Exam 5 Flashcards
Race/Ethnicity/Nationality
● Race: a system that humans created to classify groups of people based on skin tone and other phenotypic characteristics (e.g., hair texture and eye shape)
● Ethnicity: sharing a common culture, religion, history, or ancestry shared by a group of people
● Nationality: where your ancestors are from
• May or may not be your ethnicity
Phenotype
an individual’s observable traits, such as height, eye color and blood type.
A person’s phenotype is determined by both their genomic makeup (genotype) and environmental factors.
Ultimate Attribution Error
A person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals of the group
Prejudice/Discrimination
Prejudice: refers to the beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and attitudes someone holds about a group. A prejudice is not based on personal experience; instead, it is a prejudgment, originating outside actual experience.
- bias thinking
Discrimination: consists of actions against a group of people. Discrimination can be based on race, ethnicity, age, religion, health, and other categories
Sex/Gender
●Sex: the anatomical or other biological differences between males and females that originate in human genes
●Gender: norms, roles, and behaviors associated in a given society with being male or female
Cisgender/Transgender/Non-Binary
Cisgender: gender corresponds with the sex the person was identified as having at birth
Transgender: gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth.
Non binary: gender identity that does not conform to traditional binary beliefs about gender, which indicate that all individuals are exclusively either male or female.
Motherhood Penalty/Fatherhood Bonus
Motherhood penalty – Systematic disadvantages in wages, benefits, and other career factors that are associated with motherhood.
Fatherhood bonus – Benefit sin wages and perceived competence that fathers experience in the workplace.
Gender Identity/Gender Expression
Gender identity: personal sense of one’s own gender.
Gender expression: the way in which a person expresses a gender identity, typically through their appearance, dress, and behavior.
Implicit Bias
a negative attitude, of which one is not consciously aware, against a specific social group.
Most examples of implicit bias are ingrained from childhood due to society, institutions, and family.
For example, people are more receptive towards people with similar backgrounds and interests. Alternatively, society is more suspicious and distrusting towards different cultures.
Group Threat Theory
individual prejudices are often driven by our views about different social groups and where those groups rank, relative to our own, in the social and economic hierarchy.
Prejudices can grow stronger if we begin to think of another group as an economic, political, or cultural threat—for instance, if the size of a racial or ethnic minority group begins to grow in a neighborhood or a city.
Audit Study
Sociological method in which applicants are matched according to all characteristics that would make them more or less attractive and then sent out as pairs to apply for various services or products.
a specific type of field experiment primarily used to test for discriminatory behavior when survey and interview questions induce social desirability bas.
Affirmative Action
referred to policies or programs that sought to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity now
largely considered to be a set of policies or programs seeking to increase racial and other forms of diversity rather than to redress past discrimination or harm.
Doing Gender
the idea that gender, rather than being an innate quality of individuals, is a social construct that actively surfaces in everyday human interaction.
●The way in which we produce gender
•Creates difference
•Characteristics
•Behaviors
•Produces gender inequality
•Dominance
•Subordination
Gender Norms
social norms defining acceptable and appropriate actions for women and men in a given group or society. They are embedded in formal and informal institutions, nested in the mind, and produced and reproduced through social interaction
Intersectionality
argues that gender, race, class, (dis)ability, sexuality, geography, and other characteristics intersect and interact to shape individual experience.
This means gender can never be examined or understood in a vacuum. We always have other identities, interactions, and relations that affect who we are and how we experience the world.
Patriarchy
●A society is patriarchal to the degree that is promotes male privilege and sexism by being:
•Male-Dominated
•Male-Identified
•Male-Centered
•Obsessed with Control
Androcentrism
Centering the lives and experiences of men in our world view and practices.
Why is language important? Explain the Thomas principle and provide two examples.
● Language is important because it shapes our perceptions and attitudes toward others
●In sum, words and pictures help frame or structure social reality and give it meaning
●Symbols provide us with a cultural and group identity
•You cannot be a fully participating member of a group or a culture until you share its language
language is a fundamental aspect of human society and culture. In sociology, language is studied as a means of communication, a tool for creating and maintaining social relationships, and a reflection of social structures and power dynamics. Sociologists analyze how language shapes our understanding of the world, influences social interactions, and perpetuates or challenges social inequalities. Additionally, language is a key factor in the formation of social identities, group affiliations, and cultural norms. Overall, the relationship between language and sociology is multifaceted and integral to understanding human behavior and society.
“if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”
Identify and discuss with examples two characteristics of the social construction of
race. What is the key feature of the social construction of race?
•Definitions vary from culture-to-culture (space)
•Definitions vary over time (history)
•Definitions can vary over one’s lifetime
•Variations exist in any one culture at one time by race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, education, region, religion, etc.
●Race is understood to be an inherited and immutable biological characteristic that easily separates people into distinguishable categories
- skin color, hair
●Race, as a biological category, was first put forth in the late 19th/early 20th century by some physical anthropologists
Explain the difference between individual and institutional racism with examples.
Individual racism: occurs between individuals, and is what most people think of when using the term racism.
The beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individual that support or perpetuate racism. Individual racism can occur at both an unconscious and conscious level, and can be both active and passive (Wijeysinghe, Griffin, & Love, 1997)
Individual racism refers to an individual’s racist assumptions, beliefs or behaviours and is “a form of racial discrimination that stems from conscious and unconscious, personal prejudice” (Henry & Tator, 2006)
examples: This form of racism can be intentional or unintentional. include telling a racist joke, believing in the inherent superiority of white people, crossing the street to avoid passing a Black man, etc.
Institutional racism: racism that exists across a society within, and between institutions/organizations across society
Refers to the complex interactions of large scale societal systems, practices, ideologies, and programs that produce and and perpetuate inequities for racial minorities. The key aspect of structural or systematic racism is that these macro-level mechanisms operate independent of the intentions and actions of individuals, so that even if individual racism is not present, the adverse conditions and inequalities for racial minorities will continue to exist (Gee & Ford, 2011).
Examples: housing discrimination, government surveillance, social segregation, racial profiling, predatory banking, access to healthcare, hiring/promotion practices, mandatory minimum sentences
How would you explain to someone the persistence of racial inequality discussing two examples.
earnings differences have changed little since 1970 and are one of the primary contributors to the persistence of the racial wealth gap
institutional racism rather than the racial beliefs or prejudices that any individual might hold. Institutional racism is how the durable features of a social system—such as its laws, culture, norms, and organizations—systematically privilege some racial groups over others. We will explore three key mechanisms which create and allow persistent racial inequality: discrimination, segregation, and political inequality.
Negative stereotypes, beliefs, and attitudes about Black people —> DiscriminationSegregationRelative lack of political power —> Relatively low levels of income, wealth, and other indicators of wellbeing
Identify and discuss with examples two characteristics of the social construction of gender. What is a key feature of the social construction of gender?
SOCIALIZATION
And media
manifestation of cultural origins, mechanisms, and corollaries of gender perception and expression in the context of interpersonal and group social interaction.
gender as a social construct—meaning that it does not exist naturally, but is instead a concept that is created by cultural and societal norms. Gender socialization begins at birth and occurs through major agents of socialization like family, education, peer groups, and mass media
How is gender inequality entrenched in social institutions like the family and workplace. Provide one example for each.
Family: Often women and girls are confined to fulfilling roles as mothers, wives and caretakers. Gender norms position girls as caretakers, which leads to gender inequality in how roles are distributed at the household level. This also results in a lack of education due to the restriction of outside opportunities.
workplace: division of jobs. In most societies, there’s an inherent belief that men are simply better equipped to handle certain jobs. Most of the time, those are the jobs that pay the best.
Example: women are teachers, men are encouraged to build shit so engineers
●How do we explain gender inequality?
•Biology/Essentialism
•Socialization
•Capitalism
•Human Capital Theory
•Dual Labor Market Theory
•Occupational Segregation by Sex
•Patriarchy
Drawing on the lecture, are we developing natural tendencies or are we reproducing social statuses and roles in regards to femininity and masculinity?
reproducing social statuses and roles in regards to femininity and masculinity
Because no one is born being fem or masc. we’re taught these traits. We’re even taught that certain traits are fem or masc. when they are are just innate… like frustration, aggression, being empathetic
