Understanding Social Inequality

Social Inequality

• Intersectionality involves problems with overlapping social injustices.
• Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality."
• Social stratification pertains to classes of social inequality based on race, gender, income, or occupation.
• Closed systems of stratification have little to no movement between classes, for example slavery and the caste system.
• Open systems of stratification are based on economic status.
• Social mobility, including horizontal, vertical, intergenerational, and intragenerational movement, is common in open systems.
• Socio-economic status is based on education, income, and occupation.
• Negative consequences of social inequality include lack of opportunities and education, especially in education and poverty.
• Health, hardships, homelessness, and poverty result in inability to purchase healthcare, lack of money for activities and groceries, living paycheck to paycheck, and being at risk of homelessness.
• Social safety nets are services and programs that governments use to alleviate low-income groups.
• Employment Insurance (EI), Pension Plans, and Breakfast Programs are types of social safety nets.
• Functionalism views stratification as beneficial to society.
• Marxism views stratification as a by-product of capitalism.
• Weber believed capitalism was produced by Protestantism.
• The more wealth you have, the more favor God is showing, according to Weber.
• Stratification produces surplus, which results in the trickle-down effect.

Sex, Gender, and Sexualities

• Sex refers to biological characteristics.
• Gender includes socially constructed roles and behaviors and is a major part of identity.
• Intersex is when an individual's physical sex characteristics fall outside the male/female dualism.
• Dualism is a contrast between two opposing categories.
• Heteronormative refers to the view that heterosexuality is expected and preferred.
• Two-spirited people in Indigenous cultures have both male and female spirits.
• Cisgender refers to individuals whose gender identity corresponds to their birth sex.
• Transgender refers to individuals whose gender identity corresponds to that of another sex.
• Pansexuality is sexual attraction to individuals along the full spectrum of sex, gender, and sexuality.
• The glass ceiling is an intangible barrier that prevents women from attaining positions of authority or leadership.
• The glass escalator refers to intangible factors that enable men to attain positions of authority or leadership.
• The matrix of domination refers to intersecting systems of oppression in society based on sex, gender, race, and/or social class.
• Gender is learned in childhood through subtle norms based on sex.
• Gender socialization helps individuals understand the rules of culture and fit into society.
• Semantic Derogation is where the same word has two different meanings based on gender.
• Patriarchy affects men and women.
• Acting out Gender means going against the stereotype of gender.
• Cultures of honor are traditional stereotypes that are respected.
• Functionalism states the functions of family are fulfilled through the socialization of children and stabilization of adult personalities.
• Conflict theory states that gender inequality is linked to capitalism.
• Interactionism explains how we understand sex and gender and how it contributes to our understanding of ourselves and society.
• Feminist theory uses an interactionist lens, focusing on how two parts of identity can cause oppression.
• Postmodernism questions the notions of sex itself, and states that society does not have a cohesive gender.

Race and Ethnicity

• Ethnicity is defined by cultural characteristics such as language, religion, and traditions.
• Race is a socially constructed category used to classify humans.
• Objective ethnicity is the ethnic characteristics of one's ancestors.
• Objective ethnicity is also known as ethnic origin.
• Subjective ethnicity is how an individual personally identifies their ethnicity.
• Subjective ethnicity is also known as ethnic identity.
• Racialization is the process by which racial categories are constructed as different and unequal with social, economic, and political consequences.
• Visible minorities are persons, other than Aboriginal, who are non-white.
• Visible minorities are also known as racialized groups.
• Contemporary ethnic patterns show more immigrants arriving in Canada as time goes on.
• Family-Class Immigrants are sponsored by a close relative.
• Economic Immigrants are selected based on the ability to contribute to the Canadian economy.
• Consequences of ethnic identification include diverse family experience and family interdependence.
• Integration pattern involves identifying with both heritage culture and new, national culture.
• Ethnic pattern involves primarily identifying with heritage culture.
• National pattern involves identifying with a new national culture.
• Diffuse pattern involves uncertainty about which culture one should identify with.
• Relationships between dominant and minority groups include assimilation, pluralism, segregation, and population transfer.
• Assimilation can be voluntary or cohesive.
• Pluralism involves co-existing races and cultures.
• Segregation involves separation.
• Population transfer involves people being forcibly moved.
• Interactionist theory focuses on our understanding of ethnicity and race, and how it is framed in the media, as well as how races interact.
• Conflict theory focuses on races in power, and how they maintain it.
• Critical Race Theory explains that race oppression is not due to individuals, but the systems that are built into society.
• Anti-Miscegenation Laws are laws that prohibit interracial marriages.

Canadian Families

• Canadian families have multiple definitions.
• A structural definition of family is narrow, considering only blood relatives.
• A functional definition is a combination of two or more people, either by blood, adoption, or choice.
• An emotional definition includes people who care for each other, regardless of value.
• Fictive kin are individuals who are not connected at all, but assume the benefits and obligations of family life.
• Marriages have been declining over time, but are still relevant amongst religious families and more divorces have been happening in recent times.
• A nuclear family is a family structure comprising parents and their children.
• An extended family includes nuclear family plus additional relatives.
• Vital social functions of families consists of reproduction, production, socialization, maintenance, and regulation.
• Gendered Discourses on Parenting involves Westernized discourses which are dominant regardless of sexuality and intensive mothering/helicopter parenting.
• The Divorce Act was passed in 1968.
• Prior to and during its passing, there were only fault-based grounds, while in 1986, both parties could initiate divorce.
• Simple stepfamilies have only one spouse with children before the union.
• Complex stepfamilies have both parents with children before the union, or children because of the union.
• Functionalists focuse on effective socialization of children and household division of labor.
• Conflict theorists propose that the shift from feudalism to capitalism created patriarchy and disagree about conflict in families.
• Feminists addresses women's role in ‘family’ and how heteronormative ‘family’ can be.
• Interactionist theory suggests that families shape our understanding of the world around us.

Religion, Science, and Education

• Belief systems consist of ethical and moral claims, claims about the nature of reality, and technological claims.
• Religion has varying definitions and is hard to pinpoint.
• Secular is the state of not being governed by religion.
• Religiosity is a combined measure of religious affiliation, attendance, and participation.
• Trends in religion show Christian cultures becoming more secular with lower rates of affiliation and attendance with less research on non-Christian cultures
• Religion can be a positive and/or negative influence on a micro and macro level.
• Religion is a source of social, bridging, and bonding capital.
• Social capital is resources in the form of accumulated social networks.
• Bridging capital refers to resources within groups that can be used outside of groups.
• Bonding capital are resources in the form of community ties and identity.
• Collective conscience refers to the unified body of cultural knowledge that is transmitted in group religious rituals.
• Collective effervescence refers to a euphoria that enables individuals to transcend the challenges of everyday life, as a collective which emerges from group religious rituals.
• Functionalist theories state that religion increases social solidarity through a collective conscience and collective effervescence
• Contemporary Functionalists state social integration, positive outcomes for society, and the dysfunctions of religion.
• Conflict Theory says religion is the “opium of the people”, as an agent of social control that reinforces inequalities.
• Interactionist state that Protestant religious doctrine enabled capitalism.
• Feminist theory touches on absence or oppression of women in different ways
• Indigenous feminism state that religion, patriarchy, and colonialism are interconnected
• Queer feminism argues how many religions are heteronormative
• Postmodern theories involves multiplicity of religious forms and individual experiences from religion.
• One viewpoint on science distinguishes it distinctly, based on objective truth.
• Another viewpoint states that scientific knowledge, like all knowledge, is socially constructed.
• A paradigm is a conceptual framework or model for organized information.
• A paradigm shift is a movement away from a particular conceptual framework.
• One norm governing science is Scientific knowledge is to be freely shared (Communism).
• Another norm governing science is Scientific knowledge is free of social biases (Universalism).
• Another norm governing science is Scientists do their work solely for the purpose of discovering the truth (Disinterestedness).
• Another norm governing science is Scientific claims should be subject to rigorous scrutiny (Skepticism).
• Postmodernism states that knowledge is intertwined with power, according to Foucault.
• Feminist theory focuses on the female underrepresentation in science.
• Education in modern society is a major agent of socialization.
• Streaming is a process in which students are placed into specific programs and levels based off perceived achievement.
• Credentialism is the reliance on educational requirements as necessary for employment.
• Functionalist Theories focus on the manifest and latent functions of education and school.
• Critical approaches/Feminism touches upong social reproduction of class and other inequalities
• Hidden school costs affect classes differently.
• A hidden curriculum transmits subtle norms.
• Streaming benefits students who occupy positions of privilege and credentialism is linked to social class privilege.
• Under a critical approach, cultural capital of students is stratified in educational segregation.
• Interactionists touch upon the construction of meaning in the classroom, importance of significant others, the generalized other, and the looking-glass self, labeling by teachers affects students’ understanding of self and their future life paths and Teachers’ perceptions are both classed and racialized.
• Postmodern theories involves Educational practices and processes are context-specific with different views of experiential learning and Advocates the use of a variety of assessment methods based on individual student needs and outcomes.