Social problems chp 7 Poverty and wealth Poverty lack of equality because of social class social inequality the unequal distribution of wealth income power and opportunities nepotism getting a job because of who you know social class refers to a large group of people who have similar income education and job prestige Economic problems facing the U S Boom and bust during the boom there are plenty of jobs and during the bust you will end up struggling Economy the social institution that produces and distributes goods and services Real income income adjusted for inflation Stagnant income is when the real income does not keep up with inflation When real dollars don t match the increase in cost it causes poverty People in America don t save as they use to The U S is the debtor nation meaning we buy more than our income Exp credit card car loans This creates poverty Types of poverty Biological poverty malnutrition and starvation Relative poverty comparing people s standards of living and concluding that some are worse or better off This is a perception Official poverty an income level that makes someone eligible for welfare benefits it s a government standard Poverty line 1 3 of the average income is spent on food This line is set by multiplying a low level food budget by 3 The poverty lines assumes that everybody cooks at home it s not adjusted for different costs of living Does not distinguish between rural and urban Even if poverty is a personal problem not social problem It becomes a social problem In 1960 Kennedy declares a war on poverty Today poverty is an issue again but it went away about 12 years ago The rich pass wealth and advantage to their children and the poor and powerless pass disadvantage 1 5 20 of the U S receives the 50 of total income the bottom receives only 3 Facts about poverty Doesn t matter how we define it how we define poverty determines who gets benefit poverty lies at the root of many other problems poverty contradicts Americans ideals and equality opportunity and success Wealth the property savings investments and economic assets that people own Inequality of wealth Symbolic interactionism The meaning of poverty changes as social conditions change In earlier days poverty was seen as gods will examines how the meaning of income being rich or poor differs from its objective measures Functionalism we need poverty for society to function well the poor ensure that society s dirty work gets done at low cost the poor creat jobs for others emphasize that social inequality is a way of allocating talented people to societys more demanding tasks and less talented people to its less demanding jobs dirty jobs although poverty maybe dysfunctional to the individual it is functional to society Conflict theory the problems of the poor are due to their deprived position in a system of stratification to their relative powerless and oppression Those who win the struggle for limited resources oppress those who lose Chapter 8 Racial ethnic relations racism is not over it exists in every country all over the world Prejudice an attitude a prejudging of some sort discrimination an action minority does not mean smaller minority group people who are discriminated against because they belong to a particular group dominant group those with power privilege and higher social status Minority groups come to existence through political expansion or migration Characteristics of minority groups ascribed status membership comes through birth not through hard work prejudice the dominant group holds the minority s physical or cultural traits in low esteem unequally discrimination the dominant group treats member of the minority group endogamy marrying within the same group common identity minority groups identify with one another by physical cultural and the disadvantages they share Goals of the minority group assimilation wanting to be treated as individuals not as members of separate group so they adapted the culture of the dominant group pluralism they want to fit but they still want to maintain their identity secession to want independence separate and own nation exp civil war militancy convinced of its own superiority the minority want to reverse the status and dominate the society Policies of dominant group pluralism exists when a dominant group permits or even encourages cultural differences Assimilation an attempt to eliminate the minority by absorbing into the mainstream cultured Forced assimilation is when the dominant group bans the minority s religion language and other distinctive customs Segregation an attempt to by the dominant group to keep a minority in its place Apartheid a system of rules that segregated blacks and whites in almost all spheres of life Internal colonialism refers to a more powerful nation making a colony of a weaker nation so it can exploit its resources internal colonialism refers to a dominant group exploiting a minority groups labor Population transfer the dominant group transfers the minority of specified area or forces it to leave the country Genocide hatred fear or greed motivates dominant group to exterminate the minority Race and ethnicity Racial ethnic group refers to people who identify with one another on the basis of ancestry and cultural heritage Stereotypes generalization of what people are like What is a problem discrimination becomes a social problem when we have both objective conditions and subjective concerns Individual discrimination one person treating another badly on the basis of race The social problem becomes a problem when it s on an institutional level Jim Crow laws prevented black white integration in the south Institutional laws is built into the system the discriminates groups Symbolic interaction we are socialized towards prejudice meaning we attach to symbols and the way we view things As we grow up we learn stereotypes ways of classifying entire groups of people Selective perception leading us to see certain things while blinding us to others Symbolic interactionism examine how labels affect how we look at life and how we act Symbolic interactionists focus on how symbols of race divide people and influence their behavior and justify crimination and violence Functionalism costs and benefits Discrimination benefited the dominant group Racial Ethnic stratification the unequal distribution of a societies resources based on race ethnicity helps society s dirty work done division of labor people performing different or specialized