Week 7 (Social groups & Social stratification)

Question 1

4 Parts of a Social Group

Answer 1

1. Non-kin groups
2. Social groups
3. Primary group
4. Secondary group

Question 2

Social groups

Answer 2

• Everyone has a responsibility
• Modes of livelihood influence group
  Ex. Forages and pastoralist have smaller groups.
• Variety of groups.

Question 3

Non-kin group

Answer 3

• Shapes group identity
• Relationships, Power & Hierarchy

Question 4

Primary group

Answer 4

• People that know each other

Question 5

Secondary group

Answer 5

• People that has no personal relations
• Identify through common ground

Question 6

Friendship

Answer 6

• Relationship between two people (Voluntary, non-kin, informal)
• There’s a difference between culture and genders
• Supports each other
  Ex. Balanced exchange, story telling, Economic survival

Question 7

Rituals

Answer 7

The body
- Experiencing reality going through our body
- How the world is meaningful

Your own body
- Culture and tradition
- Hierarchy and inequalities made visible

Question 8

Rituals II

Answer 8

Rites of passage
- How people learn about their own culture/group

Rituals transform individual’s status
- Go from one state to the next.

Pedagogical use of rituals (Pierre Clastres).
- Teach something about culture/group.
- Creates Solidarity between members.
- Shared experience
- Connection to older generation/members.

Question 9

Clubs and Frats

Answer 9

Share identities and objectives
- Sociability and psychological support
- Economic and political purposes.

Entertainment and social service

Greek system in the USA (Peggy
Sanday)

Question 10

Countercultural groups

Answer 10

Groups outside “mainstream” who resist common cultural pattern.
* Shared initiation and other rituals

Youth gangs
* Considered social problem by adults and enforcement
* Rituals for new members
* Symbolic markers

Why people join gangs?
* Home issues
* Missing feeling of a family?

Question 11

Countercultural groups II

Answer 11

Defiant individualist
* Intense competitiveness
* Mistrust of others
* Self-reliance
* Social Isolation
* Strong survival instinct.

Structurist view
* Poverty shape individual
* Economic changes in urban employment opportunities
* Want to “succeed”
* Illegal activities.

Question 12

Body Modification groups

Answer 12

Identity shaped by body alteration.
* Rituals
* Public display
* Binds expert, the Volunteer, and the group

Identified with specific group

Question 13

Cooperatives

Answer 13

Economic group that shares economic benefits among members.
* One member – One vote
* Agricultural co-ops
* Credit co-ops
* Consumer co-op

Guna (Panama)
* Molas (Cloth)
* Greater economic security
* Greater leadership skills
* More politically engaged

Question 14

Social stratifications

Answer 14

Hierarchal relationship among different groups.

Inequality based on:
* Material resources
* Power
* Human welfare
* Education, etc.

People in higher position have access to various privileges
* Interest in maintaining their position.

Question 15

Ascribed vs Achieved Status

Answer 15

Ascribed status
* Based on qualities of a person gained
through birth
* Race, gender, age etc.

Achieved status
* Based on qualities of a person gained
through action

Every status/position
* Expected behavior

Question 16

Ascribed vs Achieved Status II

Answer 16

Class as an achieved status
* Individual’s position within society, defined by
economic terms

Idea of upward mobility
* Meritocratic individualism (Durrenberger, 2001)

Central to Marx’s analysis of capitalism.
* Struggle between classes move history

Question 17

Ascribed vs Achieved Status III

Answer 17

Race, ethnicity, gender and caste
* Determined by birth.
* Tied with particular occupation.

Common features
* 1. relegated large number of people to particular level of entitlement, power, livelihood and economic freedom.
* 2. The higher rank groups dominate the lesser ones.
* 3. Higher rank attempt to maintain their position.
* Ideology.
* 4. Always room for agency.

Question 18

Race

Answer 18

Head size, head shape, brain shape was often thought of indicators of behavior.
* Franz Boas
* Culture constructivist (Culture not biology explains
behavior)

Purely ideological.
* Affects status, entitlements, and treatment
* Skin tone
* Category depend on various variables.

• Apartheid in South Africa
• Legal and economic structures
• Exclusion certain people.

Question 19

Ethnicity

Answer 19

People share a sense of identity based on history, territory, language, religion or a combination of all.
* Basis for claiming resources.

Roma
* Diaspora population

Question 20

Gender and Sexism

Answer 20

Difference between the genders
* Patriarchy
* Male dominance

Economic, political, social and ideological
* Matriarchy
* Female dominance
* Rare
* Always topic of debate
* Minangkabau in Malaysia

Question 21

Caste System

Answer 21

• India, and Hinduism are the most prevalent one

Varnas
* Brahmans
* Kshatriyas
* Vaishyas
* Shudras

Maintain one’s position
* Exchange
* Codes of substances
* Marriage rule

Question 22

Civil Society

Answer 22

Civil society
* Combination of different
groups
* Institutions

Antonio Gramsci
* Institutions supporting the
state
* Oppose state institutions.

Question 23

Civil Society for the State

Answer 23

• The case of Chinese women’s movement.
• Ellen Judd (2002)
• Studying women’s movement
• The state always present.
• Government oversee all operations.
• Encourage rural women to take part in literacy training and market activities.

Question 24

Activist groups: Co-Madres

Answer 24

Change certain conditions
* Economical
* Political repression
* Human rights etc.

Co-Madres
* El Salvador
* Political violence
* 80.000 died
* 7.000 disappear.

Question 25

Social - Capital, Movements, Media

Answer 25

Social capital
* Intangible resources that exist through
social ties, trust and cooperation.
* Cannot measure it.

Social movements
* Social activist groups.
* Formed by oppressed minorities,
indigenous people, poor, etc.

The role of social media
* Changing form of communication