Ch 11: Class and inequality

Identify the daily individual income that the United Nations defines as living in poverty.

$2.00

Though U.S. income and wealth have not been increasing, the population continues to consume as if they are due to the availability of credit cards, student loans, and mortgages. Compare the debt size of these borrowing devices by matching the type of debt to current total amount of that type of debt measured in the United States.

$762 billion-credit card debt $13.8 trillion-mortgage debt $1.3 trillion-student loan debt

Identify the factors that are central to the intersectionality framework.

(Leith Mullings developed intersectionality theory, which looks beneath the surface appearance of culture to see its deeper structure. To put intersectionality to work, Mullings says, when you view a social situation, ask, "What are the axes of stratification that affect the opportunities of the people involved?") race social class gender NOT: age

While the Indian caste system has been in existence for 2,000 years, Portuguese and British colonial influence dramatically restructured the system in the fifteenth century. Identify the actions of colonial governments that affected the caste system in India.

ACTION: Colonial governments replicated class systems established in England. Colonial governments created laws that removed certain groups from their ancestral lands. NOT AN ACTION: Colonial governments made the caste system more flexible. Colonial governments employed and mixed different caste classes together.

Karl Marx's analysis of the nineteenth-century economy identified two types of people: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Identify the characteristics of each group.

Bourgeoisie: working class own their labor Proletariat: capitalist class own means of production

The complex caste system in India dates back 2,000 years and reflects Hindu religious texts, rituals, and beliefs. Place the historical ranking of castes, or varnas, in India in order from highest ranking to lowest.

Brahmins: scholars and spiritual leaders ksyatriyas: soldiers and rulers vaisyas: agricultural workers and merchants shudras: laborers and artisans

Even though the United States is one of the richest countries in the world, poverty is significant and persistent. Identify the characteristics of poverty in the United States.

Over 46 million people live in poverty in the United States. The largest group of the nation's poor are white. NOT: The U.S. government's definition of poverty for a family of four is an income at or under $30,000 a year. (The U.S. government defines poverty for a family of four as living off an income of $24,300 a year, which comes to around $506 per person per month. The poverty line for single adults is $11,880. Most scholars calculate the poverty line as 50 percent higher than this unrealistic calculation that is based on calculation techniques devised in the very different economy of 1964.) Hispanics have proportionally the highest percentage of people living in poverty in the United States

The United States generates the most waste of any country worldwide, yet most Americans do not know what happens to their trash after they throw it away. In order to understand the social life of waste, anthropologist Josh Reno worked for nine months in a landfill outside of Detroit, Michigan. Identify the true statements about waste removal in the United States.

Waste disposal availability occurs along class lines. Waste disposal processes are more detrimental to low-income, rural, and minority communities. INCORRECT: Landfills concentrate waste in one place, reducing the effects on the environment. Waste workers are recognized in society as essential care workers.

Anthropologist Karen Ho went to work at a Wall Street investment bank to learn about the inner workings of the industry. She analyzes her experience in Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street (2008). Identify what she observed as an emerging feature of corporate culture in the twenty-first century.

a disconnect about what is best for the corporation and what is best for employees

Place the events that led to the extreme stratification of today's industrial capitalist societies in chronological order.

agriculture was developed, elite merchants and landowners accumulated wealth, industrialized capitalist economies developed, globalization accelerated inequality worldwide

Archaeological evidence has shown that evolutionary success relied upon a few key factors. Identify these factors.

cooperation sharing of food and responsibilities NOT: hierarchy violence and aggression

Identify the main reason that anthropologists Judith Goode and Jeff Maskovsky argue is at the root of contemporary poverty in the United States.

globalization

Wealth is the total value of what a person owns, minus any debt they have. In the United States, the wealth gap has reached new heights and is still increasing. Identify the causes for the widening wealth gap in the United States.

increase in debt collapse of the housing market shifts in the U.S. tax code NOT: increasing wages

Match the social theorists to their theories about why inequality occurs

intersectionality of race, class, and gender-Leith Mullings prestige and life chances-Max Weber bourgeoisie and proletariat-Karl Marx habitus and social reproduction-Pierre Bourdieu

What does anthropologist Oscar Lewis's research suggest about why children growing up in highly stratified societies were particularly likely to develop feelings of marginality?

it suggests that poor people's lifestyles and ways of thinking perpetuate poverty into the next generation

In the 1990s, anthropologist Leith Mullings conducted the Harlem Birth Right Project study on how race, class, and gender intersected to affect women's health and infant mortality in Harlem, New York City. Identify the factors that contributed to the decline of women's health and the elevation of infant mortality in this community.

location of six bus depots and a sewage treatment plant in Harlem decrease in jobs in the middle-wage sector low-quality housing DID NOT CONTRIBUTE: expansion of local government

Identify the following societies as examples of egalitarian societies, ranked societies, or neither

ranked- Kwakiutl egalitarian-Hutterites, Amish neither-United States

In his research of the French education system, Pierre Bourdieu noted a phenomenon he identified as_____, whereby social and class relations of prestige are passed from one generation to the next. Key to this phenomenon is____,which is the knowledge, habits, and tastes learned from family that individuals can use to gain access to valuable resources in society.

social reproduction; cultural capital

In Worked to the Bone: Race, Class, Power, and Privilege in Kentucky (2001), anthropologist Pem Davidson Buck analyzes the experiences of poor whites in Kentucky. She describes a phenomenon she calls "sweat that trickles up" where the surplus value of these workers' labor benefits the elite. Identify the social factors shaping the experiences of poor whites in Kentucky.

the arrival of immigrant groups like Jews, Catholics, and the Irish the construction of race through slavery, sharecropping, and Jim Crow legislation NOT: the increase in welfare dependency in poor whites the lack of motivation and poor work ethic of poor whites

Max Weber argued that class stratification doesn't just happen. Identify the most important way that the state influences class stratification

the state perpetuates class stratification through its exercise of power (Weber asserts that elite control of the means of production would not be possible without the backing of the state through police force, tax collectors, and even the military.)

Clean water is a basic necessity, yet obtaining clean water is a daily struggle for millions of people worldwide. Identify why the poor of Mumbai, India, have difficulty getting access to water.

they do not have permanent residence

While the caste system in India is changing, the system still retains old inequalities in many ways. Identify the areas where caste system attitudes have changed and the areas where they have stayed the same.

Changed: legal system public settings Same: rural areas private settings

Gated communities are neighborhoods surrounded by walls, gates, and security guards and require entry codes and key cards for access. Approximately 10 percent of U.S. homes are located within gated communities. Identify the effects that anthropologist Setha Low notes these gated communities have.

Gated communities limit cross-class interaction and cooperation. Gated communities replace suburbs for those who can afford them. NOT: Gated communities increase social connectedness. Gated communities calm people's fears.

Anthropologists have found that inequality is an inherent and natural part of human groups. Social inequality is a cultural universal.

False (Inequality has only existed for a relatively short amount of time in the course of human history. Extreme inequality is an even more recent development.)

In Cochabamba, Bolivia, thousands of vendors gather at the Cancha market to sell their wares, struggling to get by on the meager income their sales produce. Identify the characteristics of the different types of vendors in the Cancha market.

Fijos: have the opportunity for upward mobility sell from legal stalls in the market's pavilion Ambulantes: sell illegally from the streets harassed by the police

Identify which phrases apply to income and which apply to wealth.

Income: the median of which is $53,000 what people earn from work, plus dividends and interest on investments, along with rents and royalties Wealth: distributed more unevenly the total value of what someone owns, minus any debt

Identify the context in which the following social theorists developed their theories.

Industrial Revolution: Karl Marx (The Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century led to the growth of capitalism. Marx identified two classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, as players in the economic system.) Max Weber (Weber analyzed the capitalist system developing during the Industrial Revolution and identified various ways that power and prestige had tremendous influence in society. For example, certain people could use their reputation or social standing to influence others in a certain way.) Advanced Capitalism: Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu studied the French educational system in the late twentieth century, publishing mainly in the 1970s to early 2000s. Influenced by Marx, Bourdieu developed the idea of social reproduction, how social class is reproduced across generations.) Leith Mullings (Mullings worked to analyze class, gender, and race in the economic system of the twentieth century. Her approach is intersectional, assessing how race, gender, and class interact to shape individual life chances)

Identify the components of the U.S. cultural narrative that affect how many Americans view class and inequality

The United States is a classless society. (The U.S. cultural narrative suggests that everyone is from roughly the same class.) The United States is a meritocracy, meaning that life circumstances can be improved through hard work. (The "rags to riches" tale of a person rising themselves up out of poverty through hard work is largely a fairytale and does not represent the experiences of the majority of people living in poverty.) NOT: People live in poverty due to various circumstances out of their control. (Anthropologists recognize that poverty is a structural problem, due to economic, political, and social circumstances. However, the U.S. cultural narrative suggests that people are poor because there is something wrong with them, their community, or their family.) People's life chances are heavily influenced by the class of one's origin family. (The U.S. cultural narrative emphasizes that everyone has equal chances to get ahead, no matter what the circumstances they grew up in.)

While poverty is an issue affecting a large amount of the U.S. population, many people are not aware of the extent and severity of class stratification. Identify the reasons why class stratification and poverty are largely invisible in the United States.

The consumer culture in the United States masks people's real economic circumstances. The media showcases a narrative of a meritocracy and egalitarian society. DOES NOT: There exists a voluntary isolation of the poor in separate communities. Higher education institutions do not address these issues.

Occupational prestige is viewed differently in different countries. Compare the following careers and their perceived prestige in the United States and China by placing each career to the correct places on each side of the table

US doctor, lawyer, judge CHINA judge, lawyer, doctor

Stratification and inequality became more pronounced in industrialized capitalist societies in recent centuries, and this uneven development is accelerating under the forces of globalization. Identify the country with the most extreme inequality.

United States