Deck 28: Poverty and Social Mobility

Question 1

Employment that is poorly paid and,from the worker's perspective,insecure and unprotected is called

A)pink-collar work
B)white-collar work
C)hard work
D)precarious work

Answer 1

D

Question 2

An inner-city youth spends many hours in the neighborhood playground shooting baskets on the basketball court and engaging in every game that he can play.His skills become outstanding,and he receives a college scholarship and then signs a lucrative contract to play in the National Basketball Association.This is an example of

A)vertical mobility.
B)ascribed status.
C)horizontal mobility.
D)structural mobility.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following statements about the minimum wage in the U.S.is accurate?

A)Higher-income workers charge that minimum wage workers are often guilty of wage theft.
B)The purchasing power of the minimum wage tends to shrink over time.
C)Proponents of the minimum wage often refer to it as a "living wage" to make it sound more attractive.
D)Economists are in majority agreement that increases in the minimum wage tend to cause the economy to shed very large numbers of jobs.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Which of the following refers to a floating standard of deprivation by which people at the bottom of a society are judged to be disadvantaged in comparison to the nation as a whole?

A)absolute poverty
B)elementary poverty
C)relative poverty
D)dramatic poverty

Question 5

Which of the following is an example of absolute poverty?

A)A homeless man in tattered clothes begs in the streets for money and food.
B)A dual-career couple lives in a suburban community and struggles to pay their monthly bills.
C)A family owns only two luxury automobiles,although their friends and neighbors own three such vehicles.
D)None of these answers is correct.

Question 6

Students from lower-middle-class families are as likely to attend college as students from wealthy families,as long as they try hard.

Question 7

A woman who was born and raised in a poor family becomes a regional supervisor for the U.S.Postal Service.She has experienced

A)structural mobility.
B)horizontal mobility.
C)upward intergenerational mobility.
D)institutional mobility.

Question 8

By 2012,female householders accounted for 50 percent of the poor in the U.S.This alarming trend is referred to as

A)discriminating poverty.
B)elementary poverty.
C)the feminization of poverty.
D)dramatic poverty.

Question 9

Which sociologist has identified a number of social,economic,and political functions that the poor perform for society (e.g. ,poor people do society's dirty work at low cost;poverty creates jobs for those in occupations serving the poor;the existence of poor people guarantees the higher status of the more affluent)?

A)Herbert Gans
B)Émile Durkheim
C)Peter Blau
D)Daniel Rossides

Question 10

Which of the following refers to the movement of individuals or groups from one position of society's stratification system to another?

A)social mobility
B)life chances
C)relative poverty
D)social distribution

Question 11

A stratification system that implies that the position of each individual is influenced by the person's achieved status is referred to as a(n)

A)open stratification system.
B)closed stratification system.
C)egalitarian class system.
D)fractured class system.

Question 12

Which sociologist first made the distinction between vertical and horizontal mobility?

A)Ferdinand Tönnies
B)Émile Durkheim
C)Pitirim Sorokin
D)Wilbert Moore

Question 13

Which sociological perspective suggests that the higher rates of poverty among single mothers are due to the difficulty women have finding affordable child care,to sexual harassment,and to sex discrimination in the labor market?

A)functionalist perspective
B)conflict perspective
C)interactionist perspective
D)global perspective

Question 14

The fact that an unemployed coal miner in Appalachia has a higher standard of living than a doctor in Congo illustrates the idea that

A)poverty is absolute.
B)poverty is relative.
C)being a doctor is not a high-prestige occupation in all countries.
D)Americans are ethnocentric.

Question 15

Research concerning the degree of social mobility within the occupational structure of the U.S.indicates that

A)occupational mobility has been common among males.
B)much of the social mobility in the U.S.covers a very "great distance."
C)occupational mobility among African Americans is no longer sharply limited by racial discrimination.
D)All of these answers are correct.

Question 16

Which sociological perspective would be most likely to emphasize that a person's health and educational opportunities are affected by his or her class position in important ways?

A)functionalist perspective
B)conflict perspective
C)interactionist perspective
D)global perspective

Question 17

A family lives in a remote area of Appalachia,where coal mines that once employed many workers have been idle for years.There are no jobs in the area,the distant schools are poorly funded,and because of the remote location,there are no churches or medical facilities nearby.These poor,chronically unemployed people who barely survive from winter to winter are an example of

A)the underclass.
B)structural mobility.
C)an estate.
D)false consciousness.

Question 18

Some analysts suggest that inner-city riots have frequently occurred when poor people realize that their chances of climbing out of poverty are unlikely because of the structure of our social system.Their frustration is based on their perception that they are living in a(n)

A)open stratification system.
B)closed stratification system.
C)egalitarian class system.
D)fractured class system.

Question 19

The commonly used "poverty line" measure of poverty used by the federal government measures which type of poverty?

A)relative poverty
B)absolute poverty
C)elementary poverty
D)dramatic poverty

Question 20

Max Weber referred to people's opportunities to provide themselves with material goods,positive living conditions,and favorable experiences as

A)power.
B)wealth.
C)life chances.
D)status.

Question 21

Conflict theorists would argue that poverty is functional in the U.S.system.

Question 22

Describe the various issues surrounding the definition of poverty.Define the difference between absolute and relative poverty.

Question 23

Discuss the controversies surrounding the proposed increase in the minimum wage in the U.S.

Question 24

Men are more likely than women to withdraw from the workforce when their skills far exceed the jobs offered them.