quiz 3 soc200

Inequality and Class

Documentary video notes:

  • A bunch of families showing how they are really poor and can’t afford to fix things wrong in their house, food, mostly have no money for gas/fix car, or luxuries thru the children’s perspective - takes a toll on them: embarrassed, sad, resentment, anger

  • The cities these families live in are also very run down and can’t afford anything either

  • The US has one of the highest child poverty rates

  • Homeless shelter kids are in the shelter cuz there’s nowhere else to live but the parents are still in their lives.

  • In 2012, 1 in 5 kids were living in poverty

  • Nutrition club at school is just getting a bag of food every Friday, sounds cool

  • Had to send their dog to the pound contributes to the issue of pounds duh

  • All children don’t want to end up like their parents or have their future kids go thru this


  • Inequality and social identity are interrelated

  • socioeconomic status: combination of social and economic positioning


Definitions

  • Prejudice: internal feelings/beliefs/attitudes that someone holds towards the group. Pre judgment, unfair, applies to everyone in that group, very hard to expel

  • Stereotype: broad, oversimplified claims about a certain group of people, fixed not flexible, based in prejudice, become a source of bias and discrimination

  • Bias: beliefs we have about groups of people

    • Implicit biases: biases that we hold that we don’t know that we hold

    • Explicit biases: biases that we do know we have

  • Discrimination: action of unequal treatment of different groups of people. Puts people at a social disadvantage, makes them believe they’re inferior

    • Ex. “no jews allowed in the store” sign, lead to the holocaust

    • Sociology is not interested in individual discrimination but they are in Institutional discrimination b/c it’s on a larger scale

  • Class: combination of social and economic positioning

    • Economically: income and wealth

    • Social: job, where do you live, higher education


Social Stratification

  • Social stratification: How society categorizes people into different ranks, in groups

  • In the US we tend to stratify based on wealth, income, race, immigration status, etc.

  • Minority: a group who is distinguished by physical or cultural difference that society has set apart or subordinated. Not about a size of group

  • Income: money you make from the work that you do, might also be investment dividends b/c it still is “coming in”

  • Wealth: your net value and assets, how much is all of your things worth

  • Education: what’s the highest level of education you received

  • Caste (no real mobility, it’s whatever caste you’re born into, can only marry endogamously) vs class

  • Mobility

    • Intergenerational: between multiple generations

    • Intragenerational: within your lifetime

  • Class

    • Upper: brings prestige, people can buy companies, organizations, etc., not doing a lot of work, more unethical

      • New money (nouveau riche): self-made wealth

      • Old money: generational wealth, traditional investments

    • Upper Middle: have enough money to pay for everything easily but you don’t have lots of assets

    • Middle: $30k-150k, working hard, (job ex. Teachers, managers, etc.)

    • Lower: low income and low education, more health issues


Theories on Class

  • Structural Functionalist: they think class is helpful, it works, need people at different levels of jobs and wealth because each job is important and to incentivize others

  • Conflict: power difference = inequality. How is inequality being perpetuated in this system? Of course the upper class will always want their power

  • Symbolic interactionism: who are we socialized by and what area we get brought up in


  • Consequences of poverty: food insecurity, hunger, affordable housing, health, etc.

  • Oecd countries: developed, 60% of global GDP, U.S. contrast as the majority is in poverty, US has lowest rate of intergenerational mobility

  • Huge cycle of poverty


Recap

  • List 3 of the most commonly used measures of class

  • Explain the difference between intergenerational and intragenerational mobility

Race, ethnicity, immigration

Identity and inequality

  • Do not use the terms: illegal alien, illegals, any derogatory or racial names

  • Only use the terms: undocumented immigrant, latino, black, african american, native american, east asian, south asian, caucasian, white, etc.

  • Ethnicity: based on cultural traits that society deems important

  • Race: social construction, not biological but is based on biological traits that society deemed important

    • US Census race categories: white, black, native american/alaskan, asian, native hawaiian and pacific islander

    • Race is too interrelated with racism and it’s really hard to let go of those beliefs

  • Racism: beliefs, thoughts, actions that are based on the idea that one race is innately better than another

    • Racism is also about institutional power, it shapes how people are treated, etc.

    • Colorblind racism is still racism, ignoring their history of race and not helping to combat the root of the problem

    • Reverse racism is not a thing in sociology b/c white people generally have more power than others

  • Individual discrimination vs. Institutional discrimination


How races interact:

  1. Pluralism: all races and ethnicities have distinct and equal value and standing

  2. Assimilation: characteristics of members of immigrant groups come to resemble one another (process by which a minority individual or group gives up its own identity by taking on the characteristics of the dominant culture)

  • Classic or straight line model, racial/ethnic disadvantage model, segmented assimilation model, selective acculturation

  1. Segregation: physical and social. Often between lower classes, sometimes segregation happens “naturally” even tho its illegal

  2. Genocide: systematic killing of one group by another group


  • Microaggressions: small annoying comments made by ignorant people like “where are you really from?” or “your english is so good!” ex. Of mosquito bites, it affects everyone on different levels


Immigration

  • Immigration: someone is moving from one country to another country, you go to a place/arrive

  • Emigration: you emigrate from a place

    • Push factors: war, famine, genocide, persecution, economic trouble, etc.

    • Pull factors: safety, economic opportunities, freedom, rights

  • Generations: first generation immigrants means they themselves moved to a new country. If your parents move to a new country and have a kid there, the kid is a second generation immigrant. Third generation is your grandparents immigrating, parents were born there, and their kid was born there

  • 1-2 generation is immigrating when you’re an adult

  • 0.5 generation is very unlikely to assimilate


Theories on Race and Immigration

  • Structural functionalism: assimilation allows a society to maintain its equilibrium if all members, regardless of their racial or ethnic identity, adopt one dominant culture

  • Conflict: focuses on how the dynamics of racial and ethnic relations divide groups while maintaining a dominant group

  • Symbolic interactionism: race is a social construct. “Race is, so to speak, a human invention”


Recap

  • What is the difference between race and ethnicity

  • How to use emigration and immigration

Health

  • Sociologists care about the cultural meaning of health/illness, social construction and stigmatization of illness, and the social construction of medical knowledge


Theories on Health

  • Structural functionalist:

  • Sick role: patterns or expectations for what is appropriate for sick people and for those who take care of them. Not really used anymore. How do we navigate being ill and how does the system take care of them

  1. Not responsible for their poor health

  2. Shouldn't be required to fulfill regular responsibilities/activities

  3. Does need to be legitimized by a doctor

  4. Needs to be temporary

  • Conflict theory: who has access to healthcare and who doesn’t, what does it say about their values vs. other people. Do medical professionals/drug companies just want money?

  • Symbolic interactionist: social construction of health and illness. What does it mean to be sick, how do we know? Ex. little ribbons for breast cancer and other illnesses


TedTalk Notes

  • Got infections, then neurological symptoms = conversion disorder = actually chronic fatigue syndrome

  • None of the doctors would help her, similarly isolated and disbelieved 

  • In US, about 1 million ppl have it, most are bedridden, basically forgotten by medicine

  • Theory of hysteria used to be they needed to have sex, freud converted emotions into the mind = sexism

  • Hysteria was renamed conversion disorder b/c of Freud, bad b/c it can never be proven, women are misdiagnosed 


  • Change overtime: declines in infectious disease deaths in 1800s

  • Declines in chronic disease deaths in mid 1900s (heart disease, stroke, cancer)

  • Socioeconomic status - access to screening - health

  • Epigenetics: how children's experiences actually affect the expression of their genes, always nature and nurture


  • Body Mass Index (BMI) - doesn’t distinguish between fat and muscle, shouldn’t be used as a universal measuring scale


Theories of Disability

  • Medical model: your impairments (physical or mental) disable you, therefore fix them, looks at what’s wrong

  • Social model: disability is caused by the way society is organized, focuses on removing barriers of restricted access, need to accommodate/accessible (ex. Ramps, brail, etc.)

  • Critical disability studies: considers how institutions, societies disable people systematically and socially. 


Recap

  • What are the 4 components of the sick role?

  • What are the 2 competing theories of disability

Disability

  • The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (signed by George HW Bush)

  • Disability: a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual; a record of such an impairment; or being regarded as having such an impairment

  • Section 504 guaranteed certain rights to disabled people, disabled people sat in govt’s space to get it implemented

  • Judith Heumann: helped get it signed into law, organized protests by shutting down NY, Nixon vetoed the rehabilitation act

  • Disability is increasing and is problematic, they’re able to live longer now 

  • 26% or 1 in 4 of adults in the US have some kind of disability 

  • Ableism: discrimination in favor of non-disabled individuals 

  • Spread: spreading assumptions to someone’s disability which is most likely not true, ex. ignoring them or talking slower

  • Not every disability is visible

  • Accommodation in everyday life: university for deaf people, accessible usually doesn’t mean accessible like at churches


Disability and Family

  • Divorce rates are higher earlier

    • 30% of parents are divorced by the time their disabled child is age 3

    • 50% of parents are divorced by the time their disabled child is age 10

  • Murder

    • About 52 murders by caregivers per year in US (often framed as a mercy killing)

  • Disabled parents are equally likely to provide care to children

  • Slightly less likely to provide care to adults outside of their home


Spoon Theory

  • People with disabilities or chronic illnesses have limited amounts of energy and capabilities 

  • Start with 12 spoons, slowly subtract them, and think about how to spend the rest of your spoons

  • Every activity measures up to one spoon

  • Ex. get out of bed is 1 spoon, showering is 2 spoons, eating is 3 spoons, exercise is 4 spoons


Disability and Mental Health

  • Physical and cognitive disabilities are linked to higher rates of depression

  • Bullying, inaccessibility, stigma 

  • Higher rates of depression are linked to higher rates of suicide