Deck 14: Social Mobility and Status Attainment

Question 1

What is one indication of the American faith in an open society and its prevalence?

A) When a majority of survey respondents sampled in a difficult economy still believe in the myth of individual achievement.
B) People still establish new businesses during a recession.
C) Americans have always believed in inner resources over outer ones.
D) Surveys show that Americans are willing to be taxed more if it means helping others succeed.

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The increases in sales and service positions that came with the postwar increase in automobile ownership and interstate highways is an example of what facet of intergenerational mobility?

A) opportunity structure
B) the circulation mobility of blue- and white-collar jobs
C) structural mobility
D) expected mobility

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following is linked to the decline of social background (i.e., traditional family occupation) in determining one's career during the post-World War II era?

A) higher education
B) demographic shifts
C) decline of family business
D) reduction in obstacles

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Evaluate the following statement: Intergenerational mobility is essentially a middle-class phenomenon.

A) This is true as intergenerational mobility at the top and bottom of the economic hierarchy remains fairly restricted.
B) Intergenerational mobility in income has declined since 1980, which suggests that all socioeconomic classes are becoming more caste-like.
C) With jobs programs and affirmative action, this is not true for Blacks and Hispanics.
D) This is not true. Trust fund children are not replenishing family wealth. That and taxation are already seeing downward mobility among members of the upper strata.

Question 5

What is the paradox of a value system that esteems openness and upward mobility for all?

A) It runs counter to another set of values that favors children and other family members.
B) People are, essentially, loyal to their genes.
C) That openness should only be altruistic when practiced by others.
D) Americans do not like the competition that real openness entails.

Question 6

Blacks who enter the middle class face more of a risk of falling backward. Why do Whites and Asian Americans fare better?

A) more education and wealth
B) ability to save and family assistance
C) subjective factors
D) meritocratic factors

Question 7

The industrialism thesis states that industrialization inevitably creates upward social mobility at similar rate across all industrial nations. What challenges this argument?

A) The structural and cultural variation in institutional pathways, especially in education.
B) Some nations have healthier economies.
C) Newer industrial nations, such as China and Brazil, have more social mobility than the U.S. even if they do lag behind in earnings.
D) Studies reveal that rates and patterns of mobility vary because of vestiges of ascription.

Question 8

When we examine status attainment, what do we use to gauge the openness of an individual's or group's economic status?

A) the extent to which the economic status of children is independent of their parents' economic status
B) a comparison of wealth accrued by children and the adjusted difference to that of their parents
C) the difference in the types of occupation
D) whether a person can get a job without the help of his parents, tribe, group, peers, and the like

Question 9

What improvement did the Wisconsin model make on measuring the variables that influenced status attainment, following the pioneering work of Blau and Duncan?

A) The Wisconsin model considered social-psychological factors, such as the aspirations of parents for their children to do better than they did.
B) The Wisconsin model looked at finer structural details and nuances that Blau and Duncan omitted.
C) The Wisconsin model considered many factors, even teacher favoritism, in what influenced children to succeed.
D) The Wisconsin model scientifically measured vicarious desires and projections.

Question 10

In addition to the nested inequalities of poor schools, low parental expectations, and a lack of college preparation from early childhood on, what other educational- and psychological-related factor compounds the structural disadvantages?

A) a deficiency in personal control over one's life
B) nonexistent mentors
C) street influences
D) a lack of cognitive skills

Question 11

What would be an example of nested inequalities?

A) being a student in a low-level track, in a poor school, in a weak school district, and in the state that does not support education
B) intergenerational poverty
C) poverty linked to the particular characteristics of the home
D) inequality derived from the intersection of race, class, and gender

Question 12

Why has the study of status attainment looked less at the individual or the differences between a person and their parents?

A) Attainment cannot take place outside of structural networks, hierarchies, organizational career pathways, and the like.
B) Because of the economic shift from manufacturing to service industries.
C) Technological changes have obviated many of the older routes of attainment, making them less and less relevant.
D) There is now more intergenerational mobility.

Question 13

Why do the "budget battles" in Washington and in state capitals pose a special problem to the Black middle class?

A) Appreciable numbers of African Americans can only rise in status via public and/or governmental white-collar jobs.
B) Most Black Americans vote for one particular party.
C) Budget cuts are racially motivated.
D) The private sector cannot or will not hire them.

Question 14

Since the first pioneering status attainment studies, women have largely been omitted. Why is this so, and what kind of data has been lost?

A) Women were considered dependent, and those who did have their own occupations were excluded from the data.
B) There were few female head-of-households in the 1950s, so no pattern of study was established.
C) Most women were low income earners or did housework.
D) Researchers believed that male attributes were general enough to apply to women, too, as well as being smoother to track.

Question 15

When women make job changes, it is often lateral, that is, to a similar job and income at another employer. Why do women not climb the career ladder as much as men?

A) Many female positions are dead-end positions and are segregated by sex.
B) White-collar female positions, such as office manager, are typically best filled by long-term employees to ensure stability and consistency.
C) Women do not like to move. They like to keep things stable and like the "societies" they create in the workplace.
D) Women do such a good job that it is hard to move them up-indeed, much upward mobility is designed to make firms more efficient.