SOC 1010 Week 9 Chapters 13-14

1. Introduction to Sociology

2. Week 9: Chapter 13-14

3. CHAPTER 13
Effects of parents social class-
• Children are very likely to end up in the same social class
as their parents.
Income-
• Earnings from work or investments.
Wealth-
• The total value of money and other assets, minus
outstanding debts.
Oscar Lewis’ “culture of poverty”-
• Idea poor parents passed values to their children.

4. CHAPTER 13
Matthew effect-
• The notion that people who have wealth, fame, or other
scarce social goods find it easier to accumulate more of
these compared to those with no no wealth, fame, or
other scarce social goods.
Cultural explanations of inequality-
• People of different social classes have different patterns
of values, beliefs and behavioral norms, which is passed
on to their children. People who are poor usually are
poor because their degree to which these values, beliefs
and behavioral norms are out of whack with those of
mainstream society.

5. CHAPTER 13
Structural explanations of inequality-
• Differences in values, beliefs, and behavioral norms that
seem to exist are better explained as the consequences
of poverty rather than as the cause. It’s not the culture
but rather the opportunities open to the poor that holds
them back.
“Blaming the victim”-
• Unjustly stating or believing that the cause of a problem
resides in the individuals or groups who experience the
problem, when the real source or cause of the problem in
the social environment.
Structural mobility-
• Mobility that results from such social facts as changes in
the occupational structure, immigrations and birth rates.

6. CHAPTER 13
Gini Coefficient-
• A way of measuring how much inequality exists. The
higher to coefficient, the more inequality.
Tracking, in schools-
• The process whereby students are divided into
categories sothat they can be assigned in groups to
various kinds of classes. Usually placed in a category on
how fast the children are able to learn.
Pygmalion effect-
• Effect of teacher’s expectations on student’s
performance.

7. CHAPTER 14
Prejudice-
• A biased attitude toward a group of people or an
individual member of a group based on unfair
generalizations about what members of that group are
like.
Stereotypes-
• Oversimplified generalized images of members of a
particular group.
Discrimination-
• Unequal treatment of various categories of people.
Prejudice refers to attitudes, but discrimination is a
matter of action.

8. CHAPTER 14
Robert Merton-
• Deviance is a socially created behavior, not only
'momentary pathological impulses'.
Typology of prejudice and discrimination-
• Not all people who are prejudiced practice
discrimination, not all people who practice
discrimination are prejudice.

9. CHAPTER 14
Gordon Allport- Types of discriminatory behavior-
• People tend to hold onto their prejudices even in the
face of contradictory information. Prejudice is
sustained by stereotypes, which deny the existence of
individual differences among the members of a specific
social category. Different types of discriminatory
behaviors include: Verbal rejections, Avoidance, Active
discrimination, physical attacks, and extermination.
Individual discrimination-
• Discrimination that individuals practice in their daily
lives, usually because they are prejudiced but sometimes
even if they are not prejudiced.
Institutional discrimination-
• Discrimination that pervades the practices of whole
institutions, such as housing, medical care, law
enforcement, employment, and education.

10. CHAPTER 14
Louis Wirth-
Minority group-
• Minority group of people because of their physical and
cultural characteristics, are signed out from the others
in the society in which they live for differential and
unequal treatment.
Dominant group-
• The Dominant group membership is that one enjoys
greater privilege.

11. CHAPTER 14
“isms”, distinguished from other types of discrimination-
• Generally applied to acts of discrimination that occur at the
institutional level or, when they occur at the individual level,
are consistent with institutional patterns of discriminations.
Pyramiding effect of discrimination-
• Cumulative impact of encounters with racist
behavior. Blatant acts of avoidance, verbal harassment, and
physical attack combine with subtle and covert slights and
these accumulate over months, years or lifetime affect
people.
Race as a social construct-
• Race is a subjective, social, political, and cultural construct.
Ethnicity-
• Socially identified and set apart by others and by itself on
the basis of unique cultural or nationally characteristics.
Sex-
• The physical and biological differences between males and
females.

12. CHAPTER 14
Margaret Mead-
Studies of three New Guinea societies-
• Studied the degree to which differences in male and
female personalities were a result of socialization
rather than biological factors. Found a standardized
male and female personality in each culture.