Notes:
Social mobility: an individual’s or group’s movement up or down the system of stratification in society
Life chances: the opportunities and resources a person has at their disposal to improve their quality of life
Cultural capital: the information, knowledge, and ideas people use to support their social mobility
Social capital: the social networks that people can use to enhance their societal position
Digital divide: the access to and ability to use technology like computers and the internet
Veritcal mobility: movement up or down the system of stratification
Horizontal mobility: movement within a layer of the system of stratification
Intergenerational mobility: an individual’s change in social status that results from mobility on a generational level
Structural mobility: changes in the social position of a group that results from shifts in the larger society
Feminization of poverty: the disproportionate number of women among the world’s poor
Global inequality: the stratification that exists between people living in different nations
Class consciousness: an awareness of one’s social category within a social hierarchy
Social stratification: system in which categories of people are ranked in a hierarchy
Socioeconomic status: an individual’s social position based on education, occupation, income and place of residence
Blue-collar worker: an individual who engages in manual labor
Pink-collar worker: an individual who works in female dominated jobs with low pay
White-collar worker: an individual employees in a salaried professional, managerial, or administrative position
Wealth: the total of all personal assists, including property, investment and income
Power: the ability to exert control over others and achieve goals with or without the support of society
Prestige: the level of esteem and respect afforded to an individual often associated with ones’s occupation or membership in a group or organization
Occupational prestige: a consensus of the value of a job or profession
Social inequality: system that unequally rewards individuals based on characteristics such as sex, income, age, race and ethnicity
Open system: social systems that encourage and allow for social mobility
CLosed system; social systems that do not allow for social mobility
Slavery: A closed stratified system in which slaves and owners exist
Caste: a closed stratified system in which some people are designated at birth to the lowest classes based on their parents status
Esate: a closed stratified system in which wealthy landowners and peasants exist
Class system: an open stratified system that allows social mobility
Triple oppression: combines characteristics of being a woman, minority and poor
American dream: a commonly held beliefs in the U.S. suggestions that anyone can overcome obstacles and get ahead in life through hard work and determination
Upper class: a category of people who maintain the highest status and resources in a society
Middle class: the category of people at the center of a social hierarchy
Lower class: the lowest category of people in a social hierarchy
Federal Poverty Line: a governmental standard of measurement indicating the income level of an individual or family is designated as poor
Working poor: individuals who spend more than 27 weeks per year in the paid labor force and live below the poverty line
Poverty rate: the percentage of people who are considered poor
Social reproduction: the process of children remaining in the same social class through intergenerational transmission of various types of capital
Absolute poverty: a threshold in which an individual does not have enough resources to meet their basic survival needs
Relative poverty: a subjective level at which which an individual or family experiences a deprived lifestyle
modernization theory, a macro theory indicating the process by which nations progress through stages of development
dependency theory, a macro theory indicating the stratified world economic system keeps peripheral nations dependent on core nations
world-system, any historical social system of interdependent parts that form a bonded structure and operate according to distinct rules
Wealth gap: refers to the uneven distribution of financial assets and resources in a society that results from the concentration of money in the hands of a small segment of the population