Chapter 7 Vocab Flashcards
(26 cards)
structured social inequality or, more specifically, systematic inequalities between groups of people that arise as intended or unintended consequences of social processes and relationships.
Stratification
a condition whereby no differences in wealth, power, prestige, or status based on nonnatural conventions exist.
Social equality
a two-directional relationship, one that goes both ways.
Dialectic
the notion that everyone is created equal at birth.
Ontological equality
the idea that everyone has
an equal chance to achieve wealth, social prestige, and power because the rules of the game, so to speak, are the same for everyone.
Equality of opportunity
a society of commerce (modern capitalist society, for example) in which the maximization of profit is the primary business incentive.
Bourgeois society
the idea that everyone should have an equal starting point.
Equality of condition
a position that argues each player must end up with the same amount regardless of the fairness of the “game.”
Equality of outcome
the notion that when more than one person is responsible for getting something done, the incentive is for each individual to shirk responsibility and hope others will pull the extra weight.
Free rider problem
politically based system of stratification characterized by limited social mobility.
Estate system
religion-based system of stratification characterized by no social mobility.
Caste system
an economically based hierarchical system characterized by cohesive, oppositional groups and somewhat loose social mobility
Class system
the working class.
Proletariat
the capitalist class.
Bourgeoisie
the idea that people can occupy locations in the class structure that fall between the two “pure” classes.
Contradictory class locations
a system of stratification based on social prestige.
Status hierarchy system
system of stratification that has a governing elite, a few leaders who broadly hold power in society.
Elite-mass dichotomy system
a society where status and mobility are based on individual attributes, ability, and achievement.
Meritocracy
money received
by a person for work, from transfers (gifts, inheritances, or government assistance), or from returns on investments.
Income
a family’s or individual’s net worth (that is, total assets minus total debts).
Wealth
a term for the economic elite.
Upper class
a term commonly used to describe those individuals with nonmanual jobs that pay significantly more than the poverty line— though this is a highly debated and expansive category, particularly in the United States, where broad swathes of the population consider themselves middle class.
Middle class
the movement between different positions within a system of social stratification in any given society.
Social mobility
mobility that is inevitable from changes in the economy.
Structural mobility
