Sociology Exam 2

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering sociological topics: formal organizations, bureaucracy, rationalization, social stratification, poverty measures, social mobility, forms of capital, sex and gender concepts, family theories, and the impact of technology.

Formal Organizations

Groups that are organized to achieve specific goals efficiently.

Utilitarian Organizations

Formal organizations that serve an instrumental function for their members, such as businesses paying wages to their employees.

Normative Organizations

Formal organizations that people join as volunteers to pursue a goal that they consider morally worthwhile, such as the Red Cross, political parties, or religious groups.

Coercive Organizations

Formal organizations that people are forced into, often as punishment or treatment, using intimidation, threats, or punishment to compel compliance with strict rules (e.g., prisons and cults).

Rationalization

The process by which social structures are increasingly characterized by the most direct and efficient means to their ends.

Bureaucracy

An organization that’s been rationally constructed to do things efficiently

The Iron Cage

Max Weber's concept describing the downside of increased societal rationalization, where rigid structures exercise widespread control over individuals, resulting in limited agency, impersonal interactions, and bureaucratic frustration.

Social Stratification

A system by which society categorizes people, and ranks them in a hierarchy OR

differences not only in economic positions (social class), but also in other important areas, such as status, or social honor, and power by Max Weber

Social Class

A socially-constructed classification system based on income and wealth

Wealth

The amount of a person’s assets (less debts)

Income

The amount of money a person earns from a job or assets

Status

Refers to social prestige associated with one’s position in society (Sociologists often use one’s occupation to measure this)

3 ways of how Power is procured

Wealth & status can be used to procure political power (e.g., donations to political parties)

Wealth & status can be used to procure more economic power (e.g., stock ownership allows one to control corporations)

Wealth & status can be used to procure more wealth (e.g., greater access to government contracts, high-level jobs at private corporations)

Davis-Moore Thesis

The theory that society assigns greater economic and social rewards to those jobs that are more important to society, guaranteeing that difficult jobs will be filled and will draw people away from easier and less important work

False Consciousness

The erroneous belief that capitalism benefits them)

Class Consciousness

a true understanding of the exploitative nature of capitalism) and lead a political/economic revolution

Official Poverty Measure (OPM)

is the calculated minimum level of financial resources that are adequate to meet basic needs in all 50 states

Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM)

• (Cash benefits, incl. income and gifts) + (Non-cash benefits, incl. SNAP and EITC) – (Non-discretionary expenses, incl. child care payments, commuting costs, healthcare costs) = ?

• If the the calculation results in less than “$0,” the household is living in poverty

Social Mobility

The ability to change one’s position in the social class hierarchy

Vertical Mobility

Movement upward or downward from one social class level to another.

Horizontal Mobility

Movement from one occupational or social role to another within the same social class standing.

Intergenerational Mobility

Changes in social class standing achieved by children relative to the social class position held by their parents.

Intragenerational Mobility

Changes in social class rank or position that take place within an individual's own adult lifetime.

Closed Stratification System

An extremely rigid social class structure with little or no opportunity for social mobility, where status is assigned strictly by ascribed status at birth (e.g., the Indian caste system).

Open Stratification System

A flexible social stratification structure with considerable social mobility, where position is determined primarily by achieved status rather than ascribed status (e.g., the US class system).

Meritocratic Ideology

is the belief that social mobility is based on personal merit & individual talents

Economic Capital

income and wealth

Social Capital

Resources that individuals may acquire by virtue of their membership in powerful family, friendship, & work social networks 

• Resources include information, money, objects, services, & access to other powerful social networks

Cultural Capital

Social assets that mark an individual as a member of the powerful class

• Includes knowledge, skills, habits, & tastes associated with the rich and powerful

Sex

Socially constructed distinctions made between people based on reproductive organs, genitalia, and other biological features

• Female: uterus, ovaries, vagina

• Male: scrotum, testes, penis

• Intersex: combination of reproductive organs and genitalia

Gender Identity

 One own’s internal sense of self and their gender (not visible to others)

• Cisgender (cis) woman/man: A person whose gender identity conforms to the sex to which they were declared at birth

• Transgender (trans): A person whose gender identity does not conform to the sex to which they were declared at birth

• Genderqueer/Agender/Non-binary: A person who does not identify as exclusively man or woman

Genderbread Person

A conceptual model separating sex, gender, and sexuality into four distinct spectrums: gender identity (brain), sexual orientation (heart), biological sex (reproductive organs), and gender expression (external presentation).

Gender Expression

How a person presents gender outwardly, through behavior, clothing, voice, or other perceived characteristics

• Culturally-dominant femininity: A set of cultural ideas about the characteristics women “should” have and the ways women “should” act 

• Culturally-dominant masculinity: A set of cultural ideas about the characteristics men “should” have and the ways men “should” act

Gender Roles

How a society defines how women and men should think and behave

Hegemonic Masculinity

The social process by which societies define and celebrate certain sets of characteristics as being masculine; Those men who adhere to hegemonic masculinity are more easily able to gain societal approval and power

Emphasized Femininities

Forms of femininity that conform to what the ideal woman is in men’s eyes

Doing Gender

Gender is a performance that is practiced daily. It is the routine of expressing pursuits that are either feminine or masculine on the front stage. 

Intersectionality

The analysis of the interplay of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other identities, which often results in multiple dimensions of disadvantage (or advantage)

Heteronormativity

The cultural, legal, and institutional practices and assumptions that treat heterosexual relationships and gender-conforming binaries as the natural, normal, and default standard of society.

sexual orientation

The enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to members of the same and/or other genders”

• Heterosexuality: sexual preference for another sex

• Homosexuality: sexual preference for the same sex

• Bisexuality: sexual preference for more than one sex

• Asexuality: lack of sexual attraction to others or low desire for sexual activity

Family (Sociological Definition)

Groups of people who are related by genetics, marriage, or choice, and who share material, emotional, and economic resources

Marriage (Legal Definition)

A legally recognized relationship, usually involving economic, social, emotional, and sexual bonds

• Monogamy: Legal marriage between two people

• Polygamy: Legal marriage to two or more spouses

Structural-Functionalist Approach to the Family

Talcott Parsons's perspective asserting that traditional heterosexual marriage with a gendered division of labor (male breadwinner, female homemaker) stabilizes society by socializing children, providing emotional care, and meeting economic needs.

The Second Shift

culturally dominant gender expectations are for men to mostly focus on their careers and for women to mostly focus on childrearing—even if they have full-time jobs

Endogamy

(marriage between people of the same social category) in Indian arranged marriages—specifically, in terms of caste, religion, & socioeconomic status

Exogamy

(marriage between people of different social categories)

ideology

set of cultural ideas about how the world works) that distort the reality of capitalism

heternormativity

is the Cultural, legal, and institutional practices that reinforce heterosexuality as the social norm

Assumptions of sex and gender

1. sex is binary

2. gender=sex

3. heterosexuality=norm

4. reproduction=fulfillmen

gender policing

The ways in which hegemonic masculinity, emphasized femininities, & heteronormativity are upheld through societal laws, organizational policies & practices, everyday interactions, & individual behaviors