Chapter 8 Flashcards
Describes people who are desperately poor and may not know where their next meal will come from.
Absolute Poverty
Refers to the condition of powerlessness, estrangement or dissociation from the workplace and or society.
Alienation
Are based on stratification, classifying people at birth into social levels in which they remain.
Caste Systems
Is the shared awareness class members have of their status and rank within a society, as well as their interests.
Class Consciousness
Are stratification systems in which an individual’s position is not fixed but instead is relatively open, allowing the individual opportunities to move between levels.
Class Systems
Refers to the relatively recent phenomenon where the affluent engage in activities that are environmentally friendly in order to obtain or signal a higher social status.
Conspicuous Conservatism
Involves the public display and use of expensive items.
Conspicuous Consumption
Advocates argue that some countries are poorer and less developed because they are dependent on more developed countries.
Dependency Theory
Is one of the theories attributed to Karl Marx to mean that social differentiation and class conflict resulted from economic factors.
Economic Determinism
Is the process by which the powerful and rich people fence (enclose) their land in order to exclude others.
Enclosure
Is a belief in ideas that are contrary to one’s own best interests.
False Consciousness
Is the movement from one social position to another of the same rank and/or prestige.
Horizontal Mobility
Is the result of hard work and perseverance by an individual.
Individual Mobility
Describes changes in the social positions of children in comparison to their parents.
Intergenerational Mobility
Relates to changes in social position over the course of person’s lifetime.
Intragenerational Mobility
Is the average number of years a member of the population can expect to live.
Life Expectancy
Is the amorphous urban social group below the proletariat, consisting of the unemployed, criminals, tramps and other people who are not considered useful to production.
Lumpenproletariat
Are things that can be quickly converted into cash when cash is needed.
Marketable Assets
Occurs when people are able to satisfy their basic needs and have money left over to spend on goods and services.
Materialism
Is a system in which people are rewarded on the basis of their talents and achievements.
Meritocracy
States that societies started as simple and traditional, then moved, or are moving toward, being modern (developed) societies.
Modernization Theory
Is the indirect continuation of colonialism through economic means.
Neo-colonialism
Is an effort to equal or surpass another in status associated with wealth.
Pecuniary Emulation
Is the ability to achieve one’s goals despite opposition from others.
Power
Describes a small group of high-ranking leaders from government, corporations, and the military.
Power Elite
Is the level of respect accorded to individuals and groups of people, especially on the basis of their occupation or profession.
Prestige
Is the number of goods and services that can be purchased with a unit of currency.
Purchasing Power
Is the feeling or belief that you are poor when you compare yourself with other people.
Relative Poverty
Is made up of people in relatively similar situations with roughly the same power, income, and prestige.
Social Class
Is the movement from one social position to another.
Social Mobility
Is the systematic ranking of categories of people on a scale of social worth, which affects how valued resources are distributed in a society.
Social Stratification
Refers to a social position that is held by a person and characterized by rights and duties.
Status
Occurs when people experience mismatch between their statuses, or when a person experiences mismatching statuses him or herself.
Status Inconsistency
Rank people based on their social prestige.
Status Systems
Involves societal events that allow entire groups of people to move up or down the social structure together.
Structured Mobility
Is the movement from one social position to another of a different rank and/or prestige. This change can be in an upward or downward direction.
Vertical Mobility
