SOCI 101 Exam 2 Questions

In 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau identified the poverty threshold for a family of four as

$25,570

Approximately how many Americans receive cash assistance from the US government through TANF (welfare)?

1 million

Approximately what percent of American workers are members of a labor union?

10%

Over the last fifty years, the US poverty rate has largely remained in what range?

10%-15% of the population

According to 2020 Census, approximately what percent of Americans identify as Hispanic or Latino?

18%

Which decade in US history saw the peak in US union membership?

1950s

In which decade did the Information Revolution begin?

1970s

The rate of poverty among African Americans is roughly how many times higher than that of white Americans?

2 times, or double

Approximately what percent of the 1940 US adult population had graduated from high school?

25%

What percent of the US population age 25 and older had a college degree in 2019?

36%

Approximately how many Americans currently are experiencing poverty?

38 million

Approximately how many Americans receive SNAP (food stamps) benefits?

40 million

According to the 2020 Census, what percent of the population identifies as non-Hispanic White?

60%

Which group had the highest rate of poverty in the 1950s?

Elderly

True/False: A majority of college students attend schools with acceptance rates less than 50%.

False

Homer Simpson, a character on the TV show The Simpsons, has a wife who stays home to take care of the children while he works, but he is often responsible for disciplining the children when they are particularly bad. What do you know about Homer even if this is all that you know about the show?

Homer has taken the instrumental role

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

In the United States, the federal poverty line is calculated using food costs based on the cheapest possible diet that can still provide basic nutrition. What sort of measure of poverty is this?

a measure of absolute deprivation

Intrinsic religiosity can be defined as

a person's inner religious life

What do all religions have in common?

a system of beliefs and rituals that establish a relationship between the sacred and the profane

What has an office worker engaged in, although it may not seem like much, when they bring in a plant to brighten up their cubicle?

an act of individual resistance

According to conflict theory, women's contributions to family life are devalued because

as a social group, men benefit from maintaining their dominant status

The film Ascension showed instruction in emotional labor when depicting:

classes that included smiling and hugging instructions

Consider the major theoretical perspectives explored throughout the text. Which type of theorist might explore the idea that occupations traditionally held by men earn more money than those held by women, with the result being that men tend to be more financially successful and powerful?

conflict theorist

Which of the following is the best example of secularization?

crosses are used for decoration and worn as fashion accessories

French sociologist and postmodernist Pierre Bourdieu suggested that social reproduction, or the tendency of social classes remaining relatively stable as class status is passed down from one generation to the next, occurs in part through the acquisition of

cultural capital

In the 1960s, many sociologists noticed that economic obstacles alone were insufficient in explaining disparities in the educational attainment of children from different social classes. Which concept was introduced to explain these disparities?

cultural capital

Which of the following is an example of how the hidden curriculum can reinforce inequality?

curriculum may recognize and celebrate diversity, but most professors and administrators are white and heterosexual

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." Many people still look to passages from the Christian Bible, like this one, to justify gender roles. Conflict theorists might argue that this is a ________ of religion because it ________.

dysfunction; promotes sexism

What does a sociological perspective tell us about education in the United States?

educational success often has as much to do with social stratification as it does with individual ability

In The Mismeasure of Women, social psychologist Carol Tavris argues that there is nothing "universal and nonvarying . . . in the natures of men and women." If you agree with her, you would have to reject the concept of

essentialism

Attending religious services would be an example of

extrinsic religiosity

Denise is a single mother of three who works a full-time job cleaning an office building. She makes $9 per hour and has to piece together child care for two of her children who are not yet in school, often paying neighbors in cash to watch her children. Despite her full-time employment, her family is struggling to survive. What sociological concept does Denise's situation exemplify?

feminization of poverty

In April 2015, Olympic gold medalist and former "World's Greatest Athlete" Caitlyn Jenner announced that "for all intents and purposes, I am a woman." Jenner discussed transitioning with Diane Sawyer in a special two-hour edition of the ABC News show 20/20. In the interview, Jenner stated, "As of now, I have all the male parts, but I still identify as female." What does this tell you about gender identity?

for many people, primary sex characteristics do not define gender

For many years, Saturday Night Live ran a series of skits about a character named Pat. The premise of each skit was that no one could tell if Pat was male or female. The other characters would devise ingenious plots to determine Pat's gender, but all attempts failed. The humor in these skits is based on the fact that

gender identity is so important to our social selves that we can barely interact with anyone without first determining that person's gender

Which of the following is an example of gender role socialization in schools?

girls tend to earn higher grades than boys in elementary school, but their achievements are often discounted

What is it an example of when office workers hang pictures in their cubicles or waste time daydreaming while on the clock?

individual resistance

In 1993, six African American Secret Service agents filed a complaint with the Department of Justice against Denny's for refusal of service. They argued that the restaurant took much longer to serve them than other customers. Thousands of other African Americans came forward with similar allegations after the complaint was filed. What are these allegations evidence of?

institutional discrimination

As shown in the film Coded Bias, existing biases embedded in computer algorithms that reproduce existing inequalities is best thought of as an example of:

institutionalized racism

In Coded Bias, Joy Buolamwini's research on the limits of facial recognition algorithms is most consistent with which of the following sociological concepts?

intersectionality

Religion fulfills what role in society from a structural functionalist perspective?

it provides its supporters with a set of values, norms, and rules by which to live

How did the Industrial Revolution create "work" in the modern sense?

it used machines to produce more goods, more efficiently

In which states does the combination of TANF (welfare) and SNAP (food stamps) provide enough assistance to lift a family out of poverty?

none

Jeffery McCune conducted an ethnographic study of gay black men in a Chicago nightclub. He 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 Karl Marx, surplus value comes from

paying workers less than the value of what they create

Color blindness contributes to racial inequalities because it

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

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 understand 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

A young man is told by his friends that, when at a bar, he should drink beer, but buy women shots in the hopes of getting the women drunk and increasing his chance of having sex with them. He tells his friends that they are encouraging

rape culture

In the Sermon on the Mount of the Christian New Testament, believers are told, "Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them." Of which of the functions or dysfunctions of religion does this remind you?

religion provides morals, values, rules, and norms for participants

A conflict theorists might argue that the true function of schools is that they

reproduce the class structure, making sure that most people grow up to have a socioeconomic status similar to that of their parents

Some municipalities in the Los Angeles area have zoning rules that prohibit multifamily dwellings and require that all homes be built on lots of a certain size. What is the effect of these policies?

residential segregation

What are the tactics used by workers to reclaim control of the conditions of their labor called?

resistance strategies

What are systems and structures within society that shape the activities of groups and individuals called?

social institutions

Which of the following statements best describes the current rate of labor strikes in the US?

strike rates are higher recently than a decade ago but still much lower than their peak

Manny believes that religion gives meaning to his life. He believes that religion helps him understand the most fundamental questions about life and existence. Manny understands religion through which sociological lens?

structural functionalism

People are optimistic that the jobs lost in the U.S. recession of the late 2000s will be replaced with others. However, even if the optimists are right, the shift in the economy may permanently alter the social class status of many people. This is due to the jobs lost being largely in manufacturing and new jobs being mostly in information technology. This suggests that the newly unemployed will have trouble competing for newly created jobs. If this is the case, what is it called?

structural mobility

Marco is a fourth-generation Mexican American. Both his grandparents and parents were born in the United States. Neither he nor his parents have learned Spanish and he does not often think of his heritage. Most of his friends do not think of him as Hispanic or Latino. However, on Cinco de Mayo, Marco likes to go out and celebrate by eating Mexican food and wearing a sombrero. Marco's relationship with his ethnicity can be described as

symbolic

Casimir Pulaski Day is an important holiday in Chicago, which has more Polish Americans than anywhere else in the United States. Although not well remembered in the rest of the country, Pulaski was a Polish-born hero of the American Revolution and a cavalry general. What concept helps to explain why this holiday is so much more important to people who trace their ancestry to Poland?

symbolic ethnicity

Matthew is an American whose great-grandfather immigrated to the United States from Mexico. While he doesn't really express his Mexican heritage in his daily life, every year he celebrates the Mexican holiday of Cinco De Mayo by dressing in traditional Mexican attire, participating in a parade, and cooking a feast of Mexican food for his friends. Matthew is displaying _____.

symbolic ethnicity

In 2009, South African track star Caster Semenya broke the world record in the 800-meter race. Subsequently, she was asked to prove to the world that she was a woman. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) subjected her to a complex series of tests that included physical and medical examinations. The controversy over Semenya's gender raises which of the following issues?

the IAAF's response assumes an essentialist idea of gender

How does US levels of religiosity compare to countries of similar economic development?

the US is an outlier with high levels of religiosity

The sociologists Susan Mayer studied poverty and welfare. She concluded that character traits in parents such as "diligence, honesty, good health, and reliability" led to increased achievement in children. Which theory do her conclusions support?

the culture of poverty

Samira does not have a computer in her house, so she uses computers in the library to complete school assignments. However, she often has less time than her peers to do research and type her assignments because the computers are sometimes occupied and the library closes early. What term describes Samira's situation?

the digital divide

What economic change has made it more difficult for workers to strike effectively?

the ease with which manufacturing firms can move operations to another country

What is religiosity?

the extent of a person's consistent and regular practice of their religious beliefs

Sociologists have noted that the informal teaching practices and power relationships by which schools operate produce a disconnect between democratic values and what actually goes on in schools. To what concept are such arguments referring?

the hidden curriculum

How has the Information Revolution changed the nature of work?

the importance of the physical space in which work is done has been greatly diminished

An example of outsourcing shown in the film Ascension was:

the production of Keep America Great merchandise

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

the social construction of race

Karl Marx believed that workers in a capitalist economy experience alienation because

they are paid for their labor but do not own the things they produce

Which of the following examples highlights the autonomy experienced by knowledge workers such as those who work at Google?

they often have the freedom to take breaks when they choose

According to a conflict perspective, why do members of lucrative professions like law and medicine support the current educational system?

they want to keep the number of potential job applicants down, thereby minimizing competition and ensuring that there are a large number of people for less lucrative, less pleasant professions

What is the process called when students are tested and the results are used to place them in a certain category of classes (remedial, advanced, college prep, etc.)?

tracking

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