Sociology of Culture Quiz

Sociology of Culture

• Culture is a system of learned and shared behaviors, beliefs, objects, and characteristics common to a group.
• Symbols help people understand the world and communicate shared meanings, such as stop signs, police badges, and bathroom stick figures.
• Norms are rules and regulations that guide behavior, while folkways are informal customs, like shaking hands or wearing appropriate attire.
• Laws are formal, written rules, and mores are strong moral norms, violation of which can have serious consequences, such as plagiarism.
• Taboos are behaviors considered too sacred or dangerous, such as incest.
• The Consensus Model of crime suggests that society shares a common moral value system, and laws are crucial for safety and rights protection.
• China's Elderly Law protects the rights of the elderly to material assistance and prohibits discrimination, maltreatment, or disregard.
• Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is superior to others, leading to judgments like dismissing other cultures' food or opposing immigration.
• Subcultures are smaller groups within a larger culture, sharing specific identities, examples include body modification communities and LGBTQ+ groups.
• The Amish culture is characterized by isolation, rejection of modern technology, conservative dress, and a strong emphasis on community and belief-based living.
• Shunning is a method used by the Amish to address disobedient members.
• Culture shock is a sense of disorientation and anxiety when exposed to an unfamiliar way of life, like a foreign exchange student in an American classroom.
• Globalization is the integration of international trade and finance markets, often driven by capitalist expansion.

Sociology of Socialization

• Socialization is the process of learning and internalizing values, beliefs, and norms of a social group, becoming a functioning member of society.
• Socialization agents include family (first socialization), peer groups, school, workplace, religion, and media, each influencing individuals in specific ways.
• Nature refers to inherited biological factors, while nurture emphasizes environmental influences like family, education, and culture.
• Reinforcement occurs when behaviors receive direct or indirect rewards or punishments, shaping learned behavior.
• Resocialization is the process of unlearning old behaviors and learning new ones within a new environment, often stressful due to the shift in norms.
• The Brenda/David case study (David Reimer) illustrates the impact of nurture on gender identity, highlighting the consequences of imposing a chosen gender despite biological differences.
• Herbert Mead's stages of development include the preparatory (imitation), play (role expectations), and game (rule-based interaction) stages.
• Social learning theories highlight learning through observation, imitation, and modeling.
• Total institutions exercise total control over individuals' lives, examples include mental asylums, concentration camps, boot camps, convents, and monasteries.

Social Stratification in the United States

• Ascribed status is fixed at birth, based on factors like sex, age, race, and family background.
• Master status is the primary identifying characteristic of an individual, such as race, age, occupation, or sexual orientation.
• Achieved status is attained based on merit and effort, reflecting personal accomplishments and choices.
• Effective communication involves understanding tone, nonverbal cues, and body language.
• Roles are patterns of behavior associated with social status, role conflicts arise when roles contradict each other, and role strain occurs when a single role demands too much.
• Solidarity refers to a shared sense of unity and common interests within a group or class.
• New York State's Blue Code laws provide shelter for homeless people during cold winter nights (temperatures at or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit).
• New York Squatting Laws recognize squatters as legal tenants if they reside in a property for 30 days, making it crucial for landlords to act swiftly to evict them.
• Caste Systems enforce rigid social stratification, where individuals are born into a group and remain in it for life, unable to move to another.
• Max Weber defines social class based on property (wealth), power (influence), and prestige (social standing).
• Vertical mobility refers to the movement from one social status to another.
• Poverty is the state of having limited or no money, goods, or support.
• The "working poor" are those who work or seek work but remain below the poverty level.
• The U.S. poverty rate is 14.4%, while New York State's poverty rate is 15.1%.

Nickel and Dimed Introduction

• President Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform laws shifted the administration of social welfare programs to the states and imposed stricter requirements on recipients, including a five-year lifetime limit on benefits.
• Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of "Nickel and Dimed," had unique advantages in her experiment due to her PhD and background in biology, allowing her to secure better-paying work than available to most low-wage workers.