Social Inequality Flashcards
Social stratification
Categorization of people into layers based on their jobs income wealth social status and power
Historical materialism
Material economic forces as the base upon which social and political institutions are built
Karl Marx
Conflict theory
Idea that there are 2 classes of people: the bourgeoisie and proletariat
Socialist!!!
Max Webber’s model of stratification
Social class includes power and prestige in addition to owning property and wealth
Class + status group + party (economic, political, social)
Bourgeoisie
Capitalists
Owners of the means of production
Profit motive
Proletariat
Working class Own only labour power in exchange for wages
Race
Social Distinction based on perceived physical or biological characteristics
Ethnicity
Social distinction based on perceived physical or biological characteristics
Visible minority
Persons other than aboriginal people who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour
Racialization
Process by which groups come to be defined as different on the basis of perceived physical characteristics
Racism
Belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that particular races are superior or inferior
Opportunity hoarding
Powerful people exclude others from accessing to valuable, scarce resources
Patriarchy
Social system in which men are positioned to hold political cultural economic and social power
Occupational segregation
Horizontal: women = smaller number of occupations
vertical : women lower on hierarchy for occupation
Glass ceiling
Invisible upper limit in corporations and organization above which it is difficult or impossible for women to rise in he ranks
Homosexual reproduction
Process by which mangers select individuals socially similar to themselves for hiring or promotion
Global gender gap index
Measured annually
Gender gaps on economic political education and health criteria
Gender inequality index
Reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market
Biological essentialism
Assumes that social differences are due to intrinsic biological or psychological differences
Assumes primary function and goal of all sexual activity is to reproduce the species
Heteronormativity
Set of rules and norms that establishes that heterosexuality is the most normal and natural sexual orientation
Individual cost of poverty
Poor health
Reduces ability to work and be productive due to illness
Stigma of being dependent on state
Social costs of poverty
Greater health costs to be met by taxation
Less able workers
Reduces level of consumption in society
Crime
Relative poverty
Deprivation of some people in relation to those who have more
Absolute poverty
Don’t have necessary for basic survival
Poverty line
Income threshold under which a person or family would have great difficult to meet their expenses
Indigenous
People with ties and long settlement go specific lands who have been adversely affected by incursions by industrial economies, displacement and settlement of their tradition territories by others
Aboriginal
Refers to the descendants of original indigenous occupants of a country or territory
Canadian constitution recognizes Indians Metis and Inuit as aboriginal
First Nations
Describes aboriginal people of Canada who are ethnically neither Metis nor Inuit
Replaced term Indian
Indian
Refers to the legal identity of a First Nations person who is registered under the Indian act
Intersectionality
Understanding of human being as shaped by the interaction of different social locations
Social mobility
Implies that someone has to move down for someone to move up
Social inequality
Any of the differences between people that are consequential for the lives they lead, most particularly for the rights and opportunities they exercise and the rewards and privileges they enjoy
Structured uneven distribution of resources in relation to socially defined categories
