Weeks 7-12

Question 1

Four Waves of Feminism

Answer 1

1st: Suffarage - securing voting and equal rights (formal equality aka equality of application - same rules apply equally to everyone)

2nd:
- access to education, equal pay and employment, start to see challenges of gendered norms, advancements of reproductive technology (access to birth control)

3rd: Multicultural Feminism - criticisms of white-middle class feminism (considering needs and concerns of working class and/or women of colour, not treating everyone the EXACT same but may require we treat some people differently to result in equitable outcomes (equity vs equality)

4th: Post Feminism - intersecting identities, the emphasis is no longer just about gender, prioritize intersectional approach to feminism

Question 2

Standpoint Theory - What is it and Why It Has Been Critiqued?

Answer 2

What it is: Marginalized people have a unique standpoint based on their marginalized identity (ex. women, people of colour, etc.)

• when studies try to distance themselves from women they are studying (in order to remain objective), it is making the research LESS imperical or legitimate - we are focusing on THEIR perspective

Critique: hard to operationalize - There is not a universal experience of being a “woman”. Not all women experience being a woman in the same way.

Question 3

Four Main Tenets of Critical Race Theory

Answer 3

1 - racism is a permanent feature of American society

2 - this hierarchy serves purpose to white people; racism works as intended through intersecting structures of domination (it doesn’t benefit just white elites, but all white working class individuals), have very little incentive to get rid of racism

3 - Race are products of social thoughts and relations (not objective, inherent, or fixed)

4 - black people need to be at the forefront of research about black people

Question 4

The Outsider Within

Answer 4

• A concept from Collins and experiences of Black women in academia as outsiders
• representation vs. meaningful inclusion
• society is not meant for black women, so they can see things that those too immersed in society cannot - people tendency to confide in strangers

Question 5

Matrix of Domination

Answer 5

• Patricia Collins framework and the second theme of BFT - coexistence of power and privilege - refers to how lack of power and privilege are always coexisting

Question 6

Main Premises of Black Feminist Thought & the Three Themes

Answer 6

ideas being produced from black women’s perspective for black women (it MUST be produced by black women as one cannot seperate black feminist thoughts from their own lived experiences)

Three Themes:
Self-definition and self-valuation
1: Self-definition – resisting external stereotypes of Black women
- should be self valuation and reclaiming with own image

2. Matrix of domination / intersectionality
   * MoD – coexistence of power and privilege - refers to how lack of power and privilege are always coexisting
3. Importance of BFT for Black women’s culture - not a singular standpoint tied to one historical standpoint and is dynamically changing

Question 7

Social Construction Thesis & Race

Answer 7

race is not a biological reality but a socially constructed concept - racism’s formatting exists due to white supremacy

Question 8

Anti Essentialism

Answer 8

critiques the idea that people belonging to a particular race, ethnicity, or identity group share a single, uniform set of experiences, values, or traits - intersectionality and no universal race experience

Question 9

Positivism vs. Interpretivism

Answer 9

Positivism: observed and researched objectively, macro, quantitative - standardized test, statistical analysis, generalize findings

Interpretivism: subjective meanings and interpretations as a main source of knowledge, micro, qualitative - interviews, analyze themes and narratives, focus on the unique

Question 10

Ways of Knowing According to Blackstone

Answer 10

1: Informal Observation - observations without any systematic process; may not be accurate

2: Selective Observation - focus only on patterns that align with their expectations, desires; skewed reality

3: Overgeneralization - assume that broad patterns exist even when our observations have been limited

4: Authority - socially defined source of knowledge that might shape our beliefs about what is true and not true

5: Research Methods - organized, logical way of learning and knowing about our social world

Question 11

Independent & Dependent Variables

Answer 11

Examples from Lecture:
- Level of Education affects Level of Income
- Parent’s Church Attendance affects Children’s attendance
- Parent’s Income affects likelihood of child attending post secondary
- Availability of affordable housing affects homelessness

Question 12

Steps in the Research Process

Answer 12

1 - Define the Problem - operationalize

2- Review the Literature - what has been found and what you plan to contribute

3- Formulate Research Question/Hypothesis - variables, causation vs. correlation

4- Select Research Design - sampling perimeter, quan vs. qual, interviews, field research, etc.

5- Developing the Conclusion - was hypothesis correct and directions for future research

Question 13

Elements of Culture

Answer 13

Material - tangible: physical and technological aspects of our lives

Non-Material - HOW we interact/utilize with our tangible elements AND our language, values, and norms

(Norms - Formal, Informal, Mores [deemed essenial for the welfare of a society; prohibition of murder or child abuse - overlap with formal norms but not all formal norms are norms (ex. the prohibition of jaywalking is a formal norm but not a more], or Folkway [norms that govern our everyday behaviour (ex. attire, manners, etc.])

Question 14

Cultural Lag

Answer 14

period of adjustment when nonmaterial culture is struggling to adapt to new conditions of the material culture

ex: AI, Cyberbullying, Internet privacy and censorship

Question 15

Six Elements of Social Structure

Answer 15

1- status (ascribed - assigned at birth, achieved - within our power to change in some capacity ex. occupation, master - tends to dominate all others and determines general position in society)

2- Social Roles - expectations for people who occupy certain social statuses (women take care of kids, doctors take care of people, etc.)

3- Groups - people who share similar values (in group vs out group)

4- social networks - social relationships that link people

5- Virtual Worlds – the maintenance of social networks electronically

6- Social institutions - organized patterns of beliefs and behaviours centered on social needs

Question 16

How is Poverty Measured?

Answer 16

Market Basket Measure - based on the cost of a basket of goods (threshold) that represents a modest, basic standard of living. Anyone with a disposable income below this threshold is considered to be in poverty

Human Poverty Index - because poverty is multidimensional, it looks at three measures rather than just income: Deprivation of a long and healthy life (longevity, age 40 vs 60), Deprivation of knowledge (access to education, adult literacy vs adult functioning literacy), and Deprivation of decent living standards (water healthcare vs. below income poverty line)

Question 17

Bordieu’s Four Types of Capital - identify and examples of each

Answer 17

people are stratified more than by economic class

1: economic capital - property rights, other assets (do you have a car), do you own a business

2: cultural capital - someone being cultured = education, lived experiences, taste in the arts; three states
- Embodied: quality of mind and body meaning how you present yourself, accent, mannerism
- Objectified: material objects - cultural goods that are transferable and tangible (ex. access to art, music instruments, travel, books)
- Institutionalized: tied to a form of a capital we discussed - academic qualifications like degrees

3: social capital - about access to opportunities, assistance navigating complex systems; developing social network

4: symbolic capital - some form of recognition of the other three forms of capital; without this one, the other three forms wouldn’t matter… how hard it is to come by

Question 18

Freud & the Self

Answer 18

According to Freud, the self is composed of three parts that often conflict:

The Id represents instinctual desires and seeks immediate gratification (e.g., “I want X”).
The Ego mediates between the Id’s desires and reality, deciding how to fulfill those desires (e.g., “I take X”).
The Superego imposes moral judgment, questioning whether fulfilling those desires is socially acceptable (e.g., “Is it right to take X?”).

Together, these components regulate our behavior by balancing instinct, rationality, and morality.

Question 18

What is Socialization & What is Transmitted through Socialization?

Answer 18

Socialization refers to the lifelong process whereby we learn Attitudes, Values, and behaviours

Socialization Process = heredity (nature) + environment (nurture)

Question 19

Cooley & the Looking Glass Self

Answer 19

Looking Glass Self - Imagine how we present ourselves to others
* Imagine how others evaluate us based on these presentations
* Define our self as a result of these impressions

Question 19

Mead & the Self

Answer 19

According to Mead, the self has two core components:

The I: The active, spontaneous part of the self that performs actions (e.g., walking, smiling).
The Me: The socialized part of the self that reflects on actions, shaped by societal expectations and interactions. (judges others)

The self develops in three stages:
1: Preparatory stage (0-3): Children imitate others without understanding.
2: Play stage (3-5): Children begin role-playing and understanding specific social roles.
3: Game stage (6-9): Children learn to consider multiple roles simultaneously and understand societal expectations.

Question 20

Goffman’s Dramaturgy

Answer 20

Front & Back Self

Front Stage – an idealized display whenever outsiders are present (this is where you engage in impression management – altering the presentation of yourself as the idealized version)

Back Stage – who you are when relaxed in guarded secrecy (solitude); your true self

Question 21

Five Social Rituals

Answer 21

• Presentation rituals – person depicts appreciation of the recipient
• Avoidance rituals – individual respects the privacy of others through distancing behaviours
• Maintenance rituals – reaffirm the well-being of a relationship
• Ratification rituals – mark the passage of an individual from one status to another
• Access rituals – employed when people transition in and out of states of increased access to one another

Question 21

Traditional vs. Critical Criminology

Answer 21

Traditional criminology focuses on individual criminal behaviour, examining why people commit crimes and evaluating the effectiveness of criminal justice measures.

Critical criminology views crime as a result of social and economic systems, labeling processes, and societal meaning-making.

Question 22

Social Control

Answer 22

the techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behaviour in any society

those who are highly socially integrated will be less willing to engage in deviance due to concerns about the potential damage to relationships and roles that such behaviour might illicit. In contrast, those with few social relationships or broader stakes in conformity have less to lose by engaging in crime

Question 22

Strain Theory

Answer 22

he categorizes how people respond to societal goals (financial success) and having the means to achieve that success (answers why people turn to crime to meet their needs)

1 - Retreatism - reject culture and instution (retreat from society and have no desire to make more money and coast along)

Ritualism - reject cultural goal of wanting to be wealthy, but still accept the institualized means to get money (lifers, don’t care about raise, deadbeat job)

Innovators - accept the cultural goals of wanting financial status, but don’t have access to or reject the legitimate means to achieve it (they are going to turn to less legitimate means to achieve goal of wealth - deviance)

Conformity - accept cultural and institutional means

Rebels - reject financial success and legitimate means, but instead of retreatism and no plans to make changes… they are gonna make new goals and new means

Question 23

Differential Association

Answer 23

how people come to engage in crime or deviance; how crime and deviance is “learned behaviour”

• they learn crime through interaction with others
• learned not inherited

Question 24

Labelling Theory (in Crim)

Answer 24

how society’s reaction to certain behaviours and the application of labels (e.g., “criminal,” “deviant”) influence individuals’ self-identity and future actions

Question 25

Critiques of Queer Theory

Answer 25

Has it gone too far by focusing on the discursive production of identities? - It’s about how society talks about and conceptualizes these identities rather than focusing solely on material or lived experiences.

can be inaccessible, westernized views

Question 26

Gender & Essentialism

Answer 26

Essentialism: it is identifiable and discotomous; gender is fixed and cannot be changed (anti-essentialism: gender is a social construct)

Question 27

Butler’s Fourfold Conceptualization of Gender

Answer 27

1. Socially constructed (not inherent attributes) - all symbols of gender that we have socially constructed
2. Historical (our notions shift over time) -constructed differently according to time period; feminine ideals shift overtime
3. Restricted (by social, cultural, and institutional power dynamics) - to diverge from gender norms i deviant
4. Performative - no one really is a gender from the start, it is something you are reinforcing through how you inform and exist in the social world

Question 28

Queer as Personal & Political

Answer 28

• Queer in terms of sexuality or gender identity
• Queer in the political sense – “queering” the mainstream (questioning, disrupting, or deconstructing dominant societal norms and institutions that define and regulate identities, relationships, and behaviours based on binary or fixed categories (such as male/female, heterosexual/homosexual)

Question 29

Topics Subsumed in Western Knowledge

Answer 29

1- Race & Gender: how did we justify or decide certain race and gender rights (ex. owning property, voting, etc.)? ; Ideas about gender were originally produced by and taken from Greek and Roman texts and art

2- Individual & Society: “reality” is related to the group that had the power and relations; developed vs developing nations and what is considered primitive

3- Concepts of Space and Time - Western knowledge production has imposed systems to quantify time and space, leading to colonial practices. Western representations have often imposed their own views, such as renaming Indigenous lands and perceiving them as resources to be exploited, rather than as interconnected, lived environments.

Question 29

Origins of Intersectionality

Answer 29

COMBAHEE RIVER COLLECTIVE (Black Lesbian organization of the 1970s)

Question 30

Crenshaw’s Analysis of the Law and the Ways Various Forms of Discrimination Intersect

Answer 30

Coined term intersectionality (invoking metaphor of an intersection) to critique how our existing understandings of Black women’s oppression are unidirectional

Traffic - discriminatory practice
Roads - racism and sexism
Ambulance - law - which way to go - racism or sexism fault

Question 31

The New Jim Crow Laws - Alexander’s Main Takeaways

Answer 31

1: The War on Drugs is a form of racialized social control (e.g., powder vs. crack cocaine)

2. Incarceration has grown at exponential rates and drug offenders make up the majority of the prison population.
3. White people use and sell more drugs, but Black and Brown people make up the overwhelming majority of drug-related incarcerations.
4. Cops have too much discretion in deciding where, when, and whom to arrest.
5. Sociologists have been complicit in justifying the concentration of arrests in low-income and radicalized neighbourhoods.
6. Colour-blind racism enables the courts to systematically challenge claims of racial biases

Extra:
- media representations of drug offenders have reinforced stereotypes of Black and Brown people as criminals, which has fueled public support for punitive policies and actions against these communities

• individuals with felony convictions face significant barriers to employment, housing, and other rights, further perpetuating the cycle of poverty and racial inequality.

Question 32

Critiques for The Big Three (used for long answer)

Answer 32

Durkheim’s Functionalism: “Sunshine Sociology” by assuming society works for everyone - does not as seen through history (ex. Waves of Feminism)

Marx’s Conflict Theory: focuses on material wealth and neglects the important phenomena of intersectionality (ex. race and gender) - different types of statuses, Bordieu’s four types of capital of how people are stratified

Weber’s Symbolic Interactionism: may not fully account for how systemic inequality influences individual interactions and perceptions and patterns; people act towards things on the basis of what they have experienced - role that institutions play in our society (ex New Jim Crow Laws and War on Drugs; institutions influence people)

Question 33

Gender & The Big Three

Answer 33

How does gender contribute to economic inequality between men and women?

How does gendered differentiation contribute to social stability? What function do gender roles and norms serve?

How does gender affect our everyday interactions? How is gender socially constructed?

Question 34

Elements of Social Bond

Answer 34

1: Attachment - (close) others - family member, friends, teachers : closer = less likely to commit

2: Involvement - there are only so many hours in a day; the more time you spend engaging in convential pro social activities, the less time you have for engaging in crime

3: Belief - the extent in which you believe in the norms and values of your society (do you feel you should obey in the law?)

4: Commitment - conventional aspects in society (example commitment to educational aspirationals); if you invest a lot of tiem and money in education/career, you are going to be less willing to engage in behaviour that puts your investment in jeopardy