soc chapter 7-10 Flashcards
Meritocracy
a system where people are sorted based on their talent and hard work
Socioeconomic status
A person’s economic and social standing in society, usually based on their income, wealth, education, and occupation.
Social mobility
the process through which an individual or family moves from one social stratum to another
- Canada is characterized by social mobility, up to 70% of people’s earnings are from their own skills and merit, not their parents wealth
- People in the lowest socioeconomic positions experience the most social mobility
–> People in high socioeconomic positions experience less, but they have the cushioning of their parents wealth or cultural capital
Achievement-based system:
one in which people’s talents and merits determine their social class position
Social inequality
the differential and unequal distribution of goods, services, resources, and power that create a hierarchical social system.
- The concept of inequality can be used to examine legal, racial, linguistic, gendered, economic, political, and social hierarchies within a society.
Social stratification
where individuals or groups are ranked hierarchically based on a set of shared characteristics like wealth, income, status, power, or education.
- These groupings or strata are typically based on an individual’s socioeconomic status (SES) and can have a significant influence on people’s lives
Ascription-based system
An ascription-based system is one in which people’s status at birth determines their social position. In ascription-based systems, there is little to no opportunity for social mobility.
Income
the amount of money you earn over time
Household income:
refers to the total income earned by members of that household.
Income inequality
unequal distribution of income among individuals or households.
- Can be measured by the Gini coefficient or quintiles
Wealth
the value or worth of all possessions and assets owned by an individual. Wealth is determined by calculating the value of assets (like real estate) minus debts (like student loans) to establish net worth
Wealth inequality
the unequal or disproportionate accumulation and distribution of wealth among individuals
- Wealth inequality in Canada is more highly concentrated than income inequality, with the top 20% of households controlling 67% of the total wealth (Maroto 2017) and the top 1% of Canadians holding 16% of the wealth
- The gap in wealth has remained the same for several decades
Gini coefficient:
This measures social inequality by comparing the actual distribution of income in a province to an equal distribution of all income. A higher score means more income inequality. This measure uses after tax income, which calculates all sources of income and government transfers, as well as taxes paid.
Conflict theorists on SES and inequality
Conflict theorists have articulated how the state is organized to serve the interests of the dominant economic class, and that law is used as a tool for subordinating groups and maintaining dominant social orders
Davis-Moore hypothesis:
- the greater the importance of a job or position within society, the higher its associated reward
- While conflict theorists argue that inequality is a product of the economic structure, functionalists argue that inequality is a natural feature of society
Critiques of Davis-Moore hypothesis:
-In doing so, they underscore the critique of functionalism by suggesting that all jobs, no matter how “low skill” or menial they seem, are essential for the functioning of society and therefore difficult to rank.
- Another critique of this approach is that it ignores how inequalities affect access to education and high-paying or prestigious jobs.
Symbolic interactionists on SES and inequality
Symbolic interactionists are interested in how inequality and status are maintained and reinforced through everyday interactions. In particular, interactionists are interested in how social status is constructed through status symbols and consumption, and how individuals construct and reinforce inequality through interaction.
conspicuous leisure: (symbolic interactionalist)
which is the use of time in non-productive ways as a sign of social status
- Productive labour, such as manual labour, mark someone as having low social status while having the wealth and resources to engage in non-productive leisurely pursuits, like travel, mark someone as high status.
Habitus
the habits, skills, and dispositions that we acquire based on our life experiences
- Our habitus is the embodiment of our cultural capital or the traits and preferences that we acquire based on our social class
- positions and differences that are difficult to overcome.
Human capital:
refers to investments made by an individual in their training, skills, and education.
- Pursuing a college diploma or university degree, gaining job experience, and developing skills throughout your life are all examples of investing in human capital.
Links to social capital
A person’s social capital is often linked to the socioeconomic strata to which they belong, facilitating connections and opportunities among those with the same SES
- High levels of social capital can improve employment opportunities and incomes, get people out of poverty, reduce work-family conflict, increase wealth, and improve access to credit, among other things
Cultural capital:
Individual and family cultural resources are just as important as economic resources and useful social networks for educational and labour market success.
Feminist theory on SES and inequality
inequality emerged from cultures that associate masculinity with authority and power.
Intersection of race and SES
Sociologists like W.E.B. DuBois have emphasized how racial identity is a key aspect of social inequality, and sociologists have pointed to issues like discrimination, racism, minority rights, and immigration when it comes to socioeconomic outcomes.
progressive taxation:
when the taxes you pay increase as your income increases
- What canada largely uses
- addresses economic inequality by placing a greater burden on higher-income earners while providing tax credits to lower-income earners
- The expansion of regressive taxation in the provinces and territories and preferential treatment and protection of income generated through capital gains benefit higher earners while disadvantaging lower earners
regressive taxation
is where everyone pays the same tax regardless of their income
Redistribution:
Redistribution is the process of transferring funds to programs that help reduce income inequality, like old-age pensions, child tax benefits, low-income tax credits, and social assistance.
Capital gains:
Profit from the sale of a capital asset like real estate or other investments.
Absolute poverty:
the deprivation of basic human needs like food, water, sanitation, health, and shelter
Relative poverty:
The deprivation compared to an average standard of living in a society.
feminisation of poverty:
women are more likely to be poor and they make up a growing proportion of the poor
- Women tend to have a lower employment rate, earn less, work in lower-paying jobs, are more likely to work part-time, and are more likely to miss work due to caregiving obligations
Intragenerational mobility
change in social position during a person’s lifetime.
Intergenerational mobility:
a change in social position that occurs between generations.
Absolute vs relative mobility:
Absolute mobility tells us whether a person is doing well compared to their previous income.
Relative mobility tells us whether a person has moved up or down the social strata and whether they are doing better or worse compared to others.
intergenerational income elasticity
IGE compares the incomes of parents with those of their children when the children become adults
- in Canada, 32% of a child’s income depends on the parents’ income, meaning that 68% of their future income is determined by other factors like education, job experiences, and credentials
- we see much less mobility for sons born to very high-earning fathers
Median household income
Differs by region and quintile
Market basket measure
A family lives in poverty is it does not have enough income to purchase as specific basket of goods and services in a community
Race
Physical traits such as skin color and hair texture are among the characteristics that are used to distinguish people from one another, as is knowledge of a person’s ancestry.
- Social construct - varies between places and over time
Ethnicity
refers to shared culture, ancestry, and history, and may also include shared language and religion
- Ethnic groups are those with a shared ethnicity - ethnicity is strongly associated with culture.
Genocide
Genocide refers to the systematic and deliberate elimination of a social group, usually for reasons of race, culture, or politics.
- Many instances born out of ethnic conflict
Racism
Attitudes and practices rooted in the belief that the physical attributes of a group - their race - signifies superiority, with all the others deemed inferior.
Traditional and modern racism
- Some scholars of race refer to overt and hostile actions as emblematic of traditional racism. In our contemporary society, traditional racism has given way to modern racism, which is marked by a rejection of overt discrimination, the existence of more covert expressions of prejudice, and attitudes that cast blame on cultural values or individual efforts
Visible minority
Someone is a member of a visible minority group if they are “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour”
Race and ethnicity as part of an identity
Race and ethnicity are also an important component of many people’s self-identity. And, as mentioned previously, race and ethnicity are among the primary ways that people categorize others and are therefore meaningful in our interactions with other people and institutions like schools. Finally, race and ethnicity are written into Canadian policy, having a broad impact on the lives of all Canadians
Prejudice
an attitude that negatively judges people based on their group membership
Discrimination
These actions are negative and are taken against a group of people based on their group membership
Implicit bias
refers to favorable and unfavorable attitudes that unconsciously shape our understandings and actions.
- our implicit biases tend to favor our own in-group.
Democratic racism
The coexistence of egalitarian values alongside discriminatory practices against racial minorities.
Systemic racism
often also referred to as institutional racism—is racism embedded in institutions or systems
Redlining
a systematic denial of services for residents, often through pricing, particularly in residential neighborhoods with a high proportion of minority residents.
Microaggressions
seemingly harmless but problematic interactions
White privilege
inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice.
Colour blind ideology
Colour-blind ideology allows for racial inequality to be maintained without people or systems appearing racist
- If the belief is that racial discrimination is no longer present in society, we need other explanations for why people of colour experience well-established things like poverty, poor health, and poor educational outcomes
first generation immigrants
they were born outside of Canada
Second gen immigrants;
refers to individuals born in Canada with at least one parent born outside of Canada
Third gen immigrants
refers to individuals with both parents born in Canada.
Refugees
involuntarily displaced due to lack of safety in their home countries to which they cannot safely return
- RISE (Refugee Integration, Stress, and Equity)—focuses on the experiences of women in general, and mothers in particular. This is because previous research confirmed that the well-being of mothers is essential to the well-being of other family members
Status cues:
“Visual indicators of a person’s social position”
Gender
The social construction of expected appearances, behaviors, roles, and traits that are built around sex categories.
Reported ethnicities
Changes due to immigration → increase in asian and african immigrants in recent years
Write in option → your own perception of your ethnicity
Sex:
Biological features used to classify people as male or female.
sex assignment:
These biological attributes include genitalia (the presence of a vagina or penis), chromosomes, and hormones. Sex is typically determined at birth by looking at the genitalia of the newborn baby
Gender role socialization
- it is through early interactions with our family members and later interactions with friends, peers, teachers, coaches, employers, and mass media that we develop an understanding of the expectations of appearance, behaviors, roles, and traits
- By age two to three, children start to show gender-stereotyped preferences
Gender roles
are expectations for the behaviour of men and women, including such things as an interest in playing sports (usually coded as masculine) or talents in writing and reading (usually coded as feminine).
Gender expression
The public presentation of a person’s gender, which may include clothing, hair, makeup, name, pronouns, voice and behavior.
Gender identity
Inward expression of an internal sense of gender.
Genderqueer:
used by some people whose experience of gender identity is beyond the man and woman gender binary.
Two-spirit:
Indigenous gender identity that blends the feminine and masculine spirit, and is sometimes called a “third gender.”
Transgender
their gender identity differs from the sex assignment at their birth.
Cisgender
a term used to describe a gender identity that corresponds with the sex assigned at birth
Intersex
describes a baby with ambiguous genitalia or other variations in sex characteristics.
Black feminism
Black feminism primarily grew during the 1960s due to the disillusionment with the Civil Rights Movement and the second-wave feminist movement
- Highlights a need for intersectionality in the feminist movement
- Historically, the feminist movement implicitly treated the standpoints of white, middle-class, cisgender women as representative of all women.
Hegemonic masculinity
refers to the current, most culturally exalted way of being a man.
- It is comprised of the standards of behaviour that all men are socialized to desire and to measure themselves against
- Most men, despite their best efforts, will never achieve hegemonic masculinity.
Complicit masculinity
- The men who try to attain hegemonic masculinity
- Regardless of whether or not they succeed at attaining hegemonic masculinity, men generally gain from the overall ranking of men over women
Marginalized masculinity
- The intersection of masculinity with things like race, social class, and ethnicity
- For the most part, not considered hegemonic
Subordinated masculinity
Refers to the masculinity of groups of men who are barred from being hegemonic. Historically, subordinated masculinity has referred to the masculinity of gay men.
- ‘Gayness’ itself has been symbolically blurred with femininity and is therefore regarded culturally as the furthest from hegemonic masculinity, because hegemonic masculinity is a rejection of femininity.
Job market related to gender
Traditionally, men were far more likely to be employed because of long-standing traditional arrangements of women taking responsibility of the household and caring for children, and men taking responsibility of earning income
- Women’s increasing participation in the labour market, increasing annual income, and increasing contribution to family income are all indicators of a bigger shift related to a loosening of traditional gender roles
Gender wage gap
When looking at annual earnings, women earn $0.73 for every $1.00 earned by men
- Instead, Statistics Canada also calculates the ratio using hourly wage, netting the result of women earning $0.89 for every $1 earned by a man in 2021
–>Hourly is a more accurate projection as women tend to work less hours due to childcare responsibilities
Occupational segregation
The concentration of men and women in different occupations.
Gender wage discrimination
Not paying men and women the same for the same work.
- Equal would be $0.97 for every 1 dollar a man makes
- The issue is not just the salary at the time of hiring, but also how the worker is rewarded when their job performance is rated and they are considered for pay raises
Glass ceiling
preventing women from advancing to higher-level positions within an organization. The term signals that there are invisible barriers to leadership by women, such as their limited access to advantageous informal social networks and influential mentors.
Glass escalator
If someone is experiencing swift promotion and pay raises, they may be riding a glass escalator on the basis of gendered expectations.
- Usually experienced by men in women dominated fields
Division of household labour
based on men and women performing specialized tasks associated with their gender roles.
- Women take the bulk of the work with chores that require daily upkeep like childcare, cooking and cleaning
Second shift
The second shift refers to the significant responsibilities of childcare and housework that are disproportionately shouldered by women in addition to their paid work
Gender ideology
Attitudes and beliefs about appropriate roles and responsibilities of women and men.
- If the couple holds an egalitarian gender ideology, there will be a more equal division of housework between the couple
Femicide
The murder of women and girls on the basis of gender, usually by a man.
The importance of policy on gender
- Many northern European countries are known for their robust parental leave and childcare policies that create more equal opportunities in the workplace and shared responsibilities in the home
- Subsidized child care and paternal leave lead to more equitable home environments
Risk and men
In 2019, men were the perpetrators of 89% of all violent incidents, 93% of sexual assaults, and 87% of physical assault
- Men are also more likely to be the victims of violent crimes
Social Institutions & Gender Index (SIGI)
The index measures discrimination in five domains for 108 countries around the world: family and marriage practices; physical or reproductive integrity; biases towards sons and against daughters; access to resources and services; and restrictions in politics and public spaces.
Male flight
when women start to fill the space, men leave
“Bigorexia”
- Building on anorexia
- Attempting to strive to the “masculine body” through disordered eating and body dysmorphia
Heterosexual:
is attracted to someone of a different sex (often referred to as “opposite sex”
Sexuality
a broad term that refers to sexual identity, sexual practices, sexual attractiveness, and sexual desires
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation refers to the direction of a person’s erotic and romantic attraction. The reference point is usually the sex of the person one is attracted to.
Bisexual
Attracted to both sexes
Homosexual:
refers to someone who is attracted to the same sex.
Asexual
refers to little or no sexual and romantic attraction, including limited interest in sexual activity.
Pansexual:
sexual and romantic attraction outside of a binary of sex or gender; someone who is pansexual is attracted to people regardless of the person’s gender identity or biological sex
Sexual scripts:
Sexual scripts are culturally shaped mental structures that allow us to shape and understand our past, current, and future sexual behaviours
- Sociologists have argued that we learn sexual scripts throughout the life course that shape our sexual behaviors and responses
Social construction of sexuality
Some extended this into the realm of procreation, arguing that humans are wired for sex to procreate. Under this belief system, anything outside of heterosexual vaginal penetrative sex was regarded as abnormal and even unnatural.
“Self-articulation”:
The creation of a homosexual identity also created an identity around which people could gather and mobilize
Queer theory
That is, queer theory is generally concerned with moving away from the idea of identity as in a single, unified homosexual identity.
Measuring sexuality: data on identity, behaviors, desires, and their overlap.
- Sexual behaviour refers to the sexual activities a person partakes in, with or without a partner
- Sexual desire refers to a person’s interest in engaging in sexual activities
Situational homosexuality
men and women may engage in sexual practices with same-sex partners due to a want for sexual connection or intimate relationship without significant choice.
Heteronormativity
to the general attitude that heterosexuality is the most natural and normal kind of sexuality
- Heteronormativity assumes that all people—unless otherwise stated—are heterosexual
Homophobia
a hatred of gays and lesbians that may lead to acts of discrimination or even violence.
Transphobia
refers to a hatred of transgender men and women.
- There is also a noted lack of curricula and competency about trans and LGBTQ+ experiences and issues, apparent in such classroom instances as exclusion in the course material and the misgendering of pronouns
Homonormativity
being the “right” kind of queer person. Consider, for example, the use of muscular gay models in the advertising and promotional work of major businesses like banks and fashion retailers who wish to align themselves with Pride
Sexual double standard:
The sexual double standard is when men and women are evaluated differently for similar levels of sexual interest and identical sexual acts; the evaluation is more positive for men and negative for women.
“Madonna-whore dichotomy”
that women should be chaste and not sexual (“Madonna”) but should be sexy and physically attractive (“whore”)
Emphasized heterosexuality:
emphasizing sexual encounters with women—whether actual encounters or simply discussions about wanting to engage in such encounters—is a pathway for demonstrating their masculinity
Femininity and sexuality:
Traditional sexual scripts for women tend to emphasize meaningful and emotional connections that emerge in the context of a relationship.
Emphasized femininity
Practices of femininity that conform to the needs and desires of men, and thus the subordination of women.
“orgasm gap,”
the longer period of time required for women (compared to men) to reach orgasm
- Not grounded in any research, just comparative to men.
Less vpi (heterosexual penetrative) and sexual activity in general for both teens and adults
- Could be caused by porn consumption → instills fear particularly for women because of dynamics
- Stress could be a contributing factor
- Less face to face interactions
