Sociology 3901: Study Guide 1--Fall 2003

I. Terms and people. Be able to identify and explain the following, some of which will be covered in the multiple choice portion of the exam.

Conflict theories: Marx, capitalism and class conflict; Wallerstein, world capitalist system, transnational corporations, deindustrialization; Spitzer, monopoly capitalism,

Cultural theories. Tocqueville, democracy as equal rights vs democracy as equal opportunity; Durkheim, the division of labor vs. the collective conscience; Parsons, modernization and the pattern variables.

Workhouse or Work farm, New Deal, Social Security Act, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Lyndon Johnson, the Moynihan Report, War on Poverty, Sargent Shriver, National Welfare Rights Organization, Richard Nixon and the guaranteed income.

Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996, TANF, family values and welfare reform, family cap, sanctions, income disregards, Hays: the Work Plan and the Family Plan; individual vs structural explanation.

II. Essay questions.

1. What is the research basis of Hays' book? In other words, where and how did she carry out her study, over what period of time, with what methods?

2. What were the cultural meanings of the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996, and why does Hays think it missed the mark both in terms causes and of solutions?

3. How are low income mothers in the United States affected by trends in the world and U.S. economies?

4. What is the history of U.S. provision for the poor? Pay particular attention to changes made or attempted during the New Deal and the Great Society/War on Poverty periods in our history.

4. Describe the workings of the Personal Responsiblity and Work Reconciliation Act, including both what Hays calls the family plan and the work plan? In what ways has this public policy been a success and in what ways not?

5. Why are the United States's provisions for the support of low income families less generous than in other industrial democracies? In particular, why have Americans been so concerned with what we consider to be the undeserving poor and why have we tended to think in terms of issues of character rather than in structural terms?

6. In accounting for the situation of poor mothers and their children in the U.S., how much weight would you give to issues of character and personal irresponsibility and how much to what Hays calls "pyramids of inequality." Support your arguments with evidence from the book or videos.

7. Why did the numbers of families on welfare and the number of single parent families increase so rapidly between the 1960s and the early 1990s? Was there a causal connection between the two trends? What is the evidence for your point of view?