B Flashcards
Race
A socially constructed category that divides people into groups on the basis of presumably shared physical characteristics
Racism
Belief in the superiority or inferiority of different racial groups. (Conley adds: “coupled with the power to restrict freedoms based on those differences.”)
Racialization with Example
When a group not previously thought of in racial terms is enfolded in racial boundaries
Ex. (Irish people becoming white) more irish people, more acceptance as time goes by
What drives racial categorization?
First way/possibility
First and foremost exploitation and social systems that may form around it, such as colonialism and slavery. But genocidal drives for “racial purity” may also be a motive.
In most societies where racial categories become an organizing principle of social stratification, race needs legitimation. Hence “scientific racism,” social Dawrinist ideas, or in the current era cultural racism.
What drives racial categorization? 2nd way- Blumer
Prejudice as a sense of group position (position as desired by members of the dominant group)
basically prejudice is formed through the interactions between a dominant group (one black person represnting all black people when they go to PW places)
What drives racial categorization? 3rd way-
Park’s race relations cycle-linked to a social ecological perspective
contact, conflict, competition, accommodation, assimilation
What is 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)?
shifted the responsibilities of running welfare programs onto individual states, limited the number of months that a person can receive aid, and added other components to encourage two-parent families and discourage out-of-wedlock births
Absolute poverty
the point at which a household’s income falls below necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members
Relative poverty
a measurement of poverty based on the percentage of median income in a given location
Culture of poverty with an example
the argument that poor people adopt certain practices that differ from those middle-class “mainstream” society in order to adapt and survive in difficult economic circumstances
Ex. people watching each other kids while the other people work but those who are babysitting also can’t work (bring in income)
“The underclass”
the notion, building on the culture of poverty argument, that the poor not only are different from mainstream society in their inability to take advantage of what society has to offer but also are increasingly deviant and even dangerous to the rest of us
Perverse Incentives
Example
reward structures that lead to suboptimal outcomes by stimulating counterproductive behavior;
for example it is argued that welfare- to the extent that it discourages work efforts- has perverse incentives
Parenting stress hypothesis
a paradigm in which low income, unstable employment, a lack of cultural resources, and a feeling of inferiority from social class exacerbate household stress levels; this stress, in turn, leads to detrimental parenting practices such as yelling and hitting, which are not conducive to healthy child development
