Chapter 1 Flashcards
Social constructions
Are perceptions shared by a group. These perceptions become real for the people who share them.
Minority group
A group the experiences systematic disadvantage and has a visible identifying trait. The group is self conscious and membership is usually determined at birth. Members tend to form intimate relations within the group.
Genocide
Is the deliberate attempt to exterminate an entire group.
Dominant group
The group that benefits from minority-group subordination
Ethnic minority groups
Are distinguished by cultural traits.
Racial minority groups
Distinguished by physical traits.
An ascribed status
Is involuntary and acquired at birth
Miscegenation
A marriage or sexual relations between members of different racial groups
Stratification
The system of unequal distribution of values goods and services in society
Social classes
Consist of people who have similar levels of access to values goods and services
The means of production
The materials, resources, and social relationships by which society produces and distributes goods and services
Karl Marx
Father of modern communism and primary architect of a political, economic, and social philosophy that’s has been around for more than 150 years
Most important source of inequality in society was the system of economic production
Marxism
A complex theory of history and social change in which inequality is a central concept and concern
Bourgeoisie
The elite or ruling class that owns the means of production in an industrial society
Proletariat
The working class in an industrial society
Max Weber
Major Marx critic. German sociologist who did most of his work around the turn of the 20th century
Max Weber’s three dimensions of stratification
Economic inequality is based on ownership or control of property
Prestige between groups or the amount of honor esteem or respect given to us by others
Power or the ability to influence others impact the decision making process of society and protect ones self interest or to achieve ones goals
Prestige
Honor, esteem, respect
Power
The ability to affect the decision making prices of a social system
Gerhard Lenski
Expands on Weber by analyzing stratification in the context of societal evolution
Level of development
The stage of evolution of a society including agrarian industrial and postindustrial
Subsistence technology
The system by which a society satisfies basic needs
Postindustrial society
a society dominated by service work information processing and high technology
Intersectionality
Stresses the crops-cutting linked nature of inequality and the multiplicity of statuses all people occupy
Patricia Hill Collins
Multiplicity of systems of inequality and privilege that operates in society
