Sociology Chapter 8 Worksheet

An action or behavior that results in the unequal treatment of an individual because of his membership in a racial or ethnic group is called:

Discrimination

Classical Marxist analysis often argued that everything is ultimately determined by the economy, even though sometimes it is through many complicated steps. Can economic factors explain racism?

The link between race and class is useful and important, but it does not provide a satisfactory explanation for all forms of racism.

How do we decide when to display situational ethnicity?

We do a cost-benefit analysis.

What metaphor best describes cultures that have embraced multiculturalism and pluralism?

A salad bowl

Which of the following factors makes someone most likely to drop out of high school?

Coming from a non-English-speaking background

In 1991 an enormous controversy erupted after five Los Angeles police officers were caught on tape beating a motorist named Rodney King. Although there continues to be much controversy over the event, many people see it as a blatant act of discrimination. Under what circumstances would this beating be considered institutional discrimination?

If the leadership of the Los Angeles Police Department condoned or encouraged this type of behavior on a regular basis, it would be considered institutional discrimination.

What is the goal of affirmative action?

Increase diversity

If a landlord was found guilty of discriminatory practices for refusing to rent to Hispanic tenants, what could be seen as evidence that it was a case of individual discrimination?

Other Hispanic tenants were able to find places to rent in the area.

In the early nineteenth century, Native Americans, who had survived clashes with the U.S. Army, were forcibly removed to reservations. This is an example of:

Population Transfer

The process by which racial minority groups are absorbed into the dominant group through intermarriage:

Racial assimilation

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, and geneticists now tell us that, while 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

What is it called when someone lives as if they were a member of a different racial category than the one into which they were born?

Racial passing

A set of beliefs about the superiority of one racial or ethnic group compared to another is:

Racism

A young person from Southern California has four German grandparents. She lived in Los Angeles all her life before accepting a job in Milwaukee. She has never really thought about her German heritage, but in Milwaukee she discovers many other people with similar ancestries and starts using her ethnicity as a way to develop social and professional relationships. What is this an example of?

Situational Ethnicity

Plantation owners in America often argued that the Africans they imported were better off as slaves because they did not have the mental capacity to run their own lives. Today, this seems both racist and crazy. How could such racist beliefs flourish?

Such beliefs justify social arrangements between dominant and minority groups that benefit those who accept them.

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

The criminal system has a racial bias