Sociology Final Flashcards
Gans “The Functions of Poverty”
Poverty benefits the middle class and the wealthy, not the poor
Economic Benefits of Poverty
Permanent low wage labor pool and poverty benefits businesses or industries such as payday lenders and pawn shops
Political Benefits of Poverty
The poor are often made to absorb most of the cost of progress (poor neighborhoods are more likely to have to live by a garbage dump)
Stand and Deliver and East St. Louis
East Gardield High School was not set up very well for success. It was underfunded, didn’t have the right equipment or classrooms in the summertime, they didn’t have fully trained math teachers. In East St. Louis the schools don’t have the same resources and opportunities as other wealthier schools have.
How does Stand and Deliver demonstrate ways the education can be an equalizer?
It shows that if educators and educational institutions give people the opportunities to succeed then education can reduce inequalities. When individual teachers have high expectations of their students then even the students with disadvantages will rise to the challenge.
How does education reinforce rather than reduce inequality?
Funding of education exaggerates the gap.
What is tracking?
Diving students into groups or classes by status, neighborhood, wealth or intellectual ability.
What is the Davis-Moore Thesis? What are some critiques of this thesis.
Social inequality is good for society because it ensures people will enter the careers crucial to society. Sometimes jobs pay well or pay poorly unrelated to their benefit to society.
How is race a fiction? How is race a reality?
The idea that there are biological races is not backed up by evidence. Race is socially and culturally treated as a reality, so it ends up being a reality.
What evidence shows us that race is socially and culturally constructed?
Everybody is within one broad racial category. We are all African Americans to some extent.
How do black and white views differ on racism?
On average white views focus on racism as more about motives, people who are individually mean or discriminatory is racism. Black views will often emphasize more broadly in the consequences and effects.
What is environmental racism? How does it relate to Gans’ functions of poverty?
Focusing on the environmental effects on where we place unsafe garbage/chemicals - the placement of these items is discriminatory against the health of people of color’s communities - relates to Gans’ function of poverty in the sense that Gans talked about how often the poor are made to absorb for the cost of progress.
How did black applicants without criminal records do compared to white applicants with criminal records?
Black applicants without criminal records were less likely to get called back than white applicants with a criminal record
How do science texts portray a romance between an egg and a sperm? How is this portrayal misleading?
They heavily emphasize the assertiveness of the sperm and the passiveness of the egg. This is misleading because the description of the sperm as the active and assertive agent doesn’t fit what it is really doing.
According to Martin “The Egg and the Sperm” how do biology texts subtly reinforce stereotypes?
The use of active voice to describe the sperm and passive voice to describe the egg reinforces gender norms of male and female.
