3.1 Frameworks and Methods for Studying Inequalities (D2L Reading)

Question 1

Social inequalities

Answer 1

Unequal access to rewards or opportunities for individuals within a group or groups within society

Question 2

Perceived or imagined social inequalities

Answer 2

Situations where people feel as though they have less than other people and, equally important, less than they deserve

Question 3

Sociological imagination

Answer 3

Way of looking at the world that allows individuals to perceive connections between their own apparently private problems and larger social issues
–According to sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959)

Question 4

Microsociology (or micro-level analysis)

Answer 4

A level of analysis in sociology concerned with action, interaction, and construction of meaning among individuals

Question 5

Macrosociology (or macro-level analysis)

Answer 5

A level of analysis in sociology that examines the wider structures, interdependent social institutions, and global and historical processes of social life

Question 6

Theory

Answer 6

An idea of the world that goes beyond what we can see and measure. It embraces a set of interrelated definitions and relationships that organizes our concepts of and understanding of the empirical world in a systematic way.

Question 7

Hypothesis

Answer 7

An untested statement about the relationship (of association or causation) between concepts within a given theory

Question 8

Quantitative methods

Answer 8

Research methods associated with positivist epistemology, regarded as referring to the collection and analysis of numerical data

Question 9

Positivism

Answer 9

Approach to studying society that emulates the logic and methods of the natural sciences; founded in objectivity

Modern approach formulated by Auguste Comte

Question 10

Qualitative methods

Answer 10

Research methods associated with interpretive epistemology, regarded as referring to forms of data collection and analysis that rely on understanding, with an emphasis on meanings

Question 11

Interpretivism

Answer 11

Approach to studying society that argues that the researcher is part of the research, interprets data and as such can never be fully objective and removed from the research

(www.nicole-brown.co.uk)

Question 12

Lorenz curve

Answer 12

A visual depiction of the cumulative distribution of household income in a given society

Question 13

Gini index

Answer 13

A statistical measure of inequality that varies between 0 and 1, where 0 indicates perfect equality (everyone receives the same share of national income as everyone else) and 1 indicates perfect inequality (where one household receives all the national income and everyone else receives none)

Calculates the area between the Lorenz curve and the “line of absolute (or perfect) equality” as a fraction of the total area under the line of absolute equality. The closer the Lorenz curve is to the line of absolute equality, the lower the Gini index will be (approaching zero).

Question 14

Indexes of dissimilarity

Answer 14

Measures of the difference two groups (eg two genders or two ethnic or racial groups) in their access to desirable jobs or residential areas

Question 15

Chi-square statistic

Answer 15

A statistical measure indicating the likelihood that an association between two variables is merely due to chance

Question 16

Multiple regression

Answer 16

A technique of statistical analysis that is intended to identify and parcel out the unique effects of particular predictive variables on a dependent (or outcome) variable

Question 17

Variables

Answer 17

Attributes that are fixed for each person or other social entity, but which are observed to be at different levels, amounts, or strengths across samples and other aggregate groups

Question 18

Beta weight

Answer 18

A statistical measure that varies between -1 and +1, where -1 indicates a strong negative effect, +1 a strong positive effect, and 0, no effect whatsoever

Question 19

Index of cost of minority status

Answer 19

Uses multiple regression analysis to measure of the average number of income dollars lost as a result of membership in a particular class or social category (eg gender, ethnic group, or race), all other things being equal

Question 20

Index of social distance

Answer 20

A measurement technique created in the 1920s by Emory Bogardus that measures the reluctance people have to develop close social bonds with members of another specified ethnic or racial group

Question 21

Emory Borgardus

Answer 21

Psychologist who created the index of social distance in the 1920s

Question 22

What seven values (things that sociologists would like to promote through their research and teaching) are much of sociological research on social inequalities guided by?

Answer 22

1) Life over death
2) Health over sickness
3) Knowing over not knowing
3) Cooperation over conflict
4) Freedom of movement over physical restraint
5) Self-determination over direction by others
6) Freedom of expression over restraint of communication

Question 23

Anomie (or normlessness)

Answer 23

Term introduced by Émile Durkheim to reflect this condition in which social norms are weak or come into conflict with one another

Question 24

Social constructionism

Answer 24

An offshoot of symbolic interactionism that focuses on the ways in which inequalities are seen to be constructed by the social structure as opposed to being “natural”

Question 25

Labelling theory

Answer 25

A theory that focuses on the ways that people’s identities–including their self-identities–are produced by the ways other people see them and behave toward them

Question 26

Neo-liberalism

Answer 26

A social and political philosophy that favours free markets and minimal government regulation

Question 27

Intersectionality

Answer 27

The interaction or combination of social factors that makes inequality more than the result of additive disadvantages, resulting in disadvantages that combine in unique ways