MIDTERM 2 (Feb 13th - Mar 8th) Flashcards
What part of history increased loves importance in marriage?
Love in marriage was deemed more important as women gained MORE RIGHTS & INDEPENDENCE
(**Cat’s argument)
____________ glamourized heterosexual romantic love
HOLLYWOOD
**it solidified the intimate linkage between love and marriage that we know today
How do opinions change between low-income countries and high-income countries when it comes to love in marriage?
People in high-income countries are more likely to not marry someone who even has all the qualities they want if they’re not in love with them
People in low-income countries will more likely marry someone they are not in love with because they check off all their boxes (up to 50% say they would)
What are the 3 social forces that influence how you fall in love and mate selection?
- Marriage resources: similar values and knowledge &maximize financial income and wealth
- Third Parties: endogamy vs exogamy, arranged marriage, etc.
- Demographic & compositional factors: monogamy vs polygamy
When it comes to marriage resources, how does criteria change between working-class women and middle-class women?
Working class women’s idea of a “good husband”:
- held a steady job
- did not drink too much
- non-violent
Middle class women’s idea of a “good husband”:
- someone to talk to easily
- share feelings and experiences with
- similar hobbies/interests
**STUDY DONE BY RUBIN (1976) about how class can shape partner choices (can also intersect with race)
Whats the difference between endogamy and exogamy?
Endogamy: marriage between ppl of the SAME social category is encouraged through social norms
Exogamy: marriage between ppl of DIFFERENT social categories is encouraged through social norms
What did Bentley (2011) find about individuals in arranged marragies?
Found that ppl in arranged marriages tend to feel more love over time than those in non-arranges marriages.
WHY?
- it’s carefully decided by friends and family
- have the family in mind for commitment
What are the 2 subcategories of polygamy?
- polygyny = many women, one man
- polyandry = many men, one women
What specific demographic has the hardest time finding a partner in the world today?
Poor men in rual China
What are the 5 main ways marriage is becoming deinstitutionalized according to scholars?
- The roles of individuals in couples have become increasingly questioned in modern society
- Fewer people are getting married, choosing instead to remain single or cohabitate (cohabitating couples become common-law which is treated like a marriage
–> very common in Quebec) - Norms about children are changing
- Heightened divorce rates
- Rising diversity in the forms of marriages in modern society
When did divorce rates increase the most in Canada
Rates tose significantly between 1970-1980 in Canada
What did Green (2010) discover when it comes to division of labour when comparing hetero vs queer marriages?
There is a much more equitable division of labour and conversations about monogamy for queer unions/same-sex spouses.
What are the 3 different forms of marriages?
- Institutional marriages: collective focus rather than individual focus
- companion marriages: based on fulfilment through hetero romantic love
- individualized marriages: negotiated and flexible, with a focus on how the union can meet the unique needs of each spouse.
What 4 categories do the roles of family fall into in society? (according to the structural functionalist perspective)
- Reproduction
- Socialization (*where primary socialization happens)
- Support
- Regulation
Who is overrepresented in the foster care system?
Indigenous children (48% of all children in foster care)
Apply the conflict approach to family
The conflict theory sees society as a battleground between socially constructed groups based on power and resources
**Conflict theorists would not see the family as a harmonious institution
________ leads the US on almost all indicators of the nuclear family decline
SWEDEN
On almost all measures of children’s well-being, Sweden leads the US as well
Childhood has been reframed as a phase of _________
vulnerability.
What is a large reason for the education institution?
the seperation of church and state
What is a schooled society?
it refers to the ways in which the education system has fundamentally changed in modern society
Who coined the term schooled society?
Scott Davies and Neil Guppy
What are the 3 categories of latent functions of school? Which sociologist is associated with each and why?
- Socialization of young people
(Durkheimn - thought school held crucial info for future jobs and taught moral lessons) - Selection of people into employment
(Weber - focused on the sorting and rewarding of students into categories in schools and how it can be beneficial to have a baseline of education but also treats students like a #) - Legitimization of certain types of knowledge
(Marx - observed that the education system privileges certain types of learning and knowledge)
What did Collins (1979) call Weber’s observation of schooling?
CREDENTIALING - when a qualification of competence is issued to an individual by a party with the authority to do so
(Weber’s observation was focused on how children are rewarded and sorted into categories)
What is the difference between the curriculum vs the hidden curriculum
curriculum = planned + assessed on exams, etc.
hidden curriculum = the unintentional lessons about becoming the new capitalist workers
Is it accurate to predict a student’s post-secondary attendance based on their parental income?
Yes, high income = higher chance of post-secondary attendance
What does differential preparation mean?
refers to being prepared for higher education (ex. tutors, trips, more books, etc.)
**obviously higher class privileges
What does streaming (tracking) mean? What can it generate?
streaming is separating students into groups based on performance.
this can generate a self-fulfilling prophecy for the children into thinking they are more or less than.
**links to the Thomas principal - real consequences for the rest of their lives.
Social capital vs. Cultural capital
social capital = collective value of all your social networks
cultural capital = behaviours, knowledge and values that come with a prestige and elite status
*students with lots of cultural capital are typically rewarded in the education system because they have more opportunities outside of school to learn
What did the enlightenment change about what we believe?
there was a value shift in seeking out evidence before believing a claim
*lead to a new way to visit problems
Define bureaucracy
the most universal organizational form in government, businesses, education and religion
(literally translates to the tule of the office/desk)
Explain Weber’s 6 characteristics of bureacracy
- Hierarchically organized “offices”
(ex. president, president advisors, and dean of arts at UBC) - Vertical chain of command (based on a particular type of LEGITIMATE authority)
- Formal division of labour (dividing up work - think about how work is divided at UBC… RAs, Deans, Plant ops, etc.)
- Dominated by technical qualifications (we need certain qualifications to have certain jobs, ex. doctor at hospital)
- Impersonal decision-making (ex. what tules and procedures have you noticed at hospitals)
- Staffed by full-time salaried employees (**there is different circumstances today, more of an ‘old school’ idea of bureaucracy from weber)
What are the 3 forms of authority? Which type aligns the most with bureacracy?
- Traditional Authority (ex. the duke & duchess of Cambridge)
- Charismatic Authority (ex. Oprah)
- Rational-Legal Authority (ex. Justin Trudeau
**MOST IN LINE WITH BUREACRACY
Who came up with the concept of Rationalization?
Weber - he thought of rationalization as the replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behaviour in society with concepts based on rationality and reason.
What did Weber mean by the “disenchantment of the world”?
Refers to Weber’s observation of the decline in creativity and uniqueness
What is Levitown? How is it an example of rationalization?
a suburb of mass-produced homes in Pennsylvania where:
- homes are nearly identical
- they produce the most housing at the lowest price
- construction workers did the SAME tasks on each home
“Little Boxes” protest song
What is Scientific Management?
Known as TAYLORISM
- managing work SCIENTIFICALLY
- maximum management control over work process
- work broken into small tasks
GOAL: to find the most efficient way to make a product
Explain the concept of the Assembly Line
Created by Henry Ford (“Fordism”)
- standardization of products using moulds
- specialized equipment rather than specialized workers
** - workers are CONTROLLED by the speed of the line (think about chocolate video)
Broadly explain McDonaldization
Coined by George Ritzer
- based on Weber’s concept of “rationalization”
- Essentially refers to society adopting the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant.
How does McDonalds restaurant opporate through an assembly line?
- high emphasis on speed, volume and low price
- centralized training and control (hamburger university)
Explain the 4 elements of Rationality
- Efficiency: the best means to a given end
(aka producing something in the least amount of time possible at the least cost) - Calculability: emphasis on things that can be counted or measured
(ex. since quality is difficult to measure, quantity is measured to replace quality - “over 99 billion served”) - Predictability: things that can be repeated with the expectation of the same result
(ex. chicken nuggets taste the exact same in many countries)
4.Control: the enhanced certainty of an outcome, *usually technologically mediated
(ex. automated timers on fry machines)
What are some positives of McDonaldization?
- wide range of goods and services
- convenient
- uniform quality
- familiar
What does “irrationality of rationality” mean?
rationalized systems can create negative outcomes.
Describe the term: deinstitution of marriage and name who coined it.
- Coined by Cherlin
- the weakening of social norms concerning marriage and people’s resulting doubt of their actions, and those of others, within an institution
What are the 4 social changes that effect the family?
- Larger social movements (women’s rights, gender rights, divorce rights, etc.)
- Society is more tolerant of diversity (partly explains the rise of marriages between people from different racial, ethnic, or religious backgrounds)
- Declining levels of religiosity in Canada and other Western nations.
- Modern society is characterized by a rising tide of individualism (people pick jobs and romantic partners based on their own interests and preferences)
What are Institutional marriages?
They focus on how a marriage will solidify ties between families and communities and benefit society as a whole.
**not about the individuals need to be fulfilled, but are about the needs of society
What do Yodanis and Lauer argue about marriage?
argued that while people claim that love is their motive for marriage, they downplay or dismiss the constraints, rules, and expectations that shape our behaviour.
How does the prioritization of individualism in western societies effect marriage?
As people in western societies choose love as the main thing to influence marriage, we do that because love is the motive that emphasizes personal choice and freedom for marriage.
ex. study with American and Japanese students, American students reported making 50 more choices than Japanese students even though they had very similar days.
What is the structural functionalists approach to family?
- Focus on the functions of the family and the ways families can help to create stability and order in society as a whole
- From a structural functionalist perspective, the family performs a wide variety of important roles that fall into four main categories: reproduction, socialization, support, and regulation.
What type of sociologist was Talcott Persons? How did he view the family?
Persons was instrumental in developing STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALIST theory
He argued that the nuclear family was very important (particularly for American society) because its structure frees individuals from the obligations of an extended family.
It gives individuals in family units the mobility needed in industrial society
Also argued that the nuclear family system works well to distinguish clearly between the “expressive” roles of women and the “instrumental” roles of men
What are criticisms of the structural functionalist approach to family?
- It overemphasizes the family’s harmonious elements and tends to ignore the disharmony (ex. discord between parents and children, between siblings, etc.)
- Many social problems arise (ex. abuse and mistreatment) that might be ignored by looking at only the functions of families.
How does the “renting” of family members that is now common in Japan conforming to family norms?
Hiring family members to be present in situations where it is more socially acceptable to have a family member there puts emphasis on idealized notions of the nuclear family and the pressure to conform
How is the family viewed from the conflict and feminist perspective?
- States that the family is an arena for gender conflict in which males have historically been more powerful.
- There is conflict among opposite-sex partners, who struggle with their different roles in the relationship and the division of power and labour in the family unit (division of labour - chores, finances, etc.)
_________ is something that is highly valued in the online dating world
HUMOUR
*Understanding humour requires a lot of background cultural knowledge and, for those not raised in Canada, this can make humour quite difficult to understand - this can effect the dating experience for immigrant daters.
Children with _______-sex parents get higher scores on standardised tests than children with _______-sex parents.
SAME
DIFFERENT
**also found a slight increase in finishing high school and a large increase in attending university for children with same-sex parents
What general negative arguments that people have towards same-sex parenting?
- that children need both male and female parental role models
- that non-biological parents invest less effort in parenting their children
- that children with same-sex parents are subjected to shame and bullying.
What are some possible reasons as to why same-sex-parented children tend to outperform their peers
- Same-sex couples face more challenging barriers to parenthood and overcoming them may strengthen their commitment to parental roles.
- Same-sex couples face minimal odds of becoming parents through accidental pregnancies, this can result in more positive parenting practices.
PRIOR to the enlightenment, Weber argued that we lived in an ____________ world. What does this mean?
ENCHANTED world
- People had very little understanding of why natural events occurred.
- They saw the world as magical and invested with otherworldly forces. (ex. explained droughts and plagues by claiming that God was angry or Mother Nature was out of sync.)
- The only way to “solve” these events was by God performing a ritual or sacrifice.
What is Weber’s concept of: irrationality of rationality.
that rationalized systems can create negative outcomes.
What are some negative impacts of the rationalized system of McDonald’s
- Produce huge amounts of waste, which is BAD FOR ENVIRONMENT
- Lead to poor health outcomes, including obesity and chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Bureaucracies involve a lot of ________
RED TAPE —> which is used to describe an excessive adherence to formal rules that hinders the functioning of organizations
(ex. all the steps for approval of hanging posters in high school - so unnecessary and long debated)
Define commodities
An item of value and uniform quality produced in large quantities by many producers.
Ex. consumer goods, such as clothing, cars, and food, are commodities.
Define commodification
The process of reducing social relations to an exchange relation (i.e., assigning them with a monetary value).
How did Karl Marx refer to the process of commodification? What does he mean by this?
Marx called it “callous ‘cash payment.’”
He focused on the commodification of the labour process, where the material activity of labour by individual workers changed into abstract labour
(just another cost in the process of production)
**basically that the cost of labour could be measured in hours and dollars
How can culture be commodified?
Turning ideas, customs, and behaviours into items that can be bought and sold.
Ex. Pride Parades - what used to be simply an expression of defiance and rebellion and celebration, the parades began to contain floats from major companies
What is another name to refer to the enlightenment?
“Age of Reason”
What is mechanical solidarity?
What Durkheim argued that EARLY SOCITIES were based on
Each unit (such as a family) basically provided for its own production and consumption needs, and units could survive in isolation from one another (grow it’s own crops, make their own clothes, candles, etc.)
^^^However, these societies were held together by a shared sense of collective consciousness, the shared beliefs and sentiments that created solidarity between people. (ex. people from the same town usually shared the same religion)
What is organic solidarity?
What MODERN SOCIETIES were based on
The type of solidarity that occurs when people in a society are dissimilar and specialized. They depend on one another to provide what they cannot supply for themselves - no group can survive on its own.
HIGH DIVISION OF LABOUR
What are the 2 main principles of scientific management?
- the standardization of products
- the use of specialized equipment.
This system of production relies on the use of specific machines and tools designed so that workers do not need specialized skills to work on the assembly line.
What are the 2 main benefits to scientific management?
Increased efficiency and productivity
What is automation?
The operation of equipment with minimal or reduced human intervention.
Benefit: saves labour and can improve quality and precision of the labour process
Disadvantages: loss of jobs and changes to working in assembly lines with machines, not other people
What is outsourcing?
Contracting work, usually manufacturing or supporting processes, to another country.
^^ when labour is divided into small components, companies can separate the production processes and this often involves moving their parts of their business to another country in an attempt to save money.
What types of jobs are least likely to be automated? What are the most likely?
Educational services, hospitals, and scientific jobs are the least likely to be automated
Food sales are the most likely along with resource extraction (such as mining, forestry, and fishing)
What are the 4 ways why capitalism is a problem in distorting the process of work?
- Transforms an original social and collective activity into an activity about pursuing one’s own interests.
- Workers create wealth through their labour and the goods they produce, but they get only a small portion of this money.
- As the division of labour in jobs increases, more surplus is created for capitalists.
- capitalism distorts work because it separates workers from the product they make, the production process, other workers, and themselves. (ALIENATION)
Do people with white-collar or blue-collar jobs typically have more stress?
workers in white-collar positions—e.g. management, the professions, or clerical work—report higher levels of work stress than blue-collar workers and are more likely to identify work as their main source of stress
What are the 5 stressor patterns among Canadian workers?
- Few stressors (WC)
- Multiple stressors (BC)
- Physical (BC)
- Monotonous (BC)
- Chaotic work (WC)
*WC = white collar, BC = blue collar occupations
(put in brackets because that type of job is more likely to experience that stressor)
What are the 3 major sectors of the economy? Describe them:
- PRIMARY SECTOR: concerned with extracting or harvesting products from the earth.
(ex. agriculture mining, forestry, and fishing) - SECONDARY SECTOR: manufactures finished goods. (ex. metalwork, automobile production, textile production, and engineering industries)
- TERITARY SECTOR: provides services to the general population and to businesses.
(ex. Retail sales, transportation and distribution, entertainment, banking, health care, and law)
**hires the most ppl in Canada but usually pays the least
What is precarious employment?
Employment in dead-end, low-paying, and insecure jobs (sometimes called McJobs)
Employers have full control over the labour process (hire and fire employees with ease and frequency because the work is easily replaceable)
*Precarious labour is characterized by the “three Ds”: dirty, dangerous, and demeaning.
Canadian data indicates that about _____% of Canadians are engaged in precarious work
25%
Racialized Canadians, women, Indigenous people, older adults, people with disabilities and immigrants are overrepresented in these jobs in Canada
What is emotional labour?
Work (especially in the service sector) that requires emotional performances from employees.
^^This labour is commodified and controlled by management.
** HOCHSCHILD (1983) defines the term as the result of work that involves direct contact with the public.
^^her original study focused on flight attendent’s emotional labour
What does Hochschild argue about emotional labour?
That it leads service workers to become alienated (isolated) from themselves and their own emotions in the workplace
What is meant my Marx’s term of Species Being?
The human NEED for creative activity
People engage with the world around them by transforming it, working on it, and turning into something that is a reflection of themselves.
What is the alienation of labour?
Marx argued that although scientific management and rationalized techniques under capitalism were very productive, they also distorted the process of work, something that should be creative and enjoyable for the worker (ALIENATION)
What are the 4 things alienation involves?
Estrangement from….
- The product of one’s labour (no control over what happens to the product; reproducing the conditions of own oppression)
- The act of production within the labour
process (standardized, simplified, repeated,
monitored, controlled) - One’s body, time, and emotions
**Commodified: assigned monetary value
(become means of survival) - Other workers and other classes (competition, rigid divides, loss of humanity)
What is medicalization?
The process whereby an object or a condition
becomes defined by society as a physical or psychological illness.
**think about the conceptions of childbirth and how natural and healthy birth processes lead to an “illness” that requires some sort of intervention.
What is the Lithotomy Position?
“Lying supine [flat on your back] with legs in the air, bent and wide apart, supported by stirrups”
*Originally used for surgeries involving the pelvis and lower abdomen, but evolved into being used for childbirth as well
Explain the differences between Iron Bars, Velvet Bars, and Rubber Bars when viewing the McDonaldization of childbirth
Iron Bars (traps us):
- Lack of personal consideration
- Standardization of experiences
- Expansion of biomedical systems and silencing of other conceptions of health (Midwifery)
Velvet Bars (comfort us):
- creates a world that is familiar, predictable, and impersonal (which some ppl like)
- With childbirth, this can be seen as the mothers and doctors knowing what to expect, where the stages of labour are standardized
Rubber Bars (bends us):
- People can get around the system by escaping and personalizing
- Ex. working with midwives in the hospital or planning for home birth
What does fertility rate mean?
the average number of children per woman over her lifetime
Individualized marriages tend to be more _______ because they attempt to meet the varied needs of individual spouses.
FLEXIBLE
