Sociology

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Deviance, Crime , and Social Control 173

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The guiding principle of the revision was to build from the concept that students are not simply observers of the world, but are participants in it.

The text seeks to strike a balance between confronting the damaging aspects of our culture and history and celebrating those who have driven change and overcome challenges.

Their input has been critical in maintaining the pedagogical integrity and accuracy of the text.

The vast majority of them don’t know each other, but they share much in common as they move together.

In some stations, walking against the crowd can be a tedious, nearly impossible process.

It’s a way of seeing our own and other people’s behavior in relationship to history and social structure.

German sociologist Norbert Elias called the process of simultaneously analyzing the behavior of individuals and the society that shapes that behavior figuration.

Landlords would not rent to them. Ashley, who is a highly trained professional, had a great deal of difficulty finding a new job.

If any social patterns challenged any belief of the Church, those practitioners were massacred, burned at the stake, or labeled heretics.

Comte also believed in the potential of social scientists to work toward the betterment of society.

Martineau found the workings of capitalism at odds with the professed moral principles of people in the United States.

He also believed that through such studies it would be possible to determine if a society was “healthy” or “pathological.”

In seeking verstehen, outside observers of a social world—an entire culture or a small setting—attempt to understand it from an insider’s point of view.

These new, comprehensive research methods stood in stark contrast to the less scientific practices of the time, which Du Bois critiqued as being similar to doing research as if through the window of a moving car.

Calling this idea ‘the looking-glass self,’ Cooley argued that we ‘see’ ourselves by the reactions of others with whom we interact.

The ones with the most toys wins and they will change the rules to the games to keep winning.

He argued that just as the various organs of the body work together to keep the body functioning, the various parts of society work together to keep society functioning.

Some explore the dynamics involved in the social interactions of global online communities, such as when members feel a closer kinship to other group members than to people residing in their own countries.

The perpetuation of power results in the perpetuation of oppression.

A conflict theorist might be interested in the power differentials present in the regulation of food, by exploring where people’s right to information intersects with corporations’ drive for profit and how the government mediates those interests.

Goffman used theater as an analogy for social interaction and recognized that people’s interactions showed patterns of cultural “scripts.”

The women’s movement and the Civil Rights movement forced academics to develop approaches to study these emerging social practices.

When asked to choose the doll that looked like them, many children left the room, started to cry, and/or became depressed.

This is the point at which one begins to sense the excitement of sociology.

Even thought the student had removed them within a few days, the posts lived on in other forums and on a few friends’ pages; there was also the possibility that someone had screen-grabbed them.

reification an error of treating an abstract concept as though it has a real, material existence

Some of the earliest sociologists thought that societies and individuals’ roles in society could be studied using the same scientific methodologies that were used in the natural sciences, while others believed that is was impossible to predict human behavior scientifically.

Berger writes that sociology makes the familiar strange.

Ibn Khaldun: 14th Century Sage.

Morris, A. (2015). The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology.

Our observations about social situations often incorporate biases based on our own views and limited data.

When sociologists apply the sociological perspective and begin to ask questions, no topic is off limits.

Sociologists often look between the cracks to discover obstacles to meeting basic human needs.

“Are societies capable of sustained happiness?” would be too vague.

A sociologist might predict that increasing a child’s sense of self-esteem (the independent variable) will increase or improve habits of hygiene (now the dependent variable).

Sociologists analyze general patterns in response to a study, but they are equally interested in exceptions to patterns.

A researcher wouldn’t stroll into a crime-ridden neighborhood at midnight, calling out, “Any gang members around?”

While surveys are not great at capturing the ways people really behave in social situations, they are a great method for discovering how people feel, think, and act—or at least how they say they feel, think, and act.

The researcher will also benefit from gaining a subject’s trust, from empathizing or commiserating with a subject, and from listening without judgment.

In field work, the sociologists, rather than the subjects, are the ones out of their element.

Every day for two weeks, he pretended to work there. His main purpose was simply to see whether anyone would notice him or challenge his presence. No one did.

She witnessed firsthand the treatment of working class employees. She saw the extreme measures people take to make ends meet and to survive.

Historically, social science research tended to objectify women and ignore their experiences except as viewed from the male perspective.

The Rockefeller Foundation, which had commissioned the book, claimed it was useless and refused to publish it.

Five years later, a neighbor called authorities and reported seeing a girl who ran on all fours, barking.

This is called the Hawthorne effect—which occurs when people change their behavior because they know they are being watched as part of a study.

The first arrest, for an incorrect lane change, was made two hours after the experiment began.

One of the advantages of secondary data like old movies or WHO statistics is that it is nonreactive research (or unobtrusive research), meaning that it does not involve direct contact with subjects and will not alter or influence people’s behaviors.

Investigators are ethically obligated to report results, even when they contradict personal views, predicted outcomes, or widely accepted beliefs.

The participants were told they were diagnosed with a disease of 'bad blood.'

Hawthorne effect when study subjects behave in a certain manner due to their awareness of being observed by a researcher

The information gathered may in itself be surprising, and the study design should provide a solid framework in which to analyze predicted and unpredicted data.

They must report findings accurately, even if they contradict personal values and convictions.

Which statement illustrates value neutrality?

Do you think that, in the name of sociology, some researchers might be tempted to cross boundaries that threaten human rights?

Caplain , Arthur (2007). Bad blood: The Tuskegee syphilis experiment .

Even in other styles and other venues such as professional boxing or mixed martial arts, it is common to see opponents showing extreme courtesy and concern for each other despite the level of vitriol before a fight or the violence during it.

Consider what would happen if you stopped and informed everyone who asked 'Hi, how are you?' exactly how you were doing that day, and in detail.

Humor is common to all societies, but what makes something funny is not.

In Mumbai, India, passengers must squeeze into overstuffed cars amid a lot of pushing and shoving on the crowded platforms.

Humor seems to be a universal way to release tensions and create a sense of unity among people.

Additionally, since music is largely nonverbal, the sounds of music can cross societal boundaries more easily than words.

European colonizers often viewed the people in these new lands as uncultured savages who needed to adopt Catholic governance, Christianity, European dress, and other cultural practices.

He knew he would never hold his own against these experts; sure enough, he finished last, to his mortification.

An exchange student who goes home after a semester abroad or a sociologist who returns from the field may find it difficult to associate with the values of their own culture after having experienced what they deem a more upright or nobler way of living.

That night, Caitlin crawled into a strange bed, wishing she had not come.

Explain the Sapir -Whor f hypothesis

Values portray an ideal culture, the standards society would like to embrace and live up to. But ideal culture differs from real culture.

Simple gestures, such as hand-holding, carry great symbolic differences across cultures.

They don’t sit down at a table with strangers, sing loudly as they prepare their condiments, or nap in a booth.

The second player’s outrage, anger, puzzlement, or other emotion suggested that a cultural norms had been violated.

People need to act without thinking in order to get seamlessly through daily routines.

Together, the semaphore signals for “N” and “D” represent nuclear disarmament—and form the well-known peace sign.

The hypothesis suggests that language shapes thought and thus behavior.

German speakers described keys as hard, heavy, jagged, metal, serrated, and useful, while Spanish speakers used the adjectives, golden, intricate, little, lovely, shiny, and tiny.

While she was being driven to learn English, the dual-language option helped to ensure that she did not become lost and get behind in her learning of all subjects.

Five hundred years from now, will our descendants consider Dancing with the Stars as fine performance art?

Counterculture members are ‘against’ the dominant ruling culture and want to install their own values.

Material culture tends to diffuse more quickly than nonmaterial culture; technology can spread through society in a matter of months, but it can take generations for the ideas and beliefs of society to change.

Like a gas in a laboratory experiment, the item or idea spreads throughout.

Functionalists view society as a system in which all parts work—or function—together to create society as a whole. They often use the human body as an analogy.

When an episode of HBO’s Watchmen showcased the event in stunning and horrific detail, many people expressed surprise that it had occurred and it hadn’t been taught or discussed.

We may be restricted by the confines of our own culture, but as humans we have the ability to question values and make conscious decisions.

eustress good form of stress; low to moderate in intensity; associated with positive feelings, as well as optimal health and performance

Countercultures reject the dominant culture’s values and create their own cultural rules and norms.

The notion that people cannot feel or experience something that they do not have a word for can be explained by: Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

What theoretical perspective views society as having a system of interdependent inherently connected parts?

People who exhibit ethnocentrism in the workplace are not only putting their careers at risk, but missing opportunities to flourish and advance with colleagues and customers of different backgrounds.

Sumner, William G. 1906. Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals.

Inayah was running late, so she didn’t have time to record a full video. Instead she took a few pictures and posted a good-morning clip, updated her status on another platform, and went to check on the younger girls.

Societies with rudimentary technology depend on the fluctuations of their environments, while industrialized societies have more control over the impact of their surroundings.

Around the time that pastoral societies emerged, specialized occupations began to develop, and societies commenced trading with local groups.

Otherwise skeptical or hesitant villagers are more easily convinced of the value of the solar project when they realize that the “solar engineers” are their local grandmothers.

This is also the age in which people had the time and comfort to engage in more contemplative and thoughtful activities, such as music, poetry, and philosophy.

Life was changing quickly and the long-established traditions of the agricultural eras did not apply to life in the larger cities.

Digital technology is the steam engine of information societies, and computer moguls such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are its John D. Rockefellers and Cornelius Vanderbilts.

An act offends the common consciousness not because it is criminal, but it is criminal because it offends that consciousness.

Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other—Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

Instead of being able to take pride in an identity such as being a watchmaker, automobile builder, or chef, a person is simply a cog in the machine.

Instead of existing as a “class in itself,” the proletariat must become a “class for itself” in order to produce social change.

For Weber, the culmination of industrialization, rationalization, and the like results in what he referred to as the iron cage, in which the individual is trapped by institutions and bureaucracy.

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

When there is a deadline at the office but a sick child needs to be picked up from school, which comes first?

In other words, people’s reactions to us are like a mirror in which we are reflected.

iron cage a situation in which an individual is trapped by social institutions

How we define society influences how society actually is.

Paco knows that women find him attractive, and he’s never found it hard to get a date. But as he ages, he dyes his hair to hide the gray and wears clothes that camouflage the weight he has put on.

Draw a large circle, and then “slice” the circle into pieces like a pie, labeling each piece with a role or status that you occupy.

"Your frantic messaging and over-the-top language was incredibly disruptive...almost irresponsible," Tracy said.

Decisiveness isn't good when it's disruptive.

However, Erikson believed the personality continued to change over time and was never truly finished.

Another way to think of the difference is that psychologists tend to look inward (mental health, emotional processes), while sociologists tend to look outward (social institutions, cultural norms, interactions with others) to understand human behavior.

From Mead’s point of view, she had no “self.”

At this stage, people also recognize that legality and morality do not always match up evenly.

We’re talking about kindergarteners who are concerned about their body image.

As we saw with Danielle, without socialization we literally have no self.

Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein sat together in awe, feeling like they were looking into a mirror.

He’d had to make his way alone, and no one—not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses—ever makes it alone.

How do we come to adopt the beliefs, values, and norms that represent its nonmaterial culture?

This means children are effectively socialized and raised to take the types of jobs their parents already have, thus reproducing the class system.

Peer groups are important to adolescents in a new w ay, as the y begin to develop an identity separate from their parents and exert indep endenc e.

Sociologists describe this aspect of schools as the hidden curriculum, the informal teaching done by schools.

Each chopped off one of his own fingers because of textbooks.

Each time we embark on one of these new categories—senior, adult, taxpayer—we must be socialized into our new role.

Another mother wondered what she did wrong when her three-year-old daughter refused to do 'nonprincessy' things, including running and jumping.

We aren’t “stamped” by some socialization machine as we move along a conveyor belt and thereby socialized once and for all.

In Denmark, for example numbers of students who take a "year out" are so high that the government has sought to give students cash bonuses for attending immediately.

The Long Road to Adulthood for Millennials

The traditional cycle seems to have gone off course, as young people remain untethered to romantic partners or to permanent homes, going back to school for lack of better options, traveling, avoiding commitments, competing ferociously for unpaid internships or temporary (and often grueling) Teach for America jobs, forestalling the beginning of adult life.

In a degradation ceremony, new members lose the aspects of their old identity and are given new identities.

In a degradation ceremony, new members of a total institution lose aspects of their old identities and are given new ones.

The Harlows’ study on rhesus monkeys showed that social comfort is more important than food.

Why are twin studies an important way to learn about the relative effects of genetics and socialization on children?

Many soldiers leave the military or return from war and have difficulty resocializing into civilian life.

South Koreans Sever Fingers in Anti-Japan Protest.

Tarana Burke, who originated the term “me too” in the context of supporting or acknowledging sexual harassment or assault victims, has spoken frequently on the evolution and issues regarding the Me Too movement.

Within a day of Milano’s post, the “Me Too” phrase or hashtag was used over 500,000 times on Twitter, and was used in over 12 million posts by 4.7 million people on Facebook.

This approach might look at how each group enabled the voicing of discontent and so stabilized society.

People who happen to be in the same place at the same time but who do not interact or share a sense of identity—such as a bunch of people standing in line at Starbucks—are considered an aggregate, or a crowd.

Despite the distance and the lack of physical contact, the group clearly fills an expressive need.

The feeling that we belong in an elite or select group is a heady one, while the feeling of not being allowed in, or of being in competition with a group, can be motivating in a different way.

Cyberbullying allows bullies to harass others from the privacy of their homes without witnessing the damage firsthand.

“Them?” a member might say. “They’re all right, but their parties are nowhere near as cool as ours.”

In a triad, however, the dynamic is quite different. If one person withdraws, the group lives on.

Women and men who exhibit the other-gender manner can be seen as deviants and can encounter resistance.

But when a female candidate, like Hillary Clinton, ranks low on feminine qualities, their likability is significantly impacted.

A high school boy whose mother makes him wear ironed button-down shirts might protest that everyone else wears T-shirts and he will look stupid.

Clearly, it was easier to be a minority of two than a minority of one.

The bystander effect suggests that unless you know the person who has fallen, you are more likely to walk away than help.

By ideal, sociologists don’t mean “best.” Rather, bureaucracies have a collection of characteristics that most of them exhibit.

But what about in a restaurant where food is backed up in the kitchen and a hostess is standing nearby texting on her phone?

Maybe you have heard the expression “trying to turn a tanker around mid-ocean,” which refers to the difficulties of changing direction with something large and set in its ways.

While McDonaldization has resulted in improved profits and an increased availability of various goods and services to more people worldwide, it has also reduced the variety of goods available in the marketplace while rendering available products uniform, generic, and bland.

In the book, Newman cites a pharmaceutical executive who says a fast-food service job on an applicant’s résumé is a plus because it indicates the employee is reliable and can handle pressure.

It is worth considering real-life examples of how conformity and obedience can lead people to ethically and morally suspect acts.

Increasingly, Main Streets across the country resemble each other; instead of a Bob’s Coffee Shop and Jane’s Hair Salon there is a Dunkin Donuts and a Supercuts.

What is a disadvantage of the McDonaldization of society?

As mentioned above, the concept of McDonaldization is a growing one.

Can Hillary Cry Her Way to the White House?

Tattoos, vegan lifestyles, single parenthood, breast implants, and even jogging were once considered deviant but are now widely accepted.

Deviance does not always align with punishment, and perceptions of its impact vary greatly.

A mechanic once refused to work on it, and stated that it was “a dead person machine.”

Newspapers and lawmakers spoke about the 'Marijuana Menace' and the 'evil weed,' and articles and images began to portray it as a corrupting force on America’s youth.

Although shoplifting, a form of social deviance, may be illegal, there are no laws dictating the proper way to scratch your nose.

“A crime is a crime because we condemn it,” he said (1893).

A person isn’t born as someone who will commit crimes but becomes one over time, often based on factors in their social environment.

In most cases, suspensions and fines levied by the NFL or individual teams were more severe than the justice system's.

In other words, the sentencing disparity was 1 to 100.

The person may begin to take on and fulfill the role of a “deviant” as an act of rebellion against the society that has labeled that individual as such.

This is taking the focus off of their actions and putting the onus on the accuser to, essentially, prove the person is living up to the label.

If ex-criminals are disenfranchised from voting, are they being disenfranchised from society?

According to Sutherland, deviance is less a personal choice and more a result of differential socialization processes.

Walking to class backward is a deviant behavior . Driving with a blood alcohol p ercenta ge over the s tate’s limit is a crime .

Although these types of offenses rarely receive the same amount of media coverage as street crimes, they can be far more damaging.

The discrepancy is due to many factors: very few people actually report hate crimes for fear of retribution or based on the difficulties of enduring a criminal proceeding; also, law enforcement agencies must find clear proof that a particular crime was motivated by bias rather than other factors.

Many researchers have found that people who closely follow media reports of crime are likely to estimate the crime rate as inaccurately high and more likely to feel fearful about the chances of experiencing crime.

No unified national police force exists in the United States, although there are federal law enforcement officers.

The total correctional population (including parolees and those on probation), peaked in 2007 at 7.3 million, resulting in approximately 1 in 32 people being under some sort of correctional supervision.

Practices like civil forfeiture, in which law enforcement or municipalities could seize cash and property of suspected criminals even before they were convicted, provided a significant financial incentive to investigate drug crimes.

Deviance is often relative, and perceptions of it can change quickly and unexpectedly.

Violating norms can open society’s eyes to injustice in the system.

Since deviance is culturally defined, most of the decisions we make are dependent on the reactions of others.

In the years since, conspiracy theorists have linked the secret society to numerous world events, arguing that many of the nation’s most powerful people are former Bonesmen.

Lott, John R. Jr. and Sonya D. Jones. 2008. “How Felons Who Vote Can Tip an Election.”

Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak: Public Unaware; Pace of Decline Slows in Past Decade.

Study: Despite Drop in Gun Crime, 56% Think It’s Worse.

Lorde indicated that the stress of continual updates, 'having front-row seats to the hellfire' necessitated a break.

But if your instructor simply responded with, “pencil and paper,” they’d still be accurately describing technology.

While it might seem that the Internet is the Internet, regardless of how you get there, there’s a notable difference.

While millions of students were confined to home and remote instruction, they were divided by their Internet access, their familiarity with computer hardware and software, and their ability to solve their own technology issues.

29% of cell owners describe their cell phone as 'something they can’t imagine living without.'

Research found elements of guilt and pressure to respond (called entrapment) in mobile-dependent relationships, which led to overall dissatisfaction.

Sometimes referred to as 'sharents,' they may share entertaining videos, promote products through demos or try-ons, or post professionally produced photos on behalf of clothing companies or equipment makers.

Supporters of net neutrality suggest that without such legal protections, the Internet could be divided into “fast” and “slow” lanes.

While the prospect of drafting messages or papers by thinking about them would certainly speed up our processes, opening our thoughts directly to a social media company might have larger implications.

Disruptive technology can create and destroy entire industries, sometimes in a rapid manner rather than in an evolutionary one.

Beyond the economic impact, these stores were often parts of the fabric of communities, places for fans to gather to explore and share music.

Sensationalism abounded, as did censorship that forbade any subjects that would incite the populace.

Even though people were in their own homes, media allowed them to share these moments in real time.

Like television, early films were unifying for society: as people gathered in theaters to watch new releases, they would laugh, cry, and be scared together.

Not too quickly, of course, or consumers wouldn't stand for it—but frequently enough that you might find that it costs far more to fix a device than to replace it with a newer model.

The marketing team is betting that if we buy perfume because Beyoncé tells us to, we’ll also choose our workout gear, clothing, or make-up brand if another student encourages that choice.

Digital tribalism, then, is the tendency to do so online, and also to forge new tribes purely based on online personas or ideologies.

China’s hugely innovative and powerful cities of Shanghai and Beijing are worlds away from the rural squalor of the country’s poorest denizens.

In 1983, a mere 50 corporations owned the bulk of mass-media outlets. Today in the United States just five companies control 90 percent of media outlets.

Either way, cultural and societal assumptions and norms are being delivered along with those high-speed wires.

But first, the government banned Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp in an effort to reduce coordination among protesters and restrain news about the crackdown.

While the diffusion of information technologies has the potential to resolve many global social problems, it is often the population most in need that is most affected by the digital divide.

Whether well intentioned or not, the vision of a continent of Africans successfully chatting on their iPhone may not be ideal.

For some, the ads during the Super Bowl are more water cooler-worthy than the game itself.

Some sociologists assert that this level of media exposure leads to narcotizing dysfunction, a result in which people are too overwhelmed with media input to really care about the issue, so their involvement becomes defined by awareness instead of by action.

In other words, the people in charge of the media decide what the public is exposed to, which, as C. Wright Mills (1956) famously noted, is the heart of media’s power.

The panoptic surveillance envisioned by Jeremy Bentham, depicted in the form of an all-powerful, all-seeing government by George Orwell in 1984, and later analyzed by Michel Foucault (1975) is increasingly realized in the form of technology used to monitor our every move.

For some, the people they watch on a screen can become a primary group, meaning the small informal groups of people who are closest to them.

New media allow consumers to bypass traditional advertising venues and cause companies to be more innovative and intrusive as they try to gain our attention.

Conflict theorists are more concerned with how technology reinforces inequalities among communities, both within and among countries.

A parent secretly monitoring the babysitter through the use of GPS, site blocker, and nanny cam is a good example of: panoptic surveillance.

Contrast a functionalist viewpoint of digital surveillance with a conflict perspective viewpoint.

Lorde Explains Why She Stepped Back from Social Media in 2018.

Apple, US States Reach $113 million settlement on iPhone throttling.

Don’t expect free stuff just because you have 2,000 Instagram followers.

Can China Control Social Media Revolution?

Virtual Virgins and Vamps: The Effects of Exposure to Female Characters’ Sexualized Appearance and Gaze in an Immersive Virtual Environment.

Jarrett kept his college enrollment a secret from his mother, his brothers, and his friends. He did not want others to know about it, in case he failed.

One day after telling her to start her homework, she was reluctant and said, 'You're not doing your homework anymore; I shouldn’t have to do mine.'

Typically, society’s layers, made of people, represent the uneven distribution of society’s resources.

No individual, rich or poor, can be blamed for social inequalities, but instead all participate in a system where some rise and others fall.

Caste systems promote beliefs in fate, destiny, and the will of a higher power, rather than promoting individual freedom as a value.

In a class system, low status consistency correlates with having more choices and opportunities.

Prince Harry, however, had been "His Royal Highness" since he was born; by nature of his ancestry he was entitled to vast sums of money, property, and cultural-political positions.

Members of the upper class not only have power and control over their own lives, but their social status gives them power and control over others’ lives.

The upper class is considered the top, and only the powerful elite get to see the view from there.

In addition, their grip on class status is more precarious than those in the upper tiers of the class system.

The real value of the federal minimum wage has dropped 17% since 2009 and 31% since 1968.

A factory worker could be a skilled French cook. A billionaire might dress in ripped jeans, and a low-income student might own designer shoes.

Pelé, perhaps the most transformative figure in soccer, learned the game while using a rag-stuffed sock for a ball.

The wealthiest one percent of the population holds one-third of our nation’s wealth while the bottom 50 percent of Americans hold only 2 percent.

This program began in the Great Depression, when unmarketable or surplus food was distributed to the hungry.

With such differences in global stratification, what constitutes poverty?

This model, however, is outdated because it lumps countries together that are quite different in terms of wealth, power, prestige, and economic stability.

Even within specific fields, layers are stratified, members are ranked, and inequality exists.

Without the incentive of higher pay, better benefits, and increased respect, why would someone be willing to rush into burning buildings?

Upper-class capitalists raked in profits and got rich, while working-class proletarians earned skimpy wages and struggled to survive.

A $17,000 car provides transportation as easily as a $100,000 vehicle, but the luxury car makes a social statement that the less expensive car can’t live up to.

A meritocracy is an ideal system of social stratification that confers standing based on solely on personal worth, rewarding effort.

They observe how social standing affects people’s everyday interactions and how the concept of “social class” is constructed and maintained through everyday interactions.

After work, Pat, a janitor, feels more comfortable eating in a truck stop than a French restaurant.

How do systems of class, based on factors such as prestige, power, income, and wealth, influence your own daily routines, as well as your beliefs and attitudes?

CEO Pay Up 298%, Average Worker's? 4.3% (1995-2005).

When some of the garment workers refused to enter the building, they were threatened with the loss of a month’s pay.

A nation with high income but low education will still have difficulty in overall opportunity.

For example, how many U.S. companies take advantage of overseas workers who lack the constitutional protection and guaranteed minimum wages that exist in the United States?

From culturally sanctioned rape to state-sanctioned executions, the abuses are serious.

Later, sociologist Manual Castells (1998) added the term fourth world to refer to stigmatized minority groups that were denied a political voice all over the globe.

Peripheral nations have very little industrialization; what they do have often represents the outdated castoffs of core nations or the factories and means of production owned by core nations.

Those opportunities lead to businesses closing the factories that provide jobs to the middle class within core nations and moving their industrial production to peripheral and semi-peripheral nations.

We have, as a country, outsourced ourselves out of jobs, and not just menial jobs, but white-collar work as well.

Once global markets have reduced the value of a country’s goods, it can be very difficult to ever manage the debt burden.

Poverty has a thousand faces and a thousand gradations; there is no single definition that pulls together every part of the spectrum.

But these tiny sums mark the difference between survival and extinction for the world’s poor.

In general, time is one of the few luxuries the very poor have, but study after study has shown that women in poverty, who are responsible for all family comforts as well as any earnings they can make, have less of it.

Unfortunately, these microfinance programs don't have a track record of alleviating poverty, and in some cases they can lead to negative outcomes such as trapping women in a cycle of debt, or increasing domestic violence.

The painful rebirth of a self-ruled Africa has meant many countries bear ongoing scars as they try to see their way towards the future.

For those living in insecure structures—often constructed from various leftover materials and not subject to any type of building codes—such events can leave entire swaths of the population homeless and vulnerable to disease or injury.

In order to keep up with demand and manufacture the clothing at the required cost, the factories may pay their employees less, force them to work longer hours, and may maintain unsafe conditions.

The poor often experience inadequate healthcare, limited education, and the inaccessibility of birth control.

In other words, companies want to see their partner countries healthy enough to provide work, but not so healthy as to establish a threat.

As a symbolic interactionist would do, Chang examines the daily lives and interactions of Min and Chunming—their workplace friendships, family relationships, gadgets and goods—in this evolving global space where young women can leave tradition behind and fashion their own futures.

Subjective poverty has more to do with one’s perception of one’s situation.

Once the workers are in debt, they have no choice but to continue working for the company, since their skills will not transfer to a new position.

Does it make sense that poverty is in the eye of the beholder?

Rana Plaza: A Look Back and Forward.

Nearly Nude Penn State Students Protest Sweatshop Labor.

The juxtaposition of anger and hope. Over a window broken during protests in Richmond, Virginia, the business owner placed a sign that reads 'Did You Know That You Matter.'

During the call, Zimmerman said in reference to suspicious people, "[expletive] punks. Those [expletive], they always get away."

Research in this school of thought suggests that race is not biologically identifiable and that previous racial categories were based on pseudoscience; they were often used to justify racist practices.

For example, someone in the United States may, with no ill-intent, refer to all Vietnamese people as an ethnic group. But Vietnam is home to 54 formally recognized ethnic groups.

Note that being a numerical minority is not a characteristic of being a minority group; sometimes larger groups can be considered minority groups due to their lack of power.

He jokingly refers to his ethnicity as 'Cablinasian,' a term he coined to combine several of his ethnic backgrounds.

Consider how a community might increase solidarity by refusing to allow outsiders access.

Vivien Thomas (1910–1985), the Black surgical technician who helped develop the groundbreaking surgical technique that saves the lives of “blue babies” was classified as a janitor for many years, and paid as such, despite the fact that he was conducting complicated surgical experiments.

In fact, new stereotypes are rarely created; rather, they are recycled from subordinate groups that have assimilated into society and are reused to describe newly subordinate groups.

Instead, it was an 'invisible weightless knapsack full of special provisions' that she didn't ask for, yet from which she still benefitted.

It is a set of practices used by a racial dominant group to maximize advantages for itself by disadvantaging racial minority groups.

The U.S. cultural narrative that typically focuses on individual racism fails to recognize systemic racism.

To be antiracist is a radical choice in the face of history, requiring a radical reorientation of our consciousness.

The national dialogue shifted during the next few weeks, with some commentators pointing to a nationwide sedimentation of racial inequality and identifying redlining in Ferguson as a cause of the unbalanced racial composition in the community.

In the United States, the mutual respect required by pluralism is often missing, and the nation’s past model of a melting pot posits a society where cultural differences aren’t embraced as much as erased.

Some argue that the spread of disease was an unintended effect of conquest, while others believe it was intentional, citing rumors of smallpox-infected blankets being distributed as “gifts” to tribes.

The Order authorized the establishment of internment camps for anyone with as little as one-eighth Japanese ancestry (i.e., one great-grandparent who was Japanese).

Segregation is still alive and well in the United States, with different racial or ethnic groups often segregated by neighborhood, borough, or parish.

Native Americans are Indigenous peoples, the only nonimmigrant people in the United States.

These names arise from historically prejudiced views of Native Americans as fierce, brave, and strong: attributes that would be beneficial to a sports team, but are not necessarily beneficial to people in the United States who should be seen as more than that.

If indigenous people tried to retain their stewardship of the land, Europeans fought them off with superior weapons.

By 1808, the slave trade was internal in the United States, with enslaved people being bought and sold across state lines like livestock.

Although Black people have come a long way from slavery, the echoes of centuries of disempowerment are still evident.

Do you think such settlement is adequate to provide justice for the victims, their families and communities affected by the horrific racism?

The work was grueling and underpaid, but like many immigrants, they persevered.

Stereotyping all Asians as smart and capable can also lead to a lack of much-needed government assistance and to educational and professional discrimination.

The Eastern European immigration wave also included Jewish people escaping pogroms (anti-Jewish massacres) of Eastern Europe and the Pale of Settlement in what was then Poland and Russia.

In fact, Irish immigrants were subject to criticism identical to that with which the dominant group characterized African Americans.

Italian Americans also became more accepted after World War II, partly because of their significant contribution to the war effort, which saw over 500,000 Italian Americans join the military and fight against the Axis powers, which included Italy itself.

Particularly when engaged in air travel, being young and Arab-looking is enough to warrant a special search or detainment.

Interestingly, 1954 also saw the enactment of “Operation Wetback,” which deported thousands of illegal Mexican workers.

He notes that in some years, three times as many Mexican immigrants may have entered the United States undocumented as those who arrived documented.

Critics say this law will encourage racial profiling (the illegal practice of law enforcement using race as a basis for suspecting someone of a crime), making it hazardous to be caught “Driving While Brown.”

pluralism the ideal of the United States as a “salad bowl:” a mixture of different cultures where each culture retains its own identity and yet adds to the “flavor” of the whole

What intergroup relationship is represented by the “salad bowl” metaphor?

Why do you think the term “minority” has persisted when the word “subordinate” is more descriptive?

Seipel, Brooke. 2020 "Why the AP and Others Are Now Capitalizing the 'B' in Black"

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.

US Census fails to add MENA category: Arabs to remain “White” in count.

But despite this progress, many people are misunderstood or mistreated based on gender.

As the EMTs pull off the firefighters' helmet, you're surprised to see features you identify as a woman's.

While there are no guarantees that the future enforcement officer will use the substances judiciously, having experienced the painful effects of pepper spray is deemed more likely to produce a level of empathy and restraint.

The kilt worn by a Scottish man does not make him appear feminine in that culture.

Ginsburg decided on this approach earlier in her career while she was arguing before the Supreme court; her Columbia Law School secretary suggested it to Ginsburg, saying that when 'those nine men' (the Supreme Court justices), 'hear that word and their first association is not the way you want them to be thinking.'

Sexuality and gender terminology are constantly changing, and may mean different things to different people; they are not universal, and each individual define them for themselves.

The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats… The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.

Feelings of guilt, responsibility, rejection, and simple uncertainty can make the process and growth very challenging.

Even today, our society is quick to outfit male infants in blue and girls in pink, even applying these color-coded gender labels while a baby is in the womb.

Gender identity is a person’s deeply held internal perception of one's gender.

Most in the medical and intersex community reject unnecessary surgeries intended to make a baby conform to a specific gender assignment.

As many societies are heteronormative, they are also cisnormative, which is the assumption or expectation that everyone is cisgender, and that anything other than cisgender is not normal.

Society, particularly in the United States, has been reluctant to accept transgender identities at any age, but we have particular difficulty accepting those identities in children.

As of 2020, six United Nations members imposed the death penalty for consensual same-sex acts, and another 61 countries penalized same sex acts, through jail time, corporal punishment (such as lashing), or other measures.

Much like racism and sexism, heterosexism is a systematic disadvantage embedded in our social institutions, offering power to those who conform to heterosexual orientation while simultaneously disadvantaging those who do not.

One person should never out a person to someone else or assume that someone is publicly out.

For example, women do not produce eggs; ovaries produce eggs.

At four or five, most children are firmly entrenched in culturally appropriate gender roles.

Repeated exposure to these agents over time leads men and women into a false sense that they are acting naturally rather than following a socially constructed role.

Boys, especially, are subject to intense ridicule for gender nonconformity.

Even if the job types were very similar and the differences slight, men’s work was still considered more vital.

The idea that women are unable to reach the executive suite is known as the glass ceiling.

The protestors tossed instruments of women’s oppression, including high-heeled shoes, curlers, girdles, and bras, into a “freedom trash can.”

Refusing to take the quiet role e xpecte d of new R epresenta tives, she immediately began sponsoring bills and initiatives.

Engels suggested that the same owner-worker relationship seen in the labor force is also seen in the household, with women assuming the role of the proletariat.

Thus, gender is something we do or perform, not something we are.

Later, when asked to describe the characteristics of a healthy person (not gender specific), the list was nearly identical to that of a male.

The incest taboo is present in every society, though which relative is deemed unacceptable for sex varies widely from culture to culture.

It would appear that these approaches are models for the benefits of sexual freedom and frankness.

The United States prides itself on being the land of the “free,” but it is rather restrictive when it comes to its citizens’ general attitudes about sex compared to other industrialized nations.

The results, as stated earlier, are relatively clear: the United States has nearly four times the rate of teenage pregnancy than a country like Germany, which has a comprehensive sex education program.

From a functionalist standpoint, homosexuality cannot be promoted on a large-scale as an acceptable substitute for heterosexuality.

Constant exposure to derogatory labels, jokes, and pervasive homophobia would lead to a negative self-image, or worse, self-hate.

Many people have their richest mental/emotional involvement with sexual acts that they don’t do, or don’t even want to do.

Peers tend to reinforce gender roles by criticizing and marginalizing those who behave outside of their assigned roles.

Compared to most Western societies, U.S. sexual attitudes are considered conservative.

Row Over South African Athlete Highlights Ambiguities of Gender.

How Gender Stereotypes Can Kill a Woman's Self-Confidence.

The Samoan Fa’afafine: One Case Study and Discussion of Transsexualism.

‘Unbought and Unbossed’: How Shirley Chisholm Helped Paved the Path for Kamala Harris Nearly Five Decades Ago.

‘Spice Girls,’ ‘Nice Girls,’ ‘Girlies,’ and ‘Tomboys’: Gender Discourses, Girls’ Cultures and Femininities in the Primary Classroom.

Abstinence-Only Education Is a Failure.

Older people, especially family members, can foster a connection between our past and present and help build our memories and identities.

Bibi was crying. She looked at the children and sank toward the floor. “I don't remember that. I'm so sorry. It's a fire, I thought. Put water on it.”

While stereotypes associated with race and gender may lead to more critical thought and sensitivity, many people accept age stereotypes without question.

Equally revealing is that as people grow older they define “old age” in terms of greater years than their current age.

In modern U.S. society, appearance is not a reliable indicator of age.

In the past, family members made care decisions when an elderly person reached a health crisis, often leaving the elderly person with little choice about what would happen.

Originating in Canada in the late 1980s, groups of Raging Grannies have protested nuclear weapons, the Iraq War, pesticides, genetically modified foods, and racial injustice.

This increase has been called “the graying of America,” a term that describes the phenomenon of a larger and larger percentage of the population getting older and older.

People in the Boomer generation do not want to grow old the way their grandparents did; the result is a wide range of products designed to ward off the effects—or the signs—of aging.

No matter what the cause, many retirees report a great deal of stress about running out of money.

In the United States, decisions to care for an elderly relative are often conditionally based on the promise of future returns, such as inheritance.

The feminization of the aging poor, evident in peripheral nations, is directly due to the number of elderly women in those countries who are single, illiterate, and not a part of the labor force.

Age, much like race, class, and gender, is a hierarchy in which some categories are more highly valued than others.

There was nothing medicine could do, his professors declared, about the syndrome of “old age.”

If people can accept the changes in their bodies as a natural process of aging, the changes will not seem as frightening.

And some social scientists have observed that the aging male body is depicted in the Western world as genderless.

In the final stage, old age, the challenge is to embrace integrity over despair.

The reality is that our sexual selves do not disappear after age sixty-five.

She 'selectively disclosed' her sexual identity, feeling safer with anonymity and silence.

A person then resorts to the third stage, bargaining: trying to negotiate with a higher power to postpone the inevitable by reforming or changing the way he or she lives.

The focus is not on getting better or curing the illness, but on passing out of this life in comfort and peace.

Some who had planned a leisurely retirement have found themselves at risk of late-age destitution.

Sure enough, Peter thought, a gray-haired old man guilty of “DWE,” driving while elderly.

Unlike a child, who also is dependent on another for care, an elder is an adult with a lifetime of experience, knowledge, and opinions—a more fully developed person.

Many of the caregivers who physically abused elders were themselves abused—in many cases, when they were children.

Reports show that WWII-era veterans are four times as likely to take their own lives as people of the same age with no military service.

Because men focus on work and women focus on marriage and family, when they withdraw they will be unhappy and directionless until they adopt a role to replace their accustomed role that is compatible with the disengaged state.

In many cases, elderly prisoners are physically incapable of committing a violent—or possibly any—crime.

In an individualistic industrial society, caring for an elderly relative is seen as a voluntary obligation that may be ignored without fear of social censure.

In this model, the only means to avoid being discarded is to engage in resource management, like maintaining a large inheritance or participating in social exchange systems via child care.

Tornstam believes that throughout the aging process, the elderly become less self-centered and feel more peaceful and connected to the natural world.

Some elderly people might still grow bitter and isolated, feel ignored and left out, or become grumpy and judgmental.

Ageism, which involves stereotyping and discrimination against the elderly, leads to misconceptions about their abilities.

Which action reflects ageism? Speaking slowly and loudly when talking to someone over age sixty-five years old.

Make a list of all the biases, generalizations, and stereotypes about elderly people that you have seen or heard. Include everything, no matter how small or seemingly trivial.

Remember Madame Jeanne Calment of France was the world's oldest living person until she died at 122 years old?

The Baby Boom = The BIG Boom in Healthcare.

Will Baby Boomers Bankrupt Social Security?

The Aging Women in Popular Film: Underrepresented, Unattractive, Unfriendly, and Unintelligent.

Older Women and Health Services: Moving from Ageism Toward Empowerment.

Graying Prisons: States Face Challenges of an Aging Inmate Population.

If we see a young couple in a park, what do we assume about them? Are our assumptions based on what we see, or what we’ve experienced?

The y were happy. The y were commit ted to each other . The y didn ’t get married.

It means that teachers and counselors and even people who meet children in a restaurant can’t assume they live with two married parents.

In other words, families are groups in which people come together to form a strong primary group connection and maintain emotional ties to one another over a long period of time.

The study also revealed that 60 percent of U.S. respondents agreed that if you consider yourself a family, you are a family.

In 2019, 32 percent of Millennial men were living in a household with their children, compared to 41 percent of Gen X men in 2003 and 44 percent of Boomer men in 1987.

In a recent survey, 39 percent of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether marriage is becoming obsolete.

In China, where patrilocal and patrilineal customs are common, the written symbols for maternal grandmother (wáipá) are separately translated to mean 'outsider' and 'women'.

Today, however, these models have been criticized for their linear and conventional assumptions as well as for their failure to capture the diversity of family forms.

Although the Loud’s union was among the 30 percent of marriages that ended in divorce in 1973, the family was featured on the cover of the March 12 issue of Newsweek with the title “The Broken Family.”

The combination of husband, wife, and children that 99.8 percent of people in the United States believe constitutes a family is not representative of 99.8 percent of U.S. families.

These "parentified" siblings may have trouble navigating the complexities of parental roles when they themselves are often still very young.

While couples may use this time to “work out the kinks” of a relationship before they wed, the most recent research has found that cohabitation has little effect on the success of a marriage.

For example, when same-sex marriage was not legal, an LGBTQ person couldn't take the same type of family leave as an opposite sex spouse could if their partner became ill, and could even be prohibited from visiting their partner in the hospital.

This reasoning is deceptive, however, because instead of tracing actual marriages to see their longevity (or lack thereof), this compares what are unrelated statistics.

When family members move outside of these roles, the family is thrown out of balance and must recalibrate in order to function properly.

Conflict theory highlights the role of power in family life and contends that the family is often not a haven but rather an arena where power struggles can occur.

Events like divorce and remarriage present new difficulties for families and individuals.

Divorce, while fairly common and accepted in modern U.S. society, was once a word that would only be whispered and was accompanied by gestures of disapproval.

That sentiment is also reflected in the finding that when both partners of a married couple have been previously divorced, their marriage is 90 percent more likely to end in divorce.

They may feel responsible for the divorce and attempt to bring their parents back together, often by sacrificing their own well-being.

IPV often starts as emotional abuse and then escalates to other forms or combinations of abuse.

Perpetrators of IPV work to establish and maintain dependence in order to hold power and control over their victims, making them feel stupid, crazy, or ugly—in some way worthless.

IPV victimization during young adulthood, including the college years, is likely to lead to continuous victimization in adulthood, possibly throughout a lifetime.

A baby’s cry is the number one trigger for shaking.

Approximately 30 percent of abused children will later abuse their own children.

the problems resulting from child abuse do not just belong to the child and family, but to society as a whole.

Children are also negatively impacted by violence and abuse within the home, with nearly 6 million children abused each year.

Explain why more than half of IPV goes unreported? Why are those who are abused unlikely to report the abuse?

One Wife Isn’t Enough… So They Take Two or Three.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Co-Wife.

Legalization of same-sex marriage linked to reduction of suicide attempts among high school students.

Berlin, Lisa. 2009. “Correlates and Consequences of Spanking and Verbal Punishment for Low-Income White, African American, and Mexican American Toddlers.”

The Marriage License as a Hitting License: A Comparison of Assaults in Dating, Cohabiting, and Married Couples.

Pioneer sociologist Émile Durkheim described it with the ethereal statement that it consists of “things that surpass the limits of our knowledge” (1915).

Religious experience refers to the conviction or sensation that we are connected to “the divine.”

When people celebrate sacred things, they celebrate the power of their society.

The pay, working conditions, and robotic nature of the tasks dehumanizes the workers and strips them of incentives for doing quality work.

Because religion can be central to many people’s concept of themselves, sometimes there is an “in-group” versus “out-group” feeling toward other religions in our society or within a particular practice.

This power dynamic has been used by Christian institutions for centuries to keep poor people poor and to teach them that they shouldn’t be concerned with what they lack because their “true” reward will come after death.

In a pluralistic society with many religious options, religious organizations will compete for members, and people will choose between different churches or denominations in much the same way they select other consumer goods.

To interactionists, beliefs and experiences are not sacred unless individuals in a society regard them as sacred.

For instance, when the Roman Catholic Church emerged, it borrowed many of its organizational principles from the ancient Roman military and turned senators into cardinals, for example.

For instance, the Christian notion of the Holy Trinity (God, Jesus, Holy Spirit) defies the definition of monotheism, which is a religion based on belief in a single deity, to some scholars.

Siddhartha was said to have given up a comfortable, upper-class life to follow one of poverty and spiritual devotion.

Jews emphasize moral behavior and action in this world as opposed to beliefs or personal salvation in the next world.

While Christians believe that he already appeared in the person of Jesus Christ, Jews and Muslims disagree.

The translation of sacred texts into everyday, nonscholarly language empowered people to shape their religions.

What happens when a religious leader officiates a gay marriage against denomination policies? What about when that same minister defends the action in part by coming out and making her own lesbian relationship known to the church?

The architecture of these church buildings often resembles a sport or concert arena.

One-time presidential contender Michele Bachmann even linked Hurricane Irene and the 2011 earthquake felt in Washington D.C. to politicians’ failure to listen to God.

These statistics suggest that, for most people in the United States, freedom of religion is less important than the religion under discussion.

Karl Marx viewed religion as a tool used by capitalist societies to perpetuate inequality.

A sect often believes it must split from the larger group to return to important fundamentals.

Do you believe the United States is becoming more secularized or more fundamentalist?

The Rational Choice Theory of Religion: Shopping for Faith or Dropping your Faith?

“What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves” (Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed).

The contradiction, however, lies in the fact that the more impactful a college degree has become, the harder it has become to achieve it.

The real value of an education, then, is to enhance our skill at self-examination.

Countries that do not have such basic amenities as running water are unable to support robust education systems or, in many cases, any formal schooling at all.

The Finnish paradox is that by focusing on the bigger picture for all, Finland has succeeded at fostering the individual potential of most every child.

In that same classroom, the student might learn the cultural norm for asking a classmate out on a date through passing notes and whispered conversations.

The inadequacies of the District of Columbia Public School System whether occasioned by insufficient funding or administrative inefficiency, certainly cannot be permitted to bear more heavily on the 'exceptional' or handicapped child than on the normal child.

Émile Durkheim characterized schools as “socialization agencies that teach children how to get along with others and prepare them for adult economic roles.”

In countries such as Japan and China, where the good of the group is valued over the rights of the individual, students do not learn as they do in the United States that the highest rewards go to the “best” individual in academics as well as athletics.

To them, educational systems preserve the status quo and push people of lower status into obedience.

The cycle of rewarding those who possess cultural capital is found in formal educational curricula as well as in the hidden curriculum.

These tests, to conflict theorists, are another way in which education does not provide opportunities, but instead maintains an established configuration of power.

And those higher-grade applicants are still preferred even if decision-maker knows that the applicant’s college may be inflating grades.

One teacher told him, without knowing he was a bright graduate of a top university, that he would never amount to anything.

President Eisenhower, in response, sent members of the 101st Airborne Division from Kentucky to uphold the students’ right to enter the school.

She and the rest of the group, known as the Harlem Nine, were publicly chastised and pursued by the judicial system.

The former, to critics of “teaching to the test,” only equips students to regurgitate facts, while the latter, to proponents of the other camp, fosters lifelong learning and transferable work skills.

There was also evidence that some schools were less welcoming to students with disabilities, as a way to increase average scores.

Proponents of this type of education argue that it provides an outstanding opportunity for student-centered learning while circumventing problems that plague today’s education system.

Countless arguments raged over attendance, mental health, instructional quality, safety, testing, academic integrity, and the best ways to move forward as the situation began to improve.

Conflict theorists see schools as a means for perpetuating class, racial-ethnic, and gender inequalities.

Conflict theorists see IQ tests as being biased... they reward affluent students with questions that assume knowledge associated with upper-class culture.

In the public school system, there can be a clash between the need for a safe learning environment and the guarantee to free speech granted to U.S. citizens.

Study Confirms U.S. Falling Behind in Education.

Talking Pineapple Question on State Exam Stumps...Everyone!

Florida is going through a conflict that has faced the nation from its earliest days: Who has the right to make decisions? Who has the power?

Sociologists, however, tend to be more interested in the influences of governmental power on society and in how social conflicts arise from the distribution of power.

Pittacus (c. 640–568 B.C.E.) opined, “The measure of a man is what he does with power,” and Lord Acton perhaps more famously asserted, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely” (1887).

The specifics of target locations are a key point, however, and they emphasize the delicate and political nature of current conflict in the region.

If the same officer, however, were to command the driver to follow her home and mow her lawn, the driver would likely protest that the officer does not have the authority to make such a request.

In this form of authority, all officials are personal favorites appointed by the ruler. These officials have no rights, and their privileges can be increased or withdrawn based on the caprices of the leader.

Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

In spite of their limited authority, monarchs endure in such governments because people enjoy their ceremonial significance and the pageantry of their rites.

One example is a lavish dinner party hosted for a pampered pet dog who attended wearing a $15,000 diamond collar.

These laws often thwart the will of the voters, or place the interests of a very small group of people above those of everyone else.

Individuals are less likely to rebel when they are starving and fearful.

In a purely democratic society, all citizens would vote on all proposed legislation, and this is not how laws are passed in the United States.

A cursory sociological analysis of U.S. politics might suggest that Americans' desire to promote equality and democracy on a theoretical level is at odds with the nation’s real-life capitalist orientation.

Contemp orar y voter identification laws are trying to solve a problem that hasn ’t existed in over a c entur y.

Some people of low socioeconomic status or minority race/ethnicity doubt their vote will count or voice will be heard because they have seen no evidence of their political power in their communities.

Marx believed that conflict between groups struggling to either attain wealth and power or keep the wealth and power they had was inevitable in a capitalist society.

Marx saw a historical pattern in which revolutionaries toppled elite power structures, after which wealth and authority became more evenly dispersed among the population, and the overall social order advanced.

What the public often sees is the front porch of politics that is sanitized by the media through gatekeeping.

Democratic ideals, although hard to implement and achieve, promote basic human rights and justice for all citizens.

Which statement best expresses why the United States is not a true democracy?

Explain why leaders as divergent as Hitler and Jesus Christ are both categorized as charismatic authorities.

You elected them to write new laws. They're letting corporations do it instead.

Today, employees are working harder than ever in offices and other places of employement.

Our earliest forms of writing (such as Sumerian clay tablets) were developed to record transactions, payments, and debts between merchants.

Latina women make 56 cents, or 44 percent less, for every dollar a White man makes.