Lecture #6- Social Inequality in Canada

Question 1

Social inequality

Answer 1

Socially structured difference where groups and individuals with specific attributes have more control and greater access to opportunities than those who don’t

Question 2

Classes

Answer 2

• Categories of people with a common group membership who work together towards a collective goal
• Classes do not have meaning if they are not seen as real people
• People create the rights and opportunities that define classes and people are capable of changing them through social action

Question 3

“Structural functionalist school”

Answer 3

Argued that classes exist on a continuum that can be divided into clusters of occupations that hold similar value in society

Question 4

Political control

Answer 4

When individuals actions are controlled by rules of conduct, imposed by those in authority

Question 5

Ideological control

Answer 5

Involves having control over knowledge, beliefs and information in order to establish inequalities between groups or individuals

Question 6

Power

Answer 6

The ability to control resources and situations either economically, politically or ideologically

Question 7

Corporate Power

Answer 7

• Power that is given in large amounts to big corporations in the modern world
• Workers, communities and States must rely on the capitalist class for survival
• Corporate power wants to maintain hegemony or dominance. While the corporate elite is much less patriarchal and monocultural, its ethnic and gender composition is still very different from the rest of the population

Question 8

What are the 3 forms of power in corporate capitalism?

Answer 8

1. Operational power- involves control of the labour process within the companies that produce the economic profit
2. Strategic power- control of the corporation itself, often through ownership of shares
3. Allocative power- control of credit which is important when changing operations or dealing with reduced revenue as a result of economic contraction

Question 9

Localism

Answer 9

The development of small-scale businesses as an alternative to the growing concentration of corporate power

Question 10

Polarization

Answer 10

• Polarization is a decrease in the share of high skilled jobs requiring high skilled decision making skills and post-secondary degrees, an increase in both medium skilled jobs requiring at least high school diplomas and low skilled jobs which only require on the job training
• There has been an increase in precarious employment which includes job uncertainty, unpredictable variations in income and work schedules

Question 11

Homogenization of the working class

Answer 11

• The increased share of private sector employment accounted for by small establishments has significant implications for working class formation
• Workers in small workplaces are paid less, have fewer benefits, are less likely to receive on the job training, and are more likely to be laid off

Question 12

Class consciousness

Answer 12

Considers how structural conditions are interpreted by those who experience them

Question 13

Class Identity

Answer 13

Defined as an awareness of membership in a distinct class

Question 14

Class opposition

Answer 14

The belief that the interests of workers and capitalist are opposed

Question 15

Counter hegemonic consciousness

Answer 15

Involves a belief in the possibility and desirability of a society that is organized along non-capitalist lines

Question 16

The social acceptability hypothesis

Answer 16

Suggests that women are more willing to accept the sick role than men and are more likely to report psychological distress, poor self-rated health and the presence of a chronic condition than men

Question 17

Internalized homophobia

Answer 17

Refers to learned biases that people incorporate into their belief systems, including LGBTQ people themselves

Question 18

External homophobia

Answer 18

Refers to observed and experienced expressions of internal biases, such as avoidance, verbal abuse or violence directed towards non-heterosexual persons

Question 19

Institutional homophobia

Answer 19

Refers to discriminatory actions by societal institutions such as governments, educational institutions and businesses

Question 20

Cultural homophobia/heterosexism

Answer 20

Refers to societal standards and norms that portray heterosexuality as “normal” and as a result, may depict non-heterosexual orientations as “deviant” or “abnormal”

Question 21

Homelessness

Answer 21

• Homeless is the term used to describe the poor as well as those who have been displaced by war, violence, environmental catastrophe and economic depressions and recessions
• Homelessness is the result of many other social inequalities and problems that we need to address before we will be able to offer long-term solutions to this
• Homelessness occurs because of personal limitations or because there is something “wrong” with an individual including social, behavioural, emotional and psychological deficits

Question 22

The social acceptability hypothesis

Answer 22

Suggests that women are more likely than men to accept the sick role and receive help from others

Question 23

The risk hypothesis

Answer 23

Suggests that men are socialized to engage in risky behaviours such as drinking and driving

Question 24

The healthy behaviours argument

Answer 24

• Proposes that women are more likely than men to engage in healthy lifestyles and behaviours
• There is more distress and chronic conditions among women

Question 25

The multiple roles hypothesis

Answer 25

- Suggests that for women, taking on duties such as parent, employee, or caretaker, may result in role overload, role conflict and high demands on time and energy which can contribute to poorer physical and psychological health - Researchers have found that men are more likely than women to hold multiple roles so the role overload hypothesis cannot be proven

Question 26

The socioeconomic status argument

Answer 26

- Claims that men tend to have a higher socioeconomic status - Women often have to confront a “glass ceiling” that limits the status or rank that they can reach within a given organization - Gender differences in socioeconomic status may partly explain gender differences in health

Question 27

The biased nature of medical research argument

Answer 27

Suggests that women’s health may appear to be worse than men’s because male researchers often study male subjects, resulting in women being understudied

Question 28

The underreporting hypothesis

Answer 28

Suggests that in many household surveys, women are more likely to speak for the household than the men, which means that the morbidity characteristics of men are often underreported, leading to inaccurate portrayals of men’s health

Question 29

Race

Answer 29

A social and political construct that has been used to distinguish among people on the basis of visible physical characteristics such as skin colour

Question 30

Ethnicity

Answer 30

A principle that defines and differentiates people on the basis of their common ancestry which is expressed in culture, physical attributes, language, historical experiences and birthright

Question 31

The drift hypothesis

Answer 31

Suggests that illness starts a downward trajectory on the socioeconomic ladder which accounts for only a small proportion of the relationship between socioeconomic status and health

Question 32

Level of analysis hypothesis

Answer 32

Proposes that wealthy people tend to live in similar neighbourhoods that have other characteristics that can affect the health of those who live there such as crime rates and more green space

Question 33

The spuriousness argument

Answer 33

Suggests that some prior genetic causes such as physical size or intelligence influences socioeconomic status and health

Question 34

The psychosocial perspective

Answer 34

Focuses on non-material factors associated with socioeconomic status and argues that those who recognize that they have low social standing in society often incur harm on their overall health

Question 35

The materialist perspective

Answer 35

Argues that poor health is a result of material factors including poor housing, nutrition and limited access to medical care

Question 36

The education argument

Answer 36

Suggests that people who are better educated have more accurate information about what influences their health and tend to have more healthy lifestyle choices

Question 37

Homophobia

Answer 37

Refers to any belief system that supports negative myths and stereotypes about homosexual people

Question 38

Heterosexism

Answer 38

Refers to a belief system that values heterosexuality as a superior to homosexuality and assumes that all people are heterosexual

Question 39

Internalized homophobia

Answer 39

Refers to learned biases that people, including LGBTQ people themselves, incorporate into their belief systems

Question 40

External homophobia

Answer 40

External homophobia is observed and experienced expressions of internal biases such as avoidance, verbal abuse or violence directed towards non-heterosexual people

Question 41

Institutional homophobia

Answer 41

Refers to when societal institutions such as governments, schools or churches engage in discriminatory actions which has a negative effect on non-heterosexual people

Question 42

Cultural homophobia/heterosexism

Answer 42

Cultural homophobia/heterosexism is the societal standards and norms that portray heterosexuality as “normal” or “moral” and can portray non-heterosexual people as “deviant” or “abnormal” and can be reinforced through the media, educational or religious systems

Question 43

Homelessness

Answer 43

A term that has been used to describe people who live on the streets due to family violence, poverty, unemployment, substance abuse or mental health problems -Homelessness is a growing issue that is often hidden or covered up in modern Western societies and knowledge about the homeless population is limited

Question 44

The homelessness muddle

Answer 44

The phrase coined to describe the mix of definitions and ideas surrounding the homeless population and the scope of the issues surrounding them

Question 45

The black hole hypothesis

Answer 45

Argues that homelessness largely affects the people who fall through the cracks in society and do not have equal opportunities or access to resources and social services

Question 46

Dominant Ideology

Answer 46

``` Karl Marx’s theory of dominant ideology is the beliefs and ideas held by the most dominant and powerful class in society -Some analysts define dominant ideology as the beliefs that are held by the large majority of people in society ```

Question 47

Individualism

Answer 47

- The belief that all people have the right, freedom and responsibility to make their own way in society - Canadians generally believe that everyone should have equal opportunities to succeed in life and that their success is a result of hard work and ambition rather than based on factors such as gender, race or ethnicity - the people with the most advantaged backgrounds are most likely to have an individualistic perspective

Question 48

9 Measures of social status

Answer 48

- education - income - occupational status - employment status - subjective class identification - race - gender - language of interview - region

Question 49

Social identity theory

Answer 49

Argues that perceptions of threat often drive inter-group conflict and can be a result of a lack of knowledge about the other group

Question 50

Localites and cosmopolitans

Answer 50

Localites are people that typically associate with those who are similar to them while cosmopolitans see themselves as belonging to the larger world and society as a whole

Question 51

Lipset’s working-class authoritarianism thesis

Answer 51

Proposed that social contexts can influence the development of certain attitudes and beliefs that affect tolerance

Question 52

Post-materialist theorists

Answer 52

- Argue that as a society becomes more economically secure, most people live economically secure lives and are free from material concerns, allowing them to focus more on individualistic concerns such as lifestyle and health - The post-materialist thesis leads to two expectations about Canadians which include the idea that since we have such a highly developed economy, we should have higher overall levels of acceptance and that socio-economic status should have very little effect on tolerance since the majority of Canadians have wealth and affluence

Question 53

The theory of relative deprivation

Answer 53

-Proposes that even those who are in lower economic positions can still enjoy a high quality of life and economic security and still be intolerant because of their economic position in society

Question 54

Relative deprivation

Answer 54

Refers to the idea that people often feel discontent because they believe that they are more disadvantaged than other groups in society who they think are enjoying unfair rewards