Unit-Chapt 10 Flashcards
(25 cards)
Power Elite
defined as a relatively small group of interconnected people who occupy top positions in important social institutions.
Pluralist Theory of Power
The idea that U.S. politics is characterized by competing groups that work together to achieve their goals.
Elite Theory of Power
the idea that a small group of networked individuals controls the most powerful positions in our social institutions.
Social Capital
the number of people we know and the resources they can offer us.
The Power Elite
a book written by C. Wright Mills in 1956 that examines and critiques the organization of power in the United States, calling attention to three firmly interlocked prongs of power: the military, corporate, and political elite.
The opioid addiction crisis
In 1996, a pharmaceutical company named Purdue Pharm began marketing a new and more potent version of an opioid painkiller. They touted it as nonaddictive, the FDA gave them the green light, and opioids became the most profitable prescription drugs in U.S. history.
Interlocks
represent social ties among members of the upper class, formal connections.
Social Closure
a process by which advantaged groups preserve opportunities for themselves while restricting them for others.
Cultural Capital
symbolic resources that communicate one’s social status.
Objectified Cultural Capital
the symbolic significance of things, or objects, we own.
Institutional Cultural Capital
the symbolic significance of endorsements from recognized organizations.
Embodied Cultural Capital
the symbolic significance of our bodies.
Fit
the feeling that our particular mix of cultural capital matches our social context.
Ethnography
also called participant observation, a research method that involves careful observation of naturally occurring social interactions, often as a participant.
Field Notes
descriptive accounts of what occurred, alongside tentative sociological observations.
Ideologies
morally charged beliefs about right and wrong ways to organize our societies, articulated by Antonio Gramsci.
Cultural Hegemony
describes power maintained primarily by persuasion, Gramsci introduced the phrase.
Hegemonic Ideologies
shared ideas about how human life should be organized that are used to manufacture our consent to existing social conditions.
Xenophobia
prejudice against people defined as foreign.
Organic Solidarity
cohesion created by shared effort.
Mechanic Solidarity
the kind of social cohesion that comes from familiarity and similarity.
Individualism
the idea that people are independent actors responsible primarily for themselves.
Collectivism
the idea that people are interdependent actors with responsibilities primarily to the group.
Social Reproduction
the process by which society maintains an enduring character from generation to generation.
