QUIZ: Chapter 7: Social Class

Which of the following is one of the basic principles of social stratification?

It is maintained through beliefs that are widely shared in a society.

What criteria does a social class system use to stratify its members?

Wealth, property, power, and prestige.

What do sociologists call awareness of our own and others' class statuses?

Class consciousness.

What are the tastes, habits, and expectations called that children "inherit" or learn from their parents that help to achieve material success in life?

Cultural capital.

Karl Marc spent much of his life attempting to understand and describe how capitalism works. In one particularly vivid passage, he described the turbulence he saw as inherent in capitalism: "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and a man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind." What sort of relationship did he think his readers had with other people?

Economic relationships.

What system of stratification is commonly used in modern capitalist societies?

Social class.

What does Pierre Bourdieu call the tendency of social class to be passed down from one generation to the next and consequently remain relatively stable over time?

Social reproduction.

What school of social thought insists that all social structures, including systems of stratification, are built out of everyday interactions?

Symbolic interactionism.

Which is true of social mobility in a caste system?

There is little or no chance of social mobility.

How does social class relate to race, ethnicity, gender, and age in the United States today?

These multiple dimensions of status and inequality intersect to shape who we are and how we live.