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Sociology Notes

Chapter 9 Social Stratification

  • A system by which society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy.

  • Four fundamental principles of stratification:

    • Social stratification is a characteristic of society.

    • Social stratification persists over generations.

Social Mobility

  • Most societies allow some sort of social mobility or changes in people’s positions in a system of social stratification.

  • Social mobility may be upwards, downward, or horizontal.

  • Intragenerational Social Mobility:

    • A change in social position occurring during a person’s lifetime.

  • Intergenerational Social Mobility:

    • Upward or Downward social mobility of children relative to their parents.

  • Structural Social Mobility:

    • A shift in the social position of large numbers of people due more to changes in society than to individual efforts.

Two Types of Systems of Stratification

  • Closed system:

    • Allow little change in social position.

  • Open system:

    • Permit much more social mobility.

    • Schooling and skills lead to social mobility.

    • Work is no longer fixed at birth but involves some personal choices

Meritocracy

  • Social stratification based on personal merit.

Status Consistency Inconsistency

  • The degree of consistency in a person’s social standing across various dimensions of social inequality.

Caste System

  • Social stratification based on ascription or birth.

  • Little or no social mobility.

  • Caste guides everyday life by keeping people in the company of their “own kind.”

  • Typically agrarian because agriculture demands a lifelong routine of work.

Ideology

  • Cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements, including patterns of inequality.

  • Every culture considers some type of inequality fair.

  • Ideology changes with a society’s economy.

  • Historically, challenges to the status quo always arise.

Fundamental Principles of Stratification

  1. Social stratification is a characteristics of society.

  2. Social stratification persists over generations.

  3. Social stratification is universal but variable.

  4. Social stratification involves both inequality and beliefs.

Patterned Inequality

  • Saying that inequality is patterned indicates that the differences occur:

    1. On a wide-scale basis

    2. With regularity

    3. And along lines of certain specific identifiable characteristics

Three Premises

  • Power:

    • The ability to impose one’s will on others

  • Property:

    • Forms of wealth

  • Prestige:

    • The respect given by others

  • Life chances

    • Opportunities that individuals do or do not have to engage in certain activities

    • Opportunities that they do or do not have to accomplish certain goals

Explanations for Stratification

  • Capitalists/Bourgeoisie:

    • People who own and operate factories and other business in pursuit of profit

  • Proletariat:

    • Working people who sell their labor for wages

Class Status and Power

  • Class:

    • Determined mainly by economic standings or wealth

  • Party:

    • Which was equivalent to political power

  • Status:

    • Social prestige and honor

Socio-Economic Status (SES)

  • A composite ranking based on various dimensions of social inequality

    1. Education

    2. Wealth

      • Assets

      • Income

    3. Occupational Prestige

Explanations for Stratification

  • Micro-level analysis (symbolic interactionism)

    • Social standing affects everyday interactions

    • People with different social standing keep their distance from one another

  • Conspicuous consumption

    • Buying and using products with an eye to the “statement” they make about social position.

Poverty

  • Relative poverty:

    • The deprivation of some people in relation who have more

  • Absolute poverty:

    • A life-threatening deprivation of resources

  • Poverty Line:

    • Government determination of what poverty is

Explaining Poverty

  • Blame the poor:

    • The poor are responsible for their own poverty

  • Culture of poverty:

    • A lower class subculture that can destroy people’s ambition to improve their lives

  • Blame society:

    • Society is primarily responsible for poverty

    • Primary cause is loss of jobs in inner cities

    • Government should fund jobs and provide affordable child care for low-income mothers and father

  • The truly disadvantaged

    • A group of people who live predominantly in the inner city and who are trapped in a cycle of joblessness, deviance, crime, welfare, dependency, and unstable family life.

Chapter 11 The Social Significance of Race

  • Race:

    • A category composed of men and women who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society deem socially significant

    • Race is a significant concept only because most people consider it to be

    • Europeans began to use them the term “race” to refer to the categories of people they encountered in 1500s

  • People who have common cultural characteristics and an ethnic identity (common ancestors, language, religion, etc.)

  • Race can be analyzed as ethnic categories in many cases

  • They share a common culture and a common identity

  • Were racist because we made this society racist

  • A scientific standpoint, physical variation is real, but racial categories do not deserve human variation.

  • No biologically Because of migration, there is there is physical diversity everywhere

  • Physical Whites has dropped because they are having less kids

Race and Ethnicity

  • Ethnicity:

    • A shared culture heritage

  • Nationality:

    • the status of belonging to a particular nation

  • An ethnic group forming a part of one or more political nations

Power and Race

  • Dominant Group:

    • Those who control the central institutional spheres, including power to define standards of beauty and social worth.

    • The most powerful group in the united states

    • Dominant group does not have to be a numerical majority, but mainly deals with actual powers and perception power in society.

    • In the U.S. White Anglo-Saxon Protests (WASPs) are the dominant group, but they comprise only a function of the population.

  • Power Structure

  • Minority:

    • A group that has less power than the dominant group, and therefore is usually poorer than the majority, has less prestige, and suffers from discrimination.

    • The sociological meaning minority does not refer to the numerical size of a group.

  • Minority Group Status

    • Involves four major elements

      1. Visible ascribed trait by which a person can be clearly recognize

      2. Differential (unequal) treatment on the basis of this trait

      3. Organization of one’s own self- image around this identity

      4. Awareness of a shared identity with similar other

  • White Privileges:

    • Implicit or systemic advantages that people who are deemed white have relative to people who are not deemed white

    • Not having to experience suspicion and other adverse reactions to one’s race is also often termed a type if white privilege.

  • Peggy McIntosh “The Invisible Knapsack”

Prejudice

  • Prejudice and attitude, which predisposes an individual to prejudge entire categories of people unfairly.

  • This attitude is rigid, emotionally loaded, and resistant to change

  • Stereotypes:

    • a rigid and inaccurate image that summarizes a belief.

    • Because stereotypes reflects beliefs rather than facts, they are illogical and self-serving

  • Racism:

    • the belief that race determines human ability and as a result, certain races deserve to be treated as inferior while other races deserve to be treated as superior.

    • Racism refers to the belief that one racial category is innately superior or inferior to another

  • Discrimination

    • Discrimination is a behavior, or and the unfair and harmful treatment of people based on their group membership

    • It is an action that involves treating various categories of people unequally

    • Focuses on the practice of treating people unequally

Theories of Prejudice

  • Scapegoat theory

    • argues that prejudice results from frustrations among the disadvantaged

    • A scapegoat is a person or category of people, typically with little power whom people unfairly blame of their own troubles

  • Authoritarian personality

    • theory views prejudice as a personality-level trait

  • Cultural theory of prejudice

    • notes that prejudice may Be embedded in popular cultural values

    • Symbolic Racism: The belief in equal rights couples with the belief that certain racial and ethnic groups have achieved an unfair advantage over whites

  • Conflict theory:

    • views prejudice as a product of social struggles

Patterns of Interactions

  1. Assimilation

    • Anglo-conformity

    • Melting pot assimilation

  2. Pluralism

  3. Segregation

    • Hyper-segregation

    • De facto vs de jure

  4. Internal colonialism

  5. Expulsion (population movement)

  6. Annihilation (Genocide)

Chapter 12 Sex and Gender

  • Sex:

    • the biological distinction between females and males

  • Intersexed:

    • Individuals with anatomical categories that are not easily identifiable with either sex

  • Gender:

    • the significance a society attaches to biological categories of females and males

  • Gender identity:

    • Traits that females and males, guided by their culture, incorporate into their perspective personalities

  • Gender socialization

    • Gender socialization begins virtually at the moment of birth and as consequences of early experiences

  • Gender roles

    • are attitudes and activities that a culture links to each sex

  • By the tenth month of life children are already identifying themselves as masculine or feminine and not too long after that, their gender identity is firmly fixed

  • In No sex is inherently inferior or superior to the other - society defines these attitudes.

  • Every society goes beyond biology to establish to more complex social concept of gender: the cultural and attitudinal, which are associated with being male and female

  • In many small-scale hunting and gathering societies men and women play complementary roles and their lives revolve around many shared activities

  • In industrial societies the male roles comes to be defined by:

    • success on the job

    • independence

    • aggressiveness

  • The female role comes to be defined by:

    • child-nurturing activities

    • subjectivity

    • dependence on men

  • Gender market

    • American society is filled with gender markers: Symbols and signs that identify a person’s gender

    • As people mature, gender markers become more prominent, and much of gender socialization involves learning, which are appropriate for women


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Sociology Notes

Chapter 9 Social Stratification

  • A system by which society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy.
  • Four fundamental principles of stratification:
    • Social stratification is a characteristic of society.
    • Social stratification persists over generations.

Social Mobility

  • Most societies allow some sort of social mobility or changes in people’s positions in a system of social stratification.
  • Social mobility may be upwards, downward, or horizontal.
  • Intragenerational Social Mobility:
    • A change in social position occurring during a person’s lifetime.
  • Intergenerational Social Mobility:
    • Upward or Downward social mobility of children relative to their parents.
  • Structural Social Mobility:
    • A shift in the social position of large numbers of people due more to changes in society than to individual efforts.

Two Types of Systems of Stratification

  • Closed system:
    • Allow little change in social position.
  • Open system:
    • Permit much more social mobility.
    • Schooling and skills lead to social mobility.
    • Work is no longer fixed at birth but involves some personal choices

Meritocracy

  • Social stratification based on personal merit.

Status Consistency Inconsistency

  • The degree of consistency in a person’s social standing across various dimensions of social inequality.

Caste System

  • Social stratification based on ascription or birth.
  • Little or no social mobility.
  • Caste guides everyday life by keeping people in the company of their “own kind.”
  • Typically agrarian because agriculture demands a lifelong routine of work.

Ideology

  • Cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements, including patterns of inequality.
  • Every culture considers some type of inequality fair.
  • Ideology changes with a society’s economy.
  • Historically, challenges to the status quo always arise.

Fundamental Principles of Stratification

  1. Social stratification is a characteristics of society.
  2. Social stratification persists over generations.
  3. Social stratification is universal but variable.
  4. Social stratification involves both inequality and beliefs.

Patterned Inequality

  • Saying that inequality is patterned indicates that the differences occur:
    1. On a wide-scale basis
    2. With regularity
    3. And along lines of certain specific identifiable characteristics

Three Premises

  • Power:
    • The ability to impose one’s will on others
  • Property:
    • Forms of wealth
  • Prestige:
    • The respect given by others
  • Life chances
    • Opportunities that individuals do or do not have to engage in certain activities
    • Opportunities that they do or do not have to accomplish certain goals

Explanations for Stratification

  • Capitalists/Bourgeoisie:
    • People who own and operate factories and other business in pursuit of profit
  • Proletariat:
    • Working people who sell their labor for wages

Class Status and Power

  • Class:
    • Determined mainly by economic standings or wealth
  • Party:
    • Which was equivalent to political power
  • Status:
    • Social prestige and honor

Socio-Economic Status (SES)

  • A composite ranking based on various dimensions of social inequality
    1. Education
    2. Wealth
      • Assets
      • Income
    3. Occupational Prestige

Explanations for Stratification

  • Micro-level analysis (symbolic interactionism)
    • Social standing affects everyday interactions
    • People with different social standing keep their distance from one another
  • Conspicuous consumption
    • Buying and using products with an eye to the “statement” they make about social position.

Poverty

  • Relative poverty:
    • The deprivation of some people in relation who have more
  • Absolute poverty:
    • A life-threatening deprivation of resources
  • Poverty Line:
    • Government determination of what poverty is

Explaining Poverty

  • Blame the poor:
    • The poor are responsible for their own poverty
  • Culture of poverty:
    • A lower class subculture that can destroy people’s ambition to improve their lives
  • Blame society:
    • Society is primarily responsible for poverty
    • Primary cause is loss of jobs in inner cities
    • Government should fund jobs and provide affordable child care for low-income mothers and father
  • The truly disadvantaged
    • A group of people who live predominantly in the inner city and who are trapped in a cycle of joblessness, deviance, crime, welfare, dependency, and unstable family life.

Chapter 11 The Social Significance of Race

  • Race:
    • A category composed of men and women who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society deem socially significant
    • Race is a significant concept only because most people consider it to be
    • Europeans began to use them the term “race” to refer to the categories of people they encountered in 1500s
  • People who have common cultural characteristics and an ethnic identity (common ancestors, language, religion, etc.)
  • Race can be analyzed as ethnic categories in many cases
  • They share a common culture and a common identity
  • Were racist because we made this society racist
  • A scientific standpoint, physical variation is real, but racial categories do not deserve human variation.
  • No biologically Because of migration, there is there is physical diversity everywhere
  • Physical Whites has dropped because they are having less kids

Race and Ethnicity

  • Ethnicity:
    • A shared culture heritage
  • Nationality:
    • the status of belonging to a particular nation
  • An ethnic group forming a part of one or more political nations

Power and Race

  • Dominant Group:
    • Those who control the central institutional spheres, including power to define standards of beauty and social worth.
    • The most powerful group in the united states
    • Dominant group does not have to be a numerical majority, but mainly deals with actual powers and perception power in society.
    • In the U.S. White Anglo-Saxon Protests (WASPs) are the dominant group, but they comprise only a function of the population.
  • Power Structure
  • Minority:
    • A group that has less power than the dominant group, and therefore is usually poorer than the majority, has less prestige, and suffers from discrimination.
    • The sociological meaning minority does not refer to the numerical size of a group.
  • Minority Group Status
    • Involves four major elements
      1. Visible ascribed trait by which a person can be clearly recognize
      2. Differential (unequal) treatment on the basis of this trait
      3. Organization of one’s own self- image around this identity
      4. Awareness of a shared identity with similar other
  • White Privileges:
    • Implicit or systemic advantages that people who are deemed white have relative to people who are not deemed white
    • Not having to experience suspicion and other adverse reactions to one’s race is also often termed a type if white privilege.
  • Peggy McIntosh “The Invisible Knapsack”

Prejudice

  • Prejudice and attitude, which predisposes an individual to prejudge entire categories of people unfairly.
  • This attitude is rigid, emotionally loaded, and resistant to change
  • Stereotypes:
    • a rigid and inaccurate image that summarizes a belief.
    • Because stereotypes reflects beliefs rather than facts, they are illogical and self-serving
  • Racism:
    • the belief that race determines human ability and as a result, certain races deserve to be treated as inferior while other races deserve to be treated as superior.
    • Racism refers to the belief that one racial category is innately superior or inferior to another
  • Discrimination
    • Discrimination is a behavior, or and the unfair and harmful treatment of people based on their group membership
    • It is an action that involves treating various categories of people unequally
    • Focuses on the practice of treating people unequally

Theories of Prejudice

  • Scapegoat theory
    • argues that prejudice results from frustrations among the disadvantaged
    • A scapegoat is a person or category of people, typically with little power whom people unfairly blame of their own troubles
  • Authoritarian personality
    • theory views prejudice as a personality-level trait
  • Cultural theory of prejudice
    • notes that prejudice may Be embedded in popular cultural values
    • Symbolic Racism: The belief in equal rights couples with the belief that certain racial and ethnic groups have achieved an unfair advantage over whites
  • Conflict theory:
    • views prejudice as a product of social struggles

Patterns of Interactions

  1. Assimilation
    • Anglo-conformity
    • Melting pot assimilation
  2. Pluralism
  3. Segregation
    • Hyper-segregation
    • De facto vs de jure
  4. Internal colonialism
  5. Expulsion (population movement)
  6. Annihilation (Genocide)

Chapter 12 Sex and Gender

  • Sex:
    • the biological distinction between females and males
  • Intersexed:
    • Individuals with anatomical categories that are not easily identifiable with either sex
  • Gender:
    • the significance a society attaches to biological categories of females and males
  • Gender identity:
    • Traits that females and males, guided by their culture, incorporate into their perspective personalities
  • Gender socialization
    • Gender socialization begins virtually at the moment of birth and as consequences of early experiences
  • Gender roles
    • are attitudes and activities that a culture links to each sex
  • By the tenth month of life children are already identifying themselves as masculine or feminine and not too long after that, their gender identity is firmly fixed
  • In No sex is inherently inferior or superior to the other - society defines these attitudes.
  • Every society goes beyond biology to establish to more complex social concept of gender: the cultural and attitudinal, which are associated with being male and female
  • In many small-scale hunting and gathering societies men and women play complementary roles and their lives revolve around many shared activities
  • In industrial societies the male roles comes to be defined by:
    • success on the job
    • independence
    • aggressiveness
  • The female role comes to be defined by:
    • child-nurturing activities
    • subjectivity
    • dependence on men
  • Gender market
    • American society is filled with gender markers: Symbols and signs that identify a person’s gender
    • As people mature, gender markers become more prominent, and much of gender socialization involves learning, which are appropriate for women