Deck 7: Social Class: the Structure of Inequality

Question 1

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

A) black women are often the exception to this tendency.
B) Winfrey and Morrison have higher social statuses because of other markers of class that they inherited, such as regional accents.
C) stratification is a characteristic of a society rather than a reflection of individual differences.
D) Winfrey and Morrison must have inherited a high social status from their parents.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

________ is a system of stratification commonly used in modern capitalist societies.

A) Gender
B) Social class
C) Social caste
D) Slavery

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Most Americans claim they

A) are upper class.
B) are lower class.
C) are middle class.
D) do not feel they have a class status or they are unaware of it.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

What is Mother Teresa an example of, given that she was a person with tremendous power and prestige yet she was very poor?

A) status inequality
B) status inconsistency
C) status contradiction
D) status reversal

Question 5

How does social class relate to race, ethnicity, gender, and age in the United States today?

A) Race and ethnicity are more important than any other factor in determining social class.
B) These multiple dimensions of status and inequality intersect to shape who we are and how we live.
C) These other variables matter for members of the upper class but not for members of the middle or lower classes.
D) These variables matter for members of the lower class but not for members of the upper or middle class.

Question 6

An accountant with a college degree and a license from the state accounting board works for the Department of Defense as a senior auditor. He makes about $100,000 per year and will soon retire with benefits and a pension. To what class would you expect him to belong?

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

Question 7

What term describes the division of society into groups arranged in a social hierarchy?

A) social inequality
B) apartheid
C) social stratification
D) social divisions

Question 8

A black man in the United States was convicted of a felony when he was 17. He is now 58 and has not committed any crimes since his release. However, he is still not permitted to vote. Michelle Alexander would describe this as an example of

A) everyday class consciousness.
B) status inconsistency.
C) the underclass.
D) the new Jim Crow.

Question 9

The upper class makes up just 1 percent of the total U.S. population, but its total net worth is greater than that of ________ percent of the rest of the population.

A) 10
B) 53
C) 90
D) 99

Question 10

A young girl from a poor family is sent to live with wealthy distant relatives. Her relatives expect her to take care of the household, cooking and cleaning instead of going to school. They do not pay her and threaten her when she attempts to return home. Her situation is an example of

A) the new caste system.
B) modern apartheid.
C) modern slavery.
D) the new Jim Crow.

Question 11

What is the estimated number of people trapped in modern-day slavery?

A) 15,000,000
B) 25,000,000
C) 30,000,000
D) 40,000,000

Question 12

Which social class category is comprised of people who live in poverty conditions and typically earn $15,000 or less per year?

A) underclass
B) working poor
C) working class
D) blue collar

Question 13

What term describes the unequal distribution of wealth, power, or prestige among members of a society?

A) social stratification
B) social inequality
C) apartheid
D) social divisions

Question 14

What is one of the basic principles of social stratification?

A) Low-level groups often have basic access to the rewards and privileges of higher-level groups.
B) Families' social positions start anew with each new generation.
C) All societies stratify according to wealth accumulation.
D) It is maintained through beliefs that are widely shared in a society.

Question 15

________ are the types of jobs usually available to members of the lower-middle class.

A) Technical or professional jobs
B) Executive or managerial positions
C) Blue collar or manual labor jobs
D) Lower-management jobs

Question 16

Which of the following is accurate about the upper class in the United States today?

A) It is a largely self-sustaining group and rarely adds new members.
B) It is comprised mainly of skilled workers in technical fields.
C) It makes up about 30 percent of the population.
D) Those in the upper class usually work in executive, managerial, and professional jobs.

Question 17

Which is true of social mobility in a caste system?

A) Social mobility is common with hard work.
B) A great deal of social mobility occurs.
C) A small part of each generation will experience upward social mobility.
D) There is virtually no chance of social mobility.

Question 18

Apartheid is a specific example of what system of social stratification?

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

Question 19

"White collar" workers employed in technical and lower-management positions belong to the

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

Question 20

The criteria used by a social class system to stratify its members include

A) power, heredity, and employment status.
B) wealth, occupational attainment, and gender.
C) property, power, and prestige.
D) gender, race, and ethnicity.

Question 21

An individual might be trying to gain ________ if they take adult education classes, attend lectures and concerts, or travel to Europe.

A) cultural capital
B) souvenirs
C) intersectionality
D) wealth

Question 22

According to Pierre Bourdieu, ________ is the tendency of social class to be passed down from one generation to the next and consequently remain relatively stable over time.

A) the invisibility of poverty
B) slavery
C) ideology
D) social reproduction

Question 23

Karl Marx spent much of his life attempting to understand and describe how capitalism works. In one particularly vivid passage, he described 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?

A) relationships of community and religion
B) relationships based on social bonds and solidarity
C) economic relationships
D) cultural relationships

Question 24

Observers determine someone's socioeconomic status when meeting them for the first time by their

A) speech and gestures.
B) age.
C) gender.
D) parents' occupations.

Question 25

Paul Fussell's living room scale attempts to measure

A) judgment.
B) the pace of interaction.
C) social class.
D) ideology.

Question 26

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

A) try to "better ourselves" by increasing the amount of cultural capital we possess.
B) allow relative levels of prestige to determine our class status.
C) make split-second judgments about who people are and what social statuses they occupy based on their appearances.
D) surrender to the impersonal forces of the market.

Question 27

The school of social thought that insists all social structures, including systems of stratification, are built out of everyday interactions is called

A) functionalism.
B) symbolic interactionism.
C) Weberianism.
D) conflict theory.

Question 28

How is Max Weber's idea of social class different from Karl Marx's?

A) Weber did not believe owning the means of production mattered in any way.
B) Weber believed class status was inherited and that it was an extension of the old feudal system.
C) Weber believed wealth was the only factor that mattered, regardless of how that wealth was acquired.
D) Weber believed that wealth, power, and prestige all affected a person's social class.

Question 29

Going away to college is often the first time young adults make friends with people of substantially different class statuses. This sometimes leads to tension when the wealthier member of a friendship is oblivious to their friend's class status and suggests activities that are beyond the friend's means. This tension results from a lack of

A) historical materialism.
B) status inconsistency.
C) prestige or power.
D) everyday class consciousness.

Question 30

In House of Yes, a play by Wendy MacLeod, the character Marty brings his fiancée Lesly to meet his family. She comes from a different social class, which leads to miscommunication and difficult interactions among Lesly, Marty, and Marty's two siblings. According to Pierre Bourdieu, Lesly not having enough ________ could cause the strained relations.

A) wealth
B) cultural capital
C) intersectionality
D) ideology

Question 31

French sociologist and postmodernist Pierre Bourdieu suggested that social reproduction, or the tendency of social classes remaining relatively stable as class status is passed down from one generation to the next, occurs in part through the acquisition of

A) prestige.
B) culture.
C) everyday class consciousness.
D) cultural capital.

Question 32

In the 1960s, many sociologists noticed that economic obstacles alone were insufficient in explaining disparities in the educational attainment of children from different social classes. Which concept was introduced to explain these disparities?

A) the American Dream
B) cultural capital
C) status inconsistency
D) class consciousness

Question 33

Maxine comes from a working-class background. Her father worked in construction his whole life and her mother was a stay-at-home mom who dropped out of high school but later got her GED. Maxine becomes interested in computer programming at a young age and spends many hours in the school library teaching herself. Maxine attends the state university on a scholarship. While there, she develops a valuable algorithm for identifying neurological diseases that makes her a multi-millionaire. She drops out of college to continue her work. Which term related to social class best describes this scenario?

A) intersectionality
B) social inequality
C) status inconsistency
D) social stratification

Question 34

________ was the system of social stratification in the final stages of breaking down when Karl Marx developed his ideas.

A) Feudalism
B) Capitalism
C) Slavery
D) Communism

Question 35

According to Karl Marx, the social relations that matter MOST in a capitalist system are

A) family and kin.
B) community bonds.
C) economic relations.
D) nationalistic bonds.

Question 36

________ is/are the tastes, habits, and expectations that children "inherit" or learn from their parents, which help them achieve material success in life.

A) Cultural capital
B) Ideology
C) Social welfare
D) Education

Question 37

Priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, and clergy are often prestigious members of their communities, although they make very little money. Which social theorist first suggested that this is an important element of class status?

A) Karl Marx
B) Émile Durkheim
C) Pierre Bourdieu
D) Max Weber

Question 38

Symbolic interactionists stress the way we make "snap judgments" about other people's class statuses. We often pay close attention to what cues we display because we are aware that other people are judging us. Given this, why did Paul Fussell decide to measure class status with a "living room scale" rather than assessing some other part of the house?

A) The living room is a part of the house the whole family uses.
B) The living room is where we receive guests.
C) The living room is where the most expensive furniture goes.
D) The living room is where the television is usually found.

Question 39

Sociologists call the awareness of our own and others' class statuses

A) everyday class consciousness.
B) everyday ideology.
C) everyday false consciousness.
D) cultural capital.

Question 40

Which of the following demonstrates Karl Marx's conviction that social inequality would continue to grow?

A) "No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance."
B) "The modern laborer . . . instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth."
C) "A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, i.e., things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."
D) "For the metropolis presents the peculiar conditions which are revealed to us as the opportunities and the stimuli for the development of both these ways of allocating roles to men."

Question 41

Greg J. Duncan and a team of researchers analyzed the effect of parental income on the academic achievement of children. What do you think Duncan found given what you have read about socioeconomic status and life chances?

A) There was no correlation between class status and educational achievement.
B) Class status helped to predict high school grades but had no relationship to later academic success.
C) Children from working-class families had a better work ethic and, therefore, were more likely to attend and graduate from college.
D) Parental income was strongly correlated with academic achievement, especially in low-income families.

Question 42

What is a society called if social mobility is highly restricted by formal or informal rules like those of a caste system?

A) capitalism
B) a system of achieved status
C) a closed system
D) an open system

Question 43

Many people became instant millionaires during the so-called dot-com boom of the late 1990s, although we usually think of social mobility as a result of individual effort. This is an example of

A) structural mobility.
B) wise investing.
C) savvy technological genius.
D) horizontal mobility.

Question 44

What general predictions can sociologists make about a person's life prospects if all that is known is the person's social class?

A) the level of education they will receive
B) their college major
C) if they will be a "dog person" or a "cat person"
D) whether they will have everyday class consciousness

Question 45

What is it an example of when the children of working-class parents manage to attend college and get a job in a professional field?

A) intragenerational mobility
B) horizontal social mobility
C) a lack of mobility
D) intergenerational mobility

Question 46

What sort of social mobility often results from losing a job?

A) horizontal
B) upward
C) career
D) vertical

Question 47

People are more likely to marry individuals with social and cultural backgrounds similar to their own because

A) parents and other family members always exert pressure to marry within the group.
B) people spend a great deal of time alone and, therefore, have few opportunities for meeting people.
C) people have greater access to individuals like themselves.
D) people develop irrational fears of out-group members and are scared to date them.

Question 48

Social mobility that occurs over the course of an individual's lifetime is called ________ mobility.

A) life-cycle
B) intragenerational
C) structural
D) intergenerational

Question 49

What activity is MOST likely to take the place of a yoga class for a working-class woman given what you have read about socioeconomic status and life chances?

A) taking care of her children after work
B) watching television
C) meeting neighbors for drinks at the local bar
D) taking a night class at a community college

Question 50

Being born into a lower social class means that an individual will be more likely to

A) feel at risk of being harassed by law enforcement.
B) complete college due to receiving need-based scholarships.
C) overcome criminal charges due to the assistance of a public defender.
D) be healthy due to access to Medicaid.

Question 51

What is the tendency to choose romantic partners based on similarities in background and group membership?

A) homogamy
B) background knowledge
C) reflexivity
D) heteronormativity

Question 52

"Homogamy" is a term sociologists use to explain the tendency to choose romantic partners based on similarities in background and group membership. Why is this common?

A) We tend to have more access to people like ourselves.
B) People are rebelling against the common knowledge that "opposites attract."
C) We are hardwired to actively look for partners similar to ourselves.
D) It is too difficult to raise children with people who have different backgrounds from us.

Question 53

Newlyweds were asked about how they met. The newlyweds explained that they were friends as children because their families attended the same church, but they did not start dating until much later when they ended up at the same university. This couple is an example of

A) heterogamy.
B) homogamy.
C) an open system.
D) a closed system.

Question 54

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?

A) social welfare
B) structural mobility
C) horizontal mobility
D) intergenerational mobility

Question 55

Although "like usually marries like,"________ is more common for heterosexual women, whereas ________ is more common for heterosexual men when class boundaries are crossed in marriage.

A) a closed system; an open system
B) hypogamy; hypergamy
C) an open system; a closed system
D) hypergamy; hypogamy

Question 56

What is realistic about so-called Cinderella stories like the film Pretty Woman, in which a low-status woman marries a wealthy, powerful man?

A) Sex work is a common route to social advancement.
B) Class boundaries are often crossed in marriage.
C) Women usually marry up while men marry down when class boundaries are crossed.
D) Marriage customs are usually heterogamous.

Question 57

What sort of jobs can support a middle-class lifestyle in America today?

A) jobs in manufacturing
B) jobs associated with blue-collar work
C) jobs associated with skilled trades like carpentry
D) jobs in the service, information, and technology sectors

Question 58

Members of the lower class exercise less often because

A) exercise is a luxury often accessible only to those who do not have to struggle with day-to-day existence.
B) the poor are lazy.
C) poor people care less about their health.
D) the lower classes do not have health problems that make exercise necessary.

Question 59

What do sociologists call it when an individual changes their career but remains within the same social class?

A) vertical social mobility
B) structural mobility
C) intergenerational mobility
D) horizontal social mobility

Question 60

The folk-pop singer Jewel is famous for having lived in her van when she first moved to San Diego and started performing in a coffee shop. Soon after Atlantic Records signed her, her advance allowed her to rent a house and buy a new car. Of what class-based phenomenon is this an example?

A) socioeconomic status and life chances
B) apartheid
C) the culture of poverty
D) social mobility

Question 61

Under the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, ________ years was the total amount of time in which families could receive assistance.

A) five
B) ten
C) fifteen
D) twenty

Question 62

Which of the following is a form of stratification in which all positions are awarded on the basis of accomplishment and skill?

A) democracy
B) meritocracy
C) oligarchy
D) technocracy

Question 63

What sort of measure of poverty are we using when we compare the salaries of the lowest-paid members of a corporation with the salary of the CEO?

A) relative deprivation
B) cultural poverty
C) absolute deprivation
D) horizontal poverty

Question 64

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

A) It is too complicated because it takes into account too many factors, especially the cost of housing in each major metropolitan area.
B) It justifies a welfare system that supports a great number of people who simply do not want to work.
C) It does not take into account regional differences in the cost of living.
D) It overestimates the number of people who cannot afford basic necessities.

Question 65

Several members of the Indian government have argued that poverty in India should be calculated according to how many calories per day people consume, not in relation to their incomes. What sort of measure of poverty would this be?

A) vertical
B) structural
C) absolute
D) relative

Question 66

Americans are conflicted in their opinions about people living in poverty. About half think that circumstances beyond one's control are to blame if a person is impoverished, while about a third say

A) people living in poverty do not try hard enough.
B) there are no people living in poverty in the United States.
C) poverty was created by social welfare programs.
D) poverty can only be fixed by turning toward oligarchy.

Question 67

Poverty can be defined in either relative or absolute terms. How is poverty defined according to absolute deprivation?

A) by considering access to food, shelter, clothing, and medical care
B) by comparing the poor with more affluent members of society
C) by asking which groups within a society have power and prestige
D) by comparing the poor with the poor of other historical periods

Question 68

Poverty can be defined in either relative or absolute terms. How is poverty defined according to relative deprivation?

A) by comparing the standard of living among the poor to the basic necessities of life
B) by comparing the poor with people with low socioeconomic status in other countries
C) by determining if the poor have minimal food and shelter
D) by comparing the poor with more affluent members of society

Question 69

If researchers find that the Great Recession of 2008 led to large numbers of middle-class people experiencing downward mobility to the lower-middle class, it would be an example of

A) relative deprivation.
B) a closed system.
C) structural mobility.
D) horizontal social mobility.

Question 70

What defines so-called official poverty in the United States based on household income?

A) social stratification
B) the federal poverty line
C) relative deprivation
D) absolute deprivation

Question 71

Some immigrants have a hard time assimilating to a new culture. What are the children of immigrants experiencing if they assimilate and have a higher standard of living than their parents?

A) intergenerational mobility
B) intragenerational mobility
C) structural mobility
D) immigrant mobility

Question 72

People are optimistic that the jobs lost in the U.S. recession of the late 2000s will be replaced with others. However, even if the optimists are right, the shift in the economy may permanently alter the social class status of many people. This is due to the jobs lost being largely in manufacturing and new jobs being mostly in information technology. This suggests that the newly unemployed will have trouble competing for newly created jobs. If this is the case, what is it called?

A) structural mobility
B) intergenerational mobility
C) intragenerational mobility
D) absolute deprivation

Question 73

Samira does not have a computer in her house, so she uses computers in the library to complete school assignments. However, she often has less time than her peers to do research and type her assignments because the computers are sometimes occupied and the library closes early. What term describes Samira's situation?

A) the digital divide
B) the federal poverty line
C) the simplicity movement
D) disenfranchisement

Question 74

Oscar Lewis was the first to suggest that the poor develop a way of life with fundamentally different values and goals because they are excluded from mainstream social life. Consequently, they are much less likely to join the middle class. This way of life is usually called

A) the culture of poverty.
B) the invisibility of poverty.
C) the social contract.
D) oppression norms.

Question 75

In the United States, the federal poverty line is calculated using food costs based on the cheapest possible diet that can still provide basic nutrition. What sort of measure of poverty is this?

A) a measure of poverty based on conflict theory
B) a measure of absolute deprivation
C) a measure of relative deprivation
D) a measure of social welfare

Question 76

In 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau identified the poverty threshold for a family of four as

A) $52,700.
B) $42,000.
C) $35,500.
D) $25,570.

Question 77

The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 ended the concept of entitlements by requiring recipients of welfare to find work within two years of receiving assistance. How has this changed the lives of the poor?

A) Moving from welfare to work helped single people much more than it did families or single mothers.
B) Moving from welfare to work caused many former welfare recipients to plunge into homelessness.
C) Moving from welfare to work did not substantially increase income levels; it simply shifted the poor from welfare to low-paying jobs.
D) Moving from welfare to work increased both the self-esteem of the poor and their incomes.

Question 78

One cost-of-living indicator shows that a salary of $40,000 in Santa Barbara, California is equivalent to $14,000 in Wichita, Kansas. This is primarily because of the cost of housing, which is much less expensive in Wichita. What does this difference say about how the federal government calculates poverty?

A) It shows that poverty is connected to the local cost of living, which reflects the differences in rates of poverty in different parts of the country.
B) It shows that the poverty line is more or less accurate, because it has been recalibrated to take into account housing costs.
C) It points to a flaw in the way the government calculates the poverty line, as the standard is uniformly applied without regard to regional differences.
D) It points to a flaw in the way the government calculates the poverty line, as it proves there are far more poor people in the Midwest.

Question 79

A reporter who covers the police beat at a newspaper changes careers. She becomes an editor of nonfiction books and is paid the same salary as she was at the newspaper. What has she experienced?

A) structural mobility
B) intragenerational mobility
C) horizontal social mobility
D) vertical social mobility

Question 80

Many workers at auto plants in Michigan lost their jobs when plants closed. What has this resulted in for the vast majority of these workers?

A) welfare reform
B) vertical social mobility
C) horizontal social mobility
D) intergenerational mobility