Sociology of Inequality and Stratification Practice Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary and concept flashcards covering social inequality, class, race, gender, and migration based on the provided lecture transcript.

Inequality

The uneven distribution of wealth, resources, status, and opportunities in a society.

Stratification (inequality)

The distributions of individuals into hierarchical status groups or “strata” with different resources and opportunities.

Class stratification

A form of social stratification where a society is divided into hierarchical layers (classes) based on wealth, income, education, occupation, and social status.

Upper Income

A classification for income that is above $2 imes$ the median $US$ income.

Middle Income

A classification for income that is between $2/3$ and $2 imes$ the median $US$ income.

Lower income

A classification for income that is below $2/3$ the median $US$ income.

Income

The receipt of money or goods over a particular accounting period (hourly, weekly, monthly, or yearly), including wages, pensions, or investments.

Median Household income ($2020$)

$$67,521/ ext{year}$$

Consumption

How much an individual or family actually consumes in a month or year, which may not directly correspond to their income due to borrowing.

Class

A grouping of people who share similar economic situations, conflicting economic interests with other classes, similar life chances, similar attitudes (culture), and potential for collective action.

Socio-economic Status (SES)

Refers to an individual’s relative access to resources via income and wealth, and thus a singular position in the distribution of such access.

Poverty Line

An income threshold established by a governing body at which an individual or household, adjusted for family size, can afford basic necessities for life.

Absolute Poverty (USA approach)

A measure of the minimum requirements needed for basic standards of food, clothing, health, and shelter based on standards established in the $1960 ext{s}$.

Relative poverty (European Approach)

Defines poor families as those with incomes less than $50 ext{ percent}$ of the median, comparing incomes relative to other people in society.

The Feminization of Poverty

The overrepresentation of women among the world's poor, particularly in female-headed households.

Deep Poverty

When a household’s income is less than half of the poverty threshold, resulting in substantial hardships like food and healthcare access.

The Working Poor

Someone whose work fails to provide an income above the poverty line.

Taxes and Transfers

The core mechanisms through which the state redistributes resources, shapes social relations, and intervenes in the economy.

Offshoring

When manufacturing companies move production operations to another country.

Outsourcing

The contracting or subcontracting of elements of the production of goods or services to another organization.

The Middle-Class Squeeze

Where middle-income households face stagnant wages while the costs of essential goods like housing and healthcare rise faster than inflation.

Inequality of Opportunity

The ways in which stratification and inequality shape the opportunities for children and young adults to maximize their potential.

Social Mobility

The movement of individuals from one socio-economic position into another.

Intergenerational Mobility

A measure of the extent to which parents and their children have similar or different social and economic positions in adulthood.

Race

A system for classifying people believed to share common descent, based on perceived innate physical similarities.

Ethnicity

A system for classifying people believed to share common descent, based on perceived cultural similarities.

Social Constructivism

The view that social categories such as race, ethnicity, or gender are social creations and not biological facts.

Biological Essentialism

The view that members of a group share a fundamental, inherited, innate, and fixed quality or characteristic.

Racial Formation Theory

The theory that race and racial categories are socially constructed, determined by social, historical, political, and economic forces.

One-Drop Rule

The historical rule that ‘one drop of negro blood’ made a person black.

Blood Quantum Rule

A rule where native-american/indigenous categorization was calculable by fractions of native ancestors relative to total ancestors.

Racism

Includes prejudice, discrimination, institutional racism, and systemic oppression.

Prejudice

Beliefs or attitudes held about entire groups based on subjective or inaccurate information leading to ‘prejudgment’.

Stereotype

A simplified generalization about a group that is often falsely exaggerated.

Implicit Bias

Unconscious assumptions or associations regarding a group that shape interpretation and influence behavior.

Discrimination

Any behavior, practice, or policy that harms, excludes, or disadvantages individuals on the basis of their group membership.

Institutional Inequality

When organization policies exclude or harm members of particular groups, impacting the group’s overall interaction with the institution.

Systemic Racism

Patterned prejudice and discrimination embedded in interlocking institutions and social systems that reproduce inequality over time.

Model Minority Myth

The claim that features in Asian culture result in their ‘success,’ used as evidence that racial minorities can succeed with better practices and perseverance.

Data Disaggregation

Breaking down of categories into meaningful sub-categories (e.g., race by national background) to reveal hidden forms of stratification.

Intersectionality

The ways multiple dimensions of social life, including race, ethnicity, class, and gender, intersect and interact to shape inequality.

Idealist View of Racism

A psychological view focusing on stereotypes as ‘flawed thinking’ on the part of ‘bad people’.

Material (Structural) Racism

The view that societies are built on materialist racial orders that categorize individuals into hierarchical relations maintained through institutions.

Color-Blind Racism

A distancing strategy that seeks to ignore racial difference by idealizing equality over current issues of racial stratification.

Gender

The social, cultural, and psychological construction of behaviors, attitudes, and roles assigned to people based on their sex.

[Biological] Sex

Assigned status based on physiological and/or reproductive traits deemed meaningful by a society or culture.

Gender Self-Concept

One’s own understanding or identification of one’s own gender given social constraints and pre-existing categories.

Gender Expression

Outward representations of gender in performance, demeanor, attire, and speech.

Sexual Orientation

One’s romantic and sexual inclinations, typically coded by one's own gender and the gender of ideal partners.

Sexual Dimorphism

The way men and women differ; noted in the transcript to be fairly limited in humans compared to many vertebrates.

Discipline

The management and training of bodies where institutions teach individuals to self-regulate and self-control.

Gender Socialization

The process where individuals learn and internalize norms, behaviors, and attitudes associated with their assigned gender.

Gender Wage Gap

The persistent difference in average (median or mean) pay between men and women.

Gender Policing

The act of imposing or enforcing normative gender expressions on an individual perceived as not adequately performing their gender.

Social Reproduction

Refers to the enforcement, maintenance, and reinvocation of social institutions and hierarchies through behavior.

The Second Shift

The phenomenon where working mothers work a full-time job and then return home to roughly $15$ extra hours per week of unpaid domestic labor.

The Stalled Revolution

Refers to the imbalance where women joined the workforce but workplaces, government, and men did not adapt to share home responsibilities.

McDonaldization

Worldwide spread of rationalized business principles seen in fast food restaurants that result in a more uniform global culture.

Globalization

Systemic increase in international integration arising from cultural exchange, economic dependency, and political alliances.

Migration

The process by which individuals move from one place to another.

Immigration

The act of moving and settling in a new country (arrival).

Emigration

The act of leaving one’s country of birth or original citizenship to move to a new country (departure).

Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR)

An immigrant who has obtained permanent residency, such as a ‘green card’ holder in the United States.

Refugee

A status afforded to individuals escaping persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, or political opinions.

Asylee

Individuals meeting refugee qualifications but seeking admission at the point-of-entry or while already residing in the country.

Naturalization

The process by which an immigrant, particularly an LPR, can become a foreign-born $U.S.$ citizen.

First Era of Migration ($1789-1874$)

Era characterized by few formal policies and significant numbers of Western European settlers and enslaved Africans.

Second Era of Migration ($1875-1920$)

Era of first formal institutions like the Page Act and the Chinese Exclusion Act; saw many Eastern/Southern Europeans and Asian immigrants.

Third Era of Migration ($1921-1964$)

Era of significant reduction in migration except for the Bracero Program; saw the establishment of the Emergency Quota Act.

Fourth Era of Migration ($1965 ext{-present}$)

Era following the Immigration and Nationality Act that eliminated national-origin quotas and shifted patterns to Asian and Latin American migration.

IIRIRA

Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act; strengthened border enforcement and penalties for undocumented immigrants.

DACA

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals; protects eligible undocumented young people brought to the $U.S.$ as children from deportation.

Circular Flow

Repeated migration between two or more countries where individuals return home after a period of time.

Assimilation

The process by which immigrants come to be incorporated into their new society.

Segmented Assimilation Theory

The view that assimilation is not uniform but an uneven process of intergenerational mobility into different segments of society.