Exam 7: Social Class: the Structure of Inequality

What does Pierre Bourdieu call the tendency of social class to be passed down from one generation to the next and consequently remain relatively stable over time?

When young people go away to college, it's often the first time they make friends with people of substantially different class statuses. Sometimes this leads to tension when the wealthier member of a friendship is oblivious to his friend's class status and suggests activities that are beyond the friend's means. This tension results from a lack of:

Sociologists often point out that systems of stratification in the United States systematically favor white men. Sometimes people contest this, pointing to wealthy and powerful black women like Oprah Winfrey or Toni Morrison. A valid counterpoint to this argument is that:

What is the maximum length of time a family can collect welfare based on the welfare reforms provided in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act?

Many sociologists in the 1960s noticed that economic obstacles alone were not sufficient to explain disparities in the educational attainment of children from different social classes. Which concept was designed to explain these disparities?

It is often said that you can always tell a millionaire by her shoes. She may dress like a slob in every other respect, but someone from the upper class is bound to have expensive, custom-made footwear. Whether this is true or not, it helps demonstrate the way we:

Americans are particularly lucky to live in a country where hard work and dedication promise to lift the majority of people out of poverty.

Which of the following population groups are NOT associated with higher rates of poverty in the United States?

Half of all children grow up to have the same socioeconomic class as their parents. Discuss the ways in which Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital influences this phenomenon.

Which of the following is NOT a component of the American Dream according to sociologists?

Culture is a source of shared norms and values, but cultural capital can never help someone get ahead in life like economic capital can.

The sociologist Susan Mayer, in What Money Can't Buy, studied poverty and welfare and concluded that raising parental income had little effect on the future life chances of children born in poverty. Instead, she concluded that character traits in parents like "diligence, honesty, good health, and reliability" lead to increased achievement in children. Which theory do her conclusions support?

The educational system in the United States serves all students equally regardless of class.

Which of the following is a serious flaw in the way the federal government defines poverty?

The higher a person's socioeconomic status, the more likely she is to feel healthy.

What do sociologists call it when large numbers of people move up or down the social class ladder as a result of changes to society as a whole?

Describe and analyze Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital in terms of microsociology and macrosociology. What elements of his theory are more like conflict theory? What elements are more like symbolic interactionism?

What are the tastes, habits, and expectations called that children "inherit" (or learn) from their parents and that help to achieve material success in life?

Poverty can be defined in either relative or absolute terms. How does relative deprivation measure poverty?

Karl Marx spent much of his life attempting to describe and understand how capitalism works. In one particularly vivid passage, he described in this way the turbulence he saw as inherent in capitalism: "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind." What sort of relationships did he think his readers had with other people?