Sociology Test 2 ID List

Race

difference in human physical characteristics used to categorize large numbers of individuals

Racism

The attribution of characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a population sharing physically inherited characteristics.

Sex

The biological and anatomical differences distinguishing males and females. There are important debates within feminist and gender theory regarding the degree to which the biological sex binary is itself a social construction.

Gender

Social expectations about behavior regarded as appropriate for the members of each sex. Gender refers not only to the physical attributes distinguishing men and women but to socially formed traits of masculinity and femininity.

Heterosexism

An ideological system that denies, denigrates and stigmatizes any non-heterosexual form of behavior, identity, relationship, or community.

Colorism

The specific preference for lighter skin within a social hierarchy based on skin tone. Colorism can be produced by and within racially marginalized groups.

Colorblind Racism

The critical view that racial inequality is perpetuated by supposedly colorblind stances and policies that end up perpetuating historical inequalities of race (and gendered racism) by ignoring them.

The Presentation of Self

A dramaturgical account of the self which holds that we make judgments about class and social status based on how people speak, what they wear, and other details of how they present themselves to others, and at the same time, they rely on the same information from our everyday interactions with them to classify us too. The self engages in perception management.

Double-Consciousness

A concept conceived of by W.E.B. DuBois to describe how African Americans are forced by the racist American society to look at themselves through the prejudiced and distorting lens of a dominant racist society whose distorting norms have been, at least to some degree, internalized.

Material Culture

The physical objects that society creates that impact and influence how people live.

Non-Material Culture

The values and norms of a given group that structure social behavior. These serve as the ideological foundation for structures of race, gender, ability, social class, etc.

Language

A system of symbols that represent objects and abstract thoughts; the primary vehicle of human meaning and communication.

Social Stratification

The hierarchical organization of a society into groups with differing levels of power, social prestige, or status and economic resources.

Ideology

A system of beliefs, attitudes, and values that directs a society and reproduces the status quo of the bourgeoisie.

Social structure

__ institutionalize social relationships and patterns of behavior within groups (such as between mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters in a heteronormative, idealized American nuclear family). __ (like gender and race and their intersectionality) also reproduce social hierarchies and inequalities because they allocate social goods and benefits to individuals differently due to their relative position within those structures. Examples of social goods include: economic opportunity, prestige, opportunities for leisure and self-autonomy, and being given the benefit of the doubt).

Status/Position

A determinate position one holds in a social field, relative to others. __ carry responsibilities, expectations, and relative benefits and handicaps. There are (generally) ascribed __ (such as “Latino/a/x” or “daughter”).

Role

The regulating norms of behavior and social scripts that are attached to statuses/positions (such as the patriarchal norm that mothers should be more caring than fathers).