalities.

Critical Race Theory

An interdisciplinary approach examining how laws and social institutions reproduce racial inequality.

Race-conflict theory

A perspective emphasizing racial inequality and struggles over power and resources.

White supremacy

A system that privileges whiteness and maintains racial hierarchies.

Situated knowledge

Knowledge shaped by a person's social position and lived experiences.

Intersectionality

An approach examining how overlapping identities and systems of inequality interact.

Paul Kivel

Activist who described whiteness as a shifting boundary determining access to privilege.

John Powell

Legal scholar who explained how geographic segregation can reproduce inequalities once enforced by Jim Crow laws.

Jim Crow laws

Laws that enforced racial segregation and discrimination in the United States.

Residential segregation

The separation of racial or economic groups into different residential areas.

New Deal

Federal programs and policies of the 1930s, including major housing initiatives.

National Housing Act of 1934

Law that established the Federal Housing Administration and expanded federal involvement in housing finance.

Federal Housing Administration (FHA)

Federal agency that insured mortgages while historically supporting discriminatory lending patterns.

Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC)

Federal corporation associated with residential security maps classifying neighborhoods by lending risk.

Redlining

Discriminatory practice of denying or restricting financial investment in neighborhoods based on racialized risk assessments.

Racial covenants

Property restrictions historically used to exclude certain racial groups from housing.

White flight

Movement of white residents from urban neighborhoods to suburbs, reinforced by unequal investment.

Blockbusting

Practice of exploiting racial fears to pressure homeowners to sell property, often at reduced prices.

Fair Housing Act of 1968

Federal law prohibiting major forms of discrimination in housing.

Racial wealth gap

Differences in accumulated wealth between racial groups, shaped partly by unequal access to homeownership.

Syracuse 15th Ward

Historically Black Syracuse neighborhood affected by discriminatory housing classifications and urban inequality.

Gender

Socially constructed meanings, identities, roles, and expectations associated with sex categories.

Social construction of gender

Process through which society creates and reinforces gender meanings, norms, and roles.

Gender stratification

Unequal access to power, property, resources, and prestige based on gender.

Gender binary

The social classification of gender into two supposedly opposite and exclusive categories.

Gender norms

Social expectations about appropriate behavior and appearance for different genders.

Femininities

Different socially constructed ways of expressing or performing femininity.

Masculinities

Different socially constructed ways of expressing or performing masculinity.

Cisgender

Describes someone whose gender identity aligns with their sex assigned at birth.

Transgender

Describes someone whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth.

Nonbinary

A gender identity not limited exclusively to being a man or a woman.

Genderqueer

A term for gender identities or expressions that challenge conventional gender categories.

Gender panic

A social or political reaction to challenges against traditional gender norms and the gender binary.

Sex

Classification associated with biological characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive anatomy.

Biological essentialism

The belief that gendered traits and social differences are naturally determined by biology.

Sexual dimorphism

Biological differences commonly observed between male and female members of a species.

Sex assignment

The classification of an individual into a sex category, usually at birth.

Patriarchy

A system of social relations that privileges men and masculine authority.