Sociology Chapter 7
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bullet4mv92 on April 11, 2012
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28 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Three most important rewards people can receive in life | Wealth, money, power |
| Karl Marx divided industrial society into these 3 classes | Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, Petite bourgeoisie |
| What were the capitalists' main goal(s) in the workplace | Maximizing profit, exploiting workers with long hours/little pay |
| Power | the ability to control the behavior of others, even against their will |
| Power elite | A small group of top leaders not just from business corporations but also from the federal government and the military. |
| Status system | A system in which people are stratified according to their social prestige |
| Status inconsistency | the condition in which the same individual is given two conflicting status ranks, such as being high in occupation but low in ethnicity or gender |
| The egalitarian system | Least stratified society, minimal inequality. (Hunting-gathering |
| Social stratification | a concept involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socioeconomic conditions" |
| Master-slave system | Most stratified, maximum inequality. |
| Feudal system | Consists of two greatly unequal groups (pesants/landlords) |
| Caste system | Made up of several segregated groups whose positions are ascribed and fixed. Unlike the Master-slave and feudal systems though, lower castes aren't forced to work for the higher castes. |
| Class system | Less rigidly segregated than the caste system. Primary form of stratification in nearly all societies. |
| 3 methods to identifying a person's class: | Reputational method, Subjective method, Objective method |
| Reputational method of identifying a person's class | Asking people to rank each other |
| Subjective method of identifying a person's class | Asking people how they would rank themselves |
| Objective method of identifying a person's class | Uses income, occupation, and education to rank people |
| Life chances | The likelihood of living a good, long, successful life |
| Lifestyles | tastes, preferences, and ways of living |
| Poverty | The lack of minimum food and shelter necessary for maintaining life |
| Relative poverty | A state of deprivation resulting from having less than the majority of the people have |
| Blame-the-poor theory | The poor are believed to have failed to grab the opportunities by not working hard |
| Sociological theories (explanation for poverty) | Poverty is assumed to perform some positive functions for society, such as: getting the dirty work done, working as maids/servants so the rich can pursue their careers, creates jobs for those who serve the poor |
| Structural mobility | Social mobility related to societal factors. Traced to 4 sources: Expansion of the industrial economy in 1900, dramatic increase in the educational attainment of the population, lower birth rate in the higher classes than in the lower classes, large influx of immigrants |
| Individual mobility | Social mobility related to an individual's personal achievement and characteristics |
| Functionalist perspective on stratification: | Benefiting society. Stratification is necessary. Stratification motivates people to work hard by promising them rewards such as money, power and prestige. |
| Conflict perspective on stratification: | Harming society. Stratification is dysfunctional rather than functional. By limiting opportunities of the underprivileged, strat. restricts the possibility of discovery and exploiting the full range of talent in society. |
| Symbolic Interactionist perspective on stratification | Influencing interactions. Higher status people show off their power to lower status, lower status appear polite or respectful |
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