Sociology Final Exam

Race

A social and historical construction used to describe a group of people who are perceived of as sharing physical and sometimes cultural traits.

Prejudice

• Negatives beliefs held against a racial group or representatives of that group. These may become institutionalized in a system when prejudice individuals from the dominant group hold power.

• These beliefs do not have to be acted upon to be prejudice.

Discrimination

• Actions taken by individuals or small groups based on prejudice that harm someone else or another small group or perpetuate existing racial inequalities and/or hierarchies.

• Occurs when prejudice individuals or groups have some sort of power to act upon their beliefs.

Institutional Racism

• Describes the perpetuation of racism, radicalized inequalities, and unequal outcomes embedded in a system, such as criminal justice, education, banking, wealth distribution, housing, and more.

• These may persist without malicious intent or prejudice beliefs.

Structural Racism

• The objective hierarchies that structure racialized societies and the positions of advantage and disadvantage that exist, as well as harmful beliefs or actions that the privileged in that hierarchy may hold or take against those without privilege.

• One does not have a choice about where one fits in this hierarchical system of advantages and disadvantages.

Pluralism

The presence and engaged coexistence of numerous distinct groups in a society.

Salad Bowl (Pluraism)

Views society as a mix where cultures retain unique identities, flavors, and colors representing multiculturalism.

The Melting Pot (Assimilation)

Sees diverse cultures blending into one new, uniform culture, losing original traits.

Sex

An identity assigned to you at (or before) birth based upon visible primary sex characteristics.

Gender

Cultural and social differences between gendered people based on meanings, beliefs, and practices that a culture associates with “femininity,” “masculinity,” or other gendered identifications.

Gender Roles

The ways in which a culture believes that people of different genders are to behave and the hierarchies that come along with differently assigned gendered bodies.

The Gendered Division of Labor

The process whereby productive tasks are separated on the basis of gender.

Income

The money that one makes from working.

Wealth

The value of all of one’s assets minus one’s debts. One’s assets includes real estate, stocks and bonds, properties, and other possessions that could be liquidated.

Cultural Capital

The non-fictional assets of a person (such as education, skills, intellect, speech, patterns, dress, knowledges, etc.) that promote social mobility and prestige, as well as power, in a stratified society.

• In any stratified society, some competencies are more highly valued than others.

Social Capital

The social networks that individuals and groups are embedded in. Some social networks prove more “valuable” than others.

Financial, Cultural, and Social Capitals are all potentially exchangeable for one another according to French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu.

Examples:

• Religion

• Internships

• Workplaces and Coworkers

High Culture

The cultural products—such as art, film, architecture, literature, and so on—that a society values most highly. Often, it is the culture of the elite and powerful of a society.

Low Culture

An often derogatory term for cultural products that have mass appeal and that are often associated with the working classes.

Code Switching

The practice of alternating between two or more ways of presenting oneself to others dependent upon social context.

The Benefits of Wealth

Access to better healthcare, education, and social opportunities. Enables to accumulation of more cultural and social capital.

The Benefits of Education

Increases an individual’s social mobility by providing cultural capital that leads to better job opportunities and higher social status.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

• Self-actualization: creativity, morality, lack of prejudice.

• Esteem: self-esteem, confidence.

• Love/Belonging: friendship, family.

• Safety: security of body, employment, health etc.

• Physiological: breathing, food, water, sleep.

Trickle Down Economics

An economic theory suggesting that tax cuts and other benefits for the wealthy and corporations will stimulate the economy, with the benefits eventually “trickling down” to lower-income groups.

Bottom Up Economics

An economic approach that focuses on policies that empower and invest in the middle class and lower-income individuals.

Stigma

A negative social label that not only changes others’ behavior toward a person but also alters that person’s own self-concept and social identity.

Anomie

A sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable, too little social regulation.

Anomic Suicide

Suicide that occurs as a result of inaudible social regulation.

• Society’s rules are unclear or breaking down, leaving people feeling lost.

• It can happen due to economic crashes, job loss, or rapid social change.

• Example: Someone struggling after losing financial stability and no longer knowing what to expect from life.

• Not enough rules or stability.

Altruistic Suicide

Suicide that occurs when one experiences too much social regulation.

• A person’s identity is so strongly tied to a group that they value the group more than their own life.

• It can happen due to strong pressure to sacrifice oneself for the group.

• Example: A soldier who believes dying for their country is their duty.

• Too much connection to others.

Fatalistic Suicide

Suicide that occurs as a result of too much social regulation.

• A person’s feels trapped by strict rules or oppressive control.

• It can happen due to no hope for change or freedom.

• Example: Most likely to occur in a state of slavery or a dictatorship.

• Too many rules or control.

Egoistic Suicide

Suicide that occurs when one is not well integrated into a social group.

• A person’s feels disconnected, isolated, or not supported by society.

• It can happen by weak family ties, lack of community, or feeling alone.

• Example: Someone who feels they don’t belong anywhere or have no meaningful social connections.

• Not enough connection to others.

Social Integration

How well you are integrated into your social group or community.

Social Regulation

The number of rules guiding your daily life and more specifically what you can reasonably expect from the world on a day-to-day basis.

Social Control

Those mechanisms that create normative compliance in individuals.

Mechanical Solidarity

Social cohesion based on sameness.

Organic Solidarity

Social cohesion based on difference and interdependence of the parts.

Social Deviance

Any transgression of socially established norms.