Quiz 6 Africana Studies: Family, Culture, and Social Structure

Female-headed household

A household led by a woman without a male partner present.

Caste

A rigid, hereditary system of social ranking set by birth.

Matrilineage

Descent and inheritance traced through the mother's line.

Patrilineage

Descent and inheritance traced through the father's line.

Rites of passage

Ceremonies and rituals marking a transition between life stages.

Nuclear family

A family structure consisting of two parents and their children.

Extended family

A wider network including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Kinship networks

Webs of relatives and 'fictive kin' sharing resources and support.

Pathology view

Treats Black family structure as dysfunctional or broken.

Adaptability view

Sees Black family forms as resilient responses to hardship.

The Moynihan Report (1965)

Argued that Black family instability was a tangle of pathology.

School-to-prison pipeline

Harsh school discipline pushing students into the justice system.

Code switching

Shifting language, dialect, or behavior between different social settings.

Double consciousness

The 'two-ness' of being both Black and American, per Du Bois.

Myth of the absent Black father

Stereotype that Black fathers are uninvolved, though data shows many are actively engaged despite economic and incarceration pressures.