Final Exam Study Guide

Pluaralism

A pattern of intergroup relations that encourage racial and ethnic variation within a society. "Trade melting pot for salad bowl."

Power Elite

A small number of people who control the economic, political, and military institutions of a society. (C. Wright Mills)

Pluralism

A wide variety of individuals and groups have equal access to resources and power.

What has modern science determined about racial categories?

Biologically there is no such thing as a pure race

Why might the number of Christians who identify as evangelical in the United States be rapidly increasing?

Evangelicals emphasize the importance of gaining new converts.

Monarchy

Governed by a king or queen, with succession of rules kept within the family.

Although they make very little money, priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, and clergy are often prestigious members of their communities. Which social theorist first suggested that this is an important element of class status?

Max Weber

The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 ended the concept of entitlements by requiring recipients of welfare to find work within two years of receiving assistance. How has this changed the lives of the poor?

Moving from welfare to work caused many former welfare recipients to plunge into homelessness.

Secular

Non-religious, doesn't endorse religion

What does Paul Fussell's living room scale attempt to measure?

Social Class

Pierre Bourdiey

Social Reproduction (tendency for social class to be passed down from one generation to the next)

Manuel Noriega was never elected president of Panama, but he became its de facto ruler when he became head of the army. In doing so, he became powerful enough to demand the resignation of the elected president. What was Noriega's government if this is the only information on which to base your answer?

authoritarian

What is a political system called that denies ordinary people participation or representation in their government?

authoritarian

How do the current demographics of California challenge the way the term "minority" has been used in the past?

Whites are now less than half of the population of California.

Sociologists often point out that systems of stratification in the United States systematically favor white men. Sometimes people contest this, pointing to wealthy and powerful black women like Oprah Winfrey or Toni Morrison. A valid counterpoint to this argument is that

Winfrey and Morrison have higher social status because of other markers of class that they inherited, such as regional accents.

Texas has never had a Hispanic governor and the percentage of Hispanic Americans in Texas state government is low. However, many Hispanic Americans live in Texas. In 2012, they made up nearly 40 percent of the state's population. Would a sociologist in Texas call Hispanic Americans a minority group?

Yes, because they are denied access to power and resources.

What is it called when members of a minority group learn the cultural practices of the dominant group?

cultural assimilation

What does Karl Marx call it when individuals fail to see the ways they are oppressed by the social system in which they live?

false consciousness

Being born into a lower social class means that an individual will be more likely to

feel at risk of being harassed by law enforcement.

What do sociologists call it when an individual changes his or her career but remains within the same social class?

horizontal social mobility

The tendency to choose romantic partners based on similarities in background and group membership is called

homogamy.

Although "like usually marries like," when class boundaries are crossed in marriage, ________ is more common for heterosexual women, whereas ________ is more common for heterosexual men.

hypergamy; hypogamy

What do sociologists call it when an African American individual is told he or she is not really "black enough"?

identity challenge

There are a number of derogatory terms in the United States for members of minority groups whose behavior does not match the expectations relating to their skin color. What term embodies these insults?

identity challenges

How do law enforcement policies make the poor less visible?

moving the homeless out of high-profile locations

Understanding that racism in the United States created and maintains inequality is characteristic of

race consciousness.

What is it called when members of a racial minority group intermarry and have children with members of the dominant group until the races are completely mixed?

racial assimilation

Racial Assimilation

racial minority groups are absorbed into the dominant group through intermarriage

Rather than seeing racism as a product of class differences, recent theorists like Tomás Almaguer argue that

racist beliefs can become part of economic life.

Systems and structures that persist over time and help organize group life are called

social institutions.

Organizations formed expressly to raise and spend money in order to influence elected officials are called

special interest groups.

Mother Teresa was a person with tremendous power and prestige yet she was very poor. Mother Teresa is an example of which of the following?

status inconsistency

Displays of ethnic identity that only occur on special occasions are called

symbolic ethnicity.

Genocide

systematic killing of a racial or cultural group

What activity is MOST likely to take the place of a yoga class for a working-class woman given what you have read about socioeconomic status and life chances?

taking care of her children after work

What general predictions can sociologists make about a person's life prospects if all that is known is the person's social class?

the level of education he or she will receive

To what social class do "white collar" workers, workers employed in technical and lower-management positions, belong?

the middle class

A black man in the United States was convicted of a felony when he was 17. He is now 58 and has not committed any crimes since his release. However, he is still not permitted to vote. Michelle Alexander would describe this as an example of

the new Jim Crow.

What racial issue does functionalism help to explain?

the persistence of racial divisions in America today

cultural appropriation

the process by which cultures adopt customs and knowledge from other cultures and use them for their own benefit

An accountant with a college degree and a license from the state accounting board works for the Department of Defense as a senior auditor. He makes about $100,000 a year and will soon retire with benefits and a pension. To what class would you expect him to belong?

upper-middle class

What sort of social mobility often results from losing a job?

vertical

Many workers at auto plants in Michigan lost their jobs when plants closed. What has this resulted in for the vast majority of these workers?

vertical social mobility

What criteria does a social class system use to stratify its members?

wealth, property, power, and prestige

What percent report attending services?

38%

What percent of American believed in god?

89%

The upper class makes up just 1 percent of the total U.S. population, but its total net worth is greater than that of ________ percent of the rest of the population.

99

How is institutional discrimination different from individual discrimination?

Institutional discrimination is more systematic and widespread.

In the United States, which of the following groups would have the MOST freedom in choosing to display or not display its race or ethnicity?

Irish American

Which of the following is one of the basic principles of social stratification?

It is maintained through beliefs that are widely shared in a society.

How does color blindness contribute to racial inequalities?

It perpetuates racial inequalities by making subtle forms of racism difficult to recognize and therefore difficult to address.

What is the principal sociological critique of the culture of poverty?

It tends to blame the victims of poverty for their own misfortunes while ignoring the structural causes of inequality.

Profane

Ordinary, mundane, or everyday.

Why are people more likely to marry individuals with social and cultural backgrounds similar to their own?

People have greater access to individuals like themselves.

Intrinsic

Personal

Why do politics, education, and religion all appear in the same chapter of your text?

Political, religious, and educational concerns often overlap in everyday life.

How is prejudice different from discrimination?

Prejudice is an attitude; discrimination is an action.

Extrinsic

Public religion display

For a long time, the fact that immigrants from eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America tended to be shorter than native-born Americans was taken as evidence that there were inherent racial differences between these populations. However, the immigrants had children who grew up to be as tall as anyone else. Geneticists now tell us that, although there can be considerable variation in height within a group due to genetics, height differences between groups are largely caused by diet. What does this demonstrate?

Racial differences are socially constructed and not genetic.

Many people became instant millionaires during the so-called dot-com boom of the late 1990s, though we usually think of social mobility as a result of individual effort. This is an example of

Structural Mobility

Apartheid

System of segregation of racial and ethnic groups that was legal in South Africa between 1948 & 1991.

In the 1900s, there was a strong prejudice against Irish immigrants and their descendants. What does this tell you about the history of the Irish in the United States?

The Irish were once considered to be a separate race.

According to theorists like Edna Bonacich, what is the effect of a split labor market, in which, workers belonging to one race are paid less than those of a different race?

The effects of racism are compounded by poverty.

In 1994, mass killings occurred in Rwanda as members of the Hutu majority killed more than a million members of the Tutsi minority, many of them murdered with machetes. Although many Hutus later claimed that they were just trying to defend themselves, which of the following indicates that it was really genocide?

The killings happened at an even faster rate than during the Holocaust.

How does social class relate to race, ethnicity, gender, and age in the United States today?

These multiple dimensions of status and inequality intersect to shape who we are and how we live.

Despite demographic shifts, how can you tell that whites are still the dominant group in California?

They have more power, resources, and representation in social institutions.

According to Twine (2011), what changes occur in the lives of white women that have families with black men?

They lose some racial privilege through their relationships with their husbands.

Which of the following is true of the upper class in the United States today?

Those in the upper class usually work in executive, managerial, and professional jobs.

Fundamentalist

Those who literally interpret text and want to "return" to a time of greater religious purity.

Double Conciousness

W.E.B. DuBois's term for the divided identity experienced by blacks in the United States

How do we decide when to display situational ethnicity?

We do a cost-benefit analysis.

Michelle was born and raised in the United States but her grandparents are from Korea. Her white classmate was also born and raised in the United States, but his grandparents are from Poland. When he tells Michelle that she speaks English very well, it's because he assumes, based on her race, that she is an immigrant. This is an example of

a microaggression.

Relative Deprivation

a relational measure of poverty based on the standards of living

How do sociologists define race?

a social category based on real or perceived biological differences

What kind of sociologist believes racial and ethnic identities bind people and help society run much more efficiently?

a structural functionalist

Why do members of the lower class exercise less often?

a. Exercise is a luxury often accessible only to those who do not have to struggle with day-to-day existence.

Which system of social stratification was in the final stages of breaking down when Karl Marx developed his ideas?

a. feudalism

In the early 1900s, native-born Americans, usually Protestants, did NOT consider Irish, Italian, or Jewish immigrants to be white. What does this illustrate?

an enactment of minority group

absolute deprivation

an objective measure of poverty that is defined by the inability to meet minimal standards for food, shelter, clothing, or health care

What do sociologists call awareness of our own and others' class statuses?

class consciousness

In House of Yes, a play by Wendy MacLeod, the character Marty brings his fiancée Lesly to meet his family. She comes from a different social class, which leads to miscommunication and difficult interactions among Lesly, Marty, and Marty's two siblings. According to Pierre Bourdieu, Lesly not having enough ________ could cause the strained relations.

cultural capital

Why are there differences in life expectancies for people of different races?

disparities in access to health care

According to William Julius Wilson, racism has created a black underclass, but this underclass is perpetuated by

economic factors.

Karl Marx spent much of his life attempting to understand and describe how capitalism works. In one particularly vivid passage, he described the turbulence he saw as inherent in capitalism: "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind." What sort of relationships did he think his readers had with other people?

economic relationships

When customers have low credit scores, banks often offer them subprime loans that have higher than normal interest rates. If a bank gives three times as many subprime loans to black Americans than to white Americans, even when they have the same credit scores, the bank is guilty of

institutional discrimination.

What is it an example of when the children of working-class parents manage to attend college and get a job in a professional field?

intergenerational mobility

The exploitation of a minority group within the dominant group's political borders is called

internal colonialism.

What sort of jobs can support a middle-class lifestyle in America today?

jobs associated with blue collar work

What is a state called when whites are less than half the population?

majority-minority

Which of the following is a form of stratification in which all positions are awarded on the basis of merit?

meritocracy

Which term describes the slights, insults, and misperceptions directed at members of a minority group that play out in everyday interactions?

microaggressions

Jeffery McCune's ethnographic study of gay black men in a Chicago nightclub details a space in which their same sex-desires could be comfortably expressed, and interactional work to present a conventionally masculine, heterosexual identity was no longer required. What sociological concept is demonstrated by the efforts to maintain a heterosexual persona?

passing

According to the text, which of the following has the effect of making poverty socially "invisible"?

political engagement

The methods and tactics of managing and influencing government are called

politics.

Which of the following variables have the greatest impact on crime rates?

population density and anomie

Robert is walking down the street late at night when a man in a ski mask suddenly sticks a gun in his face and takes his wallet. Sociologists would say that Robert's mugger had ________ but not ________.

power; authority

According to a study, black defendants on trial for murder in Pennsylvania were 40 percent more likely to receive the death penalty than whites convicted of similar crimes. This indicates that

the criminal justice system has a racial bias.

Oscar Lewis was the first to suggest that the poor develop a way of life with fundamentally different values and goals because they are excluded from mainstream social life. Consequently, they are much less likely to join the middle class. This way of life is usually called

the culture of poverty.

What is religiosity?

the extent of a person's commitment to a religion

What defines the so-called official poverty in the United States based on household income?

the federal poverty line

Population transfer

the forcible removal of a group of people from the territory they have occupied

José has been working hard for the past ten years, but most of the wealth he has is the result of inherited properties. Erin has also been working hard for the past ten years, but since she is paid the federal minimum wage and also supports her elderly mother, Erin is below the federal poverty line. José and Erin demonstrate

the wealth gap.

What is the MOST extreme form of authoritarianism called?

totalitarianism

Dicatatorship

type of authoritarianism, where the leader typically seizes power rather than being selected or elected.