What is Social Stratification?
A society’s categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power
What is Income?
Earnings from work or investments
What is Wealth?
The total value of money and other assets, minus outstanding debts
What is Power?
Strongly related to wealth and politics
What are 5 dimensions of social inequality?
- Income
- Wealth
- Power
- Prestige
- Schooling
What are the 4 principles of stratification?
- Social stratification is a trait of society
- Social stratification carries over from generation to generation
- Social stratification is universal but variable
- Social stratification involves not just inequality but beliefs as well
What is the Davis-Moore thesis?
- Social stratification has beneficial consequences for the operation of society
- The more important a position is for society, the greater rewards attached to it
- Egalitarian societies could only be equal to the extent that people are willing to let anyone perform any job
What stratification exists in hunting and gathering societies?
No stratification, little to no job/categorical differences
What is Social Mobility?
The ability to change positions within a social stratification system
What is Intragenerational Social Mobility?
A difference in social class between different members of the same generation
What is Intergenerational Social Mobility?
A difference in social class between different generations of a family
What is the Caste System?
A system in which people are born into a social standing that they retain their entire lives
What societies usually caste?
Agrarian societies
What is Meritocracy?
An ideal system in which personal effort–or merit–determines social standing
What is a drawback to meritocracy?
Too much social mobility would pull apart families and other social groupings
What is Ideology?
Cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements, including patterns of inequality
What is the Just World Theory?
The Just World Theory argues that we are motivated to believe that the world is a fair place
What is Sex?
Physical or physiological differences between males and females, including both primary sex characteristics (the reproductive system) and secondary characteristics such as height and muscularity
What is Gender?
Behaviors, personal traits, and social positions that society attributes to being female or male
What is Biological Determinism?
The belief that men and women behave differently due to inherent sex differences related to their biology
What is Sexual Dimorphism?
Differences in physiology between the male and females of a species
What happened to Dutee Chand?
Banned from running in India due to a condition called hyperandrogenism, her body produces naturally high levels of testosterone
What is Gender Role?
Society’s concept of how men and women are expected to look and how they should behave
Why would men commit more suicides if women are reported to have higher rates of mental illness?
Men are told by society to suppress their emotions
What is Rape Culture?
A culture in which dominant cultural ideologies, media images, social practices, and societal institutions support and condone sexual abuser by normalizing, trivializing and eroticizing male violence against women and blaming victims for their own abuse