SOC 101 Chapter 11

According to one method of identifying race known as the "one-drop rule," a person with three white grandparents and one black grandparent would be considered _____.

black

institutional discrimination

Occurs when the actions or policies of organizations or social institutions exclude, disadvantage, or harm members of particular groups. Such discrimination need not be intentional, and, in practice, it is often hard to discern whether or not discriminatory intentions lay behind a particular policy or practice.

racism

Prejudice against individuals who are members of particular racial or ethnic groups, often drawing on negative stereotypes about the group.

implicit prejudice or bias

Prejudice based on stereotypes that can be activated without an individual's being consciously aware of holding them.

Which of the following is the best definition of racial discrimination?

Racial discrimination refers to any behavior, practice, or policy that harms, excludes, or disadvantages individuals on the basis of their group membership. Behaviors and practices can be discriminatory even when an individual acts unconsciously or does not intend to harm others on the basis of race.

Which of the following statements is accurate regarding race in Brazil?

Siblings can be assigned different race labels

lynching

The killing of someone by a group, without a trial or due process, for some specified behavior.

What does the author of the chapter mean when she points out that racial differentials in key socioeconomic outcomes are usually much wider today than the gaps between ethnic groups?

Being white rather than black makes a bigger difference than being Swedish rather than Polish

Which of the following statements accurately describes implicit prejudice?

Implicit prejudice refers to the fact that people are unconsciously influenced by racial stereotypes

Your friend tells you she thinks the constructivist perspective is wrong and that race is a biological fact. She challenges you, "In fact, if race isn't biological, then how can companies determine a person's race by examining their DNA?" Drawing on the constructivist perspective presented in this chapter, which of the following is the best answer to your friend's question?

Individuals have physical characteristics that correspond to instructions in their DNA, but the scientists are following socially constructed rules about race to determine what to look for in the DNA they examine.

While shopping with your friend, she whispers to you that she thinks the Japanese are frugal. Which of the following concepts describes her view of Japanese people?

stereotype

For sociologist, racial prejudice and discrimination are not the result of _____, but are instead the result of ___.

personality disorders; socialization

white privilege

A concept that refers to the advantages of being white versus non-white. White Americans, on average, have higher earnings, greater freedom to choose whereto live, more opportunities for upward mobility, and less likelihood of being arrested than other racial groups. They are also less burdened by negative stereotypes.

Which of the following is discussed in the chapter as an obstacle that continues to prevent African Americans and Latinos from exercising their voting rights?

A disproportionate number of African Americans and Latinos are denied their voting rights because of laws that disenfranchise convicted felons.

ghetto

A poor, isolated neighborhood, often formed as the result of residential segregation in which a poor or low-status racial, ethnic, or religious group is compelled to live in the same place.

social construct

A social phenomenon (for example, a belief, discourse, or category) that was invented by individuals and is shaped by the social forces present in the time and place of its creation.

ethnicity

A system for classifying people who are believed to share common descent based on perceived cultural similarities.

race

A system for classifying people who are believed to share common descent based on perceived innate physical similarities.

Which of the following most accurately characterizes what researchers of mass media have noted about racial prejudice?

Although media representation has become more positive in recent decades, racial minorities are still more likely to be portrayed with negative or demeaning characteristics

discrimination

Any behavior, practice, or policy that harms, excludes, or disadvantages individuals on the basis of their group membership. Discrimination is often used by dominant groups to control opportunities for and reduce the challenges from subordinate groups.

Which group has the highest rate of educational attainment in the United States?

Asian Americans

_______ have the highest median household income among all racial groups in the United States.

Asian Americans

Which of the following is presented in the chapter as a theory about why white American adopted to one-drop rule as a way of determining whether mixed-race people are white or black?

Black slaves were a source of free labor in the United States, and it was profitable for white Americans to adopt a rule that treated mixed-race people as in order to increase the population of slaves.

Which of the following categories refers to an ethnic group, according to the U.S. census?

Hispanic

one-drop rule

Enshrined in many state laws in the United States around the turn of the nineteenth century, this method of racial classification defined any individual with any African ancestry as black. From this viewpoint, someone with one black great-grandparent and seven white great-grandparents is considered black because that "drop of black blood" means he or she has more in common with blacks than with whites.

affirmative action

Government policies regarding employment and education that seek to increase the representation of minorities and women in fields from which they have historically been excluded. Affirmative action is undertaken in an effort to counter the historical effects of discrimination and exclusion.

individual discrimination

Intentional action carried out by an individual or small group that is meant to harm, exclude, or disadvantage members of a certain group.

prejudice

Negative beliefs or attitudes held about entire groups based on subjective, selective, or inaccurate information. They lead to "prejudgment" of the individuals associated with stigmatized groups.

Which of the following is one of the primary explanations offered in this chapter for why people in different parts of the world think about race differently?

Racial thinking spread around the world to imperialism, but it changed in each location after combining with local beliefs and prejudices

stereotype

Simplified and often negative generalizations about a group (such as, women or men) that are often false or exaggerated. Stereotypes are most often negative, although positive stereotypes can sometimes be found.

genocide

The deliberate and systematic killing of a category of people.

Which of the following statements most accurately characterizes the income gap between white and nonwhite households over the past half century?

The income gap between whites and nonwhites began to narrow after the civil rights movement, but then in the 1970s it leveled off.

________ is a custom that became enshrined in many state laws around the turn of the nineteenth century to identify a person's race.

The one-drop rule

assimilation

The process by which immigrants come to be incorporated into their new society by taking on the cultural tastes and practices of the new society.

essentialism

The view that members of a group share a fundamental, inherited, innate, and fixed quality or characteristic. This outlook presumes that races are natural groupings whose boundaries are determined by deep-seated and unchangeable traits that are found within each individual.

constructivism

The view that social categories such as race or gender are social creations, not biological facts.

Which of the following is one of the explanations offered by the author of this chapter for why rates of criminal convictions are relatively high among African Americans?

The war on drugs has disproportionately criminalized African Americans. Despite using illicit drugs at approximately the same rate as white, African Americans have been more likely to be arrested and convicted for drug-related crimes.

Which of the following is an instrument of change that relies on explicit awareness of race in order to promote equality?

affirmative action

Which of the following refers to a policy developed in the late 1960s to ensure that minority-owned businesses have equal opportunities to compete for government contracts with more established white-owned firms?

affirmative action

Someone who was born and raised in Sweden but moves to Japan and takes on the cultural preferences and behaviors of the Japanese people is a person who has ________.

assimilated

Racial groups tend to be distinguished by color terms, and different racial groups are associated with different _________.

continents

For sociologists, the term racism includes two fundamental components: _____ and _______.

discrimination; prejudice

When did the concept of race, as we understand it today, develop in the Western world?

fifteenth century

The 1790 naturalization law is discussed in the chapter as an example of _______.

institutional discrimination

Compared with middle-class white families, middle-class black families are _____ to live near poor neighborhoods.

more likely

Between 1980 and 2010, the percentage of newlyweds married to someone of a different race or ethnicity _____.

more than doubled

____ refer(s) to the negative beliefs, feelings, or attitudes held about entire groups and is/are based on _____.

prejudice; stereotypes

Which of the following refers to a system for classifying people based on perceived physical or biological similarities?

race

The author of this chapter notes that in the United States, _____ has historically mattered much more than ______.

race; ethnicity

When applying for a job, applicants with stereotypically "white name" ______.

received 50% more follow-up calls than those with stereotypically "black names"

In the late nineteenth century, Americans initially viewed new immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe as ______. Then, following restrictions on immigrants, the descendants from these groups gradually became seen as __________.

separate races; white

Max Weber thought that ethnic categories were the result of a(n) _________, but he held a(n) _______ of race.

subjective belief; essentialist view

In contrast to a TIME magazine cover, which suggested multiracial people began emerging in the United States during the 1990s, the author of this chapter points out that multiracial people have existed in this part of the world since ______.

the 1630s

When did the Supreme Court strike down all state laws banning interracial marriage?

the 1960s

Some sociologists have argues that the color line in the United States, separating whites from nonwhites, is not disappearing; rather, it is shifting and coming to distinguish blacks from nonblacks. Which of the following is a term sociologists use to refer to this hypothetical group of nonblacks?

the beige majority

The official government racial and ethnic categories on the census have changed with almost every census throughout American history. Which of the following is the only category to have been consistently named on the census throughout U.S. history?

white

Which of the following concepts refers to the unearned benefits whites enjoy, including having higher average earnings, more employment opportunities, and less likelihood of being arrested?

white privilege

Sociologists have shown that ____ job applicants with a criminal record are ____ to be considered for a job than ____ job applicants without a criminal record.

white; more likely; black

Based on demographic data, which racial group is projected to fall as a share of the U.S. population?

whites