SOC 100 Exam 3

Family, Education, Work, Economic Life, Authority and the State, Religion, Environment, Migration, Urbanization

Origin

social background (e.g., parental education, occupation, socioeconomic status)

Education

an individual’s educational attainment

Destination

social outcomes (e.g., occupation, income, social status)

Hypothesis of persistent inequalities

the idea that educational systems tend to reproduce existing social inequalities over time, rather than eliminate them—even as access to education expands

Home

• poor children are exposed to greater levels of housing instability, family disruption, and violence

• different quantity, quality, and responsiveness of parental speech

• less cognitive stimulation and enrichment

• smaller brains

Neighborhoods

• healthy and safe environments

• access to non-school resources

• social capital and role models

Peer groups

• academic norms and expectations

• behavioral influence

• motivation and engagement

Functions of schooling

• learning/knowledge

• socialization/assimilation

• credentialism

• hidden curriculum

Credentialism

an overemphasis on credentials (e.g., college degrees for signaling social status or qualifications for a job)

Hidden curriculum

the nonacademic and less overt socialization functions of schooling

College wage premium

gap that exists between the incomes of college graduates and high school graduates

College wealth premium

How much net wealth does a typical college graduate accumulate over their life span, compared with that of a typical high school graduate?

The Coleman Report

schools bring little influence to bear on a child’s achievement that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this very lack of an independent effect means that inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighborhood, and peer environment are carried along to become the inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school

Challenges to the Coleman report

• class size

• tracking

• discipline/zero tolerance/school-to-prison pipeline

Family as structure

a group of persons definded by ties of marriage, blood, or adoption

Family as household

constituting a single household

Family roles

social roles of husband and wife, mother and father, son and daughter, brother and sisters

Family as interaction

creating and maintaining a common culture

Structural family approach

focus on marriage, blood, and legally adoptive relationships

Household-based family approach

consider family members living in a single household

Role-based family approach

focus on family roles and their associated scripts

Interactionist family approach

highlight the ways that families are actively created through interaction and relationship

Nuclear family

familial form consisting of a father, a mother, and their child

Extended family

kin networks that extend outside or beyond the nuclear family

Endogamy

marriage to someone within one’s social group

Exogamy

marriage to someone outside one’s social group

Monogamy

the practice of having one sexual partner or spouse at a time

Polygamy

the practice of having more than one sexual partner or spouse at a time

Polyandry

the practice of having multiple husbands simultaneously

Polygyny

the practice of having multiple wives simultaneously

Functionalism

• views society as a set of social institutions that performs specific functions to ensure continuity and consensus

• families perform important tasks to maintain social order

• primary socialization

• personality stabilization

Symbolic interactionist

• emphasizes the contextual, subjective and ephemeral nature of family interactions, power relations, and interpersonal communication

• family members continually negotiate, define, and redefine their roles

• socialization bidirectional

Feminist approaches

• families provide support, comfort, love, and companionship

• but can also be sites of exploitation, loneliness, and inequality

• division of household labor

• unequal power relationships/physical abuse

• carework/second shift

Cohabitation

when a couple lives together before marriage; a stage in a process of relationship building that precedes marriage

Importance of Work

• money

• purpose

• structure

• relationships

• personal identity

capitalism

an economic system in which property and goods are primarily privately owned; private decisions determine investments; and competition in an unfettered marketplace determines prices, production, and the distribution of goods

Fordism

the system of production pioneered by Henry Ford, in which the assembly line was introduced

Alienation

a condition in which people are dominated by forces of their own creation that then confront them as alien powers; according to Marx the basic state of being in a capitalist society

Workers in a capitalist society…

• lack ownership of the products they make

• are dehumanized by tedious and demeaning labor processes

• find themselves in competition over scarce jobs

• Marx argued this was counter to human nature, which involved creativity, control over one’s activities, and cooperation with others

Family capitalism

capitalistic enterprises owned and administered by entrepreneurial families

Managerial capitalism

capitalistic enterprises administered by managerial executives rather than by owners

Welfare capitalism

the practice by which large corporations protect their employees from the fluctuations in the economy

Institutional capitalism

consolidated networks of business leadership in which corporations hold stock shares in one another, resulting in increased concentration of corporate power

Global capitalism

the current transnational phase of capitalism, characterized by global markets, production, finances; a transnational capitalist class whose business concerns are global rather than national; and transnational systems of governance that promote global business interests

Corporation

a legal entity unto itself that has legal personhood distinct from that of its members—name its owners and shareholders

National corporation

activities, policies, or entities confined within a single country’s borders and pertaining to that specific nation

International corporation

interactions, agreements, or relationships between two or more countries, crossing national borders

Transnational corporation

activities, entities, or processes that extend across multiple countries, operating beyond the limitations of national boundaries

Market capitalization

total value of shares outstanding in a publicly-traded company

Gross domestic product (GDP)

measures the value of all goods and services produced by a country in an entire year

Market seeking

• locate inside market to serve it

• domestic market saturated

• overcome tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade

• provide rapid after-sales services

• respond to customer demands, tastes, and preferences

Asset seeking

key resources are unevenly distributed

• knowledge and skills

• labor productivity

• labor controllability

• wage costs

Offshoring

company moves or expands some or all of its operations and jobs to overseas locations

Outsourcing

company buys goods or services once performed in-house from a supplier outside of the firm

Offshore outscoring

outsourcing of goods and services offshore

Dualist perspective

• marginal activities

• excluded from formal employment opportunities

• few links to formal economy income for the poor

• governments should create more jobs

Legalist perspective

• daring micro-entrepreneurs

• more than mere survival

• hostile legal system leads self-employed to informality

• governments should simplify legal procedures

Voluntarist perspective

• entrepreneurs choose to avoid regulations and taxation

• not because of cumbersome registration procedures

• weigh the costs of (in)formality

• create unfair competition for formal enterprises

Structuralist perspective

• subordinated economic units that reduce labor costs

• capitalism drives informality

• formal/informal closely linked

• government should do more to regulate employment

Territoriality

humankind is organized principally into discrete territorial, political communities which are called nation-states

Nation

people with common identity that ideally includes a shared culture, language, and feelings of belonging

State

a political apparatus (government institutions plus civil service officials) ruling over a given territorial order, whose authority is backed by law and the ability to use force

Sovereignty

within these blocks of territory, states or national governments claim supreme and exclusive authority over, and allegiance from, their peoples

Power (Max Weber)

the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own and will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests

Power

the ability to carry out one’s own will despite resistance

Authority

the justifiable right to exercise power

Charismatic authority

authority that rests on the personal appeal of an individual leader

Traditional authority

authority that rests on appeals to the past or traditions

Legal-rational authority

authority based on legal, impersonal rules: the rules rule

Bureaucracy

a legal-rational organization or mode of administration that governs with reference to formal rules and roles and emphasizes merit-based advancement

Characteristics of bureaucracy

• specialized roles and division of labor

• hierarchy of authority

• formal rules and regulations

• technical competence and merit-based hiring

• impersonality

• formal written communication

Disadvantages of bureaucracy

• red tape and inflexibility

• alienation

• goal displacement

• limited innovation

• dehumanization

Street-level bureaucrats

public service workers who interact directly with citizens in the course of their jobs and have substantial discretion in the execution of their work

Street-level bureaucrats…

• deliver policy through everyday interactions

• function both as providers of services and as agents of social control

• their discretion and judgements have major implications

• expansion of the welfare state has increased their numbers and influence

One-dimensional power

the ability to get people to do something that you want through open conflict

Two-dimensional power

the ability to get what you want through suppressing conflict and limiting the scope of debate

Three-dimensional power

the ability to get what you want by influencing the preferences of others

Indicators of power

• Who wins?

  • when there are arguments over issues

• Who has a reputation for power?

  • Who is identified by community surveys?

• Who benefits?

  • Who has the things valued in society?

• Who governs?

  • Who sits in the seats considered to be powerful?

Religion

a system of beliefs, traditions, and practices around sacred things; a set of shared stories that guides belief and action

Sacred

that which inspires attitudes of awe and reverence among believers in a given set of religious ideas

Things that are sacred

• sacred texts: the Bible, the Torah, and the Koran

• sacred behaviors: the communion ritual and the salat

• sacred places: Mecca, Jerusalem, and Vatican City

• sacred people: the Dalai Lama, the Pope

Profane

that which belongs to the mundane, everyday world

Theism

the worship of a god or gods, as in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism

Ethicalism

the adherence to certain principles to lead a moral life,

Animism

the belief that spirits are part of the natural world, as in totemism

Churches

• large bodies of people belonging to an established religious organization

• the term is also used to refer to the place in which religious ceremonies are carried out

Sect

religious movements that break away from orthodoxy

Denomination

a religious sect that has lost its revivalist dynamism and become and institutionalized body, commanding the adherence of significant numbers of people

Cults

fragmentary religious groupings to which individuals are loosely affiliated but that lack any permanent structure

Secularism

a general movement away from religiosity and spiritual belief toward a rational, scientific orientation; a trend adopted by industrialized nations in the form of separation of church and state

Civil religion

a set of religious beliefs through which a society interprets its own history in light of some conception of ultimate reality

Examples of civil religion in the US

• Presidential inaugurations

• Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust”

• Memorial Day and national cemeteries

Manifest Destiny

“The American claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which [God] has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and… self government.” - John L. O’Sullivan

Disestablishment

a period during which political influence of established religions is successfully challenged

Periods of disestablishment

• 1791 ratification of the Bill of Rights

• migration of Catholics 1890s to 1920s

• 1960s and 70s and the conservative reaction

Classical view of human impact on environment

• impacts were less apparent - fewer people

• to take for granted human domination of nature

• sociology emerged at a time of tremendous optimism about humanity’s capacity to use science and technology to ensure endless progress

Human Exceptionalism Paradigm

a sociological view that sees humans as superior to other species, exempt from ecological limits due to culture and technology, with nature existing primarily to serve human needs

New Ecological Paradigm

a sociological perspective that sees humans as part of, not separate from, the natural world and emphasizes that social systems are constrained by ecological limits

Environmental sociology

examines the relationships between society and the natural environment, including how social factors contribute to environmental problems and how environmental issues affect society

Treadmill of Production

a theory that explains environmental degradation as a result of continuous economic growth driven by capitalist systems