Chapter 5 Status

Question 1

What is a status?

Answer 1

Recognized social position that an individual occupies

Question 2

What is a status set?

Answer 2

Collection of statuses that you have

Question 3

What is an achieved status?

Answer 3

Not a status that is born into, ex: professional position. Assume personal ability, accomplishment or voluntary act.

Question 4

Ascribed status

Answer 4

One you were born into or entered into involuntarily

Question 5

What is social mobility?

Answer 5

Degree to which a status is achieved or ascribed. Ex: professional occupations like doctor or lawyer can be ascribed to the upper class in a society with little social mobility.

Question 6

What is passing?

Answer 6

Achieving dominant racial status though you are not part of the dominant race. Works when you identify as part of a minority, but don’t appear to be part of one.

Question 7

What idea did Everett C. Hughes have?

Answer 7

Master status- status that dominates all of an individuals other statuses.

Question 8

What is status consistency?

Answer 8

How well your status hierarchy lines up (Ex: If you’re white, male, middle class, then your status hierarchy lines up. If you’re black, male and upper class then your status hierarchy is inconsistent)

Question 9

What is marginalization?

Answer 9

Process by which groups are assigned into categories, that set them at or beyond the margins of the dominant society.

Question 10

What was Howard Becker’s labelling theory?

Answer 10

Explains negative effects a label can have when applied to a group outside the minority. When negative labels are attached to a status a powerful master status can be created and internalized by the individual and by others.

Question 11

What is the difference between role strain and role conflict?

Answer 11

Role strain: Tension between roles connected to a single status (ex: Teacher being loyal to students and faculty)
Role Conflict: Tension between expectations related to different statuses (ex: Mother who is also a student)

Question 12

What is a role exit?

Answer 12

Process of disengaging from a role central tones identity and attempting to establish a new role.

Question 13

Who was Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaug?

Answer 13

Ex-nun turned sociologist (example of role exiting)

Question 14

What did Frederic M. Thrasher study?

Answer 14

Used fieldwork to study gangs. Noticed that they were generally separated from the larger world.

Question 15

What is the Thomas Theorum?

Answer 15

Symbolic Interactionism, situations we define as real become real in their consequences.

Question 16

What is the definition of the situation?

Answer 16

Different individuals will define situations differently and in contradictory ways based on subjectivity.

Question 17

Robert F. Bales

Answer 17

Social psychologist. Interaction process analysis (IPA)-Initially designed to determine whether groups and their members were task or relationship oriented. Later identified patters of behaviour such as friendly/unfriendly.

Question 18

What is social organization?

Answer 18

Social and cultural principles around which things are structured, ordered and categorized. Communication, hierarchies, leadership, structures. Upheld by social relations.

Question 19

Cosmology

Answer 19

Account of origin and ruling principles of the universe, role of humans in relation to non-humans. High form of truth

Question 20

What are the three feminist organizations?

Answer 20

Formal Social Movement: Professional, bureaucratic and inclusive, few demands from members ex) Organizations dedicated to basic womens rights
Small groups/collectives: Informal, require large time committments, loyalty and material resources from members ex) Womens publishing houses
Service Provider Organizations: Combine elements of small group and formal. ex) Organizations dedicated to specific womens rights such as counselling services and protection to victims of domestic abuse.

Question 21

What is a bureaucratic system?

Answer 21

Concerned with social stability (confucius). Necessary for successful functioning of complex societies. Rules and procedures are precisely defined, concentration of administrative value.

Question 22

What were the four ideas of Max Weber’s Formal Rationalization?

Answer 22

Efficiency, quantification, predictibility and control.

Question 23

What is substantive rationalization?

Answer 23

Involves substace of values and ethical norms.

Question 24

What were Francis Galtons ideas?

Answer 24

Father of modern statistical analysis, pioneer in developing methods to measure capabilities and productivity of individuals.

Question 25

What were Frederick W. Taylors Ideas?

Answer 25

Scientific management (Taylorism). Designed to discover the “one best way” of doing any given job. Eliminates wasteful, inefficient manners. Weakness: Didn’t allow individual to develop broad skill set. Alienation from work.

Question 26

Team Approach

Answer 26

Worker input/ involvement in manufacturing. Generates greater sense of product ownership.

Question 27

What is efficiency?

Answer 27

Streamlined movement in time and effort. Breaks up larger tasks into smaller, repeated tasks

Question 28

What is quantification?

Answer 28

Number of successes. Completion of large number of quantifiable tasks.

Question 29

What is predictability?

Answer 29

Knowing what to expect (ex: fast food chains virtually work the same around the world)

Question 30

What is control?

Answer 30

How ways of doing work are systematic and the same (no idiosyncrasy).

Question 31

What was Erving Goffman’s presentation of self?

Answer 31

An individuals effort to create specific impressions in the minds of others.

Question 32

What is impression management?

Answer 32

Tactics people employ when presenting themselves publicly

Question 33

What is dramaturgical analysis?

Answer 33

Study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performances (front stage- public display and backstage for personal encounters) People are most authentic backstage.

Question 34

What is a utilitarian organisation?

Answer 34

Gives benefits for individuals (example: university) membership is a matter of choice

Question 35

What is a normative organisation?

Answer 35

Joining a group for morals, not necessarily for personal benefit.

Question 36

WHat is a coercive organisation?

Answer 36

Membership is not voluntary, forced joining (prisons, residential schools, psych wards), total institutions.

Question 37

What is Mcdonaldization?

Answer 37

Characterized by efficiency, quantification, predictability and control, irrationality, deskilling, consumer workers. Process by which the rationalizing principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate society.