SOCI 249 Test 1

Karl Marx

(1) elaboration of the conflict model of society (2) the theory of social change based on antagonisms between the social classes (3) the insight that power originates primarily in economic production (4) concern with the social origins of alienation. - believed the basis of social order in every society is the production of economic goods - What is produced, how it is produced, and how it is exchanged determine the differences in people's wealth, power, and social status - The form that people choose to solve their basic economic problems would eventually determine virtually everything in the social structure, including polity, family structure, education, and religion - believed that religion, the government, and the educational system are used by the powerful to maintain the status quo.

Democratic principles include:

(1) fair and open elections, (2) access by the people to accurate information, (3) accountability of the governors to the governed, (4) political equality among all citizens, and (5) due process of law.

Sociological Theory

- A set of ideas that explains a range of human behavior and a variety of social and societal events. - A researcher's theoretical approach guides the research process from the types of questions asked to the development of a hypothesis to the analysis of the results - guides research and helps explain social phenomena

Demographic transitions

- Historically, as nations have become more urban, industrialized, and modernized, their population growth has slowed appreciably. - birth rates in the developed world and the less-developed world are down dramati- cally. Overall, due to increased urbanization, better access to contraceptives, and more women being educated, the global fertility rate has declined from an average of 4.92 children per woman in 1950 to 2.5 now - With relatively high growth rates in the less-developed world plus a huge cohort in (or soon to be in) the childbearing category, this length of time is unacceptable because the planet cannot sustain the massive growth that will occur while the demographic transition runs its course - Nations go through a three-stage process in economic development: Agricultural Transition Industrial/Urban - Many developing nations are in stage 2 today.

transnational corporations

- Move production to low-wage nonunion countries - Lower foreign production costs - Less strict labor safety and environmental protection laws

Family planning

- National governments, beginning with India in 1951, began to adopt family-planning policies ad as a result fertility rates have fallen - Declines are most significant in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Only in sub-Saharan Africa does the average remain well above 5 - The nations with the least use of modern contraceptives are largely rural and agricultural, with very low per capita incomes - ex: chinas one child policy - United Nations estimates that about 200 million worldwide would like to prevent pregnancy, but are not using effective contraception either because they can- not afford it or are not knowledgeable about it - Reproductive health became part of the mission of international organizations in the 1960s - Effective contraception: Cost Political change - The World Bank estimates that about $8 billion would make birth control readily available globally.

Power elite

- People who occupy the power roles in society. They either are wealthy or represent the wealthy. - uses its power for its own advantage - the wealthy receive favorable treatment either by actually occu- pying positions of power or by exerting direct influence over those who do. Laws, court decisions, and administrative decisions tend to give them the advantage over middle-income earners and the poor. - interests of the power elite are served through ideological control of the masses. U.S. schools, churches, and the media possess this power. The schools, for instance, consciously teach youth that capitalism is the only correct economic system - the government can be organized for the benefit of the majority, it is not always neutral. - state regulates; it stifles opposi- tion; it makes and enforces the law; it funnels information; it makes war on enemies (foreign and domestic); and its policies determine how resources are apportioned - the government is generally biased toward policies that benefit the business community - The few thousand people who form this tend to come from backgrounds of privilege and wealth, extremely wealthy have a disproportionate impact on public policy, it would be a mistake, to equate personal wealth with power. Great power is manifested only through decision-making in the very large corporations or in government. - Power in the United States is concentrated among people who control the government and the largest corporations

laissez-faire

- Policy that government should interfere as little as possible in the nation's economy. - Idea that government should play as small a role as possible in economic affairs. - a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.

social conditions

- Psychic and material suffering - focus on how society operates and who benefits and who does not under existing arrangements - societal arrangements can be organized in way that is unresponsive to many human needs - Who benefits from the existing arrangements? - Focus on the bias of the system rather than on problem individuals - ex: affordable health care and have bills for cancer but can't afford house, house cannot be taken, but for organ transplants people with money are bumped up the list

Variable

- Something that can be changed such as a characteristic, value, or belief. - To understand the cause-and-effect relationship among a few variables, sociologists use controlled experiments

Filibuster

- The Senate rule that allows a senator to hold the floor for an unlimited time as a strategy to prevent a vote. - self-imposed rule of the Senate not found in the Constitution - the practice of holding the Senate floor to prevent a vote on a bill - used primarily by segregationists seeking to derail civil rights legislation - The use of the filibuster or the threat of a filibuster, once a relatively rare parliamentary move, has become commonplace - the Senate adopted a rule that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote for "cloture."

System-blame

- The assumption that social problems result from social conditions. - you're poor because you don't work hard enough - The fundamental issue is whether social problems emanate from the pathologies from the broader institutions in which deviants are involved - System-blamers point to deficiencies within societal institutions - Perspective coincides with the sociological approach - Sociologists ask: Who benefits under the existing social structure? Who does not benefit?

Person-blame

- The assumption that social problems result from the pathologies of individuals. - The fundamental issue is whether social problems emanate from the pathologies of individuals - Why do children in poor schools fail? - Why do criminals recidivate? - this approach has serious problems - social darwinism: survival of fittest

Fertility rate

- The average number of children born to each woman. - in 2014 was Niger (6.89 children born/woman), followed closely by Mali (6.16), Burundi (6.14), and Somalia (6.08). In comparison, the United States averaged 2.01 children - facts reveal a future world population that will be overwhelmingly from poor developing countries, placing enormous strain on resources such as housing, fuel, food, water, and medical attention. - three ways to reduce fertility—through economic development, family-planning programs, and social change. - Most of the current population growth occurs in the less-developed nations, where poverty, hunger, and infectious disease are already rampant - The global fertility rate will continue to decline, but with so many women of childbearing age in the less- developed countries, the world's population is pro- jected to increase to about 9.1 billion in 2050, when it will (theoretically) stabilize

Life chances

- The chances throughout one's life cycle to live and experience the good things in life. - striking maldistribution between those living in the developed and those in developing nations - significance of worldwide poverty and its concentration in the developing-world nations cannot be overstated - gap between the rich and poor countries is increasing, and the gap between the rich and poor within the poor countries is increasing.

Longitudinal survey

- The collection of information about the same persons over many years. - holds special promise for understanding human behavior - ex: followed more than 18,000 individuals and their descendants, collecting data on health, marriage, child development, income, etc

Corporate Wealth

- The domination of the U.S. economy by large corporations results in the undue concentration of wealth among a few corporations and individuals - translates into enormous wealth for individuals - reflecting the belief that 99 percent of Americans are suffering because of the actions of the richest 1 percent. - The increasing gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else is highlighted when looking at the difference in earnings between the heads of corporations and the workers in those corporations.

Systemic imperatives

- The economic and social constraints on political deci- sion makers that promote the status quo. - benefits the power elite and the wealthy. - institutions of society are patterned to produce prearranged results, regardless of the personalities of the decision makers - choices of decision makers are often limited by this - bias pressures the government to do certain things and not to do other things. Inevitably, this bias favors the status quo, allowing people with power to continue to exercise it - current political and economic systems have worked and generally are not subject to questions, or change so laws, customs, and institutions of society resist change and propertied and the wealthy benefit, while the propertyless and the poor remain disadvantaged.

Gerrymandering

- When the party in power shapes voting districts as a means to keep itself in power or increase their advantage - the party in power can take an area that is overwhelmingly composed of their party members and move some of them to a neighboring area that is more evenly split - "Because average voters pull levers but big donors pull strings, often public sentiment wants one thing while politi- cal elites deliver something else" - money makes the difference in politics. The people get to vote between candidates selected by the wealthy (corporations, interest groups, or individuals), which means that voting does not always express the public will - when a party wins an election theres a probability that they will make changes in the election laws to benefit them - need ID to vote and generally the poor don't - when public sentiment is at odds with the moneyed interests, the public often loses

Sociological perspective

- ability to see the link between individual circumstances and the structure of society - rich not aware of how much others suffer

The interests of the powerful (and the wealthy) are served, nevertheless, through the way in which society is structured, This bias occurs in 3 ways:

- by the elite's influence over elected and appointed government officials at all levels - by the structure of the system - by ideological control of the masses.

Private Wealth

- capitalism/ pure capitalism - U.S. economy is no longer based on competition among more-or-less equal private capitalists. Instead, huge corporations, contrary to classical economic theory, control demand rather than respond to the demands of the market. - U.S. economy is dominated by huge corporations that, contrary to classical economic theory, control demand rather than respond to the demands of the market - However well the economic system might once have worked, the increasing size and power of corporations disrupt it - Less than 1 percent of all corporations produce more than 80 percent of the private-sector output - few corporations dominate most sectors of the U.S. economy. Instead of one corporation controlling an industry, the typical situation is domination by a small number of large firms - shared monopoly/oligolopy which performs much as a monopoly or cartel would -

Mega-mergers

- combine US and foreign firms too - thousands of mergers each year, as giant corporations become even larger - federal government encouraged mergers by relaxing antitrust law enforcement on the grounds that efficient firms should not be hobbled. - five negative consequences: (1) it increases the centralization of capital, which reduces competition and raises prices for consumers (2) it increases the power of huge corporations over workers, unions, politicians, and governments (3) it reduces the number of jobs (for example, when Citicorp and Travelers combined to make Citigroup, 10,400 jobs were eliminated (4) it increases corporate deb (5) it is nonproductive - mergers and takeovers do not create new plants, products, or jobs. Rather, they create profits for chief executive officers, lawyers, accountants, brokers, bankers, and big investors. - The ten largest mergers in U.S. history have occurred in the last 15 years

norm violations

- discrepancy between social standards and reality - explain why individuals experience differing pressures to engage in certain forms of deviant behaviors/c of location in social structure - deviant behavior: examines violations of social norm - interested in the social and cultural processes that label some acts and persons as deviant and others as normal. - social problems are relative - ex: everyone can go to college but you need money - who defines this: people in power in society--> rich, wealthy

Control group

- group of subjects not exposed to the independent variable

Direct interlock

- linkage between corporations that results when an individual serves on the board of directors of two companies - reducing competition through the sharing of information and the coordination of policies.

Interlocking directorate

- mechanism for the ever-greater concentration of the size and power of the largest corporations - The linkage between corporations through a direct or indirect interlock - reducing competition through the sharing of information and the coordination of policies. - When directors are linked directly or indirectly, the potential exists for cohesiveness, common action, and unified power - Despite the relative noncompetitiveness among the large corporations, many of them devote considerable efforts to convincing the public that the U.S. economy is competitive - just 147 firms make up a dominant core with interlocking stakes in one another (controlling 40 percent of the wealth in the network), and 737 firms controlled 80 percent of the wealth in the entire network

Social problems

- norm violations - social conditions

Chronic malnutrition

- obvious correlate of greater numbers of people and poverty, results in high infant mortality rates, shorter life expectancies, and a stunting of physical and mental capacities - Children are disproportionately the victims - High infant mortality rates - Shorter life expectancy - A stunting of physical and mental capacities - Lack of safe water and unsanitary conditions - AIDS pandemic - protein deficiency in infancy results in permanent brain damage - Vitamin deficiencies, cause a number of diseases such as rickets, goiter, and anemia and make individual more susceptible to influenza and other infectious diseases - Iron deficiency is a special problem for hungry children: Some 25 percent of men and 45 percent of women (60 percent for pregnant women) in developing countries are anemic, a condition of iron deficiency - Health in overpopulated areas is also affected by such problems as polluted water and air and inadequate sewage treatment. - United Nations estimates that 783 million people do not have access to clean water and that 2.5 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation - Polluted water, contaminated food, exposure to disease-carrying insects and animals, and unsanitary living con- ditions make the world's poor highly vulnerable to, among other diseases, chronic diarrhea, tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola, dengue, hepatitis, cholera, and parasites

Dependent variable

- presumed effect of the independent variable. - The variable being measured in an experiment. It may or may not be affected by the independent variable.

William Graham Sumner

- proponent of Social Darwinism. - distorted version of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection - The rich are rich because they deserve to be, the poor also deserve their fate because they are biological and social failures and therefore unable to succeed in the competitive struggle - justified ruthless competition and perpetuation of status quo - Superior classes should dominate because their members were unusually intelligent and moral - The lower classes, considered inferior and defective - Sumner opposed social reforms such as wel- fare to the poor because they rewarded the unfit and penalized the competent

Independent variable

A variable that may or may not affect the dependent variable.

According to sociologists today, social problems are defined by a group or audience. A. True B. False

A. True

According to the textbook, deviants are not entirely to blame for their behavior. A. True B. False

A. True

After rapid growth, now the global rate of HIV infection has decreased. A. True B. False

A. True

Individuals are limited in the campaign donations that they can give to individual candidates but not to PACs. A. True B. False

A. True

Remaining value neutral in research is important to the science of sociology. A. True B. False

A. True

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has sold weapons abroad worth well over $100 billion. A. True B. False

A. True

The largest corporations control the world's economy. A. True B. False

A. True

The sociological imagination allows us to see the link between our personal troubles and the social structure. A. True B. False

A. True

Although no longer a practice, the historical effects of __________ has left many nations without the resources to develop. A. colonialism B. urbanization C. the one-child policy D. industrialization

A. colonialism

Systemic imperatives limit decision makers because __________. A. no change to the status quo is easier than change B. PACs influence the choices available C. power is concentrated in the hands of many D. numbers are more powerful than the wealthy

A. no change to the status quo is easier than change

System-blamers explain social problems by looking at deficiencies in __________. A. social systems B. individual behavior C. parental discipline D. objective reality

A. social systems

Social problems carry both a subjective definition and a(an) __________. A. abnormality B. rationality C. creative interpretation D. objective reality

D. objective reality

Ascribing differences in school performance to cultural deprivation implies that the dominant group is inferior. A. True B. False

B. False

Most of the world's population growth is occurring in developed nations. A. True B. False

B. False

Personal wealth is the same as power. A. True B. False

B. False

Social problems are best defined by those in power. A. True B. False

B. False

Trickle-down economic solutions benefit the lower class the most. A. True B. False

B. False

Dr. Smith, a sociologist, wants to understand the impact of a new teaching method on test scores. The best source of data for Dr. Smith is ___________. A. survey B. experiment C. existing data D. observation

B. experiment

The distribution of __________ in society is the key to understanding the conditions that cause social problems. A. education B. power C. prestige D. structure

B. power

Interlocking directorates concentrate power and benefit companies through the __________. A. distribution of funds B. sharing of information C. management of employees D. creation of teams

B. sharing of information

The rapid population growth in __________ areas exacerbates problems like racism, crime, and pollution. A. rural B. urban C. suburban D. agricultural

B. urban

The sabotage of democracy by money:

It makes it harder for government to solve social problems. The have-nots of society are not represented among the decision makers. The money chase creates part-time elected officials and full-time fundraisers. Money diminishes the gap between the two major political parties. Money chase in politics discourages voting and civic participation. Special interests get special access to the decision makers.

Sociological imagination

The ability to see the societal patterns that influence individuals, families, groups, and organizations. - stimulated by a willingness to view the social world from the perspective of others - involves moving away from thinking in terms of the individual and her or his problem and focusing rather on the social, economic, and historical circumstances that produce the problem - one can shift from the examination of a single family to national budgets, from a poor person to national welfare policies, from an unemployed person to the societal shift from manufacturing to a service - To develop it requires a detachment from the taken- for-granted assumptions about social life and establishing a critical distance - developed by one being willing to ques- tion the structural arrangements that shape social behavior

Subjective nature of social problems

What is and what is not a social problem is a matter of definition. Thus, social problems vary by time and place. - subjectivity is always present - To identify a phenomenon as a problem implies that it falls short of some standard - People from different social strata and other social locations (such as region, occupation, race, and age) differ in their perceptions of what a social problem is and, once defined, how it should be solved

Links between Wealth and Power

Government by Interest Groups The Financing of Political Campaigns Candidate Selection Process The Power Elite

Marx capitalism

(1) the inevitability of monopolies, which eliminate competition and gouge consumers and workers (2) lack of centralized planning, which results in overproduction of some goods and underproduction of others, encouraging economic crises such as inflation, slumps, and depressions (3) demands for labor-saving machinery, which force unemployment and a more hostile proletariat (4) employers who will tend to maximize profits by reducing labor expenses, thus creating a situation where workers will not have enough income to buy products, thus the contradiction of causing profits to fall (5) control of the state by the wealthy, the effect of which is passage of laws favoring themselves and thereby incurring more wrath from the proletariat

Social Welfare States

- ?????????? - When the government plays an important role in supporting the well-being of citizens. Results in high taxes but strong healthcare, education and low inequality. Nations that use this model are: Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland. - Sumner opposed social reforms such as wel- fare to the poor because they rewarded the unfit and penalized the competent. Such reforms, he argued, would interfere with the normal workings of society, halting progress and perhaps even contributing to a regression to an earlier evo- lutionary stage.

Plutocracy

- A government by or in the interest of the rich - government of the wealthy

Democracy

- A political system that is of, by, and for the people. - system under which the will of the majority prevails, there is equality before the law, and decisions are made to maximize the common good - principles that define it are violated by the rules of the Senate and by special-interest groups, which by deals, propaganda, and the financial support of political candidates, attempt to deflect the political process for their own benefit. - special interests hire lobbyists to persuade legislators to vote for legislation in their favor - Special interest groups violate the principle of democracy.

Oligarchy

- A political system that is ruled by a few. - Sanders's words, "Oligarchy refers . . . to the fact that the decisions that shape our consciousness and affect our lives are made by a very small and powerful group of people" - When a small number of large firms dominate a particular industry. - critics have taken this a step further, suggesting that the United States is a plutocracy

Transnational corporation

- A profit-oriented company engaged in business activities in more than one nation. - Gigantic transnational corporations, most of which are U.S.-based, control the world economy. - decisions to build or not to build, to relocate a plant, to begin market- ing a new product, or to scrap an old one have a tremendous impact on the lives of ordinary citizens in the countries in which they operate and in which they invest - desire to tap low-wage workers, the multinational corporations have tended to locate in poor countries. - poor countries should have benefited from this new industry they haven't 1. One reason is that the profits generated in these countries are mostly channeled back to the United States 2. global companies do not have a great impact in easing the unemployment of the poor nations because they use advanced technology whenever feasible, which reduces the demand for jobs 3. the corporations typically hire workers from a narrow segment of the population—young women. - Two activities by transnationals are highly controversial because they have negative costs worldwide, especially to the inhabitants of developing nations—arms sales and the sale of products known to be harmful. - Control the world's economy - Most are based in the United States with operations in poor countries - Arms sales: Corporate sales that endanger lives - Corporate dumping

Sample

- A representative part of a population. - If the sample is selected scientifically (i.e., each individual in the population under study has an equal chance of being included in the sample), a relatively small proportion can yield satisfactory results so the inferences made from the sample will be reliable about the entire population - former method is often impractical, a random sample of subjects is selected from the larger population

Colony

- A territory con- trolled by a power- ful country that exploits the land and the people for its own benefit. - as 1914, approximately 70 percent of the world's population lived in this - poor countries were colonized for one or more of their natural resources, and they continue to be used by rich countries to obtain resources as cheaply as possible - colonies of superpowers: resources and labors were exploited, leadership was imposed from outside, and the local people were treated as primitive and backward. Crops were planted for the colonizer's benefit, not for the needs of the indigenous population. Raw materials were extracted for export - The wealth thus created was concentrated in the hands of local elites and the colonizers - Population growth was encouraged because the colonizer needed a continuous supply of low-cost labor - Colonialism destroyed the cultural patterns of production and exchange by which these societies once met the needs of their peoples. - Thriving industries that once served indigenous markets were destroyed - capital generated by natural wealth in these countries was not used to develop local factories, schools, sanitation systems, agricultural process- ing plants, or irrigation systems - Colonialism also promoted a two-class society by increasing land holdings among the few and landlessness among the many. - legacy of colonialism continues to promote poverty today. - heritage of colonialism that systematically promoted the self-interest of the colonizers and robbed and degraded the resources and the lives of the colonized continues - As a result, the gap between the developing world and the industrial nations continues to widen.

Modern demographic transitions

- A three-stage pat- tern of population change occur-ring as societies industrialize and urbanize, resulting ultimately in a low and stable population growth rate. - transition stage, birth rates remain high, but the death rates decrease markedly because of access to more effective medicines, improved hygiene, safer water, and better diets. - later in the process, as societies become more urban and traditional customs have less of a hold, birth rates decline, slowing the population growth and eventually stopping it altogether

Pandemic

- A worldwide epidemic. - HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, usually through sex, but also from contaminated needles, contact with tainted blood, or during birth for an infant born of an infected mother - AIDS more than 40 million have died. AIDS remains among the top 10 leading causes of death with 5,600 newly infected each day, two-thirds of these new infections in sub-Saharan Africa - HIV/AIDS is the worst epidemic in human history, surpassing the Black Death that ravaged Europe in 1348, killing approximately 25 million

Capitalism

- An economic system characterized by private ownership of the means of production, personal profit, and competition. - to exist: private ownership of the means of production, personal profit, and competition - the increasing size and power of corporations disrupt it - U.S. economy is dominated by huge corporations that, contrary to classical economic theory, control demand rather than respond to the demands of the market - The major discrepancy between the ideal system and the real one is that the U.S. economy is no longer based on competition among more-or-less equal private capitalists

Mega city

- An urban population of more than10 million people. - there are twenty-eight worldwide, and by 2030, there will likely be another twelve - Most of these huge urban places are in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America - problems: 1. infrastructure of cities in the developing world is overwhelmed by the exploding population growth 2. providing employment for their citizens 3. special problem is to find employment for new immigrants to the cities—the farmers pushed off the land because of high rural density and the resulting poverty - people who migrate to the cities are, for the most part, unpre- pared for life and work there. The cities, too, are unprepared for them - developing nations do not have the industries that employ many workers. Because their citizens are usually poor, these countries are not good markets for products, so there is little internal demand for manufactured goods.

Reasons for underdevelopment:

- Climate, geography, and warfare - Colonialism and economic domination

Differential fertility

- Differences in the average number of children born to a woman by social category. - There is a strong inverse relationship between per capita GNP and population growth rates—the lower the per capita GNP, the higher the population growth - less-developed nations are expected to increase in population from 5.6 billion in 2009 to 8.2 billion in 2050, whereas the more developed coun- tries are projected to grow from 1.2 billion to just 1.3 billion

Deviant behavior

- Examines violations of the social norm - victims and should not be blamed entirely by society for their deviance; rather, the system they live in should be blamed - description of the situations affecting deviants (such as the barriers to success faced by minority group members) helps explain why some categories of persons participate disproportionately in deviant behavior. - deviance is culturally defined and socially labeled

Absolute poverty

- Food production, however, is unevenly distributed - obvious source of theproblem is rapid populationgrowth, which distorts the dis-tribution system and strainsthe productive capacity of thevarious nations. - underdeveloped and developing nations are not only characterized by poverty and hunger but also by relative powerlessness because most of them were colonies and remain economically dependent on developed nations and transnational corporations, especially those of North America and Europe. These nations are also characterized by high fertility rates, high infant mortality, unsani- tary living conditions, high rates of infectious diseases, low life expectancy, and high illiteracy. - one in every six of the world's children being underweight, and around 9 million people dying of malnutrition each year. - Because of low levels of economic development, the various levels of government, farmers, and others in these countries lack adequate money and credit for the machinery, fertilizer, pesticides, and technol- ogy necessary to increase crop production to meet the increasing demand - a lack of resources that is life-threatening - the point at which a household's income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members - a minimum level of subsistence that no family should be expected to live below - The world's farmers produce enough food to feed the global population, yet: 9 million people die of malnutrition each year One in nine people are malnourished One in six children are underweight

Shared monopoly

- When four or fewer firms supply 50 percent or more of a particular market. - the economic costs are most manifest - ex: each of the fol- lowing industries has four or fewer firms controlling at least 60 percent: light bulbs, breakfast cereals, milk supply, turbines/generators, aluminum, cigarettes, beer, chocolate, etc

Corporate dumping

- The export-ing of goods that have either been banned or not approved for sale in the United States because they are dangerous. - Most often the greatest market for such unsafe products is among the poor in the developing world - underdeveloped countries often do not bar hazardous products, and many of their poor citizens are illiterate and therefore tend to be unaware of the hazards involved with the use of such products - United States and other industrialized nations continue to use the nations of the developing world as sources of profits as nations purchase these unhealthy products - Chemical pesticides pollute water, degrade the soil, and destroy native wild- life and vegetation - ban of pesticides is banned in US but doesn't pertain to foreign sales - Another form of corporate dumping, in the literal sense of the word, is the practice of shipping toxic wastes produced in the United States to the developing world for disposal. - Environmental Protection Agency requires expensive disposal facilities, whereas the materials can be dumped in developing-world nations for a fraction of the cost - Corporate dumping is undesirable for three reasons 1. poses serious health hazards to the poor and uninformed consumers of the develop- ing world 2. disregard of U.S. multinational corporations for their workers and their consumers in foreign lands contributes to anti-U.S. feelings in the host countries 3. many types of corporate dumping have a boomerang effect; that is, some of the hazardous products sold abroad by U.S. companies are often returned to the United States and other developed nations, negatively affecting the health of the people in those countries

New slavery

- The new slavery differs from traditional slavery in that it is, for the most part, not a lifelong condition and sometimes individuals and families become slaves by choice— a choice forced by extreme poverty. - Often the poor must place them- selves in debt bondage, using one's family as collateral, thus enslaving their children. - 27 million slaves in the world today, and the number is growing - slave typically is freed after he or she is no longer useful - sometimes individuals and families become slaves by choice—a choice forced by extreme poverty - The population explosion in the poorest nations has created a vast supply of potential workers who are desperate and vulnerable, conditions that sometimes translate into enslavement - The slave must work for the slaveholder until the slaveholder decides the debt is repaid which is problematic because many slaveholders use false accounting or charge very high interest, making repayment forever out of reach - Sometimes the debt can be passed to subsequent generations, thus enslaving offspring - Impoverishment may also lead desperate parents to sell their children - estimates that 200,000 children in West and Central Africa are sold into slavery annually by their parents. Most come from the poorest countries - girls as domestic workers or prostitutes while boys are forced to work on coffee or cocoa plantations or as fishermen

Nonparticipant observation

- The researcher does not join the group or participate directly in any activities being observed. - goal is to observe events and social interactions in their natural environment - often used with other research methods like surveys, interviews, and existing data, etc

Participant observation

- The researcher joins the group being studied in order to understand their behavior - For example, in order to study a particular religious group, the researcher might become a member, attending ceremonies and studying their beliefs. - researcher, without intervention, can observe as accurately as possible what occurs in a community, group, or social event. - especially help- ful in understanding such social phenomena as the decision-making process, the stages of a riot, the attraction of cults for their members, or different employment experiences

Cloture

- The vote needed to end a filibuster. - Senate tried to invoke cloture but usually failed to gain the necessary two-thirds votes - The southern senators tried to stymie antilynching legislation in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but failed when cloture was invoked after a fifty-seven-day filibuster - In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds (sixty- seven) to three-fifths (sixty)

Arms sales

- The wealthy nations sell or give armaments to the poorer nations. - United States has been the number one seller of arms abroad, accounting for 31 percent of all weapons sales in 2014, selling major conventional weapons to 94 countries - These sales efforts are motivated by what was deemed to be in the national interests of the countries involved and by the profit to the manufacturers - United States is actively engaged in promoting and financing weapons exports through 6,500 full-time government employees in the Defense, Commerce, and State Departments - There are several important negative consequences of these arms sales 1. fan the flames of war: rather than working to promote stability in already tense regions, the search for profits exacerbates the situation 2. United States has become an informal global shopping center for terrorists, mercenaries, and international criminals of all stripes 3. arms sales can boomerang; that is, they can come back to haunt the seller 4. United States, in its zeal to contain or defeat regimes unfriendly to its interests, has sold arms to countries that are undemocratic and that violate human rights

Value neutrality

- To be absolutely free of bias in research. - problematic - often the types of problems researched and the strategies used tend either to support the existing societal arrangements or to undermine them - is a purely neutral position possible? Most likely, it is not - our values lead us to decide from which vantage point we will gain access to information about a particular social organization - Each view provides useful insights about a prison, but obviously a biased one.

Objective reality of social problem

- Watch for definitions provided by those in power - Objectivity has limits - approach assumes that some kinds of actions are likely to be judged a problem in any context - conditions in society (such as poverty and institutional racism) induce material or psychic suffering for certain segments of the population - sociocultural phenomena prevent a significant number of societal participants from developing and using their full potential - discrepancies exist between what a country is supposed to stand for (equality of opportunity, justice, democracy) and the actual conditions in which many of its people live

Oligopoly

- When a small number of large firms dominate a particular industry. - Government data show that a number of industries are highly concentrated (e.g., each of the following industries has four or fewer firms controlling at least 60 percent: light bulbs, etc

societal changes

- reduce population growth - cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, women roles, education - Ingrained cultural values about the familial role of women and about children as evidence of the father's virility or as a hedge against poverty in old age must be changed. - Religious beliefs, such as the resistance of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and of fundamentalist Muslim regimes to the use of contraceptives, are a great obstacle to population control - Catholic majorities have extremely low birth rates - Muslim countries have instituted successful family planning - ignificant social change needed to reduce fertility is to change the role of women. When women are isolated from activities outside the home, their worth depends largely on their ability to bear and rear children - fertility rates drop when women gain opportunities and a voice in soci- ety. Research has shown that increasing the education of women is one of the most effective ways to reduce birth rates - Unplanned change, such as economic hard times affects birth rates, data shows economic difficulties for individual families in less- developed countries can cause couples to delay marriage and to be more likely to use contraceptives - When enough families are affected negatively by an economic downturn, the fertility rate can fall for a nation

Recidivism

- the act of repeating an offense - Why is the recidivism rate (reinvolvement in crime) of ex-convicts so high? The person-blamer points to the faults of individual criminals: their greed, their feelings of aggression, their weak control of impulse, their lack of conscience - system-blamer directs attention to very different sources: the penal system, the scarcity of employment for ex-criminals, and even the schools - penal institutions have failed to provide these people with the minimum requirements for full participation in society - lack of employment and the unwillingness of potential employers to train functional illiterates force many to return to crime to survive. - Why do criminals recidivate? Greed, lack of control, aggression

Social Darwinism

- the placement of people in the stratification system is a function of their ability and effort - the poor are poor because of their behavior - poor deserve their fate, as do the successful in society - little sympathy exists for government programs to increase welfare to the poor.

true capitalism

- three conditions must be present for pure capitalism to exist: private ownership of the means of production personal profit competition among economic organizations - U.S. economy is no longer based on competition among more-or-less equal private capital- ists. Instead, huge corporations, contrary to classical economic theory, control demand rather than respond to the demands of the market.

indirect interlock

- when two companies each have a director on the board of a third company - reducing competition through the sharing of information and the coordination of policies.

Why is Haiti so poor?

1. long history of violence: - Haiti became the first independent Black republic in the world - was violent and loss of life was great - government of the new Black republic of Haiti has a long history of ruling by violence and corruption. 2. Government culture of corruption - revenues, taxes, duties, and so on, as well as foreign loans and foreign aid, vanish into the pockets of everyone who gains any kind of access before it can be spent to finish public projects such as roads, schools, and medical programs that would benefit 3. Isolation and vindictive ostracism: - Haiti was treated as a pariah nation by the colonial powers. 4. Lack of education 5. Corporate exploitation of the poor - negotiated highly profitable assembly plants in which they employ poor Haitians for wages as low as 10 to 14 cents an hour, assured by repressive Haitian dictators that no unions will be allowed, no human rights observers permitted, and other such conditions 6. Few natural resources 7. Population pressures. 8. Major natural disasters.

Experimental group

A group of subjects that is exposed to the independent variable in an experiment.

According to the demographic transition theory, the key to stabilizing a country's population is __________. A. agriculture B. government control C. modernization D. equality

C. modernization

According to the textbook, the platforms of main political parties are similar because they both __________. A. emerged from the same party B. consist of educated individuals C. need donations to run for office D. are represented on television

C. need donations to run for office

Sociologists have shifted viewpoint over time, initially defining social problems as a(an) __________ to looking at problems in context today. A. necessary evil B. subjective reality C. pathology D. indefinable situation

C. pathology

The United States has supported tyrannical foreign governments when they __________. A. change to democracy B. enter into peace treaties C. support U.S. corporate interests D. are in economic trouble

C. support U.S. corporate interests

By using our sociological imagination in the study of social problems, Mills believed that we would look at changing __________ , not people. A. objective reality B. normative behavior C. the social structure D. public opinion

C. the social structure

consequences of concentrated power

The Powerful Control Ideology Powerful Corporations Receive Benefits Trickle-Down Solutions Disadvantage the Powerless The Powerless Bear the Burden Reprise: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy