Deck 7: Stratification and Social Class

Question 1

Max Weber argued that there were three components to social class:

A) knowledge (educational achievement), economic (class position), and political (power)
B) economic (class position), social (status), and political (power)
C) knowledge (educational achievement), social (status), and ownership (property)
D) economic (class position), social (status), and ownership (property)

Answer 1

B

Question 2

A stratification system which is fixed and permanent, with people assigned to their position at birth with no chance of getting out is called

A) Caste
B) Class
C) Socialism
D) Feudalism

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Class systems differ from other systems of stratification in that class systems

A) are the most ascribed of all the systems
B) permit the least amount of social mobility
C) permit the greatest amount of social mobility
D) are the least achieved of all the systems

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The most open form of stratification is a

A) class system
B) caste system
C) ascribed system
D) estate system

Question 5

In a feudal system, advancement was possible through

A) hard work
B) education
C) entering a convent or monastery
D) seeking employment with a different master

Question 6

Class is based primarily on people's

A) Fixed assignment at birth
B) Relationship to an estate or lord
C) Intelligence and hard work
D) Economic position

Question 7

_________ reflects the idea that people are ranked by many interrelated factors, economic, social, political, cultural, and community.

A) Social class
B) Stratification
C) Prestige
D) Socioeconomic status

Question 8

Marx predicted that

A) the feudal system would be replaced by capitalism
B) the industrial revolution represented a classless society
C) the bourgeoisie would eventually rebel and overthrow the caste system
D) the proletariat would rebel and overthrow capitalism

Question 9

Regarding stratification, Karl Marx would assert that it

A) is necessary and positive
B) is necessary and creates interdependence
C) is a hallmark of class integration
D) benefits those at the top, at the expense of those at the bottom

Question 10

Class in the U.S. persists from generation to generation

A) Despite many people not believing that it exists.
B) Because most people want to have a class system.
C) Although the upper classes try to eliminate it.
D) Because it benefits the lower and working classes.

Question 11

Allison owns a factory where others work for her. Allison exemplifies

A) The bourgeoisie
B) The proletariat
C) A feudal lord
D) An ascribed status

Question 12

The system of structured social inequality and mobility in a society is called

A) capitalism
B) social stratification
C) communism
D) socialism

Question 13

Karl Marx argued that human survival depends on

A) Producing things
B) A capitalist system
C) The industrial revolution
D) a socialist or communist system

Question 14

A system in which those who are the most deserving will rise to the top and the rest will sink to the bottom is called

A) An estate system
B) A meritocracy
C) Capitalism
D) A feudal system

Question 15

Weber noted three dimensions to social class:

A) class, status, and party
B) education, income, and occupation
C) class, prestige, and status
D) wealth, income, and ownership

Question 16

According to sociologists, the single best indicator of people's "life chances" is

A) How hard they work
B) Luck
C) Their intelligence
D) Social class

Question 17

In which of these systems are people ranked according to achieved (rather than ascribed) status?

A) Feudal
B) Class
C) Caste
D) Stratification

Question 18

In a __________ system, there were a few merchants and "free men," but most of the population consisted of peasants and serfs who worked on estates belonging to a small group of lords.

A) Class
B) Caste
C) meritocratic
D) feudal

Question 19

In Weber's theory, the concept of class position relates

A) Primarily to the life-style that people choose.
B) To social prestige; what others think of people.
C) To what people do for a living, what they earn, and their wealth.
D) The control people have over their work situation and other dimensions of their lives.

Question 20

Which of these systems are fixed and permanent, with people's social position determined at birth and unchangeable?

A) Feudal and caste
B) Feudal and class
C) Caste and socialist
D) Capitalist and meritocracy

Question 21

People living in relative poverty

A) lack basic necessities such as food and shelter, and cannot sustain their lives
B) can't afford the basic necessities of life, but can still maintain an adequate standard of living
C) can afford the basic necessities of life, but still can't maintain an adequate standard of living
D) have less than their neighbors, but are not below the official poverty figures

Question 22

Your text's examples of housing (short-term rentals), food (take-out), furniture (renting), and money (check-cashing services) illustrate which of these?

A) It costs more to be poor
B) People in urban areas spend more than people in rural areas
C) There are many services available to the middle class
D) There are many low cost services available to lower income people

Question 23

Life chances refer to

A) The randomness of people's position in the social hierarchy
B) People's ability to access the material and social resources that correspond to quality of life.
C) The likelihood of obtaining an ascribed rather than achieved status in a society with an open stratification system
D) The chance of being born into any particular socio-cultural system

Question 24

Sociologists believe that Hurricane Katrina rescue and cleanup efforts exposed

A) persistent class inequalities in the United States
B) the importance of upward mobility to Americans
C) the charitable nature of lower class Americans
D) apparent class warfare in the United States

Question 25

The superrich

A) Tend to shop at designer stores such as Hollister and American Eagle.
B) Consist of professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and college presidents.
C) Are mostly invisible to the rest of us
D) Typically have net worth of $150,000 or above

Question 26

The poverty line tends to __________ the minimum income necessary to not be poor.

A) Substantially overestimate
B) Somewhat overestimate
C) Estimate fairly accurately
D) Underestimate

Question 27

About what proportion of the world's population live in absolute poverty?

A) Half
B) About a quarter
C) About fifteen to twenty percent
D) Less than ten percent

Question 28

Joe did not complete high school, delivers pizza, and cannot afford his own house. Joe is a member of which class?

A) Underclass
B) Lower class
C) Working class
D) Lower middle class

Question 29

In the U.S., the income gap between the rich and poor

A) Is similar to that in European countries
B) Is less than that in most of the world
C) Is shrinking
D) Is widening

Question 30

Which of the following is correct about the poor in America?

A) Most ethnic minorities are poor.
B) The elderly are more likely to be poor than any other group of Americans.
C) Children and women are more likely to be poor than men.
D) Very few poor people are working full-time.

Question 31

Most people in the United States think that they are _________ class.

A) Lower
B) Working
C) Middle
D) Upper

Question 32

The most active in community and civic organizations tend to be from which class(es)?

A) Upper upper and lower upper
B) Middle middle and lower middle
C) Working and lower
D) Middle middle and upper middle

Question 33

People in __________ do not have the ability to sustain their lives and lack basic necessities such as food and water.

A) Relative Poverty
B) The lower class
C) Absolute poverty
D) The TANF, AFDC, and WIC programs

Question 34

The United States is increasingly a nation of

A) rich and poor
B) middle class
C) meritocracy
D) theocracy

Question 35

How is the poverty line calculated?

A) two-thirds of the minimum wage for a full-time worker.
B) the cost of a minimaly nutritional diet times three
C) one-third of the U.S. median income
D) the previous year's poverty rate adjusted for inflation and change in the cost-of-living

Question 36

Compared to most other industrialized nations, __________ American children live in poverty.

A) Far fewer
B) somewhat fewer
C) about the same proportion of
D) more

Question 37

According to sociologist Annette Laureau's 2003 research on third graders,

A) wealthier parents were more involved than poorer parents in their children's lives.
B) Wealthier parents did not have as much time as poorer parents to be involved in their children's lives.
C) Third graders from poorer families were involved with many structured activities
D) Third graders from wealthier families were better at figuring out what to do with themselves without formal structure

Question 38

The "dream line" includes

A) Food (a minimal nutritionally adequate diet), basic housing, and clothing
B) A job, decent rental apartment, and food
C) Owning a house, high quality child care, health coverage, and savings for college
D) health care, transportation, retirement, and savings to meet emergencies

Question 39

The poverty line refers to

A) The line of people outside of places that provide aid to the poor, such as churches, food pantries, or used-clothing give-aways.
B) The percent of poor people in the world.
C) The percent of poor people in a country.
D) The amount of income below which you would be considered poor.

Question 40

Regarding class, race, and ethnicity.

A) African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are under-represented among the poor
B) There are few whites among the poor
C) African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are over-represented among the poor
D) Poverty, race, and ethnicity are not related

Question 41

The most modern form of stratification is the __________ system.

Question 42

State-centered theories argue that

A) Poverty in countries is largely due to cultural failings of their people.
B) Government should stay out of economic development.
C) Government policies play a key role in economic development.
D) The disparity between wealthy and poor countries is largely a result of economic exploitation.

Question 43

According to sociologists, the best single indicator of people's life chances is __________.

Question 44

What type of mobility was particularly apparent in the post-World War II economic boom?

A) Downward mobility
B) Intragenerational mobility
C) Structural mobility
D) Intergenerational mobility

Question 45

The focus of Dependency theory is

A) The exploitation of poor countries by wealthy ones
B) That governments should stay out of economic development
C) Poverty is largely the result of the dependency of people on government programs
D) Cultural failings of individuals lead to global poverty

Question 46

High income countries are home to 17 percent of the world's population, and have

A) less than 17 percent of the world's income
B) about 17-20 percent of the world's income
C) about a third of the world's income
D) more than half of the world's income

Question 47

Blau and Duncan studied the change (or lack thereof) in social class positions of fathers and sons, which is referred to as

A) Intergenerational mobility
B) Structural mobility
C) Paternal mobility
D) Intragenerational mobility

Question 48

Global inequality refers to

A) Cultural differences within each of the world's countries
B) Cultural differences among the world's countries
C) Differences in wealth and power among the world's countries
D) Differences in wealth and power within each of the world's countries

Question 49

In a __________ system, lords housed and fed the serfs who worked on their estates

Question 50

Sociologists see wealth and poverty as

A) Determined mostly by people's attributes such as ambition or the lack of ambition
B) Structural features of modern societies, rather than individual attributes
C) Mostly random, unrelated to people's individual or social circumstances
D) Able to be changed by the choices people make during their life course

Question 51

The differences between the "haves" and "have-nots" in our world

A) Are greater than ever
B) Are moderate but going down somewhat
C) Are going down substantially, toward equality
D) Are lower than ever

Question 52

The concept of social __________ is similar to the geological concept of a mountain made up of layered rock.

Question 53

In societies where social mobility is possible,

A) Social mobility is determined by people's drive to succeed.
B) Mobility is fairly common at all levels of society.
C) Most people remain at the same social location throughout their lives.
D) Mobility is most common for those in the lowest classes.

Question 54

What has been a significant factor in the declining numbers of the world's poor?

A) Growth in Latin America
B) Better nutrition and health care in Africa
C) Fewer poor people in China
D) Lack of a major world war

Question 55

Americans spend $13 billion annually on pet food and $12 billion on cosmetics, and Europeans spend $11 billion on ice cream. Your text points out that each of these, separately,

A) yields sufficient tax dollars to run numerous U.S. school districts
B) would be enough to "bail out" struggling sectors of our economy or large corporations facing bankruptcy
C) could provide worldwide services such as health care and nutrition, water and sanitation, or education.
D) requires so many resources to produce and creates so much waste, that they are great contributors to global warming and other environmental problems.

Question 56

Which best describes the culture of poverty?

A) Even though people have a strong work ethic they are unable to get ahead.
B) The poor don't want to work.
C) People are socialized from one generation to the next into believing they have nothing to strive for.
D) Poverty is mostly a result of individual inadequacies.

Question 57

Chris was born to a poor family in a rural area, but recently completed an MBA at Harvard University. Chris has experienced

A) Ascribed status
B) Equality of action
C) The social ascription system
D) Social mobility

Question 58

On a global scale, the trend is

A) For all societies to have an upward mobility
B) for all societies to experience downward mobility
C) social stagnation, due to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Africa
D) the rich countries are getting richer and the poorer countries are getting poorer

Question 59

In comparison to the income gap between the rich and poor in the United States, the worldwide pattern

A) is similar
B) is greater
C) is somewhat smaller
D) is much smaller

Question 60

Compared to other systems of stratification, class systems are the most likely to permit the ability to move up or down, i.e., __________,

Question 61

People living in __________ can afford the basic necessities of life, but can not maintain an adequate standard of living.

Question 62

In the United States' stratification system, people's ascribed and achieved class are far more likely to be the same than different.

Question 63

Blau and Duncan's classic research about intergenerational mobility left out much of the adult working population, focusing on data from __________ and __________.

Question 64

Women compose an increasing number of poor people, which is referred to as the __________ of poverty.

Question 65

In almost all societies, people's social position is a matter of birth, passed on from parents to children, from generation to generation.

Question 66

At the top of the American class structure we find the __________.

Question 67

The poverty __________ tends to underestimate the minimum income necessary to not be poor.

Question 68

_________ income countries are primarily agricultural with only a few industries and virtually no access to the Information Revolution.

Question 69

Ranking of people occurs almost exclusively in capitalist societies

Question 70

According to Marx, the _________ owned the means of production, while the __________ were the wage laborers or working class.

Question 71

In Max Weber's theory of social class, __________ refers to what people think of you, i.e. other people's social evaluation of your lifestyle.

Question 72

In the U.S., the elderly have a far lower poverty rate than they did a generation ago.

Question 73

_________ reflects the idea that people are ranked by many interrelated factors, economic, social, political, cultural, and community.

Question 74

Dependency theory focuses on the unequal relationship between wealthy and poor countries, arguing that poverty is the result of __________ of the poor by the wealthy.

Question 75

In the United States, most Blacks are poor.

Question 76

The __________ refers to the amount of income below which people are considered poor.

Question 77

__________ mobility refers to the change in social class position that takes place between generations (e.g. parent to child).

Question 78

__________ theory emphasizes global commodity chains - worldwide networks of labor and production processes - and notes that the most profitable activities are done in core countries while the least profitable activities are done in peripheral countries.

Question 79

Modernization theory, which argues that poverty in countries is largely due to cultural failings of their people, is criticized by sociologists as __________ because it uses the United States as the "model" country.

Question 80

Joe has experienced upward __________ mobility by moving up from a nurse's aid to a CRNP - certified registered nurse practitioner - during his career.