Part 1

Question 1

What debate does the Reagan quote invoke?

Answer 1

Are the poor responsible for being poor?

Question 2

Why is this important for this course?

Answer 2

It determines what kind of help is warranted.

Question 3

What is constrained agency? Be able to define constraints.

Answer 3

Agency exists in tight constraints but it is free within those constraints. (biology, environment, prior choices)

Question 4

What is the main question of this course?

Answer 4

“Does social class matter?”

Question 5

Is being “blessed” so bad?

Answer 5

In the words of Brigham Young, it is the potential to forget God, be idle, and to cultivate selfishness. But if you are blessed with the intent to do good, being blessed is good! Power and advantage corrupts.

Question 6

According to Gibbs, what is unjust?

Answer 6

Unearned rewards

Question 7

Meritocracy

Answer 7

All rewards are distributed on the basis of one’s merit, rather than accident of birth or luck or unequal opportunities (or even biology). This is allocation by “achievement.”

Question 8

Caste

Answer 8

Rewards are distributed based on fixed characteristics of the individual, such as family background, race and gender. This is allocation by “ascription.”

Question 9

Rules of allocation.

Answer 9

How what is scarce is distributed among members of society.

Question 10

Scarcity

Answer 10

There is scarcity of rewards because there is scarcity in labor (human capital), raw materials (natural resources), and means of production (physical and financial capital). There is a difference between natural and artificial scarcity (artificial scarcity is caused by greed)

Question 11

Achieved and Ascribed characteristics

Answer 11

What you earn vs. what you’re born with

Question 12

Stratification

Answer 12

Categorizing people into different groups

Question 13

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 13

We overestimate personal factors relative to environmental factors when dealing with people who are like us (gender, race, class etc) (It’s THEIR fault they are poor)

Question 14

Actor-Observer Effect

Answer 14

When categorizing ourselves, we tend to attribute personal misfortunes to specific features of the situation. (more sympathetic towards people that are “like us”)

Question 15

According to Massey, capitalism allows for greater inequality. Why?

Answer 15

Greater material abundance and divide, and greater value in service-sector skills and occupation. Markets enhance the potential for stratification by increasing the total stock of material resources and multiplying the number of social categories across which they are distributed.

Question 16

Why is greater material abundance a problem? Why is the greater value of service-sector skills a potential problem?

Answer 16

Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like a sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells

Question 17

What are two ways all society stratify? Be able to link this to an example like the group assignment in class (or the man with the golden voice).

Answer 17

Achieved and ascribed characteristics. “How can you spot a Mormon?”

Question 18

What does Massey mean when he says “Markets always create inequality, but how and to what extent is not ‘predetermined’.”

Answer 18

We have options within the market- your choices are can affect where you end up (even if the agency is constrained)

Question 19

Why might it be true the Marx was not an “original”?

Answer 19

Zion has been compared to communism. Communism was the fear of the 1800s. The fear of the rich being in charge was wide spreading. Product of his time.

Question 20

What are the “two key principles of Marxist thought”?

Answer 20

1) Class struggles: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” Examples: slavery, caste system 2) Worker becomes poorer: “we shall begin from a contemporary economic fact that the worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces” The harder you work the more you are giving to someone else. (Alienation–being disconnected from the final product and therefore not caring and Objectification–a desperate workforce means you can get away with unfair treatment)

Question 21

Describe the “rise of the bourgeoisie”?

Answer 21

Think of the time period) factories were new, there were no protection laws

Question 22

How is this linked to capitalism?

Answer 22

Capitalism says greed is good.

Question 23

According to class discussion, how is this linked to temple square and making guitars?

Answer 23

We used to be religiously focused and see each other brothers and sisters– now greed is an american virtue. Public spaces are no longer religious, they are now consumerist (i.e salt lake temple and city creek mall, provo temple and nuskin)

Question 24

According to class discussion, what is the difference between “naked self-interest” and “cloaked self-interest”?

Answer 24

Naked self-interest: we say it’s about us and we know it. Cloaked self-interest: we appear to be acting selflessly but it is secretly to benefit us

Question 25

What are two reasons why the proletariat have not united to overthrow the bourgeoisie? (hint: schmoo and class consciousness)

Answer 25

The public doesn’t know that there is anything better

Question 26

How is Marx a modernist?

Answer 26

He believes that society can get better!

Question 27

In what ways does “Inequality for All” have a Marxist perspective?

Answer 27

idk

Question 28

According to Weber, what is power?

Answer 28

“The ability of an individual or group to achieve their own goals or aims when others are trying to prevent them from realising them”

Question 29

How is the following a Marxist critique: “the emergence of economic power may be the consequence of power existing on other grounds”?

Answer 29

Maybe there is more to disadvantage than just economics.

Question 30

Define class, status, party. How is party different than class and status? How do these concepts relate to the “multidimensional perspective” and the “gradational approach”?

Answer 30

Class = economic resources
Status = social resources
Party= political resources
Each resource contributes to the social and legal order. The social and legal order is another way to say “the rules of allocation.”
The legal and social order are rules that are formal (legal, e.g. law) and informal (social, e.g. norms). When you control the rules, you have power. The combination of these resources is called a multidimensional approach.

Question 31

According to Lareau, why are there large disagreements about what social class is? According to Lareau, few empirical studies clearly demonstrate class? Why not? Why does Lareau argue for theory first? Why is she dissatisfied with what we can- know about class “empirically”?

Answer 31

Because there isn’t a solid definition of what class is. SES doesn’t say it all when it comes to class. Because of all the different variables involved ie income, education, etc.

Question 32

Inequality vs. class, what is the difference? Why does Lareau prefer the concept of class?

Answer 32

Class is just a method of categorizing people (not inherently unequal). Inequality is gradational (no division into groups).

Question 33

Why does Conley use the Bush analogy?

Answer 33

Relational. Kitchen sink concept. Class exists and can be separated but it encompasses a huge amount of factors.

Question 34

What does “socialized into a repro duction of status” mean (p.368)?

Answer 34

Class is inscribed via social institutions (such as schools and work) and through families. An example given in the reading “peer culture serves to blunt the aspirations and expectations of poor white and black teenagers. Socialized to believe what you are meant to achieve.

Question 35

What is the “inheritance of possibility”?

Answer 35

Stickiness across generations, more agency-not constrained (i.e. George Bush becoming president b/c of his family background and other powerful connections).

Question 36

Describe Conley’s “folk concept” of class.

Answer 36

This is the concept that maybe we can’t define it exactly or pinpoint its characteristics, but we “know” what class is and looks like, we just get it. inheritance of possibility. It’s hard to place somebody in a class since class changes.

Question 37

Why does Conley argue that too great a focus on specific class takes “our finger” off of the larger concept.” Does this mean it is not measurable?

Answer 37

Basically yes, class is not measurable, but has predictors. SES are related to class, but they are not class themselves according to Conley.

Question 38

How is class linked to religiosity? According to class discussion, How might this be a class division on a resource for upward mobility?

Answer 38

Upper and middle class individuals are more likely to practice a religion. Being a member of a religious group can carry human (like ability to speak publicly), social (meeting others with different backgrounds than you at church i.e. wards), and cultural (values, morals) capital that is desirable to society.

Question 39

According the People Like Us documentary, are there clear distinctions by class in America? What are some examples highlighted? Is there evidence in the video clips that class is more than just cultural capital?

Answer 39

Language, who your friends are (WHO YOU KNOW- social capital), interests, how you stand, how you speak, how you dress

Question 40

What does WASP stand for?

Answer 40

White anglo-saxon protestant

Question 41

What is a “Bobo”?

Answer 41

The educated elite group of today. Bourgeois Bohemian

Question 42

According to Brooks, how do today’s elite class maintain advantages? Is this meritocracy? It what way might it be? In what way is it not?

Answer 42

The elite maintain advantages through education–resume gods; not a true meritocracy because it depends on education which isn’t available to everyone.

Question 43

How does status insecurity make the educated class even stronger?

Answer 43

Name doesn’t matter anymore. The method of staying in the elite class is changing