EXAM 3 Flashcards
What is malthusian theory?
There are 3 factors that would control earth’s carrying capacity: war, famine, and disease.
What is the zero population theory?
Environment > Food Supply. This is environmental collapse with the goal of zero population growth.
What is the cornucopian theory?
Humans can overcome collapse.
What is the first stage of demographic transition?
U.S. in 1800’s: Birth rates, infant mortality & death rates increase while life expectancy decreases.
What is the second stage of demographic transition?
Industrializing: Birth rates & life expectancy increase while death rates and infant mortality decreases.
What is the third stage of demographic transition?
Thoroughly Industrialized: Birth rates & death rates decrease while life expectancy increases.
What is the fourth stage of demographic transition?
Post-industrial Population Stability: Birth rates & death rates decrease and life expectancy increases.
How was the worldwide division of labor illustrated in the film “The Global Assembly Line”? To what economic transformation is this tied?
People depend on the assembly line for work despite the harsh conditions.
What is emotional labor?
Is work specifically intended to produce a desired state of mind in a client and often involves putting on a false front before clients. Mostly in-person services.
What is Routine Production Services? (A job of the future)
Entails tasks that are done over and over, one step in a sequence of steps for producing finished products that are tradeable in world commerce.
What is In-person Services? (A job of the future)
Jobs that are simple and repetitive too but the services must be provided person to person. ( Ex: Restaurant serving staff, hotel workers, flight attendants, security guards, and physical therapists)
What is Symbolic Analytic Services? (A job of the future)
Are those that include “all the problem-solving, problem-identifying, and strategic brokering activities”. (Ex: Investment bankers, architectural consultants and systems analysts)
What is the Modernization theory?
Views the economic development of countries stemming from technological change
What is Dependency theory?
Holds that poverty is a direct result of their political and economic dependence on other nations
What are similarities between Modernization vs. Dependency theory?
They both underline that the relationships between developed and developing countries is unequal.
What are differences between Modernization vs. Dependency theory?
Modernization theory holds that increases in technology will increase wealth throughout the globe and low income nations can follow the path taken by wealthier, modernized nations. Dependency theory argues that some nations gained wealth at the expense of other nations, esp. through means of colonization.
What are Core Countries?
They have the most power in the world economic system. These countries control and profit the most from the world system.
What are Semi-peripheral Countries?
Semi-industrialized & represent the middle class. They play a middleman role and with further development they may become core countries.
What are Peripheral Countries?
Poor, largely agricultural countries. They are at the bottom of the world stratification system and often have important natural resources that are exploited by core countries. Exploitation keeps them from developing and perpetuates their poverty.
What are the different forms of capitalism?
Family, managerial, monopoly and global.
What is Family Capitalism?
Concentrated ownership & small businesses. They are geographically concentrated.
What is Managerial Capitalism?
Through growth of businesses, there is an increase in integration and accumulation.
What is Monopoly Capitalism?
Nation states matter and leads to anti-trust legislation. They need to promote consumption of the surplus.
What is Global Capitalism?
Diffusion of ownership, mobility of capital and labor, nation state boundaries are negligible and there is a disarticulation of workforce and consumers.
What are causes and consequences of the emergence of different types of capitalism?
Wage pressures can overcome big businesses.
What is Vertical Integration?
The degree to which a firm owns its upstream and its downstream suppliers. (Ex: Honda owning a car dealership or an iron mine)
How does the government measure unemployment?
Includes only those who do not have a job and who have looked for one in the period of time being reported. It does not include who have earned money at any job during the time prior to the data being collected or people who have given up looking for full time work.
Why is measuring unemployment important?
Because it is an accurate measurement of the economic well-being but not an accurate measure of joblessness.
What is Mcdonaldization?
The process by which the principles of the fast food restaurant (efficiency, calculability, predictability & control) are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world.
What is Efficiency? (Characteristic of Mcdonalization)
Using optimum method for getting from one point to another by following a pre-designed process. Steps are regulated so product is made exactly the same.
What is Calculability? (Characteristic of Mcdonaldization)
Emphasizes quantitative aspects of products sold (portion, size, & price) and services offered (time it takes to get product on shelves)
What is Predictability? (Characteristic of Mcdonaldization)
The assurance that all products and services will be the same over time and in all locations.
What is Control? (Characteristic of Mcdonaldization)
Control exerted over customers and workers.
How is Mcdonaldization “rational” for society?
It creates a wide variety of goods and services, people can get what they need quickly and can afford the products more easily. The system is stable and familiar to consumers & workers. Technological innovation happens more.
How is Mcdonaldization “irrational” for society?
It may be inefficient, have a high cost, and create a sense of falseness between employees and customers. There are health and environmental dangers and there is dehumanizing aspects of the system.
What is Socialization? (Function of Education for society)
Schools influence students through passing on “book knowledge” in the form of information and skills.
What is Occupational Training? (Function of Education for society)
Higher levels of education are increasingly necessary to secure a job with a livable wage.
What is Social Control? (Function of Education for society)
Keeps young people out of trouble. It teaches students norms, identities, and other forms of social learning that is not part of the formal curriculum.
What function of education is latent?
Social Control
What functions of education are manifest?
Socialization and Occupational Training
How does financial aid policy influence college enrollment?
The more financial aid available, the higher college enrollment is.
How does the impact of education vary across social class?
Standardized test scores may vary across social classes because those with higher income are able to afford test preparation tools.
What are criticisms of standardized testing?
The tests tend to measure only limited ranges of abilities while ignoring other cognitive endowments such as creativity, musical ability, and athletic ability. They possess some degree of cultural, gender, and social class bias. The SAT’s do not predict school performance very well for all groups.
What is Credentialism?
The common practice of relying on earned credentials when hiring staff or assigning social status.
How does credentialism perpetuate existing inequality?
It continues an already existing inequality because those who have enough money to go to college are then able to get high paying jobs and garner wealth due to their education attainment. Those who could not afford to go to college then only have access to low paying jobs because of their lack of educational attainment.
What is the Teacher Expectancy Effect?
The effect of teacher expectations on a students actual performance.
What is a Self Fulfilling Prophecy?
Applying a label/expectation to a group’s behavior actually manifests that behavior within the group.
What is a Stereotype Threat?
A perceived negative stereotype about ones group can actually affect one’s academic performance.
How do sociologists define religion?
It is defined as an institutional system of symbols, beliefs, values and practices by which a group of people interprets and responds to what they feel is sacred and that provides answers to questions of ultimate meaning.
Why is religion important?
Religion is important because it provides answers to questions of ultimate meaning.
How does religion divide of the world?
The sacred and the profane. Religions are based on beliefs that are sacred.
What does Emile Durkheim say in The Functions of Religion?
Religion is functional for society because it reaffirms the social bonds that people have with each other, creating social cohesion and integration.
What does Max Weber say in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism?
Emphasizes that his account is incomplete. He is not arguing that protestantism caused the capitalistic spirit, but rather that it was one contributing factor. He also acknowledges that capitalism itself impacted the development of religious ideas.
What does Karl Marx say in Religion, Social Conflict, and Oppression?
Religion pays a critical role in maintaining an unequal status quo, in which certain groups of people have radically more resources and power than other groups of people.
What are Churches?
Formal organizations that tend to see themselves/are sen by society as the primary and legitimate religious institution
What are Sects?
Groups that have broken off from an established church. They emerge when a faction within an established religion questions the legitimacy or purity of the group from which they are separating.
What are Cults?
Like sects in their intensity, are religious groups devoted to a specific cause or charismatic leader. It is common for tensions between cuts and society to exist.
What is a kinship system?
It shapes the distribution of property in society by determining descent. Kinship also determines who use can marry. In general, in the U.S. we marry people with similar social characteristics, such as class, race, religion, and educational backgrounds.
What is Matrilineal Kinship?
Descent is traced through mother.
What is patrilineal kinship?
Descent is traced through father.
What is bilateral kinship?
Descent is traced through both mother and father.
What is a nuclear family?
A married couple residing with their children, tied to industrialization and post-war consumerism.
What is a female-headed household?
1/4 of all children live with 1 parent, vast majority is the mother.
What is a married couple family?
No longer refers to just heterosexual couples, also refers to same sec couples as well
What are trends of marriage?
Gender roles play a big part in marriage, shaping power dynamics, cooperation, and conflict, different patterns of resource allocation, division of labor, likelihood of marital violence and leisure time of each partner.
What is the “third shift”?
Women have a “third shift” taking care and tending to family and friends with sickness, celebrations, and planning family visits. They also tend to do more housework.
What are teen pregnancy rates?
Caused by poverty, does not cause poverty.
What the trends in divorce?
U.S. is leading in most marriages and most divorces. More than 16 million people divorced. Divorce is on a decline since 1980. Some of the social characteristics that appear to have contributed to the increase in divorce rates are individualism, increasing marital expectations, the economic independence of women and no fault divorce laws.
What are some ways divorce and marriage rates are connected with other societal transformations across social institutions discussed in this section?
They are connected through economic changes, war, industrialization, gender roles and racial stratification.
What is the “second shift”?
The second shift refers to the household and childcare duties that follow the day’s work for pay outside the home. While both men and women experience the second shift, women tend to shoulder most of this responsibility.
What is Care Work?
Care work refers to the work of caring for others. (Unpaid care for family and paid care for others). Care work includes children, elderly, the sick, the disabled as well as domestic work like cleaning and cooking.
How are care work and the second shift connected to changes in the family and economic structure?
They’re connected to changes in the family and economic structure through stereotypical gender roles. Even though women work full time jobs like their partners, they still have more work at home due to the stereotype of women taking care of the home. Care work like a maid service or cleaning ladies is only accessible to middle and upper class families and often provided by women of color or immigrants.
