Sociology Final Study Guide

Chapter 10
1. What is a majority?
a. A collection of people who enjoy privileges and have more access to power
because of identifiable physical or cultural characteristics
2. What is a minority?
a. A collection of people who suffer disadvantages and have less power because
of identifiable physical or cultural characteristics
3. What is race?
a. A category of people widely perceived as sharing socially significant physical
characteristics such as skin color
4. What is ethnicity?
a. Shared cultural heritage often deriving from a common ancestry and
homeland
5. What do we mean when we say that race is socially constructed?
a. Labels are recent and constantly changing
6. What are examples of racial and ethnic inequality?
a. Hispanics are least likely to have health insurance
7. What are bias theories?
a. Physical appearance
b. Linguistic  voice
c. Name
8. What are institutional discrimination theories?
a. Society is structured in a way that disadvantages minorities but also privileges
the majority.
i. History is important in determining present conditions
ii. Discrimination can occur without conscious bigotry
iii. Discrimination is reinforced because institutions are interrelated
iv. Institutional derogation = media negatively stereotypes minorities
9. What is white privilege?
a. If you live in the United States and you have white skin, you automatically get
unearned privileges that other people do not get.
b. Whites are oblivious
Chapter 11
1. What is sex?
a. Biology (anatomy, chromosomes, XX, XY, hormones)
2. What is gender?
a. Social cultural characteristics (masculine vs. feminine, behavior)
3. What is intersex?
a. Born with characteristics of both sexes; or born with ambiguous genatalia
(anatomy, chromosomes)
4. What is transgender?
a. When a persons gender identity does not match their anatomy
i. A person who feels transgender may adopt the social characteristics
of the other sex.
5. What is a transsexual?
a. When a persons gender identity does not match their anatomy
i. When a persons gender identity does not match their anatomy, so
they have surgery and or take hormones to change biologically to the
other sex.
6. What is the second shift?
a. The phenomenon of employed women still having primary
responsibilities for housework and childcare
7. What is role overload?
a. Stressed out because of too many repeated responsibilities
8. Why do women do most of the second shift?
a. Social structure on personal decisions
b. Feminist theory: women doing the second shift both reinforces and
stresses gender inequality
9. How does the second shift often connect to the gender pay gap?
a. Women make a less 75-78 cents for every dollar a guy makes
10. What is the glass ceiling?
a. The often invisible barrier created by individual and institutional sexism
that prevents qualified women from advancing to high levels of
leadership and management
11. What is the glass escalator?
a. Refers to how men in female-dominated careers, such as teaching and
nursing, often rise higher and faster than women in male-dominated
fields.
12. What is “doing gender?”
a. Creating gender through interactions in particular social settings
13. What is “gender role?”
a. A set of social expectations regarding behavior and attitudes based on a
persons sex
14. What is teaching gender in school?
a. Preschools help children develop a gendered identity by altering how
they relate to their own bodies
b. Teachers reprimand girls more often for not behaving formally but
allowed boys to be more disruptive and to behave more informally by
sitting in relaxed positions and engaging in freer play than girls
c. Girls are told to be quiet three times as often as boys were
d. Many girls wore dresses, which limits ability to move freely
Sexuality
1. What do we mean when we say that sexuality is socially constructed?
a. Labels are recent and constantly changing
2. What is stigma and what are some examples the LGBTQ face?
a. Socially devalued
b. EX. Hate crimes
c. Language
d. Homelessness
e. Education  bullying  lower GPA; more absent; dropout rate
f. Employment  totally legal to fire someone for being gay
g. Medicine  American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a
mental illness up until 1973
3. What is heterosexism?
a. A set of attitudes and behavior that indicates an assumption that everyone is
heterosexual
4. What is homophobia?
a. The disapproval and fear of LGBT people
Chapter 13
1. What is the hidden curriculum?
a. Lessons students learn simply by attending school, in contrast to the lessons
form the formal subject-specified curriculum
2. How do schools reinforce social and economic inequality?
a. Social reproduction theory, which explores the ways that schools help
reproduce systems of inequality.
b. Social reproduction theorists argue that social and economic inequalities are
built into the experience of schooling and the curriculum and inevitably result
in unequal educational opportunities
3. What is school choice?
a. Various policies that give families options for deciding which school their
children will attend
4. What is the debate over school choice with charter schools?
a. Charter schools can develop innovative approaches to teaching and learning –
and thus can genuinely offer families a local and public choice, especially in
communities with low-performing public schools.
b. Some studies have found no difference in the academic performance of
charter schools and public school students but some studies have shown that
some charter schools students outperform public school students who applied
but did not attend charter schools
c. Charter school student body has become diverse
d. Charter school reading scores are no different from public schools
5. What are labor unions?
a. Associations of employees that join together for the purpose of improving
their working conditions
6. What is collective bargaining?
a. Unionized workers typically authorize union representatives to negotiate with
their employer on questions of pay, benefits, and working conditions
7. Are these successful in the US?
a. Yes
8. What is formal socialization?
a. Pairing of new employees with experienced employees who can give
newcomers tips on how to navigate an unfamiliar shop floor culture
b. EX. Major league baseball  freshman carry bags
9. What is informal socialization?
a. New employees go through initiation process that is usually organized by
fellow employees and often not officially recognized by management
b. EX. Interviews
10. What is emotional labor?
a. Jobs that require employees to manage their feelings and to display specific
feelings to their customers or clients
b. EX. Flight attendants expected to smile throughout whole flight
11. What is outsourcing?
a. Moving jobs out of the country to take advantage of cheaper labor costs
elsewhere