Chapter 8: Social Stratification and Poverty

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering systems of social stratification, theoretical perspectives, social mobility, and poverty metrics.

Social stratification

Rankings of people based on wealth and other resources a society values.

Vertical mobility

Movement up or down through a society's stratification system.

Slavery

The ownership of people; recognized as the most closed system of stratification.

Estate system

A system of stratification characterized by control of land that was common during feudalism.

Caste system

A stratification system based on rigid placement at birth into unequal groups based on one's parents' status, with no chance of moving out of these groups.

Class system

A system of stratification containing unequal groups but with a relatively high degree of social mobility.

Wealth

Income, stocks, bonds, real estate, and other dimensions of one's total material possessions.

Power

The ability to influence others to do one's bidding even if they don't want to.

Prestige

The status and esteem people hold in the eyes of others.

Classless societies

Societies with no social stratification.

Functionalism (view of stratification)

The theoretical view developed by Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore asserting that stratification is necessary and inevitable to induce people with special knowledge and skills to enter the most important occupations.

Conflict theory (view of stratification)

The theoretical perspective asserting that stratification results from lack of opportunity and from discrimination and prejudice against poor people, women, and people of color, meaning it is neither necessary nor inevitable.

Symbolic interactionism (view of stratification)

A micro theoretical perspective that examines how stratification affects people's beliefs, lifestyles, daily interaction, and conceptions of themselves rather than explaining why stratification exists.

Ideology

A set of beliefs that supports the status quo.

Class consciousness

An awareness of one's social class membership, the structural reasons for it, and the needs arising from such membership.

False consciousness

A failure to possess class consciousness, characterized by people with low incomes failing to recognize their interests as an oppressed class.

American Dream

The ideological belief that people born into poverty can lift themselves up "by the bootstraps" and become successful through hard work.

Conspicuous consumption

The acquisition and display by wealthy people of lavish products that show off their wealth.

Socioeconomic status (SES)

A measure based on occupation, education, and income favored by functionalist sociologists as an indicator of social class position.

Intergenerational mobility

Vertical mobility from one generation to the next within the same family.

Intragenerational mobility

Vertical mobility within a person's own lifetime.

Economic inequality

The extent of the economic difference between the rich and those living in poverty in a society.

Poverty threshold

The government's official poverty measure, created in 1963 based on the cost of a minimal diet for a family that is then multiplied by three.

Episodic poverty

As defined by the Census Bureau, being poor for at least two consecutive months in some time period.

Structural explanation of poverty

The view that poverty is rooted in social and economic problems of the larger society and a lack of opportunity rather than in supposed laziness or personal moral failings of poor individuals.