Sociology final

How do race and ethnicity differ?

A race is a category of people who have been singled out as inferior or superior, often on the basis of physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, or eye shape. An ethnic group is a collection of people distinguished primarily by cultural or national characteristics, including unique cultural traits, a sense of community, a feeling of ethnocentrism, ascribed membership, and territoriality.

second shift

Arlie Hochschild's term for the domestic work that employed women perform at home after they complete their workday on the job.

What are the kinds of authority figures in patriarchal, matriarchal, and egalitarian families?

Forms of familial power and authority that have been identified are patriarchy, matriarchy, and egalitarianism. A patriarchal family is a family structure in which authority is held by the eldest male (usually the father). A matriarchal family is a family structure in which authority is held by the eldest female (usually the mother). An egalitarian family is a family structure in which both partners share power and authority equally.

conflict: disability

From a conflict perspective, persons with a disability are members of a subordinate group in conflict with persons in positions of power in the government, in the health care industry, and in the rehabilitation business, all of whom are trying to control their destinies. Those in positions of power have created policies and artificial barriers that keep people with disabilities in a subservient position

What are the primary sociological perspectives on the family as a social institution?

Functionalists emphasize the importance of the family in maintaining the stability of society and the well-being of individuals. Conflict and feminist perspectives view the family as a source of social inequality and an arena for conflict. Symbolic interactionists explain family relationships in terms of the subjective meanings and everyday interpretations that people give to their lives. Postmodern analysts view families as being permeable, capable of being diffused or invaded so that their original purpose is modified.

Which statement describes the symbolic interactionist perspective on disability?

People with a disability experience role ambiguity because many people equate disability with deviance.

individual discrimination

behavior consisting of one-on-one acts by members of the dominant group that harm members of the subordinate group or their property.

Collective agreement

people jointly agree on the idea of race and that they accept that it exists as an important component in how we describe or explain the individual's experiences in everyday life. Examples of collective agreement include a widely held acceptance of the view that "racial differences affect people's athletic ability" or of the assumption that "physical differences based on race cause cultural differences among various distinct categories of people."

According to __________, the process of labeling is directly related to the power and status of those persons who do the labeling and those who are being labeled.

symbolic interactionists

genocide

the deliberate, systematic killing of an entire people or nation.

gendered racism

the interactive effect of racism and sexism on the exploitation of women of color.

De facto segregation

racial separation and inequality enforced by custom

preliterate societies

societies that existed before the invention of reading and writing, was informal in nature. People acquired knowledge and skills through informal education—learning that occurs in a spontaneous, unplanned way—from parents and other group members who provided information on survival skills such as how to gather food, find shelter, make weapons and tools, and get along with others.

What are the primary reasons for teenage pregnancy? At the microlevel, several issues are most important:

(1) many sexually active teenagers do not use contraceptives; (2) teenagers—especially those from low-income families and/or subordinate racial and ethnic groups—may receive little accurate information about the use of, and problems associated with, contraception; (3) some teenage males (because of a double standard based on the myth that sexual promiscuity is acceptable among males but not females) believe that females should be responsible for contraception; and (4) some teenagers view pregnancy as a sign of male prowess or as a way to gain adult status

Medicalization may occur on three levels:

(1) the conceptual level (e.g., the use of medical terminology to define the problem), (2) the institutional level (e.g., physicians are supervisors of treatment and gatekeepers to applying for benefits), and (3) the interactional level (e.g., when physicians treat patients' conditions as medical problems).

According to the sociologist Eliot Freidson (1965), how disabled people are labeled results from three factors:

(1) their degree of responsibility for their impairment, (2) the apparent seriousness of their condition, and (3) the perceived legitimacy of the condition.

Ethnic groups share five main characteristics:

(1) unique cultural traits, such as language, clothing, holidays, or religious practices; (2) a sense of community; (3) a feeling of ethnocentrism; (4) ascribed membership from birth; and (5) territoriality, or the tendency to occupy a distinct geographic area (such as Little Italy or Little Moscow) by choice and/or for self-protection.

in contact hypothesis, symbolic interactionists point out that contact between people from divergent groups should lead to favorable attitudes and behavior when certain factors are present: Members of each group must

(1) have equal status, (2) pursue the same goals, (3) cooperate with one another to achieve their goals, and (4) receive positive feedback when they interact with one another in positive, nondiscriminatory ways (Figure 10.5).

public health insurance

Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare, a federal program for people ages 65 and over (who are covered by Social Security or railroad retirement insurance or who have been permanently and totally disabled for two years or more). Medicaid is the federal government's health care program for low-income and disabled persons and certain groups of seniors in nursing homes.

What is meant by the term mental illness, and why is it a difficult topic for sociological research?

Mental illness affects many people; however, it is a difficult topic for sociological research. An earlier social analyst, Thomas Szasz (1984), argued that mental illness is a myth. After decades of debate on this issue, social analysts are no closer to reaching a consensus than they were when Szasz originally introduced his ideas.

Which group is the largest segment (approximately two-thirds) of the Hispanic population in the United States?

Mexican Americans

What have been the unique experiences of Latinos/as (Hispanics) and Middle Eastern Americans in the United States?

Mexican Americans—including both native-born and foreign-born people of Mexican origin—are the largest segment (approximately two-thirds) of the Latino/a population in the United States. Today, Puerto Rican Americans make up 9 percent of Hispanic-origin people in the United States. Although some Latinos/as have made substantial political, economic, and professional gains in U.S. society, as a group they are nevertheless subjected to anti-immigration sentiments. Since 1970, many immigrants have arrived in the United States from countries located in the "Middle East," which is the geographic region from Afghanistan to Libya and includes Arabia, Cyprus, and Asiatic Turkey. Middle Eastern immigrants to the United States speak a variety of languages and have diverse religious backgrounds. Because they generally come from middle-class backgrounds, they have made inroads into mainstream U.S. society. However, some Middle Eastern Americans experience discrimination based on their speech patterns, appearance, and clothing. The idea that Middle Easterners are somehow associated with terrorism has also been difficult to remove from media representations and some people's thinking, which produces ongoing hardship for many upstanding citizens of this nation.

What child-related family issues are of concern to many people in the twenty-first century?

Cultural attitudes about having children and about the ideal family size have changed dramatically in the United States. Today, the concept of reproductive freedom includes both the desire to have or not to have one or more children. Issues of concern include teenage childbearing. Many single-parent families also exist today.

homeschooling

It is estimated that about 1.5 million children are homeschooled in grades K through 12. The primary reasons that parents indicated for preferring to homeschool their children are: (1.) concern about the school environment, (2) the desire to provide religious or moral instruction, and (3) dissatisfaction with the academic instruction available at traditional schools.

What are the educational opportunities and challenges found in community colleges in the twenty-first century?

One of the fastest-growing areas of U.S. higher education today is the community college. Community colleges educate about half of the nation's undergraduates and offer a variety of courses. One of the greatest challenges facing community colleges today is money. Across the nation, state and local governments struggling to balance their budgets have slashed funding for community colleges.

postmodern: education

One of the major postmodern theorists is Jean-Francois Lyotard (1984), who described how knowledge has become a commodity that is exchanged between producers and consumers. "Knowledge" is now an automated database, and teaching and learning are primarily about data presentation, stripped of their former humanistic and spiritual associations. In the postmodern era an emphasis in higher education is on how to make colleges and universities more efficient and how to bring these institutions into the service of business and industry.

What are prejudice, stereotypes, racism, scapegoat, and discrimination?

Prejudice is a negative attitude often based on stereotypes, which are overgeneralizations about the appearance, behavior, or other characteristics of all members of a group. Stereotypes are overgeneralizations about the appearance, behavior, or other characteristics of members of particular categories. Racism is a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices that is used to justify the superior treatment of one racial or ethnic group and the inferior treatment of another racial or ethnic group. A scapegoat is a person or group that is incapable of offering resistance to the hostility or aggression of others Discrimination involves actions or practices of dominant-group members that have a harmful effect on members of a subordinate group.

How do racial and ethnic classifications continue to change in the United States?

Racial classifications in the United States have changed over the past century. If we look at U.S. Census Bureau classifications, for example, we can see how the meaning of race continues to change. First, race is defined by perceived skin color: white or nonwhite. Census 2000 made it possible—for the first time—for individuals to classify themselves as being of more than one race.

What may the future hold with regards to education?

The future of education will depend in part on how successful that elected officials are in getting their agendas through state legislatures or the U.S. Congress. The tightening of financial resources available to colleges and universities will lead to even more schools seeking alternative ways to fund their operations. Another issue facing higher education in the future is how academic instruction will take place.

Postmodernist Perspectives

The postmodern family has been described as permeable—a more fluid and pliable form of the nuclear family that is characterized by larger variations in family structures. These variations are generated by divorce, remarriage, cohabitation, single-parent family structures, and families in which one or more grandchildren live with their grandparents. In the postmodern family, traditional gender roles are much more flexible.

According to French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, students from diverse backgrounds come to school with different amounts of __________, which refers to a person's social assets, including knowledge of how to dress, language competency, and knowledge of art and music.

cultural capital

reverse discrimination

describes a situation in which a person who is better qualified is denied enrollment in an educational program or employment in a specific position as a result of another person receiving preferential treatment as a result of affirmative action.

prejudice

a negative attitude based on faulty generalizations about members of specific racial, ethnic, or other groups. (According to some symbolic interactionists, prejudice results from social learning; in other words, it is learned from observing and imitating significant others, such as parents and peers.)

scapegoat

a person or group that is incapable of offering resistance to the hostility or aggression of others.

authoritarian personality

a personality type characterized by excessive conformity, submissiveness to authority, intolerance, insecurity, a high level of superstition, and rigid, stereotypic thinking.

assimilation

a process by which members of subordinate racial and ethnic groups become absorbed into the dominant culture.

credentialism

a process of social selection in which class advantage and social status are linked to the possession of academic qualifications. Credentialism is closely related to meritocracy, a social system in which status is assumed to be acquired through individual ability and effort.

dominant group

a racial or ethnic group that has the greatest power and resources in a society.

internal colonialism

according to conflict theorists, a practice that occurs when members of a racial or ethnic group are conquered or colonized and forcibly placed under the economic and political control of the dominant group.

discrimination

actions or practices of dominant-group members (or their representatives) that have a harmful effect on members of a subordinate group.

What term describes policies or procedures that are intended to promote equal opportunity for categories of people deemed to have been previously excluded from equality in education, employment, and other fields on the basis of characteristics such as race or ethnicity?

affirmative action

preferred provider organization (PPO)

an organization of medical doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers that enter into a contract with an insurer or a third-party administrator to provide health care at a reduced rate to patients who are covered under specific insurance plans. In most managed-care programs, patients choose a primary-care physician from a list of participating doctors. Unlike many of the HMOs, when a patient covered under a PPO plan needs medical services, he or she may contact any one of a number of primary-care physicians or specialists who are "in-network" providers. Like HMOs, most PPO plans do contain a pre-certification requirement in which scheduled (nonemergency) hospital admissions and certain kinds of procedures must be approved in advance.

self-fulfilling prophecy

an unsubstantiated belief or prediction resulting in behavior that makes the originally false belief come true

event dropout rate

estimates the percentage of both public and private high school students who left high school between the beginning of one school year and the beginning of the next without earning a high school diploma or an alternative credential such as a GED—we find that every school day, at least 7,000 U.S. students (on average) leave high school and never return.

A(n) _____ is a collection of people distinguished, by others or by themselves, primarily on the basis of cultural or nationality characteristics.

ethnic group

The coexistence of a variety of distinct racial and ethnic groups within one society is called

ethnic pluralism

In horticultural and agricultural societies, __________ are extremely important; having a large number of family members and relatives participate in food production may be essential for survival.

extended families

Which of the following is NOT one of the functions that families in advanced industrial societies serve, according to contemporary functionalists?

guaranteed reproduction

Which of the following factors does NOT decrease the risk of divorce?

having divorced parents

With an emphasis on prevention to avoid costly treatment later, _______ provide total care for a set monthly fee.

health maintenance organizations (HMOs

subtle racism

hidden from sight and more difficult to recognize.

Which approach to health care focuses on prevention of illness and disease and is aimed at treating the whole person—body and mind—rather than just the part or parts in which symptoms occur?

holistic medicine

domestic partnerships

household partnerships in which an unmarried couple lives together in a committed, sexually intimate relationship and is granted some of the same rights and benefits as those accorded to married heterosexual couples

acceptance of a specific construction

ideas pertaining to race become so widely accepted that they become embedded in law and social customs in a society and become much more difficult to change or eliminate. When a significant number of people, or a number of significant people, accept a social construction as absolute and real, the prevailing group typically imposes its beliefs and practices upon others through tradition and law. Over time, ideas about race, inadequate or false though they may be, are passed on from generation to generation.

Psychological assimilation

involves a change in racial or ethnic self-identification on the part of an individual. Rejection by the dominant group may prevent psychological assimilation by members of some subordinate racial and ethnic groups, especially those with visible characteristics such as skin color or facial features that differ from those of the dominant group.

Sociologist Joe Feagin identified _____ discrimination as harmful action intentionally taken by a dominant-group member against a member of a subordinate group, without the support of other members of the dominant group in the immediate social or community context.

isolate

dual-earner marriages

marriages in which both spouses are in the labor force.

What term refers to providing free, public schooling for wide segments of a nation's population?

mass education

Few societies have residential patterns known as __________, which refers to the custom of a married couple living in the same household (or community) as the wife's parents.

matrilocal residence

Which of the following is NOT typically a target of a social epidemiologist's investigation?

medical care

Functionalists: education

one of the most important components of society. Overall, functionalists typically advocate the importance of establishing a more rigorous academic environment in which students are required to learn the basics that will make them competitive in school and job markets. According to Emile Durkheim, education is crucial for promoting social solidarity and stability in society: Education is the "influence exercised by adult generations on those that are not yet ready for social life". Durkheim asserted that moral values are the foundation of a cohesive social order and that schools are responsible for teaching a commitment to the common morality. In analyzing the values and functions of education, sociologists using a functionalist framework distinguish between manifest functions and latent functions. Functionalists acknowledge that education has certain dysfunctions. Some analysts argue that U.S. education is not promoting the high-level skills in reading, writing, science, and mathematics that are needed in the workplace and the global economy.

stereotypes

overgeneralizations about the appearance, behavior, or other characteristics of members of particular categories.

The most common pattern of unilineal descent is __________, which is a system of tracing descent through the father's side of the family.

patrilineal descent

frustration-aggression hypothesis

people who are frustrated in their efforts to achieve a highly desired goal will respond with a pattern of aggression toward others. The object of their aggression becomes the scapegoat

symbolic interactionists: disability

people with a disability experience role ambiguity because many people equate disability with deviance. By labeling individuals with a disability as "deviant," other people can avoid them or treat them as outsiders.

voucher programs

public funds (tax dollars) are provided to parents so that they can pay their child's tuition at a private school of their choice. Some critics believe that giving taxpayer money to parents so that they can spend it at private (often religious) schools violates constitutional requirements for the separation of church and state.

health care in Canada

publicly funded health care system. Services are provided by private entities and are mostly free to patients. Information remains private between physician and patient, and the government is not involved in patient care. Each citizen receives a health card, and all patients receive the same level of care. As long as a person's premiums are paid up, health coverage is not affected by losing or changing jobs.

De jure segregation

refers to laws that systematically enforced the physical and social separation of African Americans in all areas of public life.

families

relationships in which people live together with commitment, form an economic unit and care for any young, and consider their identity to be significantly attached to the group

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

requires schools to make their facilities, services, activities, and programs accessible to people with disabilities.

Merton's typology

shows that some people may be prejudiced but not discriminate against others.

ethnic pluralism

the coexistence of a variety of distinct racial and ethnic groups within one society.

polygamy

the concurrent marriage of a person of one sex with two or more members of the opposite sex.

polygyny

the concurrent marriage of one man with two or more women.

polyandry

the concurrent marriage of one woman with two or more men.

Which sociological perspective uses the contact hypothesis to posit that contact between people from divergent groups should lead to favorable attitudes and behavior when certain factors are present?

symbolic interactionism

affirmative action

policies or procedures that are intended to promote equal opportunity for categories of people deemed to have been previously excluded from equality in education, employment, and other fields on the basis of characteristics such as race or ethnicity.

The concurrent marriage of one man with two or more women is known as

polygyny

desegregation

the abolition of legally sanctioned racial-ethnic segregation

critical race theory

the belief that racism is such an ingrained feature of U.S. society that it appears to be ordinary and natural to many people

patrilocal residence

the custom of a married couple living in the same household (or community) as the husband's parents.

matrilocal residence

the custom of a married couple living in the same household (or community) as the wife's parents.

neolocal residence

the custom of a married couple living in their own residence apart from both the husband's and the wife's parents.

institutional discrimination

the day-to-day practices of organizations and institutions that have a harmful effect on members of subordinate groups.

split labor market

the division of the economy into two areas of employment, a primary sector or upper tier, composed of higher-paid (usually dominant-group) workers in more-secure jobs, and a secondary sector or lower tier, composed of lower-paid (often subordinate-group) workers in jobs with little security and hazardous working conditions.

theory of racial formation

the idea that actions of the government substantially define racial and ethnic relations in the United States.

integration

the implementation of specific action to change the racial-ethnic and/or class composition of the student body

homogamy

the pattern of individuals marrying those who have similar characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, religious background, age, education, or social class.

status dropout rate

the percentage of people in a specific age range who are not currently enrolled in high school and who do not have a high school degree or its equivalent. In recent years, slightly more than three million 16- to 24-year-olds were not enrolled in high school and had not earned a high school diploma or its equivalent.

tracking

the practice of assigning students to specific curriculum groups and courses on the basis of their test scores, previous grades, or other criteria.

exogamy

the practice of marrying outside one's own group.

endogamy

the practice of marrying within one's own group.

mass education

the practice of providing free, public schooling for wide segments of a nation's population.

monogamy

the practice or state of being married to one person at a time.

cultural transmission

the process by which children and recent immigrants become acquainted with the dominant cultural beliefs, values, norms, and accumulated knowledge of a society

What is a health care system in which all citizens receive medical services paid for by tax revenue?

universal health care

What are some of the key stressors that contribute to family violence and the need for foster care for children?

Factors contributing to unequal power relations in families include economic factors, legal and political sanctions that deny girls and women equal rights, and cultural factors that perpetuate domestic violence. Regardless of the factors that contribute to domestic violence, control is central to all forms of abuse. Women and children are most strongly affected by family violence, although domestic violence is also perpetrated against men. However, everyone in a household where family violence occurs is harmed psychologically, and children are especially harmed. Foster care is often used as a safe place for children who have been in dysfunctional families, some of which are the sites of family violence, others of which are not.

What issues do many contemporary couples face when thinking of developing intimate relationships and establishing families?

Families are changing dramatically in the United States. Cohabitation has increased significantly in the past three decades. Among heterosexual couples, many reasons exist for cohabitation; for gay and lesbian couples, however, no alternatives to cohabitation existed in many U.S. states before the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage. For that reason, many lesbian and gay couples sought recognition of their domestic partnerships—household partnerships in which an unmarried couple lives together in a committed, sexually intimate relationship and is granted some of the same rights and benefits as those accorded to married heterosexual couples. With the increase in dual-earner marriages, women have become larger contributors to the financial well-being of their families, but some have become increasingly burdened by the second shift—the domestic work that employed women perform at home after they complete their workday on the job.

True

about 6.6 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives, including those of more than one race, live in the United States. About 22 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives reside in federal American Indian reservations and/or off-reservation trust lands or other tribal-designated areas. There are 326 federally recognized American Indian reservations in this country and a total of 630 legal and statistical areas

According to the sociologist Philip Cohen (2014), three major factors have contributed to this dramatic change in family structure in the United States:

(1) a decline in marriage rates; (2) a rise in the number of women who are employed in the paid workforce, and (3) a shift from the majority living in a nuclear family to a wider variety of living arrangements, such as blended families, cohabitation, and more-extensive patterns of remarriage (discussed later in this chapter).

Robert K. Merton (1949) identified four combinations of attitudes and responses:

1. Unprejudiced nondiscriminators- not personally prejudiced and do not discriminate against others. For example, two players on a professional sports team may be best friends although they are of different races. 2. Unprejudiced discriminators- may have no personal prejudice but still engage in discriminatory behavior because of peer-group pressure or economic, political, or social interests. For example, on some sports teams, players may hold no genuine prejudice toward players from diverse racial or ethnic origins but believe that they have to impress their "friends" by making disparaging remarks about persons of color so that they can get into, or remain in, a peer group. 3. prejudiced nondiscriminators- personal prejudices but do not discriminate because of peer pressure, legal demands, or a desire for profits. For example, professional sports teams' owners and coaches who hold prejudiced beliefs may hire a player of color to enhance the team's ability to win. 4. prejudiced discriminators-personal prejudices and actively discriminate against others. For example, a baseball umpire who is personally prejudiced against persons of color may intentionally call a play incorrectly based on that prejudice.

Health care reform was originally scheduled to occur in the following stages:

2010: Adults who had been unable to get coverage because of a preexisting condition could join a high-risk insurance pool (as a stopgap measure until the competitive health insurance marketplace was scheduled to begin in 2014). Insurance companies would have to cover children with preexisting conditions. Policies could not be revoked when people got sick. Preventive services would be fully covered without co-pays or deductibles. Dependent children could remain on their parents' insurance plans until they reached the age of twenty-six. 2011: Medicare recipients would have access to free annual wellness visits with no cost for preventive care, and those recipients who had to pay out of pocket for prescription drugs would receive substantial discounts. 2012: The federal government would provide additional money for primary-care services, and new incentives would be offered to encourage doctors to join together in accountability-care organizations. Hospitals with high readmission rates would face stiff penalties. 2013: Households with incomes above $250,000 would be subject to higher taxes to help pay for health care reform. Medicare would launch "payment bundling" so that hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers could be paid on the basis of patient outcome, not services provided. 2014: Most people would be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty for not having it. Insurance companies could not deny a policy to anyone based on health status, nor could they refuse to pay for treatment on the basis of preexisting health conditions. Annual limits on health care coverage would be abolished. Each state would have to open a health insurance exchange, or marketplace, so that individuals and small businesses without coverage could comparatively shop for health packages. Tax credits would make insurance and health care more affordable for those who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. 2018: Insurance companies and plan administrators would pay a 40 percent excise tax on all family plans costing more than $27,500 per year. 2019: The health reform law should have reduced the number of uninsured people by 32 million, leaving about 23 million uninsured. About one-third of the uninsured would be immigrants residing in the country without legal documentation.

Today, about ____________ of U.S. undergraduates are educated in community colleges.

50 percent

What are the key assumptions of functionalist, conflict, symbolic interactionist, and postmodernist perspectives on education?

According to functionalists, education has both manifest functions (socialization, transmission of culture, multicultural education, social control, social placement, and change and innovation) and latent functions (keeping young people off the streets and out of the job market, matchmaking and producing social networks, and creating a generation gap). From a conflict perspective, education is used to perpetuate class, racial-ethnic, and gender inequalities through tracking, ability grouping, and a hidden curriculum that teaches subordinate groups conformity and obedience. Symbolic interactionists examine classroom dynamics and study ways in which practices such as labeling may become a self-fulfilling prophecy for some students. Some postmodernists suggest that in a consumer culture, education has become a commodity that is bought by students and their parents.

What is the relationship between the social environment and health and illness?

According to the World Health Organization, health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. Illness refers to an interference with health; like health, illness is socially defined and may change over time and between cultures. In other words, health and illness are not only biological issues but also social issues. Studying health and health care issues around the world offers insights on illness and how political and economic forces shape health care in nations.

How do functionalist, conflict, symbolic interactionist, and postmodern approaches differ in their analysis of health and health care?

According to the functionalist approach, if society is to function as a stable system, it is important for people to be healthy and to contribute to their society. Consequently, sickness is viewed as a form of deviant behavior that must be controlled by society. Conflict theory tends to emphasize the political, economic, and social forces that affect health and the health care delivery system. Among these issues are the ability of all people to obtain health care; how race, class, and gender inequalities affect health and health care; power relations between doctors and other health care workers; the dominance of the medical model of health care; and the role of profit in the health care system. In studying health, symbolic interactionists focus on the fact that the meaning that social actors give their illness or disease will affect their self-concept and their relationships with others. Symbolic interactionists also examine medicalization—the process whereby nonmedical problems become defined and treated as illnesses or disorders. Postmodern theorists argue that doctors and the medical establishment have gained control over illness and patients at least partly because of the physicians' clinical gaze, which replaces all other systems of knowledge.

Advances in medical technology are occurring at a speed that is almost unbelievable; however, sociologists and other social scientists have identified specific social implications of some of the new technologies:

Advanced technologies create options for people and for society, but these options alter human relationships. An example is the ability of medical personnel to sustain a life that in earlier times would have ended as the result of disease or an accident. Although this can be beneficial, technologically advanced equipment (that can sustain life after consciousness is lost and there is no likelihood that the person will recover) can create a difficult decision for the family of that person if he or she has not left a living will—a document stating the person's wishes regarding the medical circumstances under which his or her life should be terminated. Federal law requires all hospitals and other medical facilities to honor the terms of a living will. Advanced technologies increase the cost of medical care. For example, the computerized axial tomography (CT or CAT) scanner—which combines a computer with X-rays that are passed through the body at different angles—produces clear images of the interior of the body that are invaluable in investigating disease. The cost of such a scanner is around $1 million. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment that allows pictures to be taken of internal organs ranges in cost from $1 million to $2.5 million (Figure 18.15). Can the United States afford such equipment in every hospital for every patient? The money available for health care is not unlimited, and when it is spent on high-tech equipment and treatment, it is being reallocated from other health care programs that might be of greater assistance to more people. Advanced technologies such as cloning and stem cell research raise provocative questions about the very nature of life. In 1997 Dr. Ian Williams and his associates in Scotland cloned a lamb (that they named Dolly) from the DNA of an adult sheep. Subsequently, scientists have cloned other animals in the same manner, raising a number of profound questions: If scientists can duplicate mammals from adult DNA, is it possible to clone a human being? If it is possible, would it be ethical? Like cloning, stem cell research has been an important and controversial issue in medicine. Stem cell research is important because stem cells—which are accessible in the skin and through extraction from umbilical cord blood and human embryos—can be used to generate virtually any type of specialized cell in the human body and to replace diseased or damaged human tissue. However, opponents of embryonic stem cell research believe that a human life is taken when a human embryo is destroyed in this research. Proponents of stem cell research respond that these studies do not always require the use of embryos.

What problems exist in higher education related to racial and ethnic diversity?

Among the most pressing problems are the underrepresentation of minorities as students, a lack of faculty diversity, and continuing controversy over affirmative action policies and laws. People of color (who are more likely than the average white student to be from lower-income families) are underrepresented in higher education. Underrepresentation is not the only problem faced by students of color: Problems of prejudice and discrimination continue on some college campuses. Despite the widely held assumption that there has been a significant increase in the number of minority professors, the latest figures indicate that this is not the case. Gender is also a factor in faculty diversity. In all ranks and racial and ethnic categories, men make up nearly 60 percent of the full-time faculty, while women account for roughly 40 percent.

conflict perspective: education

Conflict theorists emphasize that schools solidify the privileged position of some groups at the expense of others by perpetuating class, racial-ethnic, and gender inequalities. Although many factors—including intelligence, motivation, and previous accomplishments—are important in determining how much education a person will attain, conflict theorists argue that access to quality education is closely related to social class. From this approach, education is a vehicle for reproducing existing class relationships. According to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the school legitimates and reinforces the social elites by engaging in specific practices that uphold the patterns of behavior and the attitudes of the dominant class. Conflict theorists believe that tracking seriously affects many students' educational performance and their overall academic accomplishments.

What is a disability, and what are some key sociological perspectives on disability?

Disability is a physical or health condition that stigmatizes or causes discrimination. In viewing disability, sociologists using the functionalist framework often apply the medical model of disability. According to the medical model, people with disabilities become chronic patients under the supervision of medical personnel, subject to a doctor's orders or a program's rules and not to their own judgment. According to symbolic interactionists, people with a disability experience role ambiguity because many people equate disability with deviance. From a conflict perspective, persons with a disability are members of a subordinate group in conflict with persons in positions of power in the government, the health care industry, and the rehabilitation business, all of whom are trying to control their destinies.

What is divorce, and how does it affect remarriage patterns and blended families in the United States?

Divorce is the legal process of dissolving a marriage. At the macrolevel, changes in social institutions may contribute to an increase in divorce rates; at the microlevel, factors contributing to divorce include age at marriage, length of acquaintanceship, economic resources, education level, and parental marital happiness.

Which statement is true regarding domestic violence?

Domestic violence can include the threat or use of violence, relationship abuse, and various kinds of bullying and battering.

How did the profession of medicine emerge in the United States?

During the nineteenth century, medical schools were largely proprietary institutions, and their officials were often more interested in acquiring students than in enforcing standards. Gradually, the number of medical schools was reduced, and licensing laws were established to eliminate unqualified or irregular practitioners. Although medicine had been previously viewed more as an art than as a science, several significant discoveries during the nineteenth century in areas such as bacteriology and anesthesiology began to give medicine increasing credibility as a science.

health care in china

During the past two decades the health care system in China has become a complex mix of market-driven capitalism, communism, and massive government spending. The profit-driven system is based on fee-for-service practice by physicians and the sale of highly expensive pharmaceutical products that are marketed by doctors and hospitals. Much of the profit is through drug sales, particularly intravenous (IV) treatments, which are used much more widely than in the United States. Until reforms occurred in about 2008-2009, pharmaceutical products were very costly; however, they have become somewhat more affordable since that time.

What is education, and how has the social institution of education changed throughout history?

Education is the social institution responsible for the systematic transmission of knowledge, skills, and cultural values within a formally organized structure. Perhaps the earliest formal education occurred in ancient Greece and Rome, where philosophers taught elite males the skills required to become thinkers and orators. By the mid-1850s, the process of mass education had begun in the United States as all states established free, tax-supported elementary schools that were readily available to children throughout the country. Today, schools attempt to meet the needs of society by teaching a wide diversity of students a myriad of topics.

What are the unique historical experiences of Native Americans and WASPs in the United States?

Experts estimate that approximately two million native inhabitants lived in North America in 1492; their numbers had been reduced to fewer than 240,000 by 1900. Native Americans have been the victims of genocide and forced migration. After the Revolutionary War, the federal government broke treaty after treaty as it engaged in a policy of wholesale removal of indigenous nations in order to clear the land for settlement by Anglo-Saxon "pioneers." Data continue to show that Native Americans are the most disadvantaged racial or ethnic group in the United States in terms of income, employment, housing, nutrition, and health. Whereas Native Americans have been among the most disadvantaged peoples, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) have been the most privileged group in this country. Although many English settlers initially came to North America as indentured servants or as prisoners, they quickly emerged as the dominant group, creating a core culture (including language, laws, and holidays) to which all other groups were expected to adapt.

How do options such as school vouchers, charter schools, and homeschooling differ from traditional educational approaches?

In the voucher program, tax dollars are provided to parents so that they can pay their child's tuition at a private school of their choice. Charter schools are schools that operate under a charter contract negotiated by the school's organizers and a sponsor that oversees the provisions of the contract. Homeschooling has been chosen by some parents who hope to avoid the problems of public schools while providing a quality education for their children.

In one of the most vicious forms of discrimination ever sanctioned by U.S. laws, nearly 120,000 __________ were placed in internment camps, where they remained for more than two years despite the total lack of evidence that they posed a security threat to the United States.

Japanese Americans

What are the differences among the following marriage patterns—monogamy, polygamy, polygyny, and polyandry—and the differences among these patterns of descent—patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilateral?

Marriage is a legally recognized and/or socially approved arrangement between two or more individuals that carries certain rights and obligations and usually involves sexual activity. In the United States, the only legally sanctioned form of marriage is monogamy—the practice or state of being married to one person at a time. Polygamy is the concurrent marriage of a person of one sex with two or more members of the opposite sex. The most prevalent form of polygamy is polygyny—the concurrent marriage of one man with two or more women. The second type of polygamy is polyandry—the concurrent marriage of one woman with two or more men. Virtually all forms of marriage establish a system of descent so that kinship can be determined and inheritance rights established. In preindustrial societies, kinship is usually traced through one parent (unilineally). The most common pattern of unilineal descent is patrilineal descent. Matrilineal descent is the less common pattern. Kinship in industrial societies is usually traced through both parents (bilineally). The most common form of descent is bilateral.

What are some major problems in elementary and secondary schools?

Most educational funds come from state legislative appropriations and local property taxes. In difficult economic times, this means that schools must do without the necessary funds to provide students with teachers, supplies, and the best educational environment for learning. High dropout rates, racial segregation and resegregation, and how to equalize educational opportunities for students are also among the many pressing issues facing U.S. public education today.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010

One of the central tenets in the law was the creation of a new insurance marketplace that made it possible for individuals and families without coverage and small business owners to pool their resources to increase their buying power in order to make health insurance more affordable. Private insurance companies would compete for their business based on cost and quality. Advocates of the law believed that it might be a first step in curbing abuses in the insurance industry.

How do other nations provide health services for their citizens?

Other nations have various ways in which they provide health care for their citizens. Some nations (such as Canada) have a universal health care system in which all citizens receive medical services paid for by tax revenues. Other nations (such as Great Britain) have a socialized health care system in which the government owns the medical care facilities and employs the physicians.

Talcott Parsons's concept of the sick role is a set of patterned expectations that defines the norms and values appropriate for individuals who are sick. Which of the following is NOT one of the four primary characteristics of the sick role?

People who are sick should seclude themselves from others.

cultural capital

Pierre Bourdieu's term for people's social assets, including values, beliefs, attitudes, and competencies in language and culture

Education serves at least three latent functions, which we have previously defined as hidden, unstated, and sometimes unintended consequences of activities within an organization or institution:

Restricting some activities. States have mandatory education laws that require children to attend school until they reach a specified age (usually age sixteen) or complete a minimum level of formal education (generally the eighth grade). Out of these laws grew one latent function of education: keeping students off the streets and out of the full-time job market until they are older. Matchmaking and production of social networks. Because schools bring together people of similar ages, social class, and race/ethnicity, young people often meet future marriage partners and develop lasting social networks. Creation of a generation gap. Students learn information and develop technological skills that may create a generation gap between them and their parents, particularly as the students come to embrace a newly acquired perspective.

Contemporary functionalist perspectives on families derive their foundation from Durkheim. In advanced industrial societies, families serve four key functions:

Sexual regulation. Families are expected to regulate the sexual activity of their members and thus control reproduction so that it occurs within specific boundaries. At the macrolevel, incest taboos prohibit sexual contact or marriage between certain relatives. For example, virtually all societies prohibit sexual relations between parents and their children and between brothers and sisters. Socialization. Parents and other relatives are responsible for teaching children the necessary knowledge and skills to survive. The smallness and intimacy of families make them best suited for providing children with the initial learning experiences they need. Economic and psychological support. Families are responsible for providing economic and psychological support for members. In preindustrial societies, families are economic production units; in industrial societies, the economic security of families is tied to the workplace and to macrolevel economic systems. In recent years, psychological support and emotional security have been increasingly important functions of the family. Provision of social status. Families confer social status and reputation on their members. These statuses include the ascribed statuses with which individuals are born, such as race/ethnicity, nationality, social class, and sometimes religious affiliation.

What is social epidemiology, and what key demographic factors are studied by social epidemiologists?

Social epidemiology is the study of the causes and distribution of health, disease, and impairment throughout a population. Typically, the target of the investigation is disease agents, the environment, and the human host (age, sex, race/ethnicity, physical condition, habits and customs, and lifestyle).

Some functions of education are manifest functions—previously defined as open, stated, and intended goals or consequences of activities within an organization or institution. Education serves six major manifest functions in society:

Socialization. From kindergarten through college, schools teach students the student role, specific academic subjects, and political socialization. Transmission of culture. Schools transmit cultural norms and values to each new generation and play an active part in the process of assimilation of recent immigrants. Multicultural education. Schools promote awareness of and appreciation for cultural differences so that students can work and compete successfully in a diverse society and a global economy. Social control. Schools teach values such as discipline, respect, obedience, punctuality, and perseverance. Schools teach conformity by encouraging young people to be good students, conscientious future workers, and law-abiding citizens. Social placement. Schools identify the most-qualified people to fill the positions available in society. As a result, students are channeled into programs based on individual ability and academic achievement. Graduates receive the appropriate credentials to enter the paid labor force. Change and innovation. Schools are a source of change and innovation to meet societal needs. Faculty members are responsible for engaging in research and passing on their findings to students, colleagues, and the general public.

How has advanced medical technology changed the practice of medicine and the cost of health services?

Sociologists have identified specific social implications of some new medical technologies: (1) Advanced technologies create options for people and for society, but these options alter human relationships. (2) Advanced technologies increase the cost of medical care. (3) Advanced technologies such as cloning and stem cell research raise provocative questions about the very nature of life.

Which of the following statements is NOT a primary microlevel reason for high rates of teenage pregnancy in the United States?

Some teenage females believe that males should be responsible for contraception.

How do sociologists view racial and ethnic group relations?

Symbolic interactionists claim that intergroup contact may either intensify or reduce racial and ethnic stereotyping and prejudice, depending on the context. In the contact hypothesis, symbolic interactionists point out that contact between people from divergent groups should lead to favorable attitudes and behavior when certain factors are present. Functionalists stress that members of subordinate groups become a part of the mainstream through assimilation, the process by which members of subordinate groups become absorbed into the dominant culture. Conflict theorists focus on economic stratification and access to power in race and ethnic relations. The caste perspective views inequality as a permanent feature of society, whereas class perspectives focus on the link between capitalism and racial exploitation. According to racial formation theory, the actions of the U.S. government substantially define racial and ethnic relations.

A Functionalist Perspective: The Sick Role

Talcott Parsons. According to Parsons, the sick role has four primary characteristics: People who are sick are not responsible for their condition. It is assumed that being sick is not a deliberate and knowing choice of the sick person. People who assume the sick role are temporarily exempt from their normal roles and obligations. For example, people with illnesses are typically not expected to go to school or work. People who are sick must want to get well. The sick role is considered to be a temporary one that people must relinquish as soon as their condition improves sufficiently. Those who do not return to their regular activities in a timely fashion may be labeled as hypochondriacs or malingerers. People who are sick must seek competent help from a medical professional to hasten their recovery. As these characteristics show, Parsons believed that illness is dysfunctional for both individuals and the larger society.

How have slavery, segregation, lynching, and persistent discrimination uniquely affected the African American experience in this country?

The African American (black) experience has been one uniquely marked by slavery, segregation, and persistent discrimination. Between 1619 and the 1860s, about 500,000 Africans were forcibly brought to North America, primarily to work on southern plantations, and these actions were justified by the devaluation and stereotyping of African Americans. Following the abolishment of slavery in 1863, African Americans were still subjected to segregation, discrimination, and lynchings. Despite civil rights legislation and economic and political gains by many African Americans, racial prejudice and discrimination continue to exist.

Which statement about the cost of a college education in the United States is true?

The problem of increasing costs of higher education for students is compounded by slashed funding for public higher education.

What are the economic problems facing many four-year colleges and universities?

The problem of increasing costs of higher education for students is compounded by state budget shortfalls, which have caused funding for public higher education to be slashed. Declining state and federal support has become a major concern for colleges and universities because as enrollments drop, along with financial support, these institutions will have to find new sources of revenue, sharply reduce expenses, and rework administrative costs.

What are the major categories of Asian Americans, and what are their historical and contemporary experiences?

The term Asian Americans designates the many diverse groups with roots in Asia. Chinese and Japanese immigrants were among the earliest Asian Americans. Many Filipinos, Asian Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Pakistani, and Indonesians have arrived more recently. The subgroups are listed as Chinese Americans (the largest Asian American group), Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Filipino Americans (the second-largest category of Asian Americans), and Indochinese Americans (which include people from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos). Asian American immigrants as a group have enjoyed considerable upward mobility in U.S. society in recent decades, but many Asian Americans still struggle to survive by working at low-paying jobs and living in urban ethnic enclaves.

Social analyst __________ argued that mental illnesses are actually traits and behaviors that society finds immoral, deviant, or unacceptable.

Thomas Szasz

functionalists: disability

Those using the functionalist framework often apply Parsons's sick-role model, which is referred to as the medical model of disability. According to the medical model, people with disabilities become, in effect, chronic patients under the supervision of doctors and other medical personnel, subject to a doctor's orders or a program's rules and not to their own judgment. From this perspective, disability is deviance.

How was U.S. health care paid for in the past, and how has the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) changed this?

Throughout most of the past hundred years, medical care in the United States has been paid for on a fee-for-service basis. This approach to paying for medical services is expensive because few restrictions are placed on the fees that doctors, hospitals, and other medical providers can charge patients. Recently, there have been efforts at cost containment, and HMOs and managed care have produced both positive and negative results in the contemporary practice of medicine. Health maintenance organizations (HMOs) provide, for a set monthly fee, total care with an emphasis on prevention to avoid costly treatment later. Managed care is any system of cost containment that closely monitors and controls health care providers' decisions about medical procedures, diagnostic tests, and other services that should be provided to patients. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 includes measures to make insurance available to millions of persons who previously were uninsured or underinsured. However, this Act, also referred to as "Obamacare," includes cost-containment measures so that health plans will have incentives to compete and keep premiums low, more control of Medicare payments, and programs that penalize hospitals when patients are readmitted too frequently, among other cost-cutting endeavors.

How are the following key concepts defined: families, kinship, family of orientation, family of procreation, extended family, and nuclear family?

Today, families may be defined as relationships in which people live together with commitment, form an economic unit and care for any young, and consider their identity to be significantly attached to the group. Through kinship networks, people cooperate so that they can acquire the basic necessities of life, including food and shelter. Kinship systems can also serve as a means by which property is transferred, goods are produced and distributed, and power is allocated. Although most people are related to members of their family of orientation by blood ties, those who are adopted have a legal tie that is patterned after a blood relationship. The family of orientation is the family into which a person is born; the family of procreation is the family that a person forms by having or adopting children. An extended family is a family unit composed of relatives in addition to parents and children who live in the same household. A traditional definition specifies that a nuclear family is made up of a "couple" and their dependent children; however, this definition became outdated when a significant shift occurred in the family structure.

race

a category of people who have been singled out as inferior or superior, often on the basis of real or alleged physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, eye shape, or other subjectively selected attributes.

ethnic group

a collection of people distinguished, by others or by themselves, primarily on the basis of cultural or nationality characteristics. (Examples of ethnic groups include Jewish Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, and Russian Americans.)

mental illness

a condition in which a person has a severe mental disorder requiring extensive treatment with medication, psychotherapy, and sometimes hospitalization. As previously stated, many youths and adults with mental disorders do not receive professional treatment today. U.S. adults who receive care for mental health problems are more likely to receive such care from primary-care and general-care providers who are not specialists in mental health care. The lack of available mental health providers, as well as inadequate insurance coverage, means that many people with mental health problems fall through the cracks.

mental disorder

a condition that makes it difficult or impossible for a person to cope with everyday life

The "Trail of Tears" refers to which historic event?

a disastrous forced migration of Native Americans

nuclear family

a family composed of one or two parents and their dependent children, all of whom live apart from other relatives.

blended family

a family consisting of a husband and wife, children from previous marriages, and children (if any) from the new marriage.

matriarchal family

a family structure in which authority is held by the eldest female (usually the mother)

patriarchal family

a family structure in which authority is held by the eldest male (usually the father).

egalitarian family

a family structure in which both partners share power and authority equally.

extended family

a family unit composed of relatives in addition to parents and children who live in the same household.

subordinate group

a group whose members, because of physical or cultural characteristics, are disadvantaged and subjected to unequal treatment and discrimination by the dominant group.

Lynching

a killing carried out by a group of vigilantes seeking revenge for an actual or imagined crime by the victim.

Adoption

a legal process through which the rights and duties of parenting are transferred from a child's biological and/or legal parents to a new legal parent or parents.

marriage

a legally recognized and/or socially approved arrangement between two or more individuals that carries certain rights and obligations and usually involves sexual activity.

racism

a set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices that is used to justify the superior treatment of one racial or ethnic group and the inferior treatment of another racial or ethnic group.

Equalitarian pluralism, or accommodation

a situation in which ethnic groups coexist in equality with one another

cohabitation

a situation in which two people live together, and think of themselves as a couple, without being legally married.

kinship

a social network of people based on common ancestry, marriage, or adoption

An overgeneralization about the appearance of Native Americans as used by some sports teams' mascots is an example of

a stereotype

bilateral descent

a system of tracing descent through both the mother's and father's sides of the family.

patrilineal descent

a system of tracing descent through the father's side of the family.

matrilineal descent

a system of tracing descent through the mother's side of the family.

A Symbolic Interactionist Perspective: The Social Construction of Illness

attempt to understand the specific meanings and causes that we attribute to particular events. In studying health, symbolic interactionists focus on the meanings that social actors give their illness or disease and how these affect people's self-concept and relationships with others. According to symbolic interactionists, we socially construct "health" and "illness" and how both should be treated. For example, some people explain disease by blaming it on those who are ill. Symbolic interactionist perspectives on health and health care provide us with new insights on the social construction of illness and how health and illness cannot be strictly determined by medical criteria. Symbolic interactionists also make us aware of the importance of communication between physicians and patients

Overt racism

blatant and may take the form of public statements about the "inferiority" of members of a racial or ethnic group.

health care in great britain

centralized, single-payer health care system that is funded by general revenues. The National Health Service Act of 1946 provides for all health care services to be available at no charge to the entire population. Although physicians work out of offices or clinics—as in the United States or Canada—the government sets health care policies, raises funds and controls the medical care budget, owns health care facilities, and directly employs physicians and other health care personnel. Unlike the Canadian model, the health care system in Great Britain does constitute socialized medicine.

What is the term for a primary or secondary school that receives public money but is free from some of the day-to-day bureaucracy of a larger school district that may limit classroom performance?

charter school

The most common sexually transmitted disease, in terms of the number of cases reported annually to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is

chlamydia.

What term means that people jointly agree on the idea of race and that they accept that it exists as an important component in how we describe or explain the individual's experiences in everyday life?

collective agreement

community college

earliest is Joliet Junior College in Illinois. Community colleges offer a variety of courses, some of which are referred to as "transfer courses" in which students earn credits that are fully transferable to a four-year college or university. Other courses are in technical/occupational programs, which provide formal instruction in fields such as nursing, emergency medical technology, plumbing, carpentry, and computer information technology. Many community colleges are now also offering four-year degrees, sometimes in conjunction with four-year colleges located in the same state. Community colleges educate about half of the nation's undergraduates. According to the American Association of Community Colleges (2016), the 1,108 community colleges (including public, private, and tribal colleges) in the United States enroll about 12.3 million students in credit and noncredit courses. Community college enrollment accounts for 45 percent of all U.S. undergraduate students. Women make up more than half (57 percent) of community college students, and for working women and mothers of young children, these schools provide a unique opportunity to attend classes on a part-time basis as their schedule permits.

Functionalists: Families and Intimate Relationships

emphasize the importance of the family in maintaining the stability of society and the well-being of individuals. According to Emile Durkheim, marriage is a microcosmic replica of the larger society; both marriage and society involve a mental and moral fusion of physically distinct individuals. Durkheim also believed that a division of labor contributes to greater efficiency in all areas of life—including marriages and families—even though he acknowledged that this division imposes significant limitations on some people.

Class Perspectives

emphasize the role of the capitalist class in racial exploitation. Based on early theories of race relations by the African American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois, the sociologist Oliver C. Cox (1948) suggested that African Americans were enslaved because they were the cheapest and best workers the owners could find for heavy labor in mines and on plantations. Thus, the profit motive of capitalists, not skin color or racial prejudice, accounts for slavery. Sociologists have also debated the relative importance of class and race in explaining the unequal life chances of African Americans. Sociologists William Julius Wilson and Richard P. Taub (2007) have suggested that race, cultural factors, social psychological variables, and social class must all be taken into account in examining the life chances of "inner-city residents." Their analysis focuses on how race, ethnicity, and class tensions are all important in assessing how residents live their lives in four low-income Chicago neighborhoods and why this finding is important for the rest of America as well.

A Conflict Perspective: Inequalities in Health and Health Care

emphasizes the political, economic, and social forces that affect health and the health care delivery system. Among the issues of concern to conflict theorists are the ability of all people to obtain health care; how race, class, and gender inequalities affect health and health care; power relationships between doctors and other health care workers; the dominance of the medical model of health care; and the role of profit in the health care system. According to conflict theorists, physicians—who hold a legal monopoly over medicine—benefit from the existing structure because they can charge inflated fees. Similarly, clinics, pharmacies, laboratories, hospitals, supply manufacturers, insurance companies, and many other corporations derive excessive profits from the existing system of payment in medicine.

symbolic interactionists: Families and Intimate Relationships

focus on how interaction between marital partners contributes to a shared reality. Although newlyweds bring separate identities to a marriage, over time they construct a shared reality as a couple. In the process, the partners redefine their past identities to be consistent with new realities. Development of a shared reality is a continuous process, taking place not only in the family but in any group in which the couple participates together. Divorce is the reverse of this process; couples may start with a shared reality and, in the process of uncoupling, gradually develop separate realities. explain family relationships in terms of the subjective meanings and everyday interpretations that people give to their lives. As the sociologist Jessie Bernard (1982/1973) pointed out, women and men experience marriage differently. Although the husband may see his marriage very positively, the wife may feel less positive about her marriage, or vice versa. Researchers have found that husbands and wives may give very different accounts of the same event and that their "two realities" frequently do not coincide.

medicalization of deviance

gives physicians and other medical professionals greater authority to determine what should be considered "normal" and "acceptable" behavior and to establish the appropriate mechanisms for controlling "deviant behaviors."

medically indigent

individuals who do not earn enough to afford private medical care but earn just enough money to keep them from qualifying for Medicaid.

In preindustrial societies, the primary form of social organization is through __________ ties, which refers to a social network of people based on common ancestry, marriage, or adoption.

kinship

private health insurance

largely paid for by businesses and households. Today, employer-sponsored insurance plans cover approximately 177 million persons. Over the years, some health care advocates have argued that a third-party fee-for-service approach is the best and most cost-efficient method of delivering medical care. Others have argued that fee for service is outrageously expensive and a very cost-ineffective way in which to provide for the medical needs of people in this country, particularly those who are without health insurance coverage. According to critics, third-party fee for service contributes greatly to medical inflation because it gives doctors and hospitals an incentive to increase medical services. In other words, the more services they provide, the more fees they charge and the more money they make. Patients have no incentive to limit their visits to doctors or hospitals because they have already paid their premiums and feel entitled to medical care, regardless of the cost. This is one of the spiraling costs that advocates of health care reform hope will be reduced.

According to the functionalist perspective, all social institutions, including education, have functions that are the hidden, unstated, and sometimes unintended consequences of their activities. What are these functions called

latent functions

Which of the following is NOT a key component of the federal government initiative known as "Race to the Top," which offers incentives to states that implement systemic reform to improve teaching and learning in school?

laws requiring states to test every student's progress towards established standards

informal education

learning that occurs in a spontaneous, unplanned way.

formal education

learning that takes place within an academic setting such as a school, which has a planned instructional process and teachers who convey specific knowledge, skills, and thinking processes to students.

total institution

mental hospitals

Cultural assimilation, or acculturation

occurs when members of an ethnic group adopt dominant-group traits, such as language, dress, values, religion, and food preferences. Cultural assimilation in this country initially followed an "Anglo conformity" model; members of subordinate ethnic groups were expected to conform to the culture of the dominant white Anglo-Saxon population.

Biological assimilation, or amalgamation

occurs when members of one group marry those of other social or ethnic groups. Biological assimilation has been more complete in some other countries, such as Mexico and Brazil, than in the United States.

Structural assimilation, or integration

occurs when members of subordinate racial or ethnic groups gain acceptance in everyday social interaction with members of the dominant group. This type of assimilation typically starts in large, impersonal settings such as schools and workplaces, and only later (if at all) results in close friendships and intermarriage.

A Postmodernist Perspective: The Clinical Gaze

postmodern theorist Michel Foucault questioned existing assumptions about medical knowledge and the power that doctors have gained over other medical personnel and everyday people. Foucault asserted that truth in medicine—as in all other areas of life—is a social construction, in this instance one that doctors have created. Foucault believed that doctors gain power through the clinical (or "observing") gaze, which they use to gather information. Doctors develop the clinical gaze through their observation of patients; as the doctors begin to diagnose and treat medical conditions, they also start to speak "wisely" about everything. As a result, other people start to believe that doctors can "penetrate illusion and see ... the hidden truth". Foucault's work provides new insights on medical dominance, but it has been criticized for its lack of attention to alternative viewpoints.

Charter schools

primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are free from some of the day-to-day bureaucracy of a larger school district that may limit classroom performance. These schools operate under a charter contract negotiated by the school's organizers (often parents or teachers) and a sponsor (usually a local school board, a state board of education, or a university) that oversees the provisions of the contract. Some school districts "contract out" by hiring for-profit companies on a contract basis to manage charter schools, but the schools themselves are nonprofit. Some schools have high turnover rates, perhaps partly because of family instability, students' socioeconomic status, or other factors not under the direct control of the schools. A number of charter-school officials have been accused of misappropriating school funds or other financial irregularities, but many analysts believe that the positives seem to outweigh the negatives when it comes to charter schools addressing the academic gap among minority students.

Obergefell v. Hodges

same-sex marriage

symbolic interactionist: education

symbolic interactionists focus on classroom communication patterns and educational practices, such as labeling, which affect students' self-concept and aspirations. According to symbolic interactionists, the process of labeling is directly related to the power and status of those persons who do the labeling and those who are being labeled. labeling is the process whereby others identify a person as possessing a specific characteristic or exhibiting a certain pattern of behavior (such as being deviant). In schools, teachers and administrators are empowered to label children in various ways, including grades, written comments on classroom behavior, and placement in classes.

ethnocentrism

tendency to regard one's own culture and group as the standard—and thus superior—whereas all other groups are seen as inferior.

true

the Census Bureau defines a family as consisting of two or more people who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption, and residing in the same housing unit.

Imposition

the fact that throughout much of human history, the notion of race has been defined by members of dominant groups who have the power to establish a system that hierarchically organizes racial categories (as superior or inferior, for example) to establish and maintain permanent status differentials among individuals and groups. These differences are demonstrated by the level of access that dominant- and subordinate-group members have to necessary and desired goods and services, such as education, housing, employment, health care, and legal services.

family of orientation

the family into which a person is born and in which early socialization usually takes place.

family of procreation

the family that a person forms by having, adopting, or otherwise creating children.

education

the social institution responsible for the systematic transmission of knowledge, skills, and cultural values within a formally organized structure.

segregation

the spatial and social separation of categories of people by race, ethnicity, class, gender, and/or religion.

sociology of family

the subdiscipline of sociology that attempts to describe and explain patterns of family life and variations in family structure

hidden curriculum

the transmission of cultural values and attitudes, such as conformity and obedience to authority, through implied demands found in the rules, routines, and regulations of schools.

true

true or false: "mental illnesses" are actually individual traits or behaviors that society deems unacceptable, immoral, or deviant. As a result, labeling individuals as "mentally ill" harms them because they often come to accept the label and are then treated accordingly by others says Thomas Szasz. Data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration suggest that 43.7 million adults age 18 or older experienced a diagnosable mental illness in 2015. Mental disorders are very costly to the nation. Direct costs associated with mental disorders include the price of medication, clinic visits, and hospital stays. However, many indirect costs are incurred as well. These include the loss of earnings by individuals, the costs associated with homelessness and incarceration, and other indirect costs that exist but are difficult to document.

True

true or false: 28 million people in the United States did not have health insurance coverage in 2016, even with the Affordable Care Act.

true

true or false: 85 percent of all public schools, grades K through 12, recorded one or more incidents of violence, theft, or other crimes, amounting to nearly 2 million crimes each year. The most frequent incidents reported are physical attack or fight with a weapon, threat of physical attack without a weapon, vandalism, theft/larceny, possession of a knife or other sharp object, and distribution, possession, or use of illegal drugs. However, statistics related to school safety continue to show that U.S. schools are among the safest places in the world for young people. According to "Indicators of School Crime and Safety," jointly released by the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, young people are more likely to be victims of violent crime at or near their home, on the streets, at commercial establishments, or at parks than they are at school

true

true or false: About 19.9 million undergraduate and graduate students attend public or private degree-granting colleges or universities in the United States. the average published tuition and fee prices for full-time students living on campus and paying in-state tuition was $24,610 at public four-year schools and $49,320 at private nonprofit institutions in the 2016-2017 academic year. According to some social analysts, a college education is a bargain and a means of upward mobility. However, other analysts believe that the high cost of a college education reproduces the existing class system: Students who lack money may be denied access to higher education, and those who are able to attend college receive different types of education based on their ability to pay. The problem of increasing costs of higher education for students is compounded by slashed funding for public higher education as states have encountered budget shortfalls and contentious debates over competing priorities for public funds. To reduce the problem, many political leaders slashed budgets and cut funding wherever possible: Funding for higher education was an obvious target.

True

true or false: According to the sociologist Judy Root Aulette (1994), "families we choose" include blood ties and legal ties, but they also include fictive kin—persons who are not actually related by blood but who are accepted as family members.

True

true or false: Although children under age nineteen are the most likely to have health insurance coverage because many qualify for certain government health care programs, Figure 18.13 shows that the 2015 uninsured rate for children in poverty (9.9 percent) is greater than the rate for children in poverty (7.5 percent) and is greater than the rate of children who do not live in poverty (4.8 percent). Children who are more likely to be uninsured are ones who live in poverty-level or in lower-income families. Less than 3 percent of children in households with income above $100,000 are uninsured. For children in households with income less than $25,000, the rate of uninsured children is 7.5 percent. The highest rate of uninsured children by race is for Hispanics (any race) and by place of birth for those who are not U.S. citizens. The rate of uninsured children would be even higher if there were not state-sponsored programs such as CHIP, a health insurance plan for children that is offered on a sliding scale with premiums (down to zero) based on family income.

true

true or false: Between 1970 and 2014, the share of all U.S. households comprising married couples with children under age 18 halved from 40 percent to slightly less than 20 percent. During that time period, the percentage of children living in two-parent households dropped from 85.2 percent to 64.4 percent, while the percentage living with a single parent increased. In computing these statistics for "parents," the U.S. Census Bureau includes not only biological parents but also stepparents who adopt their children. However, foster parents are considered nonrelatives.

True

true or false: Birth rates for teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 decreased by 8 percent between 2016 and 2014, with 22.3 births per 1,000 teenagers in that age category. This was a historical low for the United States and included teenagers in nearly all racial and Hispanic-origin groups. Birth rates declined to record lows for women in their twenties. Birth rates rose for women in their thirties and late forties but remained relatively unchanged for women in their early forties. So this means that birth rates declined for all women under age thirty and rose for women ages 30-39 and 45-49. The mean (average) age of "mother at first birth" rose to 26.3 years in 2014, up from 25.8 years in 2012

true

true or false: In 2014, 24 percent of children lived in mother-only families, and 4 percent lived in father-only families, for a total of 28 percent of children in single-parent households. Seven percent of all children lived in the home of their grandparents, and in two-thirds of those families, one or both parents were also present

True

true or false: People of color (who are more likely than the average white student to be from lower-income families) are underrepresented in higher education. White Americans make up nearly 55 percent of all college students at both two-year and four-year public and private institutions, as compared to African American enrollment at 13.1 percent, Hispanic/Latina/o enrollment at 13.6 percent, Asian American and Pacific Islander enrollment at 5.8 percent, and American Indian (Native American)/Alaska Native at 0.8 percent. Students who reported two or more races accounted for 2.3 percent of students, persons whose race was unknown made up 6.1 percent, and nonresident students constituted 3.8 percent

true

true or false: Prior to the 2000 census, for example, the true diversity of the U.S. population was not revealed in census data because multiracial individuals were forced to either select a single race as being their "race" or to select the vague category of "other." Census 2000 made it possible—for the first time—for individuals to classify themselves as being of more than one race. In the 2010 census, nine million people in the United States—about 3 percent of the total population—identified themselves as multiracial. Between 2000 and 2010, the percentage of Americans identifying as more than one race increased by 32 percent. Among U.S. children, the mixed-race population increased by nearly 50 percent, making mixed-race children the fastest-growing youth group in the United States. With one in seven new marriages in the United States involving spouses of different races or ethnicities, the multiracial population is likely to continue to increase

True

true or false: Some feminist perspectives on inequality in families focus on patriarchy rather than class. From this viewpoint, men's domination over women existed long before capitalism and private ownership of property. Women's subordination is rooted in patriarchy and men's control over women's labor power. According to one scholar, "Male power in our society is expressed in economic terms even if it does not originate in property relations; women's activities in the home have been undervalued at the same time as their labor has been controlled by men"

true

true or false: The number of married households in the United States has been in a downward trend since the 1970s, when married couples made up 71 percent of all households, to 2014, when less than half of all U.S. households were composed of married couples. The median age at first marriage continued to increase over the past four decades. The median age at first marriage in 2014 was 29.3 for men and 27 for women, as compared to 23.2 for men and 20.8 for women in 1970

true

true or false: Traditional public schools have the highest rate (34 percent) of enrollment for students with disabilities, as compared to 23 percent in charter schools. Among the students served by public schools, specific learning disabilities are the most common concern (about 35 percent), followed by speech or language impairments (nearly 21 percent), other health impairments (12 percent), and intellectual disability (7 percent). Only about 15 percent of students with disabilities (who are enrolled in regular school settings) spend more than 60 percent of their school time outside the general ("mainstream") classrooms: Nearly 60 percent of students with disabilities (who are enrolled in regular school settings) spend at least 80 percent of their school time in regular classrooms.

True

true or false: United States v. Windsor, challenged Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which explicitly defined marriage for all purposes under federal law as the legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional because it amounts to a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.

true

true or false: in the 2015-2016 school year, state sources contributed 46.4 percent of public elementary-secondary school system revenue, 44.4 percent came from local sources, and 9.2 percent came from federal sources

true

true or false: sociologists emphasize that race is a socially constructed reality, not a biological one. (The process of creating a socially constructed reality involves three key activities: collective agreement, imposition, and acceptance of a specific construction)

True

true or false: the U.S. teen birth rate (between the ages of 15 and 19) has generally been in a decline from 1960 to 2013, briefly increased in periods such as 2005-2007, and then resumed its long-term downward trend. In 2015 the birth rate for teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 dropped 46 percent (to 22.3 births per 1,000 teenagers ages 15-19), as compared with 2007. This was the lowest rate ever reported in the United States. Rates were also down for ages 15 through 19 and for nearly all races and Hispanic-origin groups. Although teen pregnancy rates have continued to decline, concern remains about the number of younger teenagers (ages 15-17) who are producing children. But the good news is nonmarital birth rates for this age category declined 9 percent in 2015 resulting in 9.9 births per 1,000 women.

Conflict and feminist analysts

view functionalist perspectives on the role of the family in society as idealized and inadequate. Rather than operating harmoniously and for the benefit of all members, families are sources of social inequality and conflict over values, goals, and access to resources and power. According to some classical conflict theorists, families in capitalist economies are similar to the work environment of a factory: Men in the home dominate women in the same manner that capitalists and managers in factories dominate their workers

The caste perspective

views racial and ethnic inequality as a permanent feature of U.S. society. According to this approach, the African American experience must be viewed as different from that of other racial or ethnic groups. African Americans were the only group to be subjected to slavery; when slavery was abolished, a caste system was instituted to maintain economic and social inequality between whites and African Americans (Feagin and Feagin, 2012). The caste system was strengthened by antimiscegenation laws, which prohibited sexual intercourse or marriage between persons of different races. Most states had such laws, which were later expanded to include relationships between whites and Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos.

Inequalitarian pluralism, or segregation

when specific ethnic groups are set apart from the dominant group and have unequal access to power and privilege

preindustrial societies

where few people knew how to read and write. Formal education is learning that takes place within an academic setting such as a school, which has a planned instructional process and teachers who convey specific knowledge, skills, and thinking processes to students.