Chapter 12: Social Stratification Flashcards
(57 cards)
What is a social class?
What is social cohesion?
A social class is a category of people who share a similar socioeconomic position in society, and can be identified by looking at the economic opportunities, job positions, lifestyles, attitudes, and behaviors of a given slice of society
Social cohesion, or social integration, refers to the solidarity in sense of connectedness among different social groups and social classes in society
Is Socio economic status only determined by merit (achieved status)?
Social economic status is not only determined by merit (achieve status), but also external characteristics or outward appearances like skin color and gender (scribed status).
What are the three major types of status (ascribed, achieved, and master status)?
Describe status: derives from clearly identifiable characteristics, such as age, gender, and skin color
Achieve status: acquired via direct, individual efforts
Master status: pervades all aspects of an individual’s life
What is social stratification?
What does socioeconomic status?
What is educational attainment?
Social stratification focuses on social inequalities, and studies the basic question of who gets what and why
Social stratification is related to one socioeconomic status
Socioeconomic status may depend on ascribed or achieved status, and causes the emergence of status hierarchies
An important factor in a chief status is educational attainment, which is the highest degree obtained, or number of years of education completed
How to caste an estate system’s stratify by socioeconomic status
Caste system stratify by ascribed socioeconomic status
Estate system stratify by achieved socioeconomic status
What are the three major classes?
What is socioeconomic gradient?
Upper, middle, lower or the three major classes
Upper has great wealth, recognized reputations and lifestyles, larger influence on society’s political and economic systems. High concentration of prestige and power.
Middle class: further divided into upper middle, middle middle, and lower middle class. The middle class include successful businesses and professional people (upper middle), those who have been unable to achieve the upper middle lifestyle because of educational and economic shortcomings (middle middle), and those who are skilled and semi-skilled workers with fewer luxuries (lower middle)
Lower class includes people who have lower incomes, and has a greatly reduced amount of sociopolitical power
The proportional improvement in healthcare as one moves up in socioeconomic status is called the socioeconomic gradient in health and development
What is prestige?
What is power?
Prestige: the amount of positive regards society has for a given person or idea
Power: the ability to affect others behavior through real or perceived rewards and punishments, and is based on the unequal distribution of valued resources
At its core, power defines the relationship between individuals, groups, and social institutions
Our relationships function to maintain order, organizing economic systems, conduct warfare, and rule over and exploit people
Power creates world, wild, social inequalities as people tend to fall somewhere within the haves and the have nots
What is class consciousness?
What is false consciousness?
Recall Marxist theory: conflict theory, proposes that the have nots, the proletariat, could overthrow the haves, the bourgeoisie, as well as the entire capitalist economy by developing class consciousness
Class consciousness refers to the organization of the working class around shared goals, and recognition of a need for collective political action
By working together as one unit, the proletariat could revolt and take control of the political and economic system, laying the groundwork for a social estate
False consciousness is one major barrier to class consciousness. False consciousness is a misinterpretation of one’s actual position within society.
Members of the proletariat either do not see just how bad conditions are, do not recognize the commonalities between their own experiences and others, or otherwise are too crowded to assemble into the revolutionaries Marx envisioned
What is anomie?
Anomie: lack of widely accepted, social norms, and the breakdown of social bonds between an individual in society. Anomie further accelerates social inequality.
Causes people to feel a lack of belonging and that they are disconnected from their society
Originated by Emile Durkheim
What is strain theory?
What is social solidarity?
Strain theory focuses on how anomic conditions can lead to deviance
Anomic conditions include excessive, individualism, social inequality, and isolation; all eroding social solidarity
Social solidarity is the sense of community and social cohesion
What is social trust?
What are two primary sources of social trust?
Social norms and reciprocity (I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine) and social networks
Sociologists have focused on the importance of social trust in the proper functioning of civil society
What is social capital?
What is social integration?
Social capital is the investment people make in their society in return for economic or collective rewards.
The greater the investment, the higher the level of social integration
Social integration is the movement of new or under represented populations into a larger culture while maintaining their ethnic identities
One of the two main forms of social capital is the social network
Social networks can create two types of social inequality: situational (socioeconomic advantage) (and positional (based on how connected one is within a network, and one centrality within that network).
Inequality and networks creates and reinforces privilege
What is privilege?
What is cultural capital?
Inequality and networks creates and reinforces privilege
Privilege is the inequality in opportunity
As social capital refers to the benefits, one receives from group association, cultural capital refers to the benefits, one receives from knowledge, abilities, and skills
People who experience, poor mental health are one of the largest disadvantage groups to lack both strong and weak ties. Speak.
Due to repercussions of social exclusion, these individuals may find that social capital is out of their reach
Consequently, this group is personally in socially disempowered, further propel a cycle of exclusion
Social exclusion has huge financial repercussions on healthcare, with greater morbidity rates
What is intersectionality?
Intersectionality is the compounding of disadvantage seen in individuals who belong to more than one underserved group
What is social mobility, also known as structural mobility?
Unlike caste or estate based systems of social stratification, people in North America, generally have the ability to move up or down from one class to another
In a class system, social mobility is typically the result of an economic and occupational structure that allows one to acquire higher level, employment, opportunities given proper credentials, and experience requirements
In the United States, the class system encourages this type of ambition through dedication and hard work, and ethos embodied in the phrase “the American Dream”
What is intragenerational mobility?
What is intergenerational mobility?
Social mobility can either occur within a generation or across generations
Intragenerational mobility refers to changes in social status that happen with a person’s lifetime
In intergenerational mobility, refers to changes in social status from parent to children
What is meritocracy?
What is plutocracy?
Meritocracy is a social structure in which intellectual talent and achievement are means for a person to advance of the social ladder
Some fear that the US meritocracy system is quickly becoming a plutocracy
A plutocracy is rule by the upper class
What is vertical mobility?
What is upward mobility?
What is downward mobility?
Social mobility usually occurs in one of two directions: up or down
Upward and downward mobility, both refer to patterns of vertical mobility: movement from one social class to another
Upward mobility as a positive change in a person’s social status, resulting in a higher position
Downward mobility is a negative change in a person social status, where in they fall to a lower position
Social mobility is often directly correlated with education, although other factors can contribute to upward mobility as well
Some of the best examples of upward mobility are seen with professional athletes, professional, musicians, and entrepreneurs
What is horizontal mobility?
Horizontal mobility is a change in occupation or lifestyle but an individual that keeps that individual within the same social class
For example, a construction worker who switches jobs to work in a custodial services or mechanical maintenance, has made a shift in occupation, but typically remains in the lower middle class
What is vertical mobility?
What is horizontal mobility?
Vertical mobility refers to upward and downward mobility patterns to or from one social class to another
Horizontal mobility is a change in occupation or lifestyle by an individual that keeps that individual within the same social class
What is poverty?
Poverty is defined by low socioeconomic status and a lack of possessions or financial resources
Poverty can be handed down from generation to generation and can be defined on its own terms or in comparison to the rest of the population
What is social reproduction?
What is structural poverty?
Social inequality, especially poverty, but also inherited wealth, can be reproduced or passed on from one generation to the next
Social reproduction is the idea that social inequality can be reproduced or passed on from one generation to the next
The theory of structural poverty is based on the concept of “holes” in the structure of society, being more responsible for poverty than the actions of any individual
Proponent of structural poverty argued at the same individuals do not buy necessity occupy these “holes” from year to year, but the percentage of a society that falls under the poverty line stays relatively constant due to their existence
What is absolute poverty?
What is relative poverty?
What is the poverty line?
Absolute poverty is a socioeconomic condition in which people do not have enough money or resources to maintain a quality of living that includes basic life, necessities, such as shelter, food, clothing, and water.
Relative poverty: people have less in common wealth in comparison to the larger population in which they live (comparative poverty)
The poverty line is derived from the government’s calculation of the minimum income requirements for families to acquire the minimum necessities of life
