SOC 101 Study Guide: Test 3

1. Employ Lareau’s framework to characterize the different parenting styles of middle-

and working-class parents. Use specific examples from the reading to describe the
advantages/disadvantages of each parenting approach. Given our discussions about
changing family budgets and parenting expectations, what are the broader implications of
these family influences for inequality and mobility in society?
 Concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth
o Concerted cultivation  middle class
 Care about children’s development
 Frequent discussions/negotiations
 Structured activities  increase cultural capital
 Feelings of entitlement
 Many skills for negotiating institutions
 Larger vocabulary, more comfortable talking with adults, more familiarity
with abstract concepts, shake others’ hands and have eye contact
 Greater probability for employment
 Learned skills are more useful for well-paying jobs
 Comfort with authority and expectation of challenge
 Children rewarded for creativity and initiative
 Parents active in child’s schooling
o Natural growth  working class
 Care about children’s development
 Commands  directives rather than reasoning
 Rewarded for punctuality and obedience
 Unstructured time
 Family doesn’t have the money to place them in expensive
structured activities  less cultural capital
 Feelings of restraint
 Few skills for negotiating institutions
 Clear boundaries between adults and children
 Less eye contact
 More autonomy from adults
 Parents emphasize external standards
 Greater emphasis now on intellectual development
 Achievement gap has grown by 40% in the last 25 years
o Increasing SES differences in the amount of money spent on enrichment activities
 Raising of America
o Foundations for achievement should be laid out earlier in life
o 3rd grade reading level  good indicator of high school graduation  based on
early enrichment
 Middle class kids would have the advantage
o Parental stress affects children  cumulative burden
 Affects memory, learning, etc.  at an even greater disadvantage
o Increasing budgets: cost of housing 2x, medical care 4x, education 8x
  Hard to leave SES of parents
 Perpetuates inequalities and makes it more difficult to overcome obstacles related to
finances and qualifications
 Kohn’s thesis for the intergenerational reproduction of inequality
o Parents’ occupational experiences  parents’ values  children’s characteristics
o Working class: rewarded for punctuality and obedience  emphasize external
standards  prepared for working class jobs
 Limited skill set to leave SES
o Middle class: rewarded for creativity and initiative  emphasize internal
standards  prepared for similar jobs, school, and teachers’ expectations
 Can lead to receiving higher education
 Higher pay
 More skills
 Well-being
o Higher life expectancy seen in middle class
o Increased satisfaction with life seen with increased income  not having to worry
about providing for family and the stress associated with meting financial needs
 Opportunities based on parenting style
o Resources available teach culturally valued knowledge
o Where you live
o Cultural capital
o Who you marry may be related to education level, related to parents’ SES

ESSAY 1 OUTLINE
 Opportunities related to parenting style; overall well-being
 Concerted cultivation vs. natural growth
 Shift towards emphasizing intellectual development
 Achievement gap has grown 40% in last 25 years
o Raising of America
o Middle class has the advantage
 Kohn’s thesis
 Inequality and struggle for mobility perpetuated  even increasing
2. Describe the current status of the gender wage gap in the U.S. Using examples from
readings and lecture, be sure to discuss the following in your essay: a) How would a
conflict theorist vs. a functionalist explain the gap? b) Discuss at least three distinct
moments in the life course that might explain the emergence of the gap? c) What kinds of
social policies/programs might help promote a more egalitarian wage structure?
 A – wage gap
o Women make about 80% of what a man makes  about 21 cents per dollar
o Functionalist
 Efficiency of roles
 Males  instrumental needs: provider, protector, leader
 Females  expressive needs: childcare, emotional needs of
family, maintain connection with others
 Men work more and have more training
o Conflict
 “Caring” work goes unpaid or poorly paid
 Men no longer have more training/education
 Gender roles are exploitive  ideology supported by those in power
 Gender roles change as a result of conflict between groups
o More females than males are getting a bachelor’s degree
o Epstein article
 Occupational ghettos
 Women’s roles are socially prescribed to them  caretaker; self-fulfilling
prophecy
 Women’s denigration reinforces male bonds/supremacy
 Men and women are actually more similar than they are different
 Cumulative process across the life course
 Basis for subordination is socially constructed
o Glass ceiling  women are stopped at this ceiling when it comes to promotions
o Glass escalator  men have advantage/smoother process
o Gender is a social construct
 B – life course and emergence of wage gap
o Moments in the life course
 Socialization to certain skills and preferences
 Occupational steering
 College major
 Decision to limit career
 Family plans
 Limited options
 Family duties  2nd shift
 Discrimination in hiring, pay, and promotions
o BIRTH  colors of items given, toys allowed to play with, clothes
 Gender socialization begins at birth
 Bonner infant experiment
o YOUTH
 Girls begin showing less interest in science and math 
 underrepresentation in STEM later in life
 Boys encouraged to play sports and play with more “powerful” toys
 “Barbie Girls vs. Sea Monster”  gender socialization
o ADULTHOOD
 College major choice, career choice, family structure
 Limiting career by choosing to have a family, stop education
sooner  make less money without higher degree or more skills
 Family duties of taking care of home and kids  usually unpaid
 Occupational steering  steering towards jobs that aren’t necessarily
easier, are considered more feminine, jobs men don’t want to do
 Housekeepers and maids  usually women
 Just saw an article published on the “top 10 colleges to find your husband
and get your MRS degree”
 C – social policies/programs
o Paid maternity leave
o Equal pay for equal qualifications
o Increase affordability of child care/preschool
o Name blindness on reading applications for jobs/schools
3. First, explain the difference between biological sex and gender. Then, draw on specific
examples from the article “Barbie Girls Versus Sea Monsters: Children Constructing
Gender,” to describe the social construction of gender at interactional, structural, and
cultural levels. How persuasive is this article in explaining why males and females might
behave differently? How does it compare with the biological view of gender?
 Sex – biological categories of male / female
 Gender – expected behaviors associated with sex
 Sexual Selection Theory
o Male investment is greater than females
o Males usually court the females because their investment in reproduction varies
o Small sex differences become larger over time  sexual dimorphism
 Barbie Girls vs. Sea Monsters
 Interactional level  parent-parent; kid-kid; boys-girls
 Structural level  division of labor; sex segregation
o Gendered adult roles
 Majority of head and assistant coaches were men
 Women tended to be the team managers but often called “team mom”;
they do the baking
 Relates to the idea that men are “better” at sports and understand sports
better than women
o Segregated teams  only time they really came together was the opening
ceremony
 Cultural level  colors; names; Barbie
o Boy teams almost always had “power” names, while the girls teams usually had
sweet/neutral
o Boys teams were never given pink  usually blue or green
 Girls can be aggressive (“boy colors” or “power name”)
 Boys are discouraged from being Barbies or wearing pink
 Gender progressive ideas only go one way  promote masculine traits
 How persuasive is this article in explaining why males and females might behave
differently? How does it compare with the biological view of gender?
o Cumulative process of life course
 Boys teased at young age if they like “girl toys”
 Children teased if they deviated from expected gender norms
 Bonner experiment
o Basis for subordination is socially constructed
o Gender salience changes with different situations
 Men and women are more similar than different
 Men often become more nurturing when they become a parent or have a
little sister
o Reinforces the idea that gender cannot be fully from a biological view  it’s a
social construct that perpetuates from continued reinforcement
o Gender didn’t appear strongly in sex segregated contexts until after the two
segregated groups were brought together for the opening ceremony
o Children performing through expected roles that are reinforced
o Sexual selection theory  biological view of gender
 Females choose
 Sexual dimorphism
 Major strength  explains what humans want in a mate
 Weakness  doesn’t explain those who take on genders that differ from
the behaviors associated with their biological sex
o Gender essentialism – idea that men and women are intrinsically different
o Biological determinism – social behavior is determined by biological
characteristics
 Females feminine because of 2X
o Nature shapes biological sex but does not determine how gender roles develop
o Gender is a social construct
4. Draw on the film Race: The Power of an Illusion to critique the genetic basis for racial
categories. Use information from the film and lecture to describe the various historical and
contemporary methods used for determining someone’s racial status. In addition, discuss
legal cases that have had important implications for race in America.
 Race – a category of people sharing physical characteristics that others consider
important
 Race isn’t based on genetics  we’d all be one race if so
 No genetic implication for race  no one gene that all people in a set race share that
people of other race do not have
o No known biological characteristics for race
 Race is a social construct
 Late 19th century  Hoffman publication
o African Americans had higher death rate  used this to claim that they were
inferior and were eventually going to die out
 Eugenicists wanted white purity  said Wind Tribe was the worst because they were
white, Indian, and black
 Aggasiz  humans under one creation, but different races = different species
 Morton  slavery justification based on skull size and capacity  of course, he said
whites had the largest brain
 These arguments served to justify slavery based on the “inferiority” of blacks
o Declaration of independence didn’t apply to blacks since they were “scientifically
different”
 Historical ways to classify race
o “One drop rule”
o 1/32 rule
 States had different definitions for race  cross state lines and be
considered a “different race”
o Majority  51%
o Self-definition
o Community definition
 Census definitions over time
o 1790  free white male/female, other persons, slave
o 19th century  B-black, M-mulatto, quadroons/octoroons
o After 1920  no more black gradation
o 2000  allowed to select more than one race, but only 2% do so
o 2010  Hispanic is no longer a race
 Brazil uses a spectrum of over 100 colors to categorize race
o Brazilians would say Americans over-count blacks
o Americans would say Brazilians over-count whites
 Legal cases
o Ozawa – 1922
 Japanese  petitioned for citizenship and said that is shouldn’t be based
on skin tone; he said what mattered was a person’s beliefs
 Said he was an American at heart
  Court said Ozawa was not white and that according to science he was
Mongolian  could not be a citizen
o Thind – 1923
 U.S. army veteran; South Asian immigrant  petitioned for citizenship
saying that Indians were of the Caucasian race
 Made a scientific argument that Ozawa lacked
 Court said science didn’t matter and that Thind was not white 
whiteness is an “understood belief” that can be determined by the
common man
o Phipps vs. Louisiana – 1983
 Susie Phipps disputed birth certificate saying she was “colored”
 LA defined someone as black by 1/32  she was 3/32
 1983  LA repealed its law on racial classification
5. Discuss the intersection of racial/ethnic and social-class inequalities when it comes to
neighborhoods and housing. What are some of the historical causes of these inequalities?
Finally, what are the implications of these disparities for the intergenerational
transmission of advantage? Draw on course readings and assignments to support your
narrative.
 Began in WWII when GIs returned from war
 FHA  mortgage loans to allow Americans to buy homes
o Levittown
o Home owners usually unwilling to sell to blacks (veteran examples)
 Became a widespread issue
 FHA warned that non-white families would cause property/neighborhood
value to decrease
o 1930s  national appraisal system institutionalized  equal factors of finances
and race  red-lining
 Racial redlining
o RR = a critical form of community disinvestment that occurs when resources (e.g.
home mortgages, insurance, home improvement loans) are made unavailable to
residents because of the high proportion of ethnic or racial minorities living in
their neighborhood, regardless of objective socioeconomic characteristics.
o Communities that were all white, suburban, and away from minorities has the
highest ratings
o Communities with minorities had the lowest rating and were said to be “high-
risk”
o Whites buying houses at double/triple value with high interest rates  difficult to
build equity
o Detroit wall  build to help with the increasing costs of the “better”
neighborhoods by separating them from the minorities; allowed mortgages to get
approved
 Power of an Illusion
o Blacks left out of the housing market  forced into cramped quarters and bad
neighborhoods  “vertical ghettos” in central cities concentrated poor people
in one area
 Urban renewal  failed  90% of destroyed homes were not rebuilt 
displaced more minorities
 Still evident today  racial dot map
o Fair Housing Act
 Block busting  lead to whites selling their home for less than property
value because of racial fears
 Those houses were sold to non-whites at inflated prices
 Racial dot map
o Blacks left out of the housing market
o Inequalities persist still today
o Drastic segregation  especially in larger cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and New
York
o Whites on the outskirts in the suburbs  reflects repercussions from earlier
 policies
o Minorities on inner cities
 Home equity/property  how families accumulate wealth
o Homes are lower in value  less wealth to pass on to kids
o Whites have advantage  houses accumulating value
o Even with same income  white have 2x as much wealth as blacks (POI)
o White households are worth about 20x as much as black households
 Great Wall of Greenville – separates Cleveland Forest from poverty in Nicholtown
 Shapiro
o Racial wealth gap has almost tripled
o Intergenerational wealth
 Creates an increasing wealth gap among races  the rich get richer
o 1% holds 40% of wealth
o 25% of African Americans are poor
o Lowest percentage relative to their own race  whites (8%)
o Wealth gap increasing leads to increased white advantage (POI)
 Relative poverty  lack of income compared to the average standard of living
o Excludes the poor from opportunities in mobility
6. In American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, Lisa Wade confronts a classic
sociological topic – “where does culture come from and how does it influence our
behavior?” In your response, address the following prompts as you draw on examples
from the text: a) How can individuals be influenced by a culture that they don’t necessarily
participate in? b) What is one main example of how Wade uses the ‘sociological
imagination’ to explain some feature or ‘Hookup Culture’? c) What is an example of a
contradiction inherent in Hookup Culture and how exactly does Wade offer a sociological
explanation on the matter?
 Hookup culture demands carelessness, rewards callousness, and punishes kindness
 Reinforces male dominance

a. Sociology — approach to understanding human society

b. Culture — recurring patterns of behavior
c. Agency — one’s independent capability to act on one’s will; “freedom” is only
possible because of society
d. Structuration — the two-way process by which we (re)shape our social world
through our individuals actions and which we are (re)shaped by society
e. Influence of hookup culture
i. Creates this idea that everyone around you is participating, so you should
be too. In reality, a lot fewer people are hooking up than everyone thinks.
(Millenials are more like the baby boomers than Gen X).
ii.
f. Sociological Imagination and HC
i. Enthusiasts
1. Readily embrace hookup culture
2. These people often were not raised with strict sexual morals or
were ready to rebel against these beliefs
3. Society promotes the idea of hookups 24/7 and they often try to
hookup as often as possible and do so many times a week
ii. Reinforcing male dominance
1. Masculinity promoted  don’t be emotional  weak
2. Everything for male pleasure
3. Males have the control  determine worth of women
4. Historical explanation
iii. Going greek?
g. Contradictions
i. Hookups are “fun”
1. Can create lots of stress/anxiety
a. Places strain on people’s friendships
b. Instills self-doubt
c. Decreased self-esteem
2. People who aren’t “having fun” are depicted as “lame” and often
made fun of. These people also tend to feel left out or pressured
and can develop depression.
ii. Promotes “equality” for women  sexual liberation
 1. Men actually seem to have more power. Often at parties, the girls
wait for the guys to come up to them and “select” a dance partner,
which gives the situational control to the males
iii. “Freedom”
1. More scripted than they appear
2. There are “rules”  establish meaninglessness, don’t get attached,
“ghost” them/create emotional distancing
h. Sociological explanation
i. Historical analysis
1. Family farms  industrial revolution  WWII  1950s 
gender revolution TODAY
a. The industrial revolution created separated spheres and
distanced the equality of men and women
b. WWII – shortage of eligible men; work vs. caring; “labor
of love”
c. 1950s – breadwinner and homemaker
d. Stalled gender revolution
e. Society rewards masculine traits (NOT feminine)
f. Today — women “protesting” societal norms and
expectations  attempting to gain “freedom”; put
themselves/job first; can have sex without commitment 
thus, having fun.