Deck 8: Stratification and Social Mobility in the United States

Question 1

An individual's salary and wages are referred to as

A) wealth.
B) income.
C) prosperity.
D) finances.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Some sociologists have suggested that in the southern U.S. in the pre-civil rights era, an African American individual was born into a status that would always be subordinate to the status of all of the White members of the community. This is an example of a(n)

A) estate system.
B) class system.
C) caste system.
D) feudal system.

Answer 2

C

Question 3

A system of stratification under which peasants were required to work land leased to them by nobles in exchange for military protection is known as a(n)

A) estate system.
B) slavery system.
C) caste system.
D) feudal system.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

An ascribed status is a social position

A) attained by a person largely through his or her own effort.
B) assigned to a person without regard to the person's unique characteristics or talents.
C) based solely on income and wealth.
D) based solely on lifestyle.

Question 5

A class system employs a social ranking based primarily on

A) age.
B) caste.
C) economic position.
D) religious and ethnic background.

Question 6

Which term was used by Karl Marx to refer to the capitalist class that owns the means of production?

A) bourgeoisie
B) proletariat
C) peasantry
D) oligarchy

Question 7

A single mother who works in a factory sewing large sheets of canvass would be considered

A) upper class.
B) middle class.
C) lower middle class.
D) working class.

Question 8

A woman is born into a homeless, single-parent family. She is very talented and as an adult, becomes a wealthy, world-acclaimed pianist. This scenario most closely represents which type of stratification system?

A) caste
B) class
C) estate
D) slavery

Question 9

A panhandler makes $15 to $20 per day on the streets. This is his

A) status.
B) prestige.
C) income.
D) wealth.

Question 10

Which of the following terms is used by sociologists for a structured ranking of groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in society?

A) social mobility
B) stratification
C) hypergamy
D) status

Question 11

An 83-year-old woman is placed at a small table in a dark corner of a trendy nightclub and is ignored by the staff. Her shoddy treatment is probably due to her age, which is a(n) ________ status.

A) ascribed
B) achieved
C) horizontal
D) structural

Question 12

Karl Marx argued that social, economic, and political inequalities are dependent on

A) class differentiation.
B) achieved status.
C) the Protestant work ethic.
D) religious factors.

Question 13

In sociologist Daniel Rossides's model of the class system of the U.S., which social class contains the smallest portion of the population?

A) lower class
B) lower-middle class
C) working class
D) upper class

Question 14

Capitalism is an economic system in which

A) the means of production and distribution are collectively owned.
B) all property is communally owned and no social distinctions are made on the basis of people's ability to produce.
C) the means of production are largely in private hands, and the main incentive for economic activity is the accumulation of profit.
D) None of these answers is correct.

Question 15

A well-known Hollywood actress owns a home in Beverly Hills and another one on the French Riviera. She owns her own movie production company along with a large stock portfolio. The total of the different things she owns is considered her

A) income.
B) caste.
C) esteem.
D) wealth.

Question 16

Which of the following statements about slavery is true?

A) It is considered the most extreme form of social inequality.
B) The only recorded examples of slavery occurred in the U.S. and in ancient Greece.
C) Slavery was considered a permanent status in ancient Greece.
D) Slavery in the U.S. was considered an achieved status.

Question 17

Which of the following terms refers to hereditary systems of rank that are relatively fixed, immobile, and generally religiously dictated?

A) tenure
B) slavery
C) castes
D) feudalism

Question 18

A condition in which members of a society have different amounts of wealth, prestige, or power is called

A) socialization.
B) status.
C) social structure.
D) social inequality.

Question 19

Wealth is

A) all of a person's material assets, including land, stocks, and other types of property.
B) salaries and wages.
C) a term used by Max Weber to refer to people who have a similar level of income and prestige.
D) a term used by Thorstein Veblen for people who have the same lifestyle, independent of their class position.

Question 20

A system of enforced servitude in which people are legally owned by others is known as

A) feudalism.
B) slavery.
C) communism.
D) a caste system.

Question 21

Which of the following did Max Weber suggest were analytically distinct components of stratification?

A) conformity, deviance, and social control
B) class, status, and power
C) class, caste, and age
D) class, prestige, and esteem

Question 22

In Karl Marx's view, social relations during any period of history depend on who controls the

A) mass media.
B) primary mode of economic production.
C) legislature.
D) most powerful religious organizations.

Question 23

Karl Marx used the term proletariat to refer to the

A) capitalist class.
B) owners of the means of production.
C) working class.
D) middle class.

Question 24

Which sociological perspective argues that competition for scarce resources results in significant political, economic, and social inequality?

A) functionalist perspective
B) conflict perspective
C) interactionist perspective
D) feminist perspective

Question 25

Every evening at a neighborhood bar, the clientele, which consists of construction workers, police officers, plumbers, and factory workers, watches sports events on the big screen television set and play pool. The people who hang out in this bar are an example of a

A) status group.
B) power group.
C) class.
D) caste.

Question 26

In Max Weber's view,

A) people hold three distinct ranks in society.
B) our position in a stratification system reflects some combination of class, stigma, and power.
C) our rank in society is determined by four separate variables.
D) All of these answers are correct.

Question 27

In Karl Marx's view of class conscious workers in revolt, who will guide the working class in its struggle?

A) bourgeoisie
B) revolutionary leaders
C) proletariat
D) peasantry

Question 28

Which sociological perspective would be most likely to argue that most talented people would not go to school for many years to become biochemists if they could make as much money and gain as much respect working as elevator operators?

A) functionalist perspective
B) conflict perspective
C) interactionist perspective
D) feminist perspective

Question 29

Max Weber uses the term class to refer to people who share a similar level of

A) culture.
B) wealth and income.
C) power.
D) esteem.

Question 30

In Karl Marx's view, a worker who identifies with the wealthy and believes that she can achieve great wealth through hard work is likely to have developed a

A) bourgeoisie consciousness.
B) class consciousness.
C) false consciousness.
D) caste consciousness.

Question 31

Max Weber defined ________ as the ability to exercise one's will over others.

A) control
B) status
C) class
D) power

Question 32

Which of the following terms did Karl Marx use to refer to an attitude held by members of a class that does not accurately reflect the class's objective position?

A) false consciousness
B) bourgeoisie consciousness
C) class consciousness
D) proletariat consciousness

Question 33

One shortcoming of Karl Marx's work is that he failed to anticipate the

A) end of feudalism.
B) extent to which political liberties and relative prosperity could contribute to a false consciousness.
C) effects of alienated labor on the working class.
D) conflict between various capitalist nations.

Question 34

The objective method of assessing social class assigns individuals to classes on the basis of

A) criteria such as occupation, education, income, and place of residence.
B) self-assessment.
C) assessments by friends and colleagues.
D) the neighborhoods in which they reside.

Question 35

Thorstein Veblen suggested persons at the top of the social hierarchy convert wealth into conspicuous consumption while the behavior of the lower classes is often subjected to ridicule. Veblen's views are from the

A) functionalist perspective.
B) conflict perspective.
C) interactionist perspective.
D) feminist perspective.

Question 36

What term did Thorstein Veblen use to refer to the behavior of those at the top of the social hierarchy when they engage in such activities as jetting off to a remote destination for dinner?

A) consumption flow
B) inconspicuous ridicule
C) conspicuous consumption
D) consumptive frivolity

Question 37

Gerhard Lenski argues that social inequality may have once served the overall purposes of society, but the degree of social and economic inequality that now exists far exceeds the need to provide for goods and services. This facet of Lenski's analysis is consistent with which perspective?

A) functionalist perspective
B) conflict perspective
C) interactionist perspective
D) global perspective

Question 38

Karl Marx used the concept of class consciousness to refer to

A) an attitude held by members of a class that does not accurately reflect its objective position.
B) the reputation that a particular individual has within an occupation.
C) a subjective awareness held by members of a class regarding their common vested interests and the need for collective political action to bring about social change.
D) the respect and admiration with which an occupation is regarded by society.

Question 39

Status group refers to

A) people who share a similar level of wealth and income.
B) people who share the same prestige or lifestyle, independent of their class position.
C) members of a class who have a subjective awareness regarding their common vested interests and need for collective political action to bring about social change.
D) a feudal class.

Question 40

The owner of a major league baseball team can fire employees for not winning a pennant, have the city build him a new ballpark, and prevent companies that compete against his own team from airing advertisements during the team's televised games. In Max Weber's view, this owner would most likely be considered to have

A) power.
B) class.
C) esteem.
D) status.

Question 41

Which sociological perspective suggests that the higher rates of poverty among single mothers are due to the difficulty women have finding affordable child care, to sexual harassment, and to sex discrimination in the labor market?

A) functionalist perspective
B) conflict perspective
C) interactionist perspective
D) global perspective

Question 42

The fact that an unemployed coal miner in Appalachia has a higher standard of living than a doctor in Congo illustrates the idea that

A) poverty is absolute.
B) poverty is relative.
C) being a doctor is not a high-prestige occupation in all countries.
D) Americans are ethnocentric.

Question 43

An inner-city youth spends many hours in the neighborhood playground shooting baskets on the basketball court and engaging in every game that he can play. His skills become outstanding, and he receives a college scholarship and then signs a lucrative contract to play in the National Basketball Association. This is an example of

A) vertical mobility.
B) ascribed status.
C) horizontal mobility.
D) structural mobility.

Question 44

A stratification system that implies that the position of each individual is influenced by the person's achieved status is referred to as a(n)

A) open stratification system.
B) closed stratification system.
C) egalitarian class system.
D) fractured class system.

Question 45

Some analysts suggest that inner-city riots have frequently occurred when poor people realize that their chances of climbing out of poverty are unlikely because of the structure of our social system. Their frustration is based on their perception that they are living in a(n)

A) open stratification system.
B) closed stratification system.
C) egalitarian class system.
D) fractured class system.

Question 46

A woman who was born and raised in a poor family becomes a regional supervisor for the U.S. Postal Service. She has experienced

A) structural mobility.
B) horizontal mobility.
C) upward intergenerational mobility.
D) institutional mobility.

Question 47

The commonly used "poverty line" measure of poverty used by the federal government measures which type of poverty?

A) relative poverty
B) absolute poverty
C) elementary poverty
D) dramatic poverty

Question 48

Which of the following refers to the movement of individuals or groups from one position of society's stratification system to another?

A) social mobility
B) life chances
C) relative poverty
D) social distribution

Question 49

Which sociologist has identified a number of social, economic, and political functions that the poor perform for society (e.g., poor people do society's dirty work at low cost; poverty creates jobs for those in occupations serving the poor; the existence of poor people guarantees the higher status of the more affluent)?

A) Herbert Gans
B) Émile Durkheim
C) Peter Blau
D) Daniel Rossides

Question 50

A family lives in a remote area of Appalachia, where coal mines that once employed many workers have been idle for years. There are no jobs in the area, the distant schools are poorly funded, and because of the remote location, there are no churches or medical facilities nearby. These poor, chronically unemployed people who barely survive from winter to winter are an example of

A) the underclass.
B) structural mobility.
C) an estate.
D) false consciousness.

Question 51

The federal tax policies of the last four decades, especially in the 1980s and in the ten years from 2001 to 2010, have favored

A) people below the poverty line.
B) lower-class income earners.
C) middle-class income earners.
D) the affluent.

Question 52

Which term is used to refer to the reputation that a specific person has within an occupation?

A) power
B) prestige
C) esteem
D) status

Question 53

Prestige refers to the

A) reputation that a particular individual has within an occupation.
B) ability to exercise one's will over others.
C) respect and admiration with which an occupation is regarded by society.
D) people who have similar levels of wealth and income.

Question 54

Which sociological perspective would be most likely to suggest that studies of social class have tended to neglect the occupations and incomes of women as determinants of social rank, thereby elevating the status of males?

A) functionalist perspective
B) conflict perspective
C) interactionist perspective
D) feminist perspective

Question 55

Which sociological perspective would be most likely to emphasize that a person's health and educational opportunities are affected by his or her class position in important ways?

A) functionalist perspective
B) conflict perspective
C) interactionist perspective
D) global perspective

Question 56

By 2012, female householders accounted for 50 percent of the poor in the U.S. This alarming trend is referred to as

A) discriminating poverty.
B) elementary poverty.
C) the feminization of poverty.
D) dramatic poverty.

Question 57

Max Weber referred to people's opportunities to provide themselves with material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable experiences as

A) power.
B) wealth.
C) life chances.
D) status.

Question 58

Employment that is poorly paid and, from the worker's perspective, insecure and unprotected is called

A) pink-collar work.
B) white-collar work.
C) hard work.
D) precarious work.

Question 59

Which of the following refers to a floating standard of deprivation by which people at the bottom of a society are judged to be disadvantaged in comparison to the nation as a whole?

A) absolute poverty
B) elementary poverty
C) relative poverty
D) dramatic poverty

Question 60

Which of the following is an example of absolute poverty?

A) A homeless man in tattered clothes begs in the streets for money and food.
B) A dual-career couple lives in a suburban community and struggles to pay their monthly bills.
C) A family owns only two luxury automobiles, although their friends and neighbors own three such vehicles.
D) None of these answers is correct.

Question 61

Varnas refers to the major castes in India.

Question 62

Which sociologist first made the distinction between vertical and horizontal mobility?

A) Ferdinand Tönnies
B) Émile Durkheim
C) Pitirim Sorokin
D) Wilbert Moore

Question 63

Stratification is universal, in that all societies maintain some form of social inequality among members.

Question 64

Describe the differences between ascribed status and achieved status. Give examples to support your answer.

Question 65

Conflict theorists would argue that poverty is functional in the U.S. system.

Question 66

The wealth of the top 1 percent exceeds the collective wealth of the bottom 90 percent.

Question 67

Students from lower-middle-class families are as likely to attend college as students from wealthy families, as long as they try hard.

Question 68

Even if stratification is inevitable, the functionalist explanation for differential rewards does not explain the wide disparity between the rich and the poor.

Question 69

Which of the following statements about the minimum wage in the U.S. is accurate?

A) Higher-income workers charge that minimum wage workers are often guilty of wage theft.
B) The purchasing power of the minimum wage tends to shrink over time.
C) Proponents of the minimum wage often refer to it as a "living wage" to make it sound more attractive.
D) Economists are in majority agreement that increases in the minimum wage tend to cause the economy to shed very large numbers of jobs.

Question 70

The concentration of wealth in the U.S. has decreased substantially in the last two decades.

Question 71

Discuss Karl Marx's view on class differentiation. Define the terms bourgeoisie and proletariat. Describe what Marx termed a false consciousness, and give an example to support your answer.

Question 72

Conflict sociologists argue that stratification will inevitably lead to instability and to social change.

Question 73

The most extreme form of legalized social inequality for individuals or groups is a caste system.

Question 74

Men are more likely than women to withdraw from the workforce when their skills far exceed the jobs offered them.

Question 75

Compare and contrast the functionalist and conflict views of social stratification. Give examples of each view to support your answer.

Question 76

The United Nations has valued the unpaid work performed by women in child care, agriculture, and housework at $11 trillion.

Question 77

According to Karl Marx, a worker with class consciousness may feel that he or she is being treated fairly by the bourgeoisie, and a worker with false consciousness realizes that all workers are being exploited by the bourgeoisie and have a common stake in revolution.

Question 78

Research concerning the degree of social mobility within the occupational structure of the U.S. indicates that

A) occupational mobility has been common among males.
B) much of the social mobility in the U.S. covers a very "great distance."
C) occupational mobility among African Americans is no longer sharply limited by racial discrimination.
D) All of these answers are correct.

Question 79

Peasants required to work land leased to them by nobles in exchange for military protection and other services is referred to as a caste system.

Question 80

Max Weber argued that the actions of individuals and groups can be understood solely in economic terms.