Sociology Chapters 9, 10, 12

authoritarian personality

Theodor Adorno's term for people who are prejudiced and rank high on scales of conformity, intolerance, insecurity, respect for authority, and submissiveness to superiors Ex.Ambiguity disturbs them, especially in matters of religion or sex. They become anxious when they confront norms and values that are different from their own. To view people who differ from themselves as inferior assures them that their own positions are right.

W.A.S.P

White Anglo Saxon Protestant Ex.At the founding of the United States, White Anglo Saxon Protestants (WASPs) held deep prejudices against other whites. There was practically no end to their disdainful stereotypes of white ethnics—immigrants from Europe whose language and other customs differed from theirs.

feminization of poverty

a condition of U.S. poverty in which most poor families are headed by women

nuclear family

a family consisting of a husband, wife, and child(ren)

family

a family consists of two or more people who consider themselves related by blood, marriage or adoption

extended family

a family in which relatives, such as the "older generation" or unmarried aunts and uncles, live with the partents and their children

blended family

a family whose members were once part of other families Ex.

polygyny

a form of marriage in which men have more than one wife Ex.

polyandry

a form of marriage in which women have more than one husband

race

a group whose inherited physical characteristics distinguish it from other groups Ex.(add something)

marriage

a group's approved mating arrangements, usually marked by a ritual of some sort Ex.

serial fatherhood

pattern of parenting in which a father, after divorce, reduces contact with his own children, serves as a father to the children of the woman he marries or lives with, then ignores them after moving in with or marrying another woman; this pattern repeats.

minority group

people who are singled out for unequal treatment and who regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination Ex.Surprisingly, a minority group is not necessarily a numerical minority. For example, before India's independence in 1947, a handful of British colonial rulers dominated tens of millions of Indians. Similarly, when South Africa practiced apartheid, a smaller group of Afrikaners, primarily Dutch, discriminated against a much larger number of blacks. And all over the world, as we discussed in the previous chapter, females are a minority group. Because of this, sociologists refer to those who do the discriminating not as the majority but, rather, as the dominant group. Regardless of its numbers, the dominant group has the greater power and privilege.

population transfer

the forced transfer of a minority group Ex.Indirect transfer is achieved by making life so miserable for members of a minority that they leave "voluntarily." Under the bitter conditions of czarist Russia, for example, millions of Jews made this "choice." Direct transfer occurs when a dominant group expels a minority. Examples include the U.S. government relocating Native Americans to reservations and transferring Americans of Japanese descent to internment camps during World War II.

cohabitation

unmarried couples living together in a sexual relationship

baby boomers

a person born in the years following World War II, when there was a temporary marked increase in the birth rate.

propinquity

spatial nearness.

sexual harassment

the abuse of one's position of authority to force unwanted sexual demands on someone Ex.

genocide

the annihilation or attempted annihilation of a people because of their presumed race or ethnicity Ex.Put into practice, Hitler's views left an appalling legacy—the Nazi slaughter of those they deemed inferior: Jews, Slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, and people with mental and physical disabilities. Horrific images of gas ovens and emaciated bodies stacked like cordwood have haunted the world's nations. At Nuremberg, the Allies, flush with victory, put the top Nazis on trial, exposing their heinous deeds to a shocked world. Their public executions, everyone assumed, marked the end of such grisly acts.

family of procreation

the family formed when a couple's first child is born

family of orientation

the family in which a person grows up Ex.

second shift

Arlie Hochschild explains that the household responsibilities that a wife and mother takes care of, aside from working her paid job, add up to at least 40 hours each week

multiculturalism (or pluralism)

a policy that permits or encourages ethnic differences Ex.The minority groups are able to maintain their separate identities, yet participate freely in the country's social institutions, from education to politics. Switzerland provides an outstanding example of multiculturalism. The Swiss population includes four ethnic groups: French, Italians, Germans, and Romansh. These groups have kept their own languages, and they live peacefully in political and economic unity. Multiculturalism has been so successful that none of these groups can properly be called a minority.

ethnic work

activities designed to discover, enhance, maintain, or transmit an ethnic or racial identity Ex.For people whose ethnic identity is not as firm, it refers to attempts to recover their ethnic heritage, such as trying to trace family lines or visiting the country or region of their family's origin.

discrimination

an act of unfair treatment directed against an individual or a group Ex.discrimination can be based on many characteristics: age, sex, height, weight, skin color, clothing, speech, income, education, marital status, sexual orientation, disease, disability, religion, and politics. When the basis of discrimination is someone's perception of race, it is known as racism. Discrimination is often the result of an attitude called prejudice—a prejudging of some sort, usually in a negative way. There is also positive prejudice, which exaggerates the virtues of a group, as when people think that some group is superior to others. Most prejudice, however, is negative and involves prejudging a group as inferior.

prejudice

an attitude or prejudging, usually in a negative way Ex.Prejudice and discrimination are common throughout the world. In Mexico, Mexicans of Hispanic descent discriminate against Mexicans of Native American descent; in Israel, Ashkenazi Jews, primarily of European descent, discriminate against Sephardic Jews from the Middle East; in China, the Han and the Uighurs discriminate against each other. In some places, the elderly discriminate against the young; in others, the young discriminate against the elderly. And all around the world, men discriminate against women.

scapegoat

an individual or group unfairly blamed for someone else's troubles Ex.People often unfairly blame their troubles on a scapegoat often a racial-ethnic or religious minority.This person or group becomes a target on which they vent their frustrations. Gender and age are also common targets of scapegoating.

sex

biological characteristics that distinguish females and males, consisting of primary and secondary sex characteristics

glass escalator

describes the differences in upward advancement between men and women in the workplace, particularly those workplaces that are female-dominated. Some possible solutions to level the gender playing field include promotion based on evaluation, assessment of performance, seniority systems and so on.

ethnicity

having distinctive cultural characteristics Ex.ethnicity and ethnic refer to people who identify with one another on the basis of common ancestry and cultural heritage. Their sense of belonging may center on their nation or region of origin, distinctive foods, clothing, language, music, religion, or family names and relationships.

romantic love

love—mutual sexual attraction and idealized feelings about one another.

gender stratification

males' and females' unequal access to property, power, and prestige Ex.

patriarchy

men-as-a-group dominating women-as-a-group; authority is vested in males Ex.

institutional discrimination

negative treatment of a minority group that is built into a society's institutions; also called systemic discrimination Ex.Bank lending provides an excellent illustration of institutional discrimination (Ropiequet et al. 2012). Earlier studies using national samples showed that bankers were more likely to reject the loan applications of minorities. When bankers defended themselves by saying that whites had better credit history, researchers retested their data. They found that even when applicants had identical credit, African Americans and Latinos were 60 percent more likely to be rejected

ageism

prejudice and discrimination directed against people because of their age; can be directed against any age group, including youth Ex.A basic principle of symbolic interactionism is that we perceive both ourselves and others according to the symbols of our culture. When the meaning of old age changed from an asset to a liability, not only did younger people come to view the elderly differently but the elderly also began to perceive themselves in a new light. This shift in meaning is demonstrated in the way people lie about their age: They used to say that they were older than they were but now claim to be younger than their true ages (Clair et al. 1993).

racism

prejudice and discrimination on the basis of race Ex.Kathleen Blee (2005, 2011), who interviewed female members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Aryan Nations in the United States, found something similar. They were attracted to the hate group because someone they liked belonged to it. They learned to be racists after they joined the group. Both Blee and Kimmel found that the members' racism was not the cause of their joining but, rather, joining was the cause of their racism.

dominant group

the group with the most power, greatest privileges, and highest social status Ex.Possessing political power and unified by shared physical and cultural traits, the dominant group uses its position to discriminate against those with different—and supposedly inferior traits. The dominant group considers its privileged position to be the result of its own innate superiority.

graying of America

the growing percentage of older people in the U.S. population Ex.

life span

the maximum length of life of a species; for humans, the longest that a human has lived

glass ceiling

the mostly invisible barrier that keeps women from advancing to the top levels at work Ex.

life expectancy

the number of years that an average person at any age, including newborns, can expect to live Ex.

feminism

the philosophy that men and women should be politically, economically, and socially equal; organized activities on behalf of this principle Ex.

internal colonialism

the policy of exploiting minority groups for economic gain Ex.The dominant group manipulates the social institutions to suppress minorities and deny them full access to their society's benefits. Slavery is an extreme example of internal colonialism, as was the South African system of apartheid. Although the dominant Afrikaners despised the minority, they found its presence necessary. As Simpson and Yinger (1972) put it, who else would do the hard work?

segregation

the policy of keeping racial-ethnic groups apart Ex.Segregation allows the dominant group to maintain social distance from the minority and yet to exploit their labor as cooks, cleaners, chauffeurs, nannies, farm workers, and so on. Even today, in some villages of India, an ethnic group, the Dalits (untouchables), is for bidden to use the village pump. Dalit women must walk long distances to streams or pumps outside of the village to fetch their water

exogamy

the practice of marrying outside of one's group Ex.

endogamy

the practice of marrying within one's own group Ex

assimilation

the process of being absorbed into the mainstream culture Ex.In forced assimilation, the dominant group refuses to allow the minority to practice its religion, to speak its language, or to follow its customs. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, for example, the dominant group, the Russians, required that Armenian children attend schools where they were taught in Russian. Armenians could celebrate only Russian holidays, not Armenian ones. Permissible assimilation, in contrast, allows the minority to adopt the dominant group's patterns in its own way and at its own speed.

incest taboo

the rule that prohibits sex and marriage among designated relatives Ex.

homogamy

the tendency of people with similar characteristics to marry one another

white ethnics

white immigrants to the United States whose cultures differ from WASP culture Ex.ethnics—immigrants from Europe whose language and other customs differed from theirs. The English despised the Irish, viewing them as dirty, lazy drunkards, but they also painted Poles, Jews, Italians, and others with similar disparaging brushstrokes. From the quotation by Benjamin Franklin, you can see that they didn't like Germans either. The political and cultural dominance of the WASPs placed intense pressure on immigrants to assimilate into the mainstream culture. The children of most immigrants embraced the new way of life and quickly came to think of themselves as Americans rather than as Germans, French, Hungarians, and so on. They dropped their distinctive customs, especially their languages, often viewing them as symbols of shame.

melting pot

with most of its groups blending into a sort of ethnic stew. Because so many Americans have become fascinated with their "roots," some analysts have suggested that "tossed salad" is a more appropriate term than "melting pot."