Chapter 7: Stratification
The government's definition of poverty for a family of four (as of 2013) is a total yearly salary of just under:
$24,000
The upper class is composed primarily of CEOs, government officials, celebrities, and very successful professionals. Approximately what percentage of the population does this represent?
1 percent
The typical African American family has about ____________ of the net worth of the typical white family.
10 percent
Each society has a type of social stratification. How does the United States ideologically justify its type of stratification system?
A person is in complete control over the class he or she is in. Hard work (or lack of it) determines class.
Sometimes individuals seek to assert or increase their status, not just through occupation but also through: A) experiencing illness. B) living in gated communities. C) denouncing their American citizenship. D) taking public transportation.
B) living in gated communities.
Which standard of equality is most concerned with the distribution of resources? A) equality of opportunity equality of outcome B) ontological equality C) equality of outcome D) equality of condition
C) equality of outcome
Which theorist argues that members of a class are grouped by their value in the commercial marketplace?
Weber
Vilfredo Pareto argued that societies based on strict military, religious, and aristocratic stratification tend to collapse; in other words, history is:
a graveyard of aristocracies
An example of the ideology of equality of condition put into practice is:
affirmative action
Ugo's promotion to regional manager at Sears with a higher salary and more prestige is an example of what type of vertical social mobility?
ascending
What is the term that refers to a form of wealth that can be stored for the future?
assets
The modern capitalist society is an example of which type of society?
bourgeois
Which group exploits the working class by taking more of the value of the work of laborers than they repay in wages?
bourgeoisie
A type of stratification that is based on hereditary notions of religious and theological purity and in which there is little to no individual mobility within the strata is the:
caste system
Under what system is your societal position related to your position in the economic market?
class
C. Wright Mills had a negative view of the elite-mass dichotomy. His viewpoint fits into what paradigm?
conflict
According to the German philosopher Hegel, the master-slave relationship is one of mutual:
dependency
What term refers to a two-directional relationship, one that goes both ways like a conversation between two people (such as master-slave)?
dialectic
You are dependent on your professor for your grade. Your professor, in turn, is dependent on you for his or her job. Hegel would call this a(n):
dialectic relationship
Hegel felt that the relationship between slave and master was dialectic. This means that:
each is dependent on the other
C. Wright Mills argues that there are three major institutional forces in modern American society in which the power of decision making has become centralized. What are these forces?
economic institutions, political order, and military order
C. Wright Mills argues that there are three major institutions in the United States today that have the power to make decisions for the masses. What are they?
economy, politics, and the military
Adam Ferguson and John Millar saw social developments resulting from the establishment of private property as representing a huge improvement in society because private property leads to higher degrees of social organization and:
efficiency
A stratification system with a governing elite—that is, few leaders who broadly hold the power in society—is called a(n) ____________ system.
elite-mass dichotomy
Although Indian castes historically have been ____________, increasing rates of ____________ have made classifying children more difficult.
endogamous, exogamy
Hegel argued that notions of inequality are constantly evolving in a larger historical arc and will eventually lead to:
equality
The game of Monopoly follows the rules of what standard of equality?
equality of opportunity
Let's say you are best at building with your hands and you become a carpenter working for a local building contractor. A friend of yours is very good at programming computers, so he or she works at IBM. Yet another friend excels at science, so he or she goes to medical school and becomes a physician. Each of you is paid the exact same salary and each of you lives in the same neighborhood and drives the same type of car. What standard of equality would this be an example of?
equality of outcome
Which social stratification system was favored in feudal Europe and the American South before the Civil War?
estate system
What is the fastest-growing job market for people with only a high school education?
food preparation
Thomas Malthus believed that the human population grows ____________, but the ability to produce food increases ____________.
geometrically, arthithmeticaly
Trade of goods and services across national boundaries, as well as the mobility of businesses and labor through immigration, is called:
globalization
Thomas Malthus had a positive view of inequality. He defended disease, slavery, and child murder. Why?
he felt this would allow the populations to thing itself out naturally
The effect of globalization has been to bifurcate labor into:
high skilled and low skilled
____________ social mobility refers to a group or an individual transitioning from one social status to another that is situated more or less on the same rung of the ladder.
horizontal
C. Wright Mills believed that centralized power in the hands of a few ____________ democracy.
hurt
A subsystem of stratification that Mills mentions is the outer fringes of the power elite. These are:
individuals who count in the decisions that affect all of us, but who don't actually make those decisions.
From Thomas Malthus's perspective, what keeps the population in check?
inequality
Which American job sector has greatly increased since the oil crisis of 1973?
low-wage service work
When compared to low-income students with similar test scores and academic records, high-income students:
make up an increasing share of the enrollment at selective colleges
Denise, who comes from a lower-middle-class family, obtained a college degree, interned at a company, worked at that company for many years, and is now its CEO. Denise's experiences support the idea of:
meritocracy
Vilfredo Pareto believed in a society in which status and mobility are based on individual attributes and ability, called:
meritocracy
A system in which advancement is based on individual achievement or ability is referred to as:
meritocratic
Elliot Essman asserts that America is a(n) ____________ because the very wealthy do not have much impact on the country in general.
middle-class nation
Professionals, small business owners, and craftsmen are referred to as:
petit bourgeoisie
Which kind of inequality did Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe would always exist?
physical
According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, there are two forms of inequality: ____________, or natural, and ____________, or political.
physical, social
According to the "Relative Social Prestige of Selected U.S. Occupations" table (Table 7.1 in your text), which white-collar occupation has the highest prestige score?
physician
According to the "Relative Social Prestige of Selected U.S. Occupations" table (Table 7.1 in your text), which blue-collar occupation has the highest prestige score?
police officer
Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the source of all social ills was:
private property
Karl Marx and Jean-Jacques Rousseau tended to agree on at least one thing. They both felt that the primary source of social ills in society was due to the emergence of:
private property
What group sells its labor to the bourgeoisie in order to receive wages?
proletariat
One of the best ways to reduce the number of children born (according to Jeffrey Sachs) is to:
provide family planning
What is the primary source of income for the upper class?
returns or investments
The process in India whereby an entire caste can leapfrog over another and obtain a higher position in the hierarchy is called:
sanskritization
An example of horizontal social mobility is a(n):
secretary changing firms but retaining his or her occupational status.
The movement between different positions within a system of social stratification in any given society is called ____________ mobility.
social
Sociologists often describe an individual's position in a stratified social order that attempts to classify groups, individuals, families, or households in terms of indicators such as occupation, income, wealth, and education. Sociologists call this:
socioeconomic status
Which of the following is a type of social stratification?
status hierarchy system
The prestige of a person's first job out of school factors into his or her position on the ____________ model.
status-attainment
The examination of how race and ethnicity affect income is really an examination of:
stratification
Mobility that is inevitable from changes in the economy is called:
structural
Typically, one moves vertically (up or down) the social ladder. If factories are moving from the United States to Mexico and that is causing major job losses in the United States, one would say that downward mobility is due to:
structural mobility
When more than one person is responsible for getting something done, the incentive is for each individual to shirk responsibility in the hope that the others will pull the extra weight. This is referred to as:
the free rider problem
What is another term for the nonworking poor?
underclass
Historically, Marx's capitalist class was made up of members of the:
upper class
The rise and fall of an individual (or group) from one social stratum to another is called ____________ social mobility.
vertical
Which term refers to everything you own minus debts (such as a mortgage on your home and credit card debt)?
wealth
In political speeches about the poor, those who are believed to deserve our assistance are termed the:
working poor