Intersectionality: 

• Multiple layers of disadvantage [and advantage] intersect to create  

the way we experience race [and other hierarchies of power].

Environmental sociology:

• studies in the way humans interact with their environments.

Tragedy of the Commons:

• ​​if a resource is open to the public

use people will extract from it with little concern for

maintenance, eventually exploiting the resource 

beyond its carrying capacity.

Climate change: 

•  “long-term shifts in temperature and climate due to human activity.”

Environmental racism:

• refers to how minority group neighborhoods 

are burdened with a disproportionate number of hazards/exposures,

Including toxic waste facilities, garbage dumps, and other 

sources of environmental pollution and foul odors that lower the quality of life.”

NIMBY:

• Not In MyBackyard,’ the tendency of people to protest poor

environmental practices when those practices will affect them directly.”

Education: 

• is a “social institution through which members of a society are taught

basic academic knowledge, learning skills, and cultural norms.”

Formal vs. Informal education:

• Formal; “learning about academic facts and concepts through a formal curriculum.”

• Informal; learning about cultural values, norms, and expected behaviors.”

Cultural capital:

• cultural knowledge that serves (metaphorically) as currency to help one navigate a culture.

Social reproduction: 

• Students aren’t starting from the same spot

Labeling: 

• Students who lack “dominant cultural capital” can be interpreted 

as deviant and marked as less successful students.

Hierarchy of environmentalism:

• a social hierarchy that differentiates high- and low-status environmental concern based on morals-based judgements regarding consumption practices.

Tracking:

• “formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” 

(advanced versus low achievers) that perpetuate inequalities.”

Self-fulfilling prophecy:

• The effects of labeling can lead to cascade effects as students

“take on” these labels.

Relative vs. extreme poverty:

World systems theory:

• a global hierarchy based on power where some countries

 are in control, while others are subordinate and subject to 

exploitation.

Global stratification:

• unequal distribution among nations.

Global inequality: 

• concentrates resources within certain nations and among certain people.

Controlling images:

• stereotypes that people hold in their heads about groups of people.

Matrix of domination: 

• views “race, class, and gender as interlocking systems of oppression.”

Moral panic:

• Community-wide fear or anger in perception to threat of cultural values or interests.

Critical race theory:

• a legal theory about whether the law is neutral as 

it presents itself in many democracies.

Short Answer Review

Be able to answer two of the following five questions based on the readings and lectures:

2. How does intersectionality challenge prior thinking about race, class, and gender? 

How might it challenge how we think about educational inequality? Be sure to define 

intersectionality. 

Intersectionality is the understanding that layers of disadvantages/ advantages intersect and create how we experience race. This challenges educational inequality because, based on where you are from/stay you can, and race. Education can be experienced differently than in other places in the world. 

5. What is cultural capital? What role does cultural capital play in social reproduction? What role does education play in the development of cultural capital?

Cultural capital is cultural knowledge that serves to help one navigate a culture. Its role in social reproduction is understanding how social inequalities are maintained and reproduced across generations. Education plays a role in developing cultural capital and a mechanism where social hierarchies are reinforced.