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Every Social Movement to Know for AP United States History

Sociology Test 2

Chapter 5: Culture
Culture	is a complex collection of values, beliefs, behaviours, and material objects shared by a group passed on from one generation to the next	No one can really determine when culture began: 1. Little material evidence, 2. Much of culture is nonmaterial, 3. Many of the developments that enabled ancestors to become cultural were all interconnected and integral for the emergence of culture
Cultures 5 defining features	1) Culture is learned: no one is born with culture. As we grow up, we are constantly immersed in the cultural traditions of our parents, siblings, peers, and dominant culture	What you define as suitable food is a reflection of what your culture deems appropriate
	2)Culture is shared: develops as people interact and share experiences and meanings with each other	Cheering for your home team
	3) culture is transmitted: cultural beliefs and traditions must be passed from generation to generation if they are to survive	Many Indigenous societies have rich oral traditions in which they tell long and detailed stories as way of communicating the lessons and experiences of their ancestors
	4) Culture is cumulative: as members of each generation refine and modify their cultural beliefs to meet their changing needs, they build on the cultural foundation of their ancestors	Canadian students today are exposed to computers from a very early age and are therefore more computer literate than students even 10 years ago
	5) Culture is human: traditionally, animals were considered to be social but not cultural- how, when, and why humans communicate, and with whom	Culture helps to define who is appropriate for you to date and guides how and when you ask these people out
French civilization	Struggle against tradition and superstition
English civilization	Associated with the task of civilizing the ‘other’
Material Culture	The tangible artifacts and physical objects found in a given culture- art buildings, architecture	Many cities design park spaces in the urban core to help people feel more relaxed and comfortable and the library is intended to be a quiet sanctuary when you can focus on your studies
Non-material Culture	The intangible and abstract components of a society, including values and norms- assumptions, languages	How we behave in these spaces is because of social norms- quiet in the library, or can be either in the park/or a restaurant
Values	Beliefs about ideal goals and behaviours- the standards by which people define what is desirable/undesirable, good/bad, beautiful/ugly	Attitudes about the way the world ought to be. Values provide the members of society with general guidelines on what their society deems important
Norms	Rules that outline appropriate behaviour. They help people to know how to act in given social situations	In Canada, general rule that it is rude to speak with your mouth full.
Folkways	Are informal norms that do not inspire severe moral condemnation when violated	What side of the sidewalk you walk on. W.G Sumner
Mores	Do inspire strong moral condemnation	Extramarital affairs. W.G Sumner
Taboo	A prohibition on actions deemed immoral or disgusting	Necrophilia, bestiality, cannibalism
Laws	Norms that are formally defined and enacted in legislation	In Canada, illegal to steal your neighbour’s lawnmower or cheat on your taxes. The state reserves the right to charge with a crime because you have broken the law
Sanction	A penalty for norm violation- it rewards appropriate behaviour and penalizes inappropriate	Reward for getting an A on a paper because you studied or an F for not
Ethnocentrism	A tendency to view one’s own culture as superior to all others- can be restrictive in the sense that it does not allow one to appreciate diversity	Group loyalty and pride that is important when unity is necessary- during wars or natural disasters
Cultural Relativism	Appreciating that all cultures have their own mores, norms, and customs and should be evaluated and understood on their own terms, rather than according to one’s own cultural standards	Avoid judging other cultures’ customs and traditions before trying to understand them Some argue that it means giving up the ability to determine if an action is right or wrong, moral or immoral Canadian adore their pets vs the beginning of the chapter- dogs and cats being prepared to eat
Culture Shock	A feeling of disorientation, alienation, depression, and loneliness that subsides only once a person become acclimated to the new culture	When people encounter cultures that are very different from their own
Oberg’s 4 Stage Culture Shock Model	1)Honeymoon- a feeling of admiration and awe regarding the new host culture, and cordial interactions with locals
	2)Crisis- differences in values, signs, and symbols begin ot inspire feelings of confusion and disorientation that lead to feelings of inadequacy, frustration, anger, and despair
	3) Recovery- crisis gradually resolved with a growing understanding of the host culture and recognition that its values are consistent with its view of the world
	4) Adjustment- an increasing ability to function effectively an enjoy the host culture despite occasional feelings of anxiety or stress	What could prevent this?
Symbol	Something that stands for or represents something else	Language and culture are intricately intertwined
Language	A shared symbol system of rules and meanings that governs the production and interpretation of speech
Cultural Amnesia	When language dies, a little bit of culture dies with it, and this is a loss to all of us	When a language dies, so does it related cultural myths, folk songs, legends, poetry, and belief systems
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis	Suggests that language influences how we perceive the world	Living in an area that does not snow, would not have a term for this. It is our perception of the world that is influences by the limitations of our language, people who speak different languages comprehend the world differently
Linguistic determinism	Assumes that the way you think is determined by the language you speak	Whorf
Linguistic relativism	Suggests that differences among languages do not determine but reflect the different worldviews of their speakers	Whorf
Non-verbal Communication	Is a complex system of body language that conveys a great deal about what we feel is important	Examples in the textbook-
Multiculturalism	1. assist all Canadian cultural groups to grow and contribute to Canada 2. assist members of all cultural groups to overcome barriers 3. Promote creative encounters 4. Assist immigrants to acquire at least one of Canada’s official languages (Mahtani, 2006: 165)
Subculture	A group within a population whose values, norms, folkways or mores set them apart from the mainstream culture Often based on race, ethnicity and religion Can also include age, sexuality, occupations, recreational activities, any activities, belief system or special interest	E.g., Mennonite and Amish communities Toronto’s Little Italy neighbourhoods, Vancouver’s Chinatown etc in your text Student clubs or groups
A counterculture	A type of subculture that strongly opposes the widely held cultural patterns of the larger population	E.g., Hells Angels, mafia, hitchhiking Textbook gives lots of examples
Canadian Culture	Canadian Values Belief in equality and fairness in a democratic society Belief in consultation and dialogue Importance of accommodation and tolerance Support for diversity Compassion and generosity Attachment to Canada’s natural beauty Commitment to freedom, peace and non-violent change Multiculturalism as social policy	In your opinion, what are the defining features of Canadian Culture?
Functionalism	Culture plays a part in helping people to meet needs Cultural universals which help a society function There are collective benefits to cultural universals (functionalists ignore the tensions that might be present between subcultures or countercultures)
Cultural Universals	Common cultural features found in all societies
Conflict Theory	Views society based on tension and conflict over scarce resources Those who hold power define and perpetuate a culture’s ideology and create a value system that is defines social inequality as just and proper Cultural systems are powerful ideological tools!
POST MARXISTS:
Bourdieu	Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979) People learn to consume culture and this type of learning (which occurs the length of our lives) is mediated and differentiated by social class Consumption which reaffirms our social class positioning	he illustrates how quote cultivated dispositions and cultural competence, how they are revealed through the consumption of goods people, he says. They learn how to consume culture and this type of learning it's gonna be mediated. By your social class, so how does consumption of stuff, how does it connect to social class? So this type of this, this learning of the consumption of things is used as a means to separate yourself, to separate one group from another.
Said	Culture and Imperialism (1993) Producers of high culture are revered and these cultural products become a method for internalizing the messages of imperialism	So Saed in his writings on culture and imperialism. Argues that culture has both political as well as ideological consequences so there exists, he says, in all nationally defined cultures, particularly the culture of imperialism, the innate aspiration. The innate goal of sovereignty and dominance.
The Frankfurt School Theorists (Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse)	Control through culture Culture industry is seen as having a key role in legitimating the capitalist system Who we are as individuals is determined through the consumption of goods which are produced by the culture industry (in all its various forms)	the Enlightenment in delivering humankind from mythology. So through the process of the Enlightenment, we instead they argue, become entrenched in mythology. Remember, the Enlightenment was about grounding ourselves in science, in fact, in rational ways of thinking, but in. Instead, we become lost in mythology and falsehoods or in 2025 in conspiracy theories that we've completely shifted away from science and we've become, we've embraced. You know, falsehoods and mythologies, because the Enlightenment was about mastery of science, science over superstition, but in 2025, it seems like we're going the opposite way. So they argue that thinking itself becomes automatic. You know, uh, self activating process where we lose our ability to think critically, to think critically, to self-regulate ourselves, and so they are speaking more so to culture and consumption of stuff.
Symbolic Interactionism	How culture is created and recreated through social interaction Culture is modified according to the negotiation of reality Culture is the set of symbols to which we collectively assign values	Argues that social realty if the result of human interaction. Herbert Blumer- people do not respond directly to the world around them but, instead, to the meanings they collectively apply to it Minority status example- mutual interaction and social definition- will influence how you interact with someone (Indigenous person)
Chapter 7: Social Inequality
Social Stratification	Society’s hierarchical ranking of people into social class	Based on both birth and achievements in life, while an individual’s position within the class structure is called their social status
Social Class	Based on ascribed and achieved statuses. Group of people who share a position within the class hierarchy.
Social Status	a person's relative rank or position in a social hierarchy.
Meritocracy	system that emphasizes personal attributes and demonstrated abilities
Social Mobility	Ability to move up in social class. Measured through intergenerational and intragenerational mobility, where intergenerational refers to social movement across generations, and intragenerational refers to one’s social movement across their lifetime.
Social Inequality	inequalities exist when certain attributes like income, wealth, schooling, ancestry, race, ethnicity, and gender affect a person’s access to socially valued resources	examples: wage gap
Dimensions of Social Inequality	Income: the money you bring in annually (regarded as a flow since it fluctuates throughout your lifetime) Wealth: stock or accumulated assets (distribution of wealth is concentrated in Canada) Power and wealth go hand-in-hand (ability to influence structural decisions and have important connections) Schooling: strong correlation between educational completion and the income you are going to make in your lifetime (not always equal participation in this due to various factors) Ancestry: our ascribed statuses, our point of entry in the class system is determined by whether we were born into privilege or poverty Gender: women earn less, accumulate less wealth and are often placed lower in occupational prestige ranking (patriarchal reasons, more vulnerable to poverty - feminization of poverty) Classism: ideology that suggests people’s worth is based off of their socioeconomic standing (leads to discrimination)	Wealth example: stocks, sailboats, cottages
Classism	Belief that people’s relative worth is at least partly defined by their social and economic status	Hierarchy based on income and wealth
Blaming the victim	the perspective places the explanatory burden of being poor on poor people and their work ethic. Working harder should alleviate the poverty. Not consistent with the sociological perspective.
Blaming the system	the perspective that places the explanatory burden of being poor on larger social forces. This looks at systemic discrimination ( shifts in labour market impacting the amount and types of jobs available). Consistent with the sociological perspective
Closed System	social status based on ascribed status, where your identity, opportunities, and limitations exist regardless of personal abilities.	Ex. Caste System in India
Open System	Based on achieved status, which is made possible by one’s personal attributes. People can move up from poor social background (or down from a wealthy one) through their own efforts and abilities.
	Sociological Approaches to Stratification
Functionalism	a school of thought that analyzes the function of things, including mental states, societies, and physical objects.
Conflict Theory	Social classes are a manifestation of competition/ conflict between the haves and have nots
Karl Marx	Karl Marx Interests of social classes incompatible Proletariat need to overthrow bourgeoisie Social stratification is embodiment of class conflict
Max Weber	Max Weber critiqued Marx’s sole focus on economic production Power multifaceted (comes from different sources) Social class is multidimensional Class, status, groups and party
Symbolic Interactionism	- More interested in looking at how people interpret and construct their responses to class inequality than in attempting to explain why stratification exists •Consider how people use and respond to status symbols
Veblen (1899)	Conspicuous consumption: spending money on socially valuable, luxury items to display wealth Conspicuous leisure Conspicuous waste
Feminist Theory	Consider how dominant male oriented perspectives shape understanding of the world	Armstrong and Armstrong (1994)
	Canadian Class System
3 Dimensions to social class
	The Classes
Upper Class	-broken into upper upper and. Lower upper -3-5% of individuals -1% =old money -2-3% = nouveau rich
Middle Class
The Working Class	30% of Canadian population Skilled and semi skilled workers Vulnerable to financial crisis
The Underclass	Some Canadians face long-term, chronic poverty in which they have little ability to realize their potential since they are in constant struggle to meet immediate needs
Factors affecting social inequality in Canada	Geographic location: different provinces have different poverty rates Feminization of poverty: universal struggle of women’s wage discrimination Work status Age: people in their late teens/early twenties most likely to live in poverty Visible minority status: wage gap between races Education: schools offers some protection against poverty
	Measuring Inequality
Kuznets Curve	As societies develop, they become more unequal -equality shifts as economic development shifts
Lorenz Curve and Gini Coefficient	deviation from the 45 degree angle that represented perfect equality -Gini coefficient: Measure of inequality
Chapter 8: Gender
Intersectionality	The simultaneous influence of multiple social relations including race, gender, ethnicity, and class
Sex	Biologically rooted; describes our physical bodies whereby we distinguish between male and female
Gender	Social constructed characteristics associated with girls and boys, men and women
	Masculinity & Femininity
Hegemonic Masculinity	Ideal of masculinity that men are supposed to strive to achieve. It requires men to be successful, capable, and reliable. Irrevocably tied to heterosexuality.	Culturally dominant form of masc
Emphasized Femininity	Based on women’s compliance with their subordination to men. It requires women to be supportive, enthusiastic, and sexually attractive	Culturally dominant form of femme
	Reproducing Gender: Families
Families	Gender expectations begin at birth Child rearing practices are deeply genderedToys and play are deeply gendered Parenting can be gendered Gendered divisions of household labour.
	Gender Socialization
The nature of gender (Urdy, 1971)	points to themes in childhood/adolescent gender socialization
Female socialization:	sociability, popularity, attractiveness
Male socialization:	independence, emotional control and conquest
Gender role socialization	The process by which social institutions — including families, peers, schools, workplace, and the media—inculcate. A society’s expectations of acceptable dress, speech, personality, leisure activities, and aspirations for each sex
Gendered Bodies (socially constructed expectations)	Media portrayals emphasize an unrealistic beauty standard. Media programs and TV shows that imply we can get a better sense of self by conforming to dominant constructions of the ideal masculine or feminine person.	Plastic Surgery: individual strategy to achieve a more culturally dominant masculine or feminine appearance to become more ‘successful’ NFL draft: most prominent event in American male culture, male bodies are catalogued, classified, ranked and valued via an extensive and complex system of quantification
	Reproducing Gender: Education
Education
Hidden Curriculum	Informal interactions reinforcing gender stereotypes in education	Girls learn that why are not as important as boys Praise girls for being congenial and neat while boys praised for intellectual quality
	Gender & Work
3 principles Work-role Model for men	Need to work from graduation till death Jobs should be their central focus Fulfillment comes through work roles
Gendered Labour Force	Occupations segregated into men’s and women's jobs Women hold more lower-paying jobs than men Women make up a greater proportion of part-time workers and tend to work part-time throughout their life cycle Women are consistently over-represented in nonstandard, precarious work
The Gendered Wage Gap	Women in Canada’s workforce earn approximately 89 cents for every dollar earned by a man	Feminization of poverty (more women than men live in poverty)
	Gender & Earnings
Earnings ratio	Calculated by dividing the average or median of women’s earnings by the average or median of men’s earnings which indicates how much women earn for each dollar men earn
Pay/Wage gap	The shortfall, or difference is referred to as the pay gap/wage gap
2 important factors	occupation determines wage rate Women are concentrated into paying occpations
Accounting for women’s lower earnings
The second shift
The third shift	Represents the struggle to scope with the emotional consequences of unbalanced second shift
	Sociological Approaches to Gender
Functionalist Theory	The idea that both men and women have a role in order to reduce confusion and conflict and ensure that societal tasks are fulfilled
Conflict Theory	The focus on how gender affects one’s control of and access to scarce resources
Symbolic Interactionism	Interested in the meanings of male and female and of masculinity and femininity, arguing that gender is created through social interaction through the mechanism of role taking
Feminist Theory	Identifying the ways in which institutionalized and internalized gender norms can limit women’s behaviours and opportunities
Post-structuralist Theory	Masculinity and femininity and even sex itself are understood as being socially and discursively constructed
Judith Butler	Gender cannot be thought of as having some essential basis • No authentic femininity and masculinity rooted in male and female bodies Gender is a performance

Chapter 7: Social Inequality
Social Stratification	Society’s hierarchical ranking of people into social class	Based on both birth and achievements in life, while an individual’s position within the class structure is called their social status
Social Class	Based on ascribed and achieved statuses. Group of people who share a position within the class hierarchy.
Social Status	a person's relative rank or position in a social hierarchy.
Meritocracy	system that emphasizes personal attributes and demonstrated abilities
Social Mobility	Ability to move up in social class. Measured through intergenerational and intragenerational mobility, where intergenerational refers to social movement across generations, and intragenerational refers to one’s social movement across their lifetime.
Social Inequality	inequalities exist when certain attributes like income, wealth, schooling, ancestry, race, ethnicity, and gender affect a person’s access to socially valued resources	examples: wage gap
Dimensions of Social Inequality	Income: the money you bring in annually (regarded as a flow since it fluctuates throughout your lifetime) Wealth: stock or accumulated assets (distribution of wealth is concentrated in Canada) Power and wealth go hand-in-hand (ability to influence structural decisions and have important connections) Schooling: strong correlation between educational completion and the income you are going to make in your lifetime (not always equal participation in this due to various factors) Ancestry: our ascribed statuses, our point of entry in the class system is determined by whether we were born into privilege or poverty Gender: women earn less, accumulate less wealth and are often placed lower in occupational prestige ranking (patriarchal reasons, more vulnerable to poverty - feminization of poverty) Classism: ideology that suggests people’s worth is based off of their socioeconomic standing (leads to discrimination)	Wealth example: stocks, sailboats, cottages
Classism	Belief that people’s relative worth is at least partly defined by their social and economic status	Hierarchy based on income and wealth
Blaming the victim	the perspective places the explanatory burden of being poor on poor people and their work ethic. Working harder should alleviate the poverty. Not consistent with the sociological perspective.
Blaming the system	the perspective that places the explanatory burden of being poor on larger social forces. This looks at systemic discrimination ( shifts in labour market impacting the amount and types of jobs available). Consistent with the sociological perspective
Closed System	social status based on ascribed status, where your identity, opportunities, and limitations exist regardless of personal abilities.	Ex. Caste System in India
Open System	Based on achieved status, which is made possible by one’s personal attributes. People can move up from poor social background (or down from a wealthy one) through their own efforts and abilities.
	Sociological Approaches to Stratification
Functionalism	a school of thought that analyzes the function of things, including mental states, societies, and physical objects.
Conflict Theory	Social classes are a manifestation of competition/ conflict between the haves and have nots
Karl Marx	Karl Marx Interests of social classes incompatible Proletariat need to overthrow bourgeoisie Social stratification is embodiment of class conflict
Max Weber	Max Weber critiqued Marx’s sole focus on economic production Power multifaceted (comes from different sources) Social class is multidimensional Class, status, groups and party
Symbolic Interactionism	- More interested in looking at how people interpret and construct their responses to class inequality than in attempting to explain why stratification exists •Consider how people use and respond to status symbols
Veblen (1899)	Conspicuous consumption: spending money on socially valuable, luxury items to display wealth Conspicuous leisure Conspicuous waste
Feminist Theory	Consider how dominant male oriented perspectives shape understanding of the world	Armstrong and Armstrong (1994)
	Canadian Class System
3 Dimensions to social class
	The Classes
Upper Class	-broken into upper upper and. Lower upper -3-5% of individuals -1% =old money -2-3% = nouveau rich
Middle Class
The Working Class	30% of Canadian population Skilled and semi skilled workers Vulnerable to financial crisis
The Underclass	Some Canadians face long-term, chronic poverty in which they have little ability to realize their potential since they are in constant struggle to meet immediate needs
Factors affecting social inequality in Canada	Geographic location: different provinces have different poverty rates Feminization of poverty: universal struggle of women’s wage discrimination Work status Age: people in their late teens/early twenties most likely to live in poverty Visible minority status: wage gap between races Education: schools offers some protection against poverty
	Measuring Inequality
Kuznets Curve	As societies develop, they become more unequal -equality shifts as economic development shifts
Lorenz Curve and Gini Coefficient	deviation from the 45 degree angle that represented perfect equality -Gini coefficient: Measure of inequality

Chapter 8: Gender
Intersectionality	The simultaneous influence of multiple social relations including race, gender, ethnicity, and class
Sex	Biologically rooted; describes our physical bodies whereby we distinguish between male and female
Gender	Social constructed characteristics associated with girls and boys, men and women
	Masculinity & Femininity
Hegemonic Masculinity	Ideal of masculinity that men are supposed to strive to achieve. It requires men to be successful, capable, and reliable. Irrevocably tied to heterosexuality.	Culturally dominant form of masc
Emphasized Femininity	Based on women’s compliance with their subordination to men. It requires women to be supportive, enthusiastic, and sexually attractive	Culturally dominant form of femme
	Reproducing Gender: Families
Families	Gender expectations begin at birth Child rearing practices are deeply genderedToys and play are deeply gendered Parenting can be gendered Gendered divisions of household labour.
	Gender Socialization
The nature of gender (Urdy, 1971)	points to themes in childhood/adolescent gender socialization
Female socialization:	sociability, popularity, attractiveness
Male socialization:	independence, emotional control and conquest
Gender role socialization	The process by which social institutions — including families, peers, schools, workplace, and the media—inculcate. A society’s expectations of acceptable dress, speech, personality, leisure activities, and aspirations for each sex
Gendered Bodies (socially constructed expectations)	Media portrayals emphasize an unrealistic beauty standard. Media programs and TV shows that imply we can get a better sense of self by conforming to dominant constructions of the ideal masculine or feminine person.	Plastic Surgery: individual strategy to achieve a more culturally dominant masculine or feminine appearance to become more ‘successful’ NFL draft: most prominent event in American male culture, male bodies are catalogued, classified, ranked and valued via an extensive and complex system of quantification
	Reproducing Gender: Education
Education
Hidden Curriculum	Informal interactions reinforcing gender stereotypes in education	Girls learn that why are not as important as boys Praise girls for being congenial and neat while boys praised for intellectual quality
	Gender & Work
3 principles Work-role Model for men	Need to work from graduation till death Jobs should be their central focus Fulfillment comes through work roles
Gendered Labour Force	Occupations segregated into men’s and women's jobs Women hold more lower-paying jobs than men Women make up a greater proportion of part-time workers and tend to work part-time throughout their life cycle Women are consistently over-represented in nonstandard, precarious work
The Gendered Wage Gap	Women in Canada’s workforce earn approximately 89 cents for every dollar earned by a man	Feminization of poverty (more women than men live in poverty)
	Gender & Earnings
Earnings ratio	Calculated by dividing the average or median of women’s earnings by the average or median of men’s earnings which indicates how much women earn for each dollar men earn
Pay/Wage gap	The shortfall, or difference is referred to as the pay gap/wage gap
2 important factors	occupation determines wage rate Women are concentrated into paying occpations
Accounting for women’s lower earnings
The second shift
The third shift	Represents the struggle to scope with the emotional consequences of unbalanced second shift
	Sociological Approaches to Gender
Functionalist Theory	The idea that both men and women have a role in order to reduce confusion and conflict and ensure that societal tasks are fulfilled
Conflict Theory	The focus on how gender affects one’s control of and access to scarce resources
Symbolic Interactionism	Interested in the meanings of male and female and of masculinity and femininity, arguing that gender is created through social interaction through the mechanism of role taking
Feminist Theory	Identifying the ways in which institutionalized and internalized gender norms can limit women’s behaviours and opportunities
Post-structuralist Theory	Masculinity and femininity and even sex itself are understood as being socially and discursively constructed
Judith Butler	Gender cannot be thought of as having some essential basis • No authentic femininity and masculinity rooted in male and female bodies Gender is a performance

Review:

Chapter 5: Culture

· French Civilization: Struggle against tradition and superstition

· English civilization: Associated with the task of civilizing the “other”

· German kultur: Represented the desire of nations to maintain their own identity

What is Culture?

· Culture: A complex collection of values, beliefs, behaviours, material objects a group shares that’s passed on through generations

· 5 defining features:

o Culture is learned

o Culture is shared

o Culture is transmitted

o Culture is cumulative

o Culture is human

· Material culture: The tangible artifacts and physical objects in a culture

· Non-material culture: Intangible components of society, like values and norms

· Values: Beliefs about ideal goals and behaviours

· Norms: Rules that outline appropriate behaviour

· Folkways: Informal norms that suggest customary ways of behaving

· Mores: Norms that carry a strong sense of social importance

· Taboo: Prohibition on actions deemed immoral

· Laws: Norms formally defined and enacted in legislation

· Sanction: Penalty for norm violation

Ethnocentrism vs Cultural Relativism

· Ethnocentrism: Tendency to view one’s own culture as superior to others, it’s restrictive in the sense that one can’t appreciate diversity

· Cultural relativism: Appreciating that all cultures have worth and must be evaluated on their own terms. Avoiding judgement before understanding of customs and traditions. The argument is that it means giving up morality or right and wrong

2 / 9

Culture Shock

· Culture shock: Obergs lays out four stages to understand the progression through culture shock

o Honeymoon

o Crisis

o Recovery

o Adjustment

Language and Culture

· Symbol: Something that stands for or represents something else

· Language: Shared symbol system of rules and meaning. Cultural symbols allow us to interact, with language being an identifier of cultural boundaries

· Cultural amnesia: The death of language leads to the death of cultural myths, songs, legends, etc.

Linguistic Determinism

· Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: Language does determine thought, limitations of our thought influence our perceptions of the world

· Linguistic Determinism: Language determines how we view our world

· Linguistic relativism: Language reflects the way individuals view their world

· Non-verbal communication includes body language, proximity, haptics (touch), oculesics (eye movements), chronemics (time), olfactics (smell), vocalics (tone, pitch of voice), sound symbols, locomotion (movement), jewelery/accessories

· Multiculturalism: (Enshrined in constitution in 1971)

o Assist all Canadian cultural groups to grow and contribute to Canada

o Assist members of all cultural groups to overcome barriers

o Promote creative encounters

o Assist immigrants to acquire at least one of Canada’s official languages

Cultural Diversity

· Subculture: Group within a population whose values, norms, folkways, mores set them apart from mainstream culture. Often based on race, ethnicity, religion. An example is Mennonite and Amish communities

· Counterculture: Type of subculture that opposes cultural patterns of the larger population. An example is the Hells Angels

3 / 9

Canadian Culture

· Canadian values include:

o Belief in equality and fairness in a democratic society

o Belief in dialogue and consultation

o Support for diversity

o Importance of accommodation and tolerance

o Compassion and generosity

o Attachment to Canada’s natural beauty

o Commitment to freedom, peace and non-violent change

§ Multiculturalism as a social policy

Sociological Approaches to Culture

Functionalism

· Culture plays a part in helping people meet needs

· Cultural universals exist to help a society function

· There are collective benefits to cultural universals (functionalists ignore tensions that are present)

· Used to explain what culture is

Conflict Theory

· Views society based on tension/conflict over scarce resources

· Those who hold power define and perpetuate culture as a powerful ideological tool

· Used to explain what culture does

· Bourdieu

o People learn to consume culture and this type of learning that is lifelong is mediated and differentiated by social class. and reaffirms our social class positioning

o Our taste reflects our social class positioning

· Said

o Producers of high culture are revered and these cultural products become a method to internalize imperialist messages

· Frankfurt School Theorists (Theodor Adorno, Mac Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse)

o Control through culture. The culture industry has a key role in legitimizing capitalism

o Who we are is determined through consumption of goods made by the culture

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Symbolic Interactionism

· How culture is created and recreated through social interaction

· Culture is modified according to the negotiation of reality, and is the set of symbols that we collectively assign values

· How culture is interpreted

Chapter 7: Social Inequality

What is Social Stratification?

· Social Stratification: Society’s hierarchical ranking of people into social classes

· Social class: Based on both birth and achievements

· Social status: Position within class structure

· Meritocracy: System that emphasizes personal attributes and demonstrated abilities

· Social mobility: Movement between social classes, both intergenerational(comparison between generations) and intragenerational (within lifetime)

· Social inequality: Exists when certain attributes affect a person’s access to socially valued resources. It’s supported by the dominant ideology rather than individual capability

· Dimensions of social inequality include income, wealth (power and occupational prestige), schooling, ancestry, race/ethnicity, and gender

· Classism: Worth is determined by social and economic status

· Blaming the victim: Working harder will alleviate poverty

· Blaming the system: Systemic discrimination and market forces

· Oscar Lewis: Poor have a different set of sub-cultural values that limit their ability to escape poverty, structuralist concept of poverty, believes structures were in place that prevented people from leaving poverty (culture of poverty)

· Gunnar Myrdal: Social forces that creates the urban underclass (African-Americans)

· Social systems rank people in two ways, closed and open systems

5 / 9

· Closed systems are based on ascribed status. There’s little room for social mobility, caste systems determine what one can wear, jobs to work, marriage, and includes hereditary membership. An example is India

· Open systems are based on achieved status. It comes from the result of your own merit within class structure. Income, occupational prestige and education are used

Sociological Approaches to Stratification

Functionalism

· Davis-Moore thesis (1945): Social inequality serves important social function, it instills desire to fill certain social positions and instills desire to complete duties and obligations. The rewards must be high to attract the most qualified and skilled

· Criticisms include how does one determine value, social status is usually hereditary, substantial discrimination, market forces, extreme nature of social inequality (globally and locally)

Conflict Theory

· Social classes are a manifestation of competition/conflict between haves and have nots

· Karl Marx: believed that interests of social classes are incompatible. The proletariat need to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Social stratification is the embodiment of class conflict

· Max Weber: critiqued Marx’s sole focus on economic production. He believed that power comes from different sources and that social class is multidimensional. Class, status groups and party

Symbolic Interactionism

· More interested in looking at how people interpret and construct responses to class inequality than explaining stratification. They consider how people use and respond to status symbols

· Veblen (1899): Believed in conspicuous consumption, leisure and waste used to establish and secure social positioning (flaunt social class and maintain appearances)

· Feminist theory: Society’s evaluation of value and importance is perpetuated by patriarchal assumptions. Important to recognize working lives of women within capitalism and role of class position in worldview

· Armstrong and Armstrong (1994):Double ghetto or women’s dual roles, work inside and outside of the home

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Canadian Class System

· There are 3 dimensions to social class:

o An Economic dimension (Marx and Weber)

o A political dimension (Status and power - Weber)

o A cultural dimension (lifestyle, values, beliefs, Weber and Bourdieu)

· The Bourgeoisie have all 3 levels of control, while the proletariat have none. Petit bourgeoisie have some of the first two forms

Classes

· Upper class (3-5%)

o Upper upper class: Relatively few reside in the upper class (1%), they have old money, live in elite communities within their class, and few visible minorities

o Lower upper classes (2-4%): the nouveau riche, new money

· The Middle Class (40-50%)

o Upper middle class: Highly visible, professional careers, more ethnically diverse than upper class but still mostly white, live in suburbs

o Lower middle class: Managers, small business owners, executive assistants, minor professionals. They live a moderately comfortable lifestyle, but have a sense of insecurity and vulnerability to market forces

· The Working Class (30%)

o 30% of the population, skilled and semi-skilled workers, vulnerable to financial crisis

· The “underclass” (5%)

o Contested concept, lack marketable skills and are unemployable, fall below the low income cut off (LICO)

Factors Affecting Social Inequality in Canada

· Geographic location: Different provinces have different poverty rates

· Feminization of poverty: Recognizes the universal women’s wage discrimination

· Work status: Need a job to not be in poverty

· Age: People in late teens/early twenties most likely to be in poverty

· Visible minority status: Wage gap between whites and non-whites

· Education: School offers some protection against poverty

Measuring Inequality

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Kuznet’s Curve

· As societies developed, they became more unequal, inequality declined after Industrial revolution

· Inequality results from level of technology a society has to exploit environment

· As technology develops, wealth accumulates into fewer hands, more social inequality

Lorenz Curve and Gini Coefficient

· Compares Wages and workers, the curve represents inequality

· If there’s a straight 45 degree line, according to the Gini coefficient, there’s perfect wage equality

Chapter 8: Gender

Intersectionality

· Gender, class, and race function as mechanisms to produce social inequality, with racialized women being the most disadvantaged. Minority women must confront racism, ethnocentrism, classism, sexism

· An intersectional approach is key to understanding how all these factors work together to create privilege and cause disadvantage

Sex and Gender

· Sex: Biologically rooted and describes our physical bodies, male and female. It’s categorized based on binaries, where there are opposites.

· Gender: Socially constructed characteristics, girls/boys, men/women, there’s masculinity and femininity, which also has binary opposition

· Hegemonic Masculinity: Ideal of masculinity men are supposed to strive to achieve, heterosexual, requires success, capability, reliability

· Emphasized Femininity: Women’s compliance with subordination to men, requires women to be supportive, enthusiastic, sexually attractive

Reproducing Gender: Families

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· Gender expectations begin at birth, with parenting, gendered divisions of household labour, child-rearing practices, toys and play being gendered

Gender Socialization

· Gender role socialization: Process by which social institutions instill a society’s expectations for each sex

Gendered Bodies

· How we present our bodies, interpret bodies, and how we shape ours are socially accomplished, with plastic surgery normalized and television shows/networks directed at helping people achieve beauty ideals

Reproducing Gender: Education

· Hidden curriculum: Girls learn they’re not as important as boys, girls praised for neatness, while boys praised for intelligence

· In higher education: Women are entering male dominated majors, but are still more likely to major in arts, humanities, social sciences

Gender & Work

· For men, they need to work from graduation until death, jobs should be central focus, and fulfillment comes through work roles

· There’s now a dramatic increase in employed women, but there are still issues

· Occupations are segregated, women have lower-paying jobs, overrepresented in part-time or not job secure work, wage gap of 89 cents to a dollar a man earns

· There’s occupational segregation, undervaluing of work, privatization, lack of affordable childcare, women needing to leave and re-enter work due to family needs, discrimination in hiring, devaluing women’s work

· Earnings ratio: Dividing women’s earnings by men’s earnings to determine the difference, which is the pay/wage gap

· It seems that occupation determines wage rate, and that women have lower-paying occupations

· Wives in a dual-earning family have 15 more hours/week which leaves less time for children and family. The third shift is the struggle to cope with the emotional consequences of this

· Feminization of Poverty: The disproportionate amount of women in poverty compared to men

Sociological Approaches to Gender

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Functionalism

· Women and men perform separate, specialized and complimentary roles for cohesiveness. Each role is instrumental, expressive, and reduce confusion and conflict regarding gender expectations

Conflict Theory

· Looking at gender differences in access to/control of scarce resources. Also believed that the nuclear family, monogamous marriage, and control over women’s sexuality came from enforcing paternity

Symbolic Interactionism

· Interested in meaning of male/female and masculinity/femininity

· Institutions teach gender-related behaviours through operant conditioning

Feminist Theory

· Gender is a social construct, identifying ways that institutions and norms limit behaviour and opportunities for women

Post-Structuralist Theory

· Michel Foucault, masculinity, femininity, sex are socially constructed and discussion based

Judith Butler

· Gender can’t be thought of as having an essential basis, gender is a performance, there’s no authentic femininity and masculinity rooted in male and female bodies

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