STUDY GUIDE – SECOND EXAM
SOCIAL INEQUALITIES
The exam will be a mix of essays and definitions. Remember that “definition” and “example” are not synonymous. An appropriate example lends support to, but does not replace, a good definition.
Materials Covered:
1. “Post-Industrial Peasants”: pp xiii-xv (Preface); 1-33 (C1 & 2); pp 48-61 (part of C3), pp 80-103 (C5), pp 117-127 (part of C6) pp 148-158 (C8)
2. “Worlds Apart”: C6 (Gender & Class) (C7 will not show up on this exam)
3. Handouts: “The Class Structure of the United States” & “The Poverty Business”
4. Articles linked to syllabus: “Americans Start to Pay as they Go”; “Smaller Average Incomes”; “We’re More Productive. Who Gets the Money?”; “Subprime Lending Crisis; Can the Mortgage Crisis Swallow a Town?”
5. “In Debt We Trust”
6. All class lectures/discussions since the last exam
For essay questions, Post-Industrial Peasants
Chapters 1 & 2
Be able to discuss, in some detail, the authors’ principal argument/s concerning changes in the US middle class over the past 30 years, the evidence and illustrations they provide to support their argument/s (including, but not limited to, changes in the labor market and work environment), and the reasons they believe middle class life today is analogous to life in European feudal serfdom or 19th century US debt peonage.
Chapter 3, pp 48-61
Be able to discuss trends in inequality across classes over the past 30 years, and the factors that account for these trends. Be able to explain, in your own words, what the authors mean by “the income/credit squeeze.”
Chapter 5
How do the trends discussed in Chapter 3 link to the widespread use of credit in the United States? How has consumer credit evolved over the past ½ century? Be able to discuss the events that converged to make credit cards more accessible, attractive, and utilized by the average American. In addition to credit cards, what other sources of credit have emerged as major debt-contributors? Why are each so dangerous for financially precarious households?
Chapter 6, pp 117-127
Be able to discuss the different ways in which the social safety net for average Americans has frayed over the past 25-30 years.
Chapter 8
Be able to discuss potential individual and, more importantly, collective responses to US middle-class stagnation.
For essay questions, Sernau – Chapter 6 (Gender & Class)
Be able to discuss the privileges (and vulnerabilities) of masculinity, as outlined by Sernau, including Goode’s “sociology of subordinates.”
Explain the roles of “good provider” and “motherhood”; be able to compare and contrast the two.
Be able to discuss the earnings gap, and reasons given in text and lecture for its stubborn persistence.
Be prepared to discuss what Yale sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter found in her research on the glass ceiling in corporate America.
What is meant by the double burden/second shift? Be able to discuss reasons given for the persistence of this phenomenon.
Be able to define the following terms/concepts:
Productivity
Neoliberalism
Michael Zweig’s model of “class”
Home equity loan
Revolving credit
Regressive taxation/progressive taxation (also, be able to give an example of each)
Defined benefit retirement plan/defined contribution retirement plan
Glass ceiling
Differential socialization
Kanter’s shadow structure
Feminization of poverty
The double burden and the second shift