Soci 205 Chapter 8

Front 1

social class

Back 1

Weber defined this as a large group of people who rank closely to one another in property, prestige, and power

Front 2

property

Back 2

comes in many forms, such as buildings, land, animals, machinery, cars, stocks, bonds

Front 3

wealth

Back 3

when you add up the value of someone's property and subtract that person's debts

Front 4

income

Back 4

the flow of money
can come from a number of sources: usually a business or wages, but also from rent, interest, or royalties

Front 5

power

Back 5

Mills insisted that power was the ability to carry out your will despite resistance-was concentrated in the hands of the few, for his ideology contradicted the ideology of equality

Front 6

power elite

Back 6

Mills referred to those who make the big decisions in U.S. society

Front 7

prestige

Back 7

respect or regard

Front 8

status consistent

Back 8

a person is similar in rank on all three dimensions of social class: property, prestige, and power

Front 9

status inconsistency

Back 9

someone has a mixture of high and low ranks

Front 10

status

Back 10

our social ranking

Front 11

contradictory class locations

Back 11

Wright suggested that some people are member of more than one class at the same time
-a person's position in the class structure can generate contradictory interests

Front 12

What are the classes that Wright identifies?

Back 12

1. capitalists: business owners who employ many workers
2. petty bourgeoisie: small business owners
3. managers: who sell their own labor but also exercise authority over other employees
4. workers: simply see their labor to others

Front 13

Capitalist Class

Back 13

-can be divided into "old" and "new" money
-1% of population

Front 14

Upper Middle Class

Back 14

-one most shaped by education

Front 15

Lower Middle Class

Back 15

-have jobs that call for them to follow orders given by those who have upper-middle-class credentials
-although they feel threatened by taxes and inflation, they enjoy a comfortable lifestyle

Front 16

Working Class

Back 16

-have less education and lower incomes
-jobs are less secure, more routine, and more closely supervised

Front 17

Working Poor

Back 17

-work at unskilled, low paying jobs

Front 18

Underclass

Back 18

next to no chance of climbing anywhere
-little or no connection to the job market

Front 19

Intergenerational mobility

Back 19

refers to a change that occurs between generations-when grown-up children end up on a different rung of the social class ladder than the one occupied by their parents

Front 20

downward social mobility

Back 20

the child fails

Front 21

upward social mobility

Back 21

if the child does well

Front 22

structural mobility

Back 22

refers to changes in society that cause large numbers of people to move up or down the class ladder

Front 23

exchange mobility

Back 23

occurs when large numbers of people move up and down the social class ladder but, on balance, the proportions of the social classes remain about the same

Front 24

poverty line

Back 24

-to determine who is poor, the U.S. set up a poverty line, when poor people were thought to spend 1/3 of their income on food

Front 25

feminization of poverty

Back 25

with our high rate of divorce, combined with more births to single women, the number of mother-headed families has increased over the years

Front 26

culture of poverty

Back 26

they assume that the values and behaviors of the poor "make them fundamentally different from other Americans, and that these factors are largely responsible for their continued long-term poverty."

Front 27

exchange poverty

Back 27

the people who move out of poverty are replaced by people who move into poverty

Front 28

the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

Back 28

manufactured in 1996, requires sates to place a lifetime cap on welfare assistance and compels welfare recipients to look for work and to take available jobs

Front 29

Why are people poor?

Back 29

-features of society deny some people access to education or learning job skills
-characteristics of the individuals

Front 30

Horatio Alger myth

Back 30

the rags-to-riches exploits of fictional boy heroes
-it encourages people to compete for higher positions, but places blame for failure on the individual