Sociology Exam 3

Ball State Soc 100 Dr. Gong

Social deviance

A violation of norms.

Informal deviance

Minor transgressions of these norms (folkways).

Formal deviance (crime)

Involves the violation of laws (mores/taboos).

Social control

Mechanisms that create normative compliance in individuals, the act of abiding by society’s norms or simply following the rules (police men).

Social sanction

Rewards (positive) and punishments (negative) intended to ensure conformity to cultural guidelines.

Informal social sanction

Are unspoken rules and expectations about people’s behavior (smile, shame, sarcasm).

Formal social sanction

Rules or laws that prohibit criminal behavior (fines or imprisonment).

Social construction of reality

The social world is continuously created and recreated during human interactions (deviance/crime is socially constructed and is relative to time/space).

Street crime

Crime committed in public and often associated with violence, gangs, and property.

White collar crime

Offense committed by a professional against a corporation, agency, or other institution (costlier than street crime).

Strain Theory

Developed by Robert Merton, it is the lack of legitimate opportunities to achieve material success.

Conformity (Conformist)

Accept both goals and means (most people).

Innovation (Innovator)

Accept goals but reject means (criminals, students who cheat).

Retreatism (Retreatist)

Rejecting goals and means (drug addicts, dropouts).

Ritualism (Ritualist)

Reject goals but accept means (monks).

Rebellion (Rebel)

Create new goals and new means (revolutionists).

Learning Theory

A person learns to favor deviant or non-deviant lifestyles as a result of their environment or socialization.

Labeling Theory

The labels people are given affect their behavior with respect to deviance or conformity.

Control Theory

The rewards of deviance and crime are many, nearly everyone would engage in deviance and crime if they could get away with it.

Conflict Theory

Deviance and crime arise out of conflict between the powerful and the powerless.

Social Stratification

Systematic inequalities between groups of people as a result of social processes and relationships.

Class status

An indicator of social stratification based on someone’s socioeconomic resources.

Upper class

Economic elite.

Middle class

Individuals with nonmanual jobs that pay significantly more than the poverty line.

Lower class

The poor.

Economic measures

The main indicators of class.

Income

Money received for work or from returns on investments.

Wealth

Net worth, (assets-debts).

Davis-Moore Thesis (Functionalism)

Some jobs are more important/valuable, require sacrifices of training/tuition, and have great rewards. This inequality gives incentives, and why they believe social stratification is inevitable.

Criticisms of Davis-Moore Thesis

How to determine the importance/value of an occupation, do the rewards reflect contributions, is everyone able to make sacrifices? The people who are in power maintain their power and their children's positions (college admissions scandal).

Class in Marx’s Sense (Conflict)

Determined by one’s relationships to means of production (factories, tools, and land).

Bourgeoisie (capitalist class)

Own the means of production (would grow smaller and richer).

Proletariat (working class)

Do the physical labor (grow larger and poorer).

Criticisms of Marx’s Sense

A large middle class emerged, workers are able to earn higher wages and work fewer hours, and contradictory class locations.

Weber’s 3 Dimensions of Inequality

Social stratification depends on the complex interplay of class, status groups, and parties.

Class (Max Weber)

Determined by one’s market situation: possession of goods, opportunities for income, level of education, and level of technical skills.

Status Groups (Max Weber)

Differ from one another in the prestige or social honor they enjoy and their lifestyle.

Parties (Max Weber)

Political groups and organizations that seek to impose their will on others through power.

Social Mobility

A change in a person’s social class position (upward mobility: middle class to upper class OR downward mobility: middle class to lower class).

Race

A socially constructed concept used by those in power to classify people into different groups based on their superficial physical features, such as skin color/tone, hair form, and stature.

Racism

Prejudices and discrimination against other people based on their racial or ethnic identities.

Prejudice

The view that some groups are superior to others.

Discrimination

The unfair treatment of individuals based on their membership in certain groups.

Institutional Racism

Bias inherent in social institutions and often not noticed by members of the majority groups (whitewashing, racial profiling, etc.).

Racial profiling

Refers to the use of racial or ethnic origin and/or the reliance on group characteristics as grounds for pursuing punitive legal actions or purported utility gain.

Microaggression

Comprises behavioral, environmental, and verbal slights/insinuation to marginalize, invalidate, silence, and patronize racial minorities so as to exclude, negate, and nullify the legitimate needs, requests, and voices of these racial minorities.

Stereotype

Assumptions about what people are like, true or false.

Ethnicity

A socially constructed concept based on cultural heritage and practices, including language, food, clothing, and rituals.

Minority group

A group of people who are socially disadvantaged although they may be in the numerical majority.

Racial composition

Projected the population of whites will be less than 50% in 2045 in the USA.

Diversity

Multiracial and minority populations in the USA will increase.

Immigrants

Immigration policies will shape the future of race/ethnicity in the USA.