Sociology 3945: Study Guide 2

I. Multiple Choice. Be familiar with the following terms and videos.

status, social closure, socialization and social class,Bourdieu: habitus and cultural capital, conspicuous consumption(Veblen), power elite, pluralist position on power, globalization and democracy, race to the bottom, social mobility: intergenerational and structural, , social reproduction , caste system vs. open system , perspectives on higher education: human capital vs gatekeeper , tracking, MacLeod: Ain't No Makin' It (, Brothers vs Hallway Hangers), deindustrialization, Lowi: law and disorder, social movements, labor movement, National Labor Relations Act, women's movement, Nineteenth Amendment (259), civil rights movement, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Brown vs. Topeka, tree metaphor for power elite decision-making (Mills), concerted cultivation vs. natural growth (Lareau), , Bok and Bowen: The Shape of the River, revolution of rising expectations (Tocqueville), class conflict (Marx), collective behavior theory, political process theory

Videos: "Taken for a Ride, ""People Like Us," "Ain't Scared of Your Jails"

II. Essay questions. The key on all my essay exams is for you to use course materials to support your arguments; that's far more important than the particular conclusions you reach.
1. What are your thoughts at this point in our course about the relative importance of race and class as a basis for inequality in American society? What trends might be making one or the other a bigger factor in our life chances? What kinds of additional evidence might be needed to answer these questions more conclusively?

2. Consider the role of schooling in social mobility and in social reproduction, including a treatment of the role of college, along with graduate and professional schools. . What are the affects of affirmative action at the level of colleges and graduate schools?

3. How convincing do you find Mills's theory of the power elite and why? What kinds of decisions are more apt to be dominated by the power elite and under what circumstances is the power elite less apt to dominate? What is the current trend?

4. Characterize the main patterns of social mobility in the United States. What are some of the factors that make social reproduction more common than social mobility? What are some of the factors that promote social mobility.

5. What is the relationship between social movements and social stratification? Use examples including both the civil rights movement and the labor movement to support your arguments.

6. What are the implications of Bourdieu's theory about the role of habitus (cultural capital) in social reproduction? In particular, who is advantaged if Bourdieu is right, and how could the educational system be made fairer?

7. How did General Motors and its allies manage to eliminate the streetcar system in many parts of the country, and why wasn't this regarded by the courts as a serious crime? Imagine a different court--one that severely penalized these large corporations. How might our transportation system be different?

8. Why should sociologists be interested in differences among social classes in terms of habitus and cultural capital?

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