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- Minority studies: a brief
- Part i—dominant and minority
- Study guide for part i
Minority Studies: A Brief Sociological Text is a very, very brief textbook suitable for use as a supplemental or stand-alone text in a college-level minority studies Sociology course. Any instructor who would choose to use this as a stand-alone textbook would need to supply a large amount of statistical data and other pertinent and extraneous Sociological material in order to "flesh-out" fully this course.
Each module/unit of Minority Studies: A Brief Sociological Text contains the text, course objectives, a study guide, key terms and concepts, a lecture outline, assignments, and a reading list.
Study guide for part i
- Be able to define and discuss stratification/inequalityStratification
- The unequal distribution of the goods of society
- Social inequality
- A system in which people are denied access to the goods of society based on their group membership
- Define, discuss, and give examples of master statusReview master statusRace or ethnicity, sex or gender, age, religion, disability, and SESSES
-
S ocio
e conomic
S tatus= income+education+occupation
- Define and discuss SES
- What is SES and how does it impact peoples’ lives?
- The stratification hierarchy
- Where someone is placed in terms of access to wealth, power, and status
- Based on various aspects of their master status
- How does the stratification hierarchy affect
- Racial and ethnic minorities?
- Women?
- Sexual orientation minorities?
- Religious minorities?
- The disabled?
- Define Thomas’s Theorem and explain how it relates to issues of stratification/inequality
- How do our concepts of reality affect the way we judge others?
- Discuss the ways in which the human mind creates social categories
- Define and discuss stereotypes
- How many stereotypes about groups other than your own can you list?
- Are any of these stereotypes true?
- Why or why not?
- How many stereotypes about your own group can you list?
- Are any of these stereotypes true?
- Why or why not?
- Define and describe social differentiation
- Explain and give examples of social positions
- Rankings of roles and statuses
- Explain and give examples of social mobility
- What is the social mobility in your family?
- Define and discuss the various dimensions of and theories of stratification/inequality
- Marx
- Bourgeoisie and Proletariat
- Based on the economic system
- Weber
- The bureaucracy
- Wealth
- A person’s total economic access
- Give an example
- Power
- The ability to influence over resistance
- Give an example
- Status
- The esteem that society gives to social statuses and social roles
- Give an example
- Models of power
- C. Wright Mills:
The Power Elite
- Power is held at the top of society by a handful of people
- Give an example
- Robert Dahl: Pluralistic model
- Power is relatively evenly distributed
- Give an example
- Which model is correct?
- The Davis-Moore Debate
- What are the main points of Davis-Moore’s argument?
- Why do they say that stratification is functional for society?
- Do you agree?
- Melvin Tumin’s response to Davis-Moore
- What are the main points of Tumin’s argument?
- Why does he disagree with Davis-Moore?
- Do you agree with Tumin?
- Be able to discuss the following dimensions of and theories of stratification/inequality
- E. Digby Baltzell: WASP
- Who are the WASPs?
- Are they still “in charge”
- Thorstein Veblen
- Conspicuous Leisure
- Give three modern examples
- Look on
Forbes
- Conspicuous Consumption
- Give three modern examples
- Look on
Forbes
- Oscar LewisCulture of poverty
- What are the main characteristics of the culture of poverty?
- Is the culture of poverty real?
- Charles Murray
Losing Ground and
The Bell Curve
- What are Murray’s primary arguments?
- Do you agree or disagree?
- William Julius Wilson
- The Truly Disadvantaged
- When Work Disappears
- Hyperghettoization
- What are WJ Wilson’s major arguments?
- What data sources does he use?
- Do you agree with his conclusions?
- Herbert Gans
- The functionality of poverty
- The War against the Poor
- What are Gans’s primary points of argument?
- What are his data sources?
- Do you agree with his conclusions?
- Wealth
- The billionaire’s club
- Who are the richest people in the world and how rich are they?
- What are the most expensive consumer items in the world and who buys them?
- What are the richest countries in the world and how does the US compare?Use the Internet to find data
- What are the richest companies in the world and how do they compare to the economies of countries?
- Find and explain data about the demographics of poverty in the US
- Find and explain data about the feminization of poverty
- Find information about and explain public policies and poverty programs
- Find data about the minimum wage vs. the living wage
- What is the minimum wage?
- What are the criteria used to determine what the minimum wage will be?
- Find information about the history of the minimum wage and explain how it relates to the cost of living
- Find information about the living wage; explain what it is and its ramifications for society
- Look at the
World Demographic “Clock” and explain what it shows
- What did you learn from this that you did not know before?
- Explain the
US and World Population “Clocks”
- Find data that break down world demographics into percentages.“If the World Were a Village of 100 People.”
- Define, discuss, and give examples of Infant Mortality Rates, Literacy Rates, Life Expectancy, and GDP/GNP in the richest and poorest nations in the world
- How do most people perceive World Inequality?
- Why?
- What information is available about world inequality to most people?
- Identify the levels into which the world is stratified and what those levels mean in terms of life chances
- Define and give examples of:
- First World countries
- Second World countries
- Third World countries
- Fourth World countries
- Find data about and discuss carrying capacity and world hunger
- Define carrying capacity
- In the late spring of 2008, there have been food riots in some parts of the world and food prices in some parts of the world have reached an all-time high
- Find data that explain this
-
United Nations Summit on World Hunger
- Discuss the health concerns of First, Second, and Third World countries
- Find and explain data about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and how it impacts world poverty
- Identify and differentiate among the various theories of inequality in the world
- Conquest
- Migration
- Colonialism and Empire
- Neo-Colonialism
- World Systems Theory
- Modernization Theory
- Globalization and Glocalization
- George Ritzer’s McDonaldization theory.
- Thomas Friedman’s “Flat World” theory.
- Find and explain statistical information concerning world stratification/inequality including such statistical referents as Infant Mortality Rates, Literacy Rates, Life Expectancy, and GDP or GNP.
- Find and explain data about the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the ways in which their policies impact global inequality.
Source:
OpenStax, Minority studies: a brief sociological text. OpenStax CNX. Mar 31, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11183/1.13
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