Sociology Exam 2 Study Guide PDF

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General notes for SOCI exam #2....

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Sociology Exam 2 Study Guide Chapter 7: Stratification ➢ Social Stratification: When people are ranked in a hierarchy that differentiates them as superior or inferior, the structured inequality of entire categories of people, when inequalities become imbedded into society and passed on from generation to generation ➢ Wealth is the monetary value of everything one owns vs. Income is the amount of money brought into a household Standards of Inequality: ➢ Inequality: the unequal access to scarce goods or resources ➢ Ontological equality: notion that everyone is created equal in the eyes of God ➢ Equality of opportunity: inequalities are acceptable as long as everyone has the same opportunities ➢ Equality of condition: idea that everyone should have an equal starting point from which to pursue his or her goals ➢ Equality of outcome: everyone in a society should end up with the same rewards regardless of starting point, opportunities, or contributions (ex: Communism) Stratification Systems: ➢ Caste Systems: very rigid, closed systems of stratification based on ascribed characteristics such as skin color or family identity ➢ Estate Systems: Closed systems based largely on inheritance ➢ Class Systems: Open systems that permit meaningful social mobility ➢ Race and Ethnicity ➢ Gender Class ➢ The upper class controls 85% of the wealth in the U.S. ➢ Poverty: Condition of deprivation due to economic circumstances that is severe enough that the individual in this condition cannot live with dignity in his or her society ○ Absolute Poverty: Point at which a household’s income falls below the necessary level to purchase food ○ Relative Poverty: Measurement of poverty based on the percentage of median income in a given location ➢ Between 40-60% of parental income advantages passed onto children Chapter 8: Gender ➢ Gender: Denotes a social position - what people do with the physical materials of sex - a social construction and social institution ➢ Sex: Used to describe biological differences that distinguish males from females ➢ Gender role socialization: lifelong process of learning to be masculine or feminine through 4 main agents of socialization: families, schools, peers, and the media

➢ Essentialism: a line of thought that explains social phenomena in terms of natural ones, believe identifiably essence makes people male or female, believe essential male/female difference is a product of God’s creation ➢ Social Constructionism: See sex and gender as social constructions ➢ Hegemonic masculinity: the condition in which men are dominant and privileged, and the dominance and privilege is invisible ➢ Structural Functionalist Theory: Assumes that gender exists to fulfill necessary functions in society ➢ Interactionalist Theory, “Doing Gender:” emphasizes the everyday performance element of gender, gender is “accomplished” through daily activities, focuses on gender reinforcement through accountability: negative sanctions are applied to those who violate gender norms ➢ Parson’s Sex Role Theory: men and women perform their sex roles as breadwinners and wives/mothers because the nuclear family is an ideal arrangement in modern societies, reproducing workers: gender ensures a stable society ➢ Patriarchy: universal dominance of men over women ➢ Matriarchy: A system of society dominated by women ➢ Conflict theorists: believe gender was the driving force of history, root of all social relations stemmed from unequal gender relations, when women are subordinate and depend on men’s incomes men benefit ➢ Black feminism: argued that early liberal feminism for white middle class women, there is no single category of women or men ➢ Glass ceiling: an invisible limit on women’s climb up the occupational ladder ➢ Glass escalator: the accelerated promotion of men to the top of a work organization, especially in feminized jobs ➢ “Pink collar jobs:” low-paid secretarial or service industry jobs, feminized jobs: cleaning buildings, filing papers, and making coffee Chapter 9: Race ➢ Race: A group of people who share a set of characteristics and said to share a common bloodline, biological racial differences do not exist, race is a social construction ➢ Racism: Belief that members of separate races possess different and unequal traits coupled with power to restrict freedoms based on those differences ➢ New racism: focuses on cultural and national differences rather than racial ones ➢ Scientific Racism: 19th century theories of race that characterize a period of feverish investigation into the origins, explanations, and classifications of race ○ Francois Bernier’s geographic region races: Europe, Africa proper, Lapps ○ Friedrich Blumenbach: founder of anthropology, tried to classify world based on different types of bumps on people’s skulls: phrenology, decided Caucasians are superior because of excellent skulls ➢ Ontological equality: philosophical and religious notion that all people are created equal

➢ “One-drop rule:” “One drop” of black blood makes a person black ➢ Racialization: Formation of a new racial identity by drawing ideological boundaries of difference around a formerly unnoticed group of people ➢ Prejudice: negative thoughts and feelings about an ethnic or racial group ➢ Discrimination: Harmful/negative acts against ethnic or racial groups ➢ Changing concepts of race overtime: ○ Ancient Egypt: physical markers linked to geography ○ Ancient Chinese: ancient tale is goddess cooked humans and those who came out a perfect golden brown sent to China ○ Ancient Greece: idea of race didn’t exist, Hippocrates believed physical markers result from different environment, notion of race went against Aristotle’s principle of civic association: the test of man to be found in his civic actions ○ Modern racial thinking developed in mid-17th century from Protestant Reformation, Age of Exploration, capitalism ➢ Functionalist theory: Dysfunctions: inequalities reduce consensus, increase conflict, destabilize societies and needs of stability will eliminate ethnic stratification; Functions: promotes group formation and cohesion, conflict acts as safety valve, conflict is necessary for democracy ➢ Interactionist theory: ethnic group is a social construction and not a genetic one, ethnocentrism arises from communication channel restrictions and local differences in meaning systems ➢ Conflict theorists: dominant group protects its privileges and resources by creating a “lesser” group, ethnocentrism: outgroup is object of loathing, competition: success requires outgroup to lose, unequal power determines which group can institutionalize the racism...