Study Sociology: Ethnic and Race Relations Flash Cards

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Sociology: Ethnic and Race Relations

Empirical Trends: Income

--ratio of income of blacks to whites shows a static pattern with minor improvements in the 90s
--some families have seen a radical pattern of convergence, others have seen divergence (deceptive appearance of no change)
--type of family is biggest determinant of income (two-parent families show convergence)

Growing Up in Poor Neighborhoods

--Economic Segregation makes it harder to escape poverty, because it increases difficulty of advancement, especially in a white-dominated society
--generally, the effects of the socioeconomic and racial composition vary from one outcome to the next

Race and Imprisonment Decisions in CA

--The conclusion of this study was that racially equitable sentencing decisions are made in California, expect when the crimes are drug crimes

Another Look at the Truly Disadvantaged

--working class whites are more likely that middle-class whites to express their hostility in blatantly racist terms and behavior
--migration to cities of urban minorites meant that black had a weak labor force attachment, and were most vulnerable to industrial/geographic changes

Is Globalization Civilizing, Destructive, or Feeble?

--sociology of globalization that is sensitive to local variations and how agency, interest, and resistance mediate the relationship between the causes and outcomes of globalization

Empirics of World Income Inequality

--different rates of population growth in rich and poor nations determined change in distribution of per capita income
--trend of rising inequality leveled off from 1960 to 1989

Dependency Theory and Taiwan

--the example of Taiwan doesn't fit the themes of dependency Theory
--nature of Japanese colonial experience
--labor intensive enterprises
--an entrenched bourgeosie
--rapid growth and equality could occur

Empirical Trends: Employment

--slight pattern of convergence
--rate of unemployment among ethnic minorities may be higher than indicated (those who are no longer looking for jobs aren't included)
--more education, lower rate of unemployment

Discussion of minority earnings

--median income of African American sociology professors is higher that white sociology professors
--Asians with a higher level of education have a higher level of income than whites (a little below when we control for level of education)
--higher education is economically functional and rewarding (main cause of income inequality)

Ethnic Minority Earnings

--earning difference is much more within the educated group rather than the low educational group
--higher education is a more recent achievement for some minorities and the average people in those groups with degrees are younger than their equivalent white group
--type of majors that African Americans and Hispanics choose contributes to income gap (emphasis on social work, sociology, history, education, instead of math or science)

Income Gap: explanations

--Discrimination theory: labor market discrimination acounts for income gap
--Human Capital Theory: all income gap can be explained by differences in human capital of different ethnic groups

Single Parent Families

--Economic disadvantages: median income of these people is behind the median income of society
--single parent families increased among African Americans from 60's to 90's.
--higher percentage of black families have been accompanied with income divergence

Empirical Trends: Mobility

--before the 70's, an African American's class position was more determined by his or her skin color and less by his or her class background (black from high SE family had high degrees of downward mobility)
--Beginning in the 70's, class background became more important (skin color no longer sole determinant)

Hispanics and Education

--educational attainment has shown divergence
--high percent of Hispanics are first generation and their level of education reflects their low level of education outside the U.S.

Asian Americans and Education

--Asians are the most educational advanced ethnic group in America (far ahead of whites)
--immigrants are typically more educated and they have cultural norms that support educational attainment (strong sense of shame and honor, expectations)

Empirical Trends: Educational Attainment

--in terms of high school graduation, there has been convergence
--in terms of higher education, there has been slow convergence

Potential for progress

--progress requires change at both levels: opportunities should be made available to ethnic minorities and behavior of dominant ethnic group must move towards equality and dignity of everyone
--internal culture of the minority group should progress toward a culture in which self-destructive orientations and behaviors are not encouraged and rewarded in their community

An Interactive Theory

--theoretical structure of other theories are one sided
--any understanding of race relations has to pay attention to interaction
--look at structures of oppression and discrimination and the way those attitudes are interpreted by the persecuted minority

Sombar's Thesis

--discussion of the rise of capitalism
--made possible by the discrimination by state and society against the minorites which forced these persecuted groups to concentrate on the private sector so that they can succeed despite external discrimination

Theory of Ethnic Enterprise

--major explanation for SE differences lies in internal cultural characteristics of each ethnic groups
--Asian Americans have a culture of honor and shame which prohibited dependence on others and receiving welfare; emphasis on hardwork led to greater entrepreneurship and self-employment

Internal Colonialism

--those ethnic groups that are internally colonized by the dominant group suffer SE disadvantages
--Internally colonization: forced entry, forced labor, destruction of its culture

State of Migration Theory

--the stage and timing of migration to America and urban areas is most important factor of SES
--Jews, Italians, and Russians came when America was having booming industrialization, children of immigrants could join middle class
--African Americans and Hispanics came when America started deindustrialization and the service sector became dominant
--those who are not educated have more difficulty finding rewarding jobs

Split Labor Market Theory

--racism is manifested in the form of a labor market which is split across ethnic lines
--ethnic minorities are concentrated in the peripheral labor market (lower wages and lack of unionization)
--the priveleged working class benefits from racism and tries to maintain it while capitalists are interested in the elimination of priveleged working class aristocracy
--racism is the process of exclusion of the ethnic minorities from access to better and more skilled jobs: capitalists want to eliminate this exclusion to force lower wages for all workers

Race Relations: Marxist Theory

--capitalism may encourage and promote racism
--racism means paying lower wages to a segment of the working class as well as disuniting working class and preventing their capacity for collective action
--unknowingly, however, Marxist theory also argues that all particularistic distinctions beyond class distinction are irrelevant
--racism is opposed to the structure of capitalism, advancement of capitalism will undermine racism

Neoconservative Theory

--reaction to perceived failure of policies of 60's and 70's
--capitalism/free market will eradicate racism if left to itself
--firms that make decisions (employment, promotion, allocation of authority) on the basis of skill and productivity will be more successful than those who make decisions based on skin color and prejudice
--racism is inefficient and irrational

Empirical Trends

--Convergence: In past 20 years, SES of minorities have become similar to those of white
--Divergence: SES of minorites has become worse compared to white
--polarization: ethnic minorities are no longer a homogenous group; polarization of minority communities i.e. some african american have improved situations, while other have decreased situations

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