Sociology and the Sociological Imagination
What is micro and macro level of analysis in sociology?
Micro examines interactions between individuals; macro examines larger social patterns and institutions.
What is phenotype?
A phenotype is an observable characteristic, such as skin color or hair texture.
What were Jim Crow laws?
They were laws and policies that enforced racial segregation and unequal treatment against people of color especially Black Americans, after the Reconstruction era.
What are stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination?
Stereotype: an unreliable generalization about all members of a group
Prejudice: a negative attitude about a person or persons based on their (perceived) group membership
Discrimination: actions (or patterns of action) that have a differential and negative impact on members of a marginalized group
Define Mills’s sociological imagination.
It is the ability to connect individual experiences to broader historical events and social structures.
According to Jarry (2019), why are racial categories poor substitutes for genetic categories?
Genetic variation does not divide humanity into discrete groups matching commonly used racial labels. People assigned the same race can vary genetically, and racial boundaries differ across societies.
Define racialization.
Racialization is the process of assigning racial meaning to people or groups and treating them according to that assigned meaning.
How does McIntosh define White privilege(1989)?
She describes it as a set of unearned advantages that White people can often rely on in everyday life without being taught to notice them.
When does an individual experience become evidence of a public issue rather than only a personal trouble?
When the experience forms part of a broader pattern affecting many people and is connected to social structures. One person’s experience alone does not establish the pattern; sociologists look for evidence across people and settings.
Define racial formation according to Omi and Winant (1986).
Racial formation is the social and historical process through which racial categories are created, interpreted, changed, and connected to social structures.
What was the “one-drop rule,” also called hypodescent?
It was the practice of classifying a person with any known Black ancestry as Black, regardless of appearance or other ancestry.
According to Ray and Gibbons(2021), what is institutional racism?
It is racism embedded in an institution’s laws, rules, policies, or procedures that contributes to unequal outcomes by race.
What is reflexivity in sociological research?
Reflexivity means examining how the researcher’s own position, experiences, and assumptions may affect the research.
How do changes in U.S. census categories support the claim that race is socially constructed?
The categories and their definitions have changed through political and historical decisions. A fixed biological classification would not depend on those decisions.
What did the Supreme Court uphold in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)?
It upheld racial segregation under the doctrine of “separate but equal.”
According to Bonilla-Silva (2017), what is color-blind racism?
It is a way of explaining racial inequality that claims race no longer matters while using seemingly race-neutral arguments to justify or minimize unequal outcomes.
A student says, “If someone cannot afford housing, they should make better financial choices.” How would Mills investigate whether this is a personal trouble or a public issue?
Mills would look beyond the individual case to ask whether many people face the same problem and how wages, housing costs, employment, and policy shape their options. A widespread pattern tied to those conditions is a public issue, even though individuals experience it personally.
A medical researcher finds that two racial groups have different average health outcomes in certain disease and concludes that the difference may be genetic which require specific genetic treatment to a racial group. Identify possible problems in this research design and its conclusion.
First, socially defined racial groups are not discrete genetic groups, so a difference between racial averages does not establish a genetic cause. Second, racial categories are formed within social conditions that can affect health, including unequal exposure to risk, resources, discrimination, and care. The researcher would need evidence to distinguish these explanations.
According to Fayyad, what problem can arise when Arab Americans are classified as White on the census?
That classification can make Arab Americans less visible as a distinct population in data, making discrimination and disparities harder to document and address.
A school removes an explicitly discriminatory admissions rule, but racial disparities persist. One administrator says, “The rule is gone, so any remaining disparity must reflect individual effort.” Identify study guide concept(s) that help evaluate this claim and explain how each applies.
legalistic fallacy: the assumption that removing a discriminatory rule ends racism.
Institutional racism: policies and procedures that may still produce unequal outcomes.
color-blind racism: an apparently race-neutral account of “effort” can dismiss the possible role of racism without examining it.