STUDY GUIDE
– FIRST EXAM
SOCIAL INEQUALITY
Kessler – Spring 2002
The exam will be a mix
of definition and short essay. Remember
that “definition” and “example” are not synonymous.
An appropriate example lends support to (but does not replace) a good
definition. Relevant examples from
supplemental reading materials on the syllabus will add to the value of your
essays.
Materials Covered:
Worlds Apart, pp 1-95 and 100-102; Dark Victory, pp 1-71; and all lecture
and discussion materials.
For essay questions:
q Be able to trace the historical debate on inequality from 400 BC to the early 20th century. Explain the assumptions of the conservative thesis and the radical antithesis.
q Be prepared to discuss the debate as it manifested first as religion-based, then political-based, and finally economic-based.
q Be able to identify the major thinkers and proponents of each side of the debate and the principal assumptions of their arguments.
q Be familiar with the positions of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim on inequality.
q Be able to explain the contemporary arguments of the conflict and functional sociological approaches to the debate on inequality.
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q Be able to discuss why some countries are rich and some are poor from both the modernization and dependency perspectives.
q Be able to identify and discuss features of the colonial era that set the stage for global inequality.
q Walden Bello attributes growing inequality within countries, between countries, and across regions to the demise of Containment Liberalism and the initiation of Global Rollback beginning around 1980. Be able to define Containment Liberalism and discuss its demise.
q Be able to discuss the Rollback, its proponents, its ideology and strategies, and its programs as realized in both the North and the South.
q What was “rolled back”?
q What was the relationship between the Third World Debt Crisis and Rollback in the Third World?
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q Be able to define “class” and its principal determinant/s according to Marx.
q How does Weber’s notion of class differ from that of Marx?
q What important determinants of class have been incorporated to Marx’s concept by contemporary social scientists such as Wright and Dahrendorf?
q In what ways is Marx’s definition of class problematic when applied to contemporary society? In what ways does Marx’s definition still hold true?
q Be able to identify and discuss the three objective dimensions of class as outlined by Sernau, and how they interact with one another to determine socioeconomic status. How has the U.S. occupational structure changed over the past 200 years?
q What does the New International Division of Labor thesis say about global distribution of occupations?
q What happened to income distribution in the United States during the economic expansion of the 1980s? The 1990s?
q What were the trends in the distribution of global wealth (by country) in the 1980s? The 1990s?
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q Be prepared to discuss what Sernau means when he says that immigrant groups in the United States know they have truly arrived and succeeded “when they become white.”
q Be able to discuss why race is a social construction rather than a biological division. According to Blauner, immigrants of the late 20th century are people of color, in that they never become white. What factors may account for this?
q
Be able to explain Blauner’s process of
Internal Colonialism. Do African
Americans fit the criteria for a group subjected to Internal Colonialism?
Be able to support your answer.
Be able to briefly
define the following terms/concepts:
Ø White Collar
Ø Blue Collar
Ø Pink Collar
Ø Green Collar
Ø Burgundy Collar
Ø Capitalist Class
Ø Upper-Middle Class
Ø Middle Class
Ø Working Class
Ø Working Poor
Ø Underclass
Ø Social Relations of Production
Ø Bourgeoisie
Ø Proletariat
Ø Class Consciousness
Ø Socialism
Ø Weber’s dimensions of power
Ø Mechanical Solidarity
Ø Organic Solidarity
Ø Structural Adjustment
Ø Erik Olin Wright’s class divisions
Ø Deindustrialization
Ø New International Division of Labor
Ø Negative Wealth
Ø Internal Colonialism
Ø Caste