SOC 100 Lectures 7-11

Fial Exam has 9 questions per lecture 7-11

Why do sweatshop workers have high suicide rates? (3 reasons)

1. No community (isolated)
2. No hope (no progression)
3. Alienation

Alienation

Marx saw that factory workers experience “estrangement from human nature,” such as the basic human desire to use one’s **creative potential**, like animals in a zoo.

Marx’s Alienation is like ________

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Increased media coverage of sweatshops became rooted in _______

ethnocentrism and the Sino-American rivalry

How do large companies shed responsibility of sweatshop conditions?

Subcontracting and supply lines

Special Economic Zone

Designated areas where government rules, regulations, and taxes don’t apply. Attractive for sweatshops.

How does globalization affect labour markets?

documentation of HR violations, as well as international labour standards. But also significant growth in the power of inter/multinational corporations

Globalization (3 subcategories)

Increased daily interaction the average actor has with culture, products, and people from other nations. Not new.


1. Economic
2. Social (calls, McDonalds, students, immigration)
3. Political (embassies, NGOs)

Uruguay Rounds

New Bretton Woods in 80s. Focus on multinational corporations (states want to protect their own) and Laissez-Faire (pushback on welfare state).

What was the solution to 80s stagnation? What was the result? What is it a bet on?

Free trade agreements to remove barriers to international trade. Positive economically but strengthened multinational corporations. It is also a bet that you can outcompete other countries in the agreement.

Why have corporation taxes fallen?

Mobility of multinational corporations creates a race to the bottom

What is Marx’s Surplus Value?

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How does Globalization impact it?

bourgeoisie profit off massive summed surplus value of workers, though they individually make very little. Marxist response was to unionize the proletariat, so compromises were made on workers’ rights/benefits.

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But globalization undermines worker’s bargaining power and creates a race to the bottom.

Which concept is similar to a race to the bottom?

Tragedy of the commons

In the global labour market, the race to the bottom undermines worker protection through ________

Job Exportation and Offshoring

Social Location is also sometimes called _______

Positionality

Master Status

The one status that will overpower all your other statuses in most sociological situations (which constantly affects the way people see you and the way you see the world)

Standpoint Theory

Because knowledge stems from social position, and historical academia has excluded minorities and women, it is not objective. This creates a gap between the experiences world and dominant views/cultures in academia.

Matrix of opression

the intersectional oppression of Black women

Feminist vs Feminism

A feminist believes in equality between sexes. Feminism is an ideal type of how to achieve that belief, without consensus.

Gender Expression vs Identity

expression is about how you present your gender, identity is your internal experience

Xenogender

A nonbinary gender identity that cannot be expressed in language (lexical gap)

Most people agree that ______ is on a spectrum, but take offense to the idea of _______ being on a spectrum

gender expression (masculinity/femininity), sex

Classic determinants of biological sex change over a lifetime meaning that, in some ways __________

even biological sex is a social construct

Evolutionary Theory rejects ___________ . What does it tell us about sexual diversity?

that humans are above/different from animals. Evolution rewards natural diversity.

Heteronormativity

the belief that heterosexual sex is the natural expression of sexuality (social construct)

Canada is widely tolerant of transgender identities, so why does it seem like there is so much controversy?

Cultural diffusion from the United States

What is the most prominent master status for most people?

Gender

Sexism (2 types)

The belief that innate psyccological/behavioural/intellectual traits make men better/worse at certain things than women.


1. Structural (educational achievement)
2. Cultural (Culture perpetuates subordination of women etc)

Second Shift

Women work at work then have a “second shift” with domestic work at home

We learn masculinity as being ______

oppositional to femininity

Types of Masculinity (3 types- discuss relation)

1. **Traditional**: normal expectations of men (the norms associated with being male)- not inherently negative
2. **Hegemonic**: Anything that perpetuates the patriarchy (men are stronger)
3. **Toxic**: Parts of hegemonic or traditional masculinity most negative to society

All hegemonic is toxic, but not all toxic is hegemonic (e.g. alcohol abuse). Traditional includes all hegemonic and toxic, but there are also more benign traditional ones (enjoying outdoors).

Which School of Thought refutes the bad apple theory?

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What does this theory suggest instead?

Structural Functionalism


1. Mixed Messages in Society- cognitive dissonance about how to treat women (respect vs objectification)
2. Lack of Sexual Education- Due to controversy and stigma

"locker room talk” would be analyzed in which school of Thought’s study on gender inequality? Why?

Symbolic Interactionism, because it is an individual experience.

What are the 3 main reasons for the gender pay gap?

1. Occupational Choices: influenced by socialization and structural sexism in certain careers. Men prefer prestige, women balance.
2. Societal Expectations around childbirth: work hours become unequal at childbirth, and parental leave is unequal.
3. Discrimination (proved by CV studies)


1. illogical: misogyny
2. logical: statistical discrimination and competition as a coercive force (women more likely to work less hours due to childbearing)

Race

A category of people perceived to share distinct physical characteristics that are deemed to be significant (culturally, in-group social constructions. Spatially and Temporally variable).

How is ethnicity different than Race? How is it the same?

Whereas Race is externally constructed, Ethnicity is self-selected, more fluid, and about cultural identity. Both are socially constructed and grounded in history.

Why is immigration such a controversial issue, even though legal immigration is a favoured policy due to birth rates?

Immigration to North America has shifted away from Europe to the Global South Racism (now more cultural than biological) combines with prejudice to create Decline Bias and scapegoat immigrants.

How do echo chambers misinform Canadians about immigrants/immigration?

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How do immigrants impact Canada? Why?

Canadians believe more Arabs and fewer Europeans immigrate than is actually the case.

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Immigrants contribute more tax revenue than they take, their children are high educational achievers, and they are healthier than the average Canadian. This is because of systemic discrimination and brain drain.

What are 9 types of discrimination/related concepts?

1. **Overt** (clear motives)
2. **Subtle** (unclear/indirect, hard to analyse)
3. **Systemic** (current/past prejudice embedded into structures to create/perpetuate disadvantage)
4. **Adaptive** (not because you are prejudiced, but because you know others are, e.g. not sending a Gay worker to Russian business partners)
5. **Cultural Racism** (the culture of a society perpetuates subordination)
6. **Whitewashing** (deliberate concealment of unpleasant or incriminating facts)
7. **Conscious**
8. **Unconscious/Implicit**
9. **Microaggression** (a comment/action subtly, unconsciously, or unintentionally expressing prejudiced attitude to marginalized, e.g. where are you from?)

Starlight Tours

Saskatchewan Police driving indigenous people out of town at night and make them walk home instead of arresting them. Hypothermia deaths.

Why are surveys asking Canadians about Racism in Canada misleading? (2)

1. **Social Desirability Bias**: tendency for survey respondents to underreport what they believe to be socially undesirable.
2. **Sampling Bias**: Surveys don’t include specific groups- who will pick up the phone?

People will not report if they’re racist and White people underreport racism in Canada because they are less likely to experience it.

What were the Black Codes?

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What type of discrimination was it?

Pushback in the South against Black enfranchisement, such as illiterate people not being allowed to vote, unless their grandfather had voted

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Subtle and Systemic

Vagrancy laws created de facto slavery by ________

making it illegal not to work. Either stay on the plantation for poor pay or work for free as a convict.

How is the relationship between Black rights movements and Law enforcement usually perceived, and why? How did MLK use this positively? What about aftwer him?

Most of the protests were illegal, therefore making them oppositional to law enforcement. MLK presented his movement as one of peaceful, upstanding Christians, which made White people feel guilty. After, Black Panthers push for second amendment rights and self defense, but are framed negatively.

How is intergenerational trauma passed on?

by stories, habits, treatment and behaviour. There is also evidence of biological markers of stress-processing.

The wars on drugs and crime are examples of what, according to which school of thought?

structural persistence of racism underground, according to Critical Race Theory

How is statistical discrimination related to Black incarceration?

Black communities are policed more and therefore have higher incarceration rates, despite Whites doing more drugs.

What is the Contact Hypothesis? How does it relate to policing?

The more contact you have with a group, the less prejudice you will hold. It depends, however, on the nature of that contact; negative feedback loop with Police and Black communities.

What is it called when what others think of you eventually infiltrates how you think of yourself or behave

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

relative deprivation is higher, trust in government and Mastery is lower in which group?

Black Americans

What are 3 ways globalization hurts health?

1. Increased travel increases spread of disease
2. Reduces the power of governments to tax corporations and fund healthcare
3. Reduces working conditions in poor countries

What are 2 negative externalities of poor working conditions abroad?

1. Poor working/living condition and diet create risk of disease
2. Extremism

Why did Canadian single payer healthcare start in Saskatchewan?

Meritocracy does not work well for farmers

How does meritocracy still apply to universal healthcare?

Society decides which issues are worthy of helping base on blame (opiod abusers “don’t merit” the same attention as cancer patients)

Why does the US government spend more on healthcare per person than Canada, even if the average quality is poorer?

The insurance company is a *for-profit* mediator, and the consumer lacks power due to inelastic demand (no time to shop around, hard to put a price on life) and cannot bargain as effectively as a government with a monopoly on demand (insurance companies and individuals have low market shares).

Mental Health vs Mental Illness

Mental health is successful performance of mental function resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships, and capability adapting to adversity. Mental Illness refers to all mental disorders characterized by sustained abnormality (mood, thinking, behaviour) accompanied with significant distress/impairment in daily function.

What are 3 challenges of dealing with mental illness?

1. **Socially Defined**: fakeable, not physically determinable, social desireability bias impacts understanding change (reporting up doesn’t mean numbers up, maybe just stigma down)
2. **Tied to Culture**: Presentations and recognition differs between cultures (eating disorder vs skin bleaching)
3. **Often strongly tied to conceptions of morality:** how do we define normal (grief vs depression, murder makes you automatically mentally ill)

The definition of mental illness is _______ based, not medically based.

consensus (social). Sometimes strong, sometimes weak.

Dramaturgical perspective (Dramaturgy)

Life is like a theatre, and people have front-stage (what we present) and back-stage (what we are) selves. Norms like politenss are the script, clothes are props.

Why is there stigma and fear around the mentally ill? (3)

1. **They’re less likely to follow norms** (regarded as erratic, irregular, illogical)
2. **Many end up in prison** (don’t follow folkways and laws, more likely to get into trouble with police)
3. **We associate almost all illegitimate violence with mental illness** (mentally ill actually less likely to be violent, but all violent criminals said to be mentally ill)

Why is bad science so prevalent?

Fines are accepted as a cost of doing business because there is still a net gain from bad science. Competition as a coercive force pushes it

What is a spurious argument

When a causal argument is found to be false (like vaccines to autism)

Drugs

a chemical substance that has a direct effect on the user’s functioning, has potential to be abused, and has consequences to society

What is a drug and what is drug abuse is ________

very subjective and variable (spatially and temporally)

Drug addiction vs abuse

Addiction is a compulsive chemical dependence making you unable to stop. Abuse is when this violates typical standards and gives the user adverse physiological, psychological, or social consequences.

Criminalization makes drug use illegal and punishable, legalization makes drug use legal and a personal choice. In the middle, what model does what?

Harm reduction makes drugs illegal but their use is treated as a medical, not legal, issue. Law is based on least harm, not morals (means-end rationality). Even if drug use is immoral, arresting and detaining users is expensive and unhelpful.

What does structural functionalism think of drug use? Should drugs be legalized?

Drug abuse is the result of anomie (weakening of social norms) so drug use is the response to weaker social bonds. Drug abuse shows that some structures aren’t working. Resolve by legalization or criminalization?:

Drugs ruin lives, help law enforcement catch criminals and abuse is dysfunctional

BUT

Drugs have social function (blow off steam), criminalization is costly and harmful, drugs are more dangerous when produced by criminals

What does Conflict Theory think about drugs? What does it think about the legalization debate?

Drugs are an escape from alienation and inequality, but may also keep the poor down. Legalization is resisted by big pharma because marijuana is a natural cure that can't be patented. Schools let powerful people influence the debate

What does Symbolic Interactionism think of drugs? What do they think about the legalization debate?

Label of drug user is internalized if it is framed as a thing you are not a problem you have. Drug use related to social interactions (learning to use). Legalization debate must consider labelling, stigma, but also messages about drug safety.

Which school of thought refutes the gateway drug theory and why?

Symbolic Interactionism says that calling marijuana a gateway drug is negative framing/labelling. People are taught marijuana is bad. When people try it and realize they have been lied to about its severity, then it might be a gateway because they don’t believe other drugs will be bad.

4 Theories of drug use (explain #3)

1. Biological: genetic predisposition (but may in fact be nurture)
2. Psychological: certain personalities more predisposed
3. Neuroscientific: addiction is a biologically entrenched habit began by social associations. Neural pathways develop as we associate drug use with pain relief.


1. How we originally deal with pain is socially decided, but becomes biological over time.
2. Stages of addiction: Binge and intoxication, withdrawal, anticipation and craving.
4. Cultural: The way people cope and self-medicate is influenced by cultural norms (SES norms are also different)

Informal Social Control (e.g.)

Non-official control exercised for violating norms, laws, folkways, or anything seen as inappropriate. (e.g. class complaint, teasing, ghosting)

Formal Social Control (e.g.)

Official control for violating policy, rules, law, or regulation of a formal body. (e.g. AO/expulsion, prosecution)

Merton’s Strain Theory

People commit crime as an adaptation to strain. Society socializes us to have the same goals but does not give us equal means to do so.

5 types of adaption to strain Merton’s strain theory)

1. Conformity: accepts goals and legitimate means
2. Innovation: accepts goals but not means (most associated with criminal behaviour, poverty breeds crime, rigged system etc).
3. Ritualism: accept means but not goals (clergy, volunteers)
4. Retreatism: reject goals and means (hippies, backpackers)
5. Rebellion: like retreatists, but have alternative goals and means in mind (communism, anti-progressivism)

What 4 things does Conflict Theory say about crime?

1. Inequality causes crime (necessity/desperation)
2. Definition of crime is strongly influenced by business interests in government


1. Opiod crisis linked to pharmaceutical lobbying
3. Unfair penalties for crimes and how law enforcement pursues cases


1. white collar crime is rampant and more harmful than drug possession. Hard to catch, not policed well, rich have good lawyers and social networks.
4. Inequality in courts and punisment: acribed factors influence the effectiveness of different punishments, so same standards use statistical discrimination to remain unequal.


1. Alternatives to imprisonment (community service or fines) require access to transport/money. Judge’s determine whetehr or not you will commit another crime, which is practical (instrumental rationality), but all of these are generally ascribed and dependent on enivronment.