Sociology Quiz 5

Aspen effect

Robert Franks's term for lower and middle class families traveling rather farther distances to serve the wealthy

relative poverty

a measurement of poverty based on a percentage of the median income in a given location - poverty defined according to the living standards of the majority in a given society

perverse incentives

reward structures that lead to suboptimal outcomes by stimulating counterproductive behavior; for example, welfare—to the extent that it discourages work efforts—is argued to have perverse incentives.

4 ideal types of social stratification

- Estate system - Caste system - Class system - Status hierarchy system (some sociologists propose a fifth ideal type: an elite-mass dichotomy)

4 socioeconomic classes

- Upper class - Middle class - Working class - Poor

feminism

a social movement to get people to understand that gender is an organizing principle in society and to address gender-based inequalities that intersect with other forms of social identity

gender

a social position; the set of social arrangements that are built around normative sex categories. social distinction based on learned ideas about appearance, behavior and mental/emotional characteristics - perceived, constructed - based on LEARNED ideas of what is feminine and what is masculine; about socialization

bourgeois society

a society of commerce (modern capitalist society, for example) in which the maximization of profit is the primary business incentive

stratified society

a society where human groups within them are ranked hierarchically into strata, along one or more social dimensions

meritocracy

a society where status and mobility are based on individual attributes, ability, and achievement - a system in which advancement is based on individual achievement or ability

status hierarchy

a system of stratification based on social prestige

status hierarchy system

a system of stratification based on social prestige

elite-mass dichotomy system

a system of stratification that has a governing elite, a few leaders who broadly hold power in society

middle class

a term commonly used to describe those individuals with nonmanual jobs that pay significantly more than the poverty line—though this is a highly debated and expansive category, particularly in the United States, where broad swathes of the population consider themselves middle class - class composed broadly of those working in white-collar and lower managerial occupations

status-attainment model

approach that ranks individuals by socioeconomic status, including income and educational attainment, and seeks to specify the attributes characteristic of people who end up in more desirable occupations

working poor

employed people who consistently earn wages but do not make enough to survive; deserve assistance - people who work, but whose earnings are NOT enough to lift them above the poverty line

gender socialization

how gender roles are learned through social agents such as schooling, the media, and family

Pareto Principle

imbalance where a small number of people (~20%) cause a disproportionately large effect (more like 80%); also know as the 80/20 rules

under class

individuals situated at the bottom of the class system, often composed of people in the highest-poverty neighborhoods of the inner city - so poor that they do NOT make it to the lower class and are collectively called the "new urban poor"

endogamous

refers to community in which members generally marry within the group

ascending vertical mobility

rises from a lower stratum into a higher one OR creates an entirely new group that exists at a higher stratum

gender roles

sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one's status as male or female

2 Groups Excluded from the Caste System

1. Adivasi (India's indigenous people) 2. Dalit (the "Untouchables"; those considered the least pure of all class distinctions)

4 main castes or varnas

1. Brahman (priests and scholars) 2. Kshatriya (soldiers) 3. Vaishaya (merchants and farmers) 4. Shudra (servants class)

3 Estates

1. Clergy 2. Nobility 3. Commoners (typically further divided into peasants and city dwellers)

2 Types of Vertical Social Mobility

1. ascending (upward) 2. descending (downward)

Mill's 3 Major Institutional forces in modern American society where the power of decision making as become centralized

1. economic institutions (with a few hundred giant corporations holding the keys to economic decisions) 2. political order (the increasing concentration of power in the federal government and away from the states and localities. leading to a centralized executive establishment that affects every cranny of society) 3. military order (the largest and most expensive feature of government)

false consciousness

Marx's term for believing in ideas that are not in a group's objective interest but rather in the best interests of the capitalist class - Working class believes they are NOT being exploited, but instead believe that they are in a lower class because they did not work hard enough (believe in meritocracy)

class consciousness

Marx's term for subjective awareness of common vested interests and common oppression

sex role theory

Talcott Parson's theory that men and women perform their sex roles as breadwinners and wives/mothers, respectively, because the nuclear family is the ideal arrangement in modern societies, fulfilling the function of reproducing workers

social equality

a condition in which no differences in wealth, power, prestige, or status based on nonnatural conventions exist

poverty

a condition of deprivation due to economic circumstances that is severe enough that the individual in this condition cannot live with dignity in his or her society

wealth

a family's or individual's net worth (i.e., total assets minus total debts); everything you own minus debts such as mortgages on homes, credit card debt, and debt from student loans - the assets that an individual owns, such as cash, savings, and checking accounts and investments in stocks, bonds, and real estate

caste

a form of social stratification based on hereditary notions of religious and theological purity

estates

a form of social stratification best exemplified in the social organization of feudal Europe and the pre-Civil War American South

slavery

a form of social stratification in which some people are owned by others as their property

sanskritization

a form of upward social mobility in the caste system where an entire caste could obtain a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting practices and behaviors of the upper class and eschewing aspects of its own traditions that are considered impure

assets

a form of wealth that can be stored for the future

petit bourgeoisie

a group including professionals, craftsmen, and other self-employed individuals or small-business owners

horizontal social mobility

a group or individual transitioning from one social status to another situated more or less on the SAME rung of the ladder

patriarchy

a nearly universal system involving the subordination of femininity to masculinity

parenting stress hypothesis

a paradigm in which low income, unstable employment, a lack of cultural resources, and a feeling of inferiority from social class comparisons exacerbate household stress levels; this stress, in turn, leads to detrimental parenting practices such as yelling and hitting, which are not conducive to healthy child development

the orgasm gap

a phenomenon in which women involved in heterosexual relationships report fewer orgasms than men because difference between men's and women's frequency of orgasm is impacted by social forces that privilege male pleasure

estate system

a politically based system of stratification characterized by limited social mobility

caste system

a religion-based system of stratification characterized by no social mobility

Jim Crow Laws

a rigid set if anti-black statutes that relegated African Americans to the status of second-class citizens through educational, economic, and political exclusion)

Malthusian population trap

a situation in which population growth leads not to abundance but increased poverty - reducing levels of inequality will only TEMPORARILY ease the condition of the masses, thereby causing their numbers to swell more (increased population)

lower class

a social class composed of those who work part time or not at all and whose annual household income is low

upper class

a term for the economic elite; the group of individuals at the top of the socioeconomic food chain - class broadly composed of the more affluent members of society, especially those who have inherited wealth, own businesses, and hold large numbers of stocks (shares)

dialectic

a two-directional relationship, following a pattern in which an original statement or thesis is countered with an antithesis leading to a conclusion that unites the strengths of the original position and the counterarguments

hijras

an alternative gender role in India conceptualized as neither man nor woman; phenotypic men who wear female clothing and ideally, renounce sexual desire and practice by undergoing a sacrificial emasculation--an excision of the penis and testicles - This "third gender" category in India includes men who have undergone an emasculation rite involving voluntary castration

class system

an economically based hierarchical system characterized by cohesive, oppositional groups and somewhat loose social mobility

sexual harassment

an illegal form of discrimination, involving everything from inappropriate jokes on the job to sexual "barter" (where victims feel the need to comply with sexual requests for fear of losing their job) to outright sexual assault

bisexual

an individual who is sexually attracted to both genders/sexes

socioeconomic status

an individual's position in a stratified social order - any measure that attempts to classify groups, individuals, families, or households in terms of indicators such as occupation, income, wealth, and education - term coined by Weber to mean a composite ranking based on various dimensions of social inequality

glass ceiling

an invisible limit on women's climb up the occupational ladder

the poverty line

an official government measure that defines those living in poverty - also used to determine who is eligible for special benefits such as Medicaid in the United States - the one in the US tends to be based on RELATIVE, not absolute poverty

essentialist

arguments explaining social phenomena in terms of natural, biological, or evolutionary inevitabilities

biological determinism

belief that what you do in the social world is a direct result of who you are in the natural world

employing class (Marx)

bourgeoisie or capitalist class

working class

class that is broadly composed of people working in blue-collar or manual labor occupations - Less likely to have college degrees

queer

derogatory term reclaimed by the people it was originally intended to wound to become a broader, encompassing term for nonheteronormative sexual behaviors/identities

cisgender

describes people whose gender corresponds to their birth sex

transgender

describes people whose gender does not correspond to their birth sex

sexuality

desire, sexual preference, and sexual identity and behavior

deceptive distinctions

differences between men and women that appear to be gender differences, but really these behaviors are a result of the different positions men and women occupy within society - ex: doctor is male and nurse is female

matrix of domination

intersecting domains of oppression that create a social space of domination and, by extension, a unique position within that space based on someone's intersectional identity along the multiple dimensions of gender, age, race, class, sexuality, location, and so on

exogamy

marriage between people of different social categories/castes

exchange mobility

mobility resulting from the swapping of jobs - mobility in which, if we hold fixed the changing distribution of jobs, individuals trade jobs such that if one person is upwardly mobile it necessarily entails someone else being downwardly mobile

structural mobility

mobility that is inevitable from changes in the economy

income

money received by a person for work, from transfers (gifts, inheritances, or government assistance), or from returns on investments - payment, usually derived from wages, salaries, or investments

class

mostly applicable to the stratification in modern societies to refer to a large group of people who occupy a similar economic position in the wider society

intragenerational social mobility

movement up or down a social stratification hierarchy WITHIN ONE person (over his/her life course)

intergenerational social mobility

movement up or down a social stratification hierarchy from one generation to another - BETWEEN generations

accidental science

natural experiments

androgynous

neither masculine nor feminine

sexism

occurs when a person's sex or gender is the basis for judgment, discrimination, or other differential treatment against that person

polyamory

particular form of non-monogamy involving INTIMATE relationships with more than one partner and with knowledge and consent of all involved

non-monogamy

practice of having multiple sexual (or intimate) relationships (or merely the desire to) with the full knowledge and consent of all the people involved - NOT just having sex with multiple people, which is why it is possible to cheat in such a relationship

estate

social class

social closure

the ability of a group to strategically and consciously exclude outsiders from participating in the group

glass escalator

the accelerated promotion of men to the top of a work organization, especially in feminized jobs

culture of poverty

the argument that poor people adopt certain practices that differ from those of middle-class, "mainstream" society in order to adapt and survive in difficult economic circumstances - ex: illegal work, multifamily households

bourgeoisie

the capitalist class

hegemonic masculinity

the condition in which men are dominant and privileged, and this dominance and privilege is invisible - masculinity associated with heterosexual, highly educated, European American men of upper-class economic status as the dominant, socially acceptable form of masculinity - dominant and socially acceptable form of masculinity (the alpha male)

stratification

the hierarchical organization of a society into groups with differing levels of power, social prestige, or status and economic resources; how members of a society are hierarchically organized along different lines - SYSTEMATIC/structured inequalities between groups of people that arise as intended or unintended consequences of social processes and relationships; groups have UNEQUAL access to valued resources - Reflects differences in social class, race, gender, age, etc.

equality of outcome

the idea that each player must end up with the same amount regardless of the fairness of the "game"

equality of opportunity

the idea that everyone has an equal chance to achieve wealth, social prestige, and power because the rules of the game, so to speak, are the same for everyone

equality of condition

the idea that everyone should have an equal starting point

heteronormativity

the idea that heterosexuality is the default or normal sexual orientation from which other sexualities deviate

intersectionality

the idea that it is critical to understand the interplay between social identities such as race, class, gender, ability status, and sexual orientation, even though many social systems and institutions (such as the law) try to treat each category on its own

contradictory class locations

the idea that people can occupy locations in the class structure that fall between the two "pure" classes

social mobility

the movement between different positions within a system of social stratification in any given society

free rider problem

the notion that when more than one person is responsible for getting something done, the incentive is for each individual to shirk responsibility and hope others will pull the extra weight

underclass

the notion, building on the culture of poverty argument, that the poor not only are different from mainstream society in their inability to take advantage of what society has to offer, but also are increasingly deviant and even dangerous to the rest of us

sex

the perceived biological differences that society typically uses to distinguish males from females - natural or biological differences that distinguish males and females; BIOLOGICAL differences and largely due to PHYSICAL differences - has NOTHING to do with socialization

social reproduction

the phenomenon whereby social and class relations of prestige or lack of prestige are passed from one generation to the next; you are what your parents were and what your children will be - tendency for social classes to remain stable across generations

absolute poverty

the point at which a household's income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members - the minimal requirements necessary to sustain a healthy existence - minimal energy level needed to consume to survive - rare form of poverty BUT it is NOT extinct in the US. However, it is more common in other countries

globalization

the rise in trade of goods and services across national boundaries, as well as the increased mobility of multinational businesses and migrant labor

vertical social mobility

the rise or fall of an individual or group from one social stratum to another

homosexual

the social identity of a person who has sexual attraction to and/or relations with other persons of the same sex

hybrid masculinity

the ways in which mostly straight, young, white, men selectively incorporate performances of masculinity that are historically, structurally, and culturally associated with nonhegemonic masculinities, such as African American masculinity - this cultural practice can often conceal inequalities

structural functionalism

theoretical tradition claiming that every society has certain structures (the family, the division of labor, or gender) that exist to fulfill some set of necessary functions (reproduction of the species, production of goods, etc.)

nadles

third gender (in addition to masculine men and feminine women) in the Navajo tribe of Native Americans, that can be declared due to ambiguous genitalia OR declared later regardless of genitalia - Perform masculine AND feminine tasks and dress for the moment, according to whatever activity they are doing - Although they are often treated like women, they have the freedom to marry people of any gender, without loss of status

nonworking poor

those who can work but don't and therefore have a weaker moral claim on assistance; sometimes called the "underclass"

travesti

transgender prostitutes in Brazil; males who adopt female names, clothing styles, hairstyles, cosmetic practices, and and linguistic pronouns, ingest female hormones, and inject industrial silicone directly into their bodies to give themselves breasts and round buttocks - they display stereotypically feminine traits yet do NOT self-identify as women. In fact, they think it is both repugnant and impossible for men to try to become women - Think of themselves as men who emulate women BUT are NOT women

metrosexual

typically white and wealthy male who spends a large amount on grooming activities, such as manicures, that would have been considered feminine

proletariat

working class