Socicolgy cheat sheet vocab words

Social class Weber target group of people who rank close Marx capitalists or workers sell labor Property material processions wealth total value of everything minus debts power elite C. Wright Mills’ top people in US Presidge respect Status consistency ranking high on some dimensions of social class Status position that one occupies Anomic Durkhim a condition of Society people become detached from the usual Contradictory class locations Erik Wright position in the class structure that generates contradictory interest underclass group of people for who poverty persists  intergeneration mobility change that family members make in social class from one generation to the next Upward social mobility movement up the social class ladder downward social mobility movement down the social class ladder structure mobility movement up or down the social ladder exchange mobility about the same # people moving up and down poverty line official measure of poverty feminization of poverty condition of US poverty in which most poor families are headed by women culture of poverty assumptions that the values & behaviors of the poor makes deferred gratification forgoing something in the present in the hope of achieving greater gain in the future horatio alger myth the belief that due to limitless possibilities anyone can get ahold if he or she tries hard enough gender stratification males & females unequal access to property power & prestige sex biological characteristics that distinguish females & males consisting of primary & secondary characteristics gender behaviors & attitudes that a society considers proper for its males & females patriarchy men-as-a-group domination women-as-a-group authority is vested in males feminism philosophy that men & women should be politically glass ceiling keeps woman from reaching the top at work sexual harassment abuse of one’s position of authority to force unwanted sexual demands on someone Race group who inherited physical characteristics distinguish it from other groups  Genocide systematic annihilation or attempted annihilation of a person because of their presumed race or ethnicity ethnicity (ethnic) distinctive cultural characteristics minority group people who are singled out for unequal treatment and who regard themselves as objection of collective discrimination Dominant group group with most power ethnic work activities designed to discover enhance maintain or transmit an ethnic or racial identity discrimination unfair treatment against individual or group Racism prejudice & discrimination on the basis of race prejudice attitude of prejudging usually negativity individual discrimination person-to-person face-to-face discrimination negative treatment institutional discrimination negative treatment of a minority group that is built into a society’s institutions (systemic discrimination) scapegoat individual or group unfair blamed for someone else’s trouble authoritarian personality Theodor Adorno’s   people who are prejudiced & rank high on scales of conformity intolerance insecurity respect for authority & submissiveness to superior’s split labor market workers split along racial ethnic gender age or any other lines reserve labor force the unemployment workers are thought of as being “in reserve” capitalists take them “out of reserve” (put them back to work) during times of high production & then put them “back in reserve” (lay them off) when they are no longer needed selective perception  seeing certain features of an object or situation but remaining blind to others compartmentalize separate acts from feelings or attitudes population transfer the forced transfer or a minority group ethnic cleaning policy of eliminating a population includes forcible expulsion & genocide internal colonialism police exploiting minority groups for economic gain segregation policy keeping racial & ethnic groups apart assimilation process of being absorbed into the mainstream culture multiculturalism policy that permits or encourages ethnic differences (pluralism) pluralism diffusion of power among many interest groups that prevent any single group from gaining control of the government wasp white Anglo Saxon protestant  white ethnics white immigrants to the united states who cultures differ from WASP culture rising expectations sense that better conditions are soon to follow unfilled increases frustration  pan-Indianism attempt to develop an identity that goes beyond the tribe by empathizing the common elements that run through Native Americans cultures 

Elderly

1) Culture plays a major role in people’s ideas about the elderly and when old age begins. The typically stereotype of the elderly is that they mostly sleep all day and watch stories. People can have different ideas of when old ages beings. Some people believe that when one start to have wrinkles that they are elderly. As tanning and laying out in the sun is becoming a big part of our society people are starting to look a lot older than what they really are. Others, believe that old age begins when one has loss of movement skills. I personally stereotype people being elderly by their movement skills. My grandma is 69 and thinks she is 19. She never sits down and rest. She is always doing something. My grandpa is 83 and still goes to work on his truck every day. I think our society has placed negative views on the elderly. There are so many different makeup commercials for the elderly to stay young. These days no one wants to be elderly. As the health field is increasing in technology to keep us healthier the elderly is living longer. Society used to think of the elderly as a burden to society. Elderly these days are keeping up with people half their age. I now start to look at the elderly because they are not fitting typically stereotypes. I even know some elderly people who don’t want their grandchildren to called her grandma but by her first name. At the age of 65 most people were physically and mentally tried. These days people are working and staying active. My grandpa is elderly in age but no in physically health. He is probably in better shape than me. Even though our culture is changing when one looks and act as their aging we will still secretly think of them as being elderly.

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3) There would be a lot of changes if I was the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human services. There needs to be a higher standard on the number of nursing assistances to patients’ ratio. I remember when I was doing my STNA clinicals and how hard it was for the aids to take care of ten patients by themselves. I believe that if there was more aids to patients the care given to each individual patient would be better. I don’t think one can understand how hard it is till they been the aids shoes. I also believe that RN and BSN should have to work as aids before being able to move up the pay ladder. I have seen RN’s not waiting to even touch the patients. RN’s think that it is only their job to pass medications and hook up IV’s. RN’s that have never worked as aids get the big head because they are over someone. I have seen RN’s answer a call light and the patient needing to go to the bathroom. The RN’s would leave the room and go get an aid. Since I have worked as an STNA when I become a BSN I will help the aids out. Also, when the state comes in for inspections workers shouldn’t be notified. I was doing my STNA clinicals when the state come in. I could instantly tell that the state was there. The workers was in their very best behavior because they knew someone was watching them. If the state would contact the family members of the patients and do their inspections like that more would be unveiled. These are just a few examples of how I would improve the U.S. Department of Health and Human services.

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Drama & Poetry !

1) a) Tragedy was important Aristotle. A lot of Aristotle ideas come from Greek Tragedy. These ideas from Greek Tragedy helped shaped Aristotle and his plays. According to Martin and Jacobus, “For Aristotle, the tragic hero quests for truth” (215). Aristotle uses tragic heroes in his plays. He also uses the idea of climax from Greek Tragedy which is the “moment or truth” (Martin and Jacobus 215). These are just a few of examples of how Aristotle uses Greek Tragedy in his plays.

b) There is a difference between “old comedy” and “new comedy” to the Greeks. According to Martin and Jacobus, “Old Comedy is associated with our modern farce, burlesque, and the broad humor and make-believe violence of slapstick” (228). Old Comedy is found a lot in standup comedy. On the other hand, Martin and Jacobus explains New Comedy as being “suave and subtle” (228). New Comedy also, has type characters. This is where the ideas of good and bad stereotypes come into play. These stereotypes just like in modern days their characters can be predicted.

2) Both, “willing suspension of disbelief” and “aesthetic distance” is important to the audience. Coleridge was the first come who came up with the term “willing suspension of disbelief.” Martin and Jacobus explains “willing suspension of disbelief” that “we must agree to imagine that the events onstage are actually occurring in ancient Greece or Denmark” (219). In order for this to happen the director of the play must do their part as well. There are certain ways the actors must act and the decorations must make one feel that they are in Greece or Denmark. This is important to the audience because the viewer is taken from where they are into another place in the world. Some people have a hard time separating what is real and what isn’t. This is called “aesthetic distance.”  This is a very important trait for the audience to have. One might try to help the actors because they know things that don’t know. For example, the audience might know where Peter is. His wife many be looking for him and an audience member that doesn’t have “aesthetic distance” might try to tell the actor where Peter is. It is important to be moved by a play but one has to know what is real and what isn’t.

3) Greek amphitheater: The Greek amphitheater was designed with all of the viewers in mind. The layout allowed everyone to be able to see and hear what was going on the stage.

Elizabethan stage: The Elizabethan has a wooden roof on top of it unlike the Greek amphitheater. The middle of the stage was open to sky. This was a place that the lower class went for their entrainment. 

Proscenium theater: The Proscenium theater is different from the Greek amphitheater and Elizabethan stage because it “framed” the audience allowing them “more directly spatially and, in turn, perhaps, emotionally” (Martin and Jacobus 224).

4)

Rhythm- “The Tyger” by William Blake is a great example of how rhythm. The poem is about a tiger. The poem has a tiger type rhythm to it. The reader can almost see and feel the tiger romping through the forest. The poems follows a iambic type rhythmic pattern.

Imagery- “Arms And The Boy” by Wilfred Owen there are many examples of imagery. Owen is trying to teach us that boys have to learn how to kill. In the first line of the first stanza the reader gets an image of a boy with a “bayonet-blade.” In the second stanza the reader see the comparison of “cartridges” to teeth. The third stanza the reader sees the boy wanting to eat a apple. The boy is not a natural born killer.

Speaker- “Ballard Of The Landlord” by Langston Hughes is a great example of speaker. This poem has three speakers in it. The first five stanzas is the tenant speaking to the landlord. The six stanza is the landlord speaking to the police. The police however only says on word at the end of the six stanza “Arrest.” The last stanza is the news reporter speaking. There are many different speakers in this one poem.

5) In “That Time of Year” the reader sees a lot of imagery that can be related to a symbol. The use of imagery in this poem helps the reader see that this guy in the poem is in love with a younger woman. In the beginning of the poem the reader get the images of “yellow leaves.” The reader also, can see and hear the where Shakespeare says “sweet birds sang.” I get the picture of fall time. Shakespeare then talks about the “setting sun.” This is related to the old man’s age and that his life is coming to an end.  I can picture a sun setting and it becoming nighttime. Shakespeare then talks about the “glowing” fire. I picture the passion that is inside of this man for this younger woman. It is becoming clear to the reader just how much he cares about this woman. In the indented couplet lines at the end of the poem we change from him to her. The reader gets the image that this woman cares about this younger man as well.  Throughout this poem the reader can see the love between these two people.

6) A symbol is a deeper meaning of a word. Words can have negative or positive connotations. According to Martin and Jacobus, a “symbol is a further use of metaphor. Being a metaphor, it is a comparison of between two things, but unlike most perceptual and conceptual metaphors, only one of the things compared is clearly stated” (208). The function of a symbol in literature is to make the reader think about what the writer is trying to say. In “The Sick Rose” by William Blake the word rose can have multiple meanings. An allusion is an opinion of a word. There can be different opinions of symbols in poems. Each reader can have a different symbol for one word. The word rose had many different allusions for what could stand for including: love, women, Puritans, politician, or England.   

POEMS EXPLAINED

1) John Keats uses a lot of imagery in this poem. There is no setting yet there is an atmosphere created. He creates this atmosphere by using words. The reader can see the “high-piled books.” He is also giving a list of things he will not be able get to do. For example, “Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace.” This builds an uncertainty in the reader. From this example He keeps listing other things that he will not be able to do.

2) John Keats wants his last poems to be his best ones. This is why he makes rhyme and meter such an important part of his poem. This poems gave Keats something to look forward to. He worried that according to Martin and Jacobus, “He may die before he can write his best poems” (195). Keats took the time in his last poems to make sure they were his best ones.

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1) At the end of each line I emphases a fall. In line 6 where all of the words are pushed together I tended to rush the smaller words to make it one long big word. This type of poems breaks up the natural follow that one would have reading a regular poem. This poem makes one stop where they usually wouldn’t.

2) The two poems “Buffalo Bill’s Defunct” and “When I have Fears” are structured in two different ways. “When I have Fears” is the most common structure of poems. “Buffalo Bill’s Defunct” by E.E. Cummings plays with the structure of the poem. Cummings lines don’t go all the way from left to right on each line. The way that this poem is set up makes the reader stop where they normally wouldn’t stop. He also plays with words. He puts together the words one, two, three, four, and five to make one big word. This makes the reader read the words at a much faster pace than if he had kept them separated.  The two poems “Buffalo Bill’s Defunct” and “When I have Fears” read in very different ways.

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2) “The Tyger” by William Blake and “Song To Celia” by Ben Jonson are opposites to me. The word usage is different in the two poems. “Song To Celia” uses action and descriptive worlds words. For example, “raise, light, night, and taken.”

3) “Ballard Of The LandLord” by Langston Hughes I could set to music. There a difference between reading and singing. When I song this poem to music I had more emotions in the words. I even put more of my attitude into the words. This poems sounds a lot better when set with music. 

5) The poem “The Tyger” by William Blake has the most powerful imagery. This imagery conveys to emotions. These images play an important role to the poem. The imagery helps the reader try to understand the “Tyger” as being relate to things in nature.

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1) The man’s age is appropriate to compare to “yellow leaves, or none” because yellow can be used to describe youth and the man doesn’t have any more youth. The “bare ruined choirs” could be found in the man’s heart because of the use “where the late sweet birds sang.”

2) The “sunset” fading “in the west” is a comparison to the man’s past life. This is an very effect imagery because the man life is coming to any end as an indication or of age and so is the sun coming to any end.

3) The “glowing” fire is an indication of the passion inside the man. The metaphor shows how the man feel inside. The fire has been “nourished by” the man’s life around him.

4) “Love” which is talked about in the end also has to do with life.

W.E.B. Du Bois

The life of the Great Sociologist: W.E.B. Du Bois

W.E.B. Du Bois was one of the first African American sociologists. He was born in “Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on February 23, 1868” (Zuckerman). He lived till “August 27, 1963” (Zuckerman, 2002, p. 241). His full name was “William Edward Burghardt Du Bois” but he is most known as W.E.B. Du Bois (Zuckerman, 2002, p. 241).  He got married to his first wife “Nina Gomer in 1896” (Zuckerman, 2002, p. 241).  They had “a son, Burghardt (who died at three), and a daughter, Yolande” (Zuckerman, 2002, p. 241). Following “Nina’s death in 1950, he married his second wife, Shirley Graham” (Zuckerman, 2002, p. 241).  He did many experiments regarding race differences in his lifetime. He didn’t receive the great recognition of his work until present day. His experiences in life helped him develop his theories that I can explain came from his life experiences.

Bois life experiences included many things. He was the “first African American to earn a doctorate degree from Harvard” (Henslin, 2011, p. 18). After receiving his doctorate degree he “studied at the University of Berlin, where he attended lectures by Max Webber” (Henslin, 2011, p. 18). Max Webber was also a great sociologist who had a “new academic discipline of sociology” (Henslin, 2011, p. 13).  He tapped into his sociology career “in 1987” when he “moved to Atlanta University to teach sociology and do research (Henslin, 2011, p. 18). As one becomes more educated they tend to look at religion differently. Zuckerman (2002) states how, “Du Bois’s religious identity developed from that of a faithful Christian to a skeptical agnostic” (p. 241). Even though he had accomplished a lot of great things in his life he was still segregate by society because of his race. According to Henslin (2011), “When Du Bois went to national meetings of the American Sociological Society, restaurants and hotels would not allow him to eat or room with other white sociologist” (p. 18).  His outlook and studies began to be on race and gender relationships. Henslin (2011) states that, “Each year between 1896 and 1914, Du Bois published a book on relationships between African Americans and White” (p. 18). In total he “wrote over twenty books and hundreds of essays and articles throughout his life, and edited several major magazines” (Zuckerman, 2002, p. 241). His experiments helped him write his theories.

Bois used the books he wrote to explain his theories. He “wrote extensively about African American quality of life and specifically address issues impacting the African American family” (Saari, 2009, n.p.). He showed the difference of race in many areas including; “educational opportunities, limited occupational opportunities, family life, organizational participation, crime, alcoholism, housing conditions racial contact and voting rights” which all “addressed in The Philadelphia Negro” (Worthham, 2009, n.p.). During this time there weren’t many “educational opportunities” for African Americans. Since many African American didn’t go to college to further their education. They had “limited occupational opportunities.” There are only so many medium wage jobs. This lead to the “crime, alcoholism” and poor “housing conditions” that was present in African Americans because they weren’t educated. Sometime people had to steal in order to survive. They had to drunk in order to get away from the life they were living. They didn’t get high paying jobs so were able to have good “housing conditions.” These all are many “urban social problems” (Worthham, 2009, n.p.). These same ideas continued throughout his studies. These ideas can be linked to his experiences of his life.

The experience of most sociologists tends to be present in their work. This is no different for Bois. His experiences throughout his life help him write his theories. He came in contact with a lot of racial discrimination. Even though, he was a well-educated African American man. It was just the time period in which he lived in. This led him to want to explore race differences in our society. As he became more educated his views started to change. He learned about sociology by being around Webber. He went from having a religion to not having one. He wanted to further see the true difference behind race. It became more to him than just what was on the surface. The surface difference behind race is different skin color. He wanted to look deeply at what was the other differences besides skin color are. After his findings, he wrote books trying to educate African Americans. The problem was that not many African Americans could even read his work. He wanted to enlighten the African American people. If more African Americans pursed higher degrees it would have made his information change.

In conclusion, Bois experiences in life helped him develop his theories that I can explain comes from his life experiences. He took the time period he was in of racial discrimination and looked at it in a deeper way. He wanted to see more than what was on the surface. He took his foundlings and wrote books. He wanted the African American’s to better them and try to be just as equal of Caucasians as far as social standings. His work is finally getting the  recognition it always deserved.

References

Henslin, J. M. (2011). Sociology, a down-to-earth approach. (11th ed., pp. 13-18). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

Saari, M. M. (2009). W.E.B. Du Bois and the Sociology of the African American Family.

Sociation Today, 7(1), 5, n.p.

Wortham, R. A. (2009). W.E.B. Du Bois and Demography: Early Explorations. Sociation Today,

7(1), 6, n.p.

Zuckerman, P. (2002). The sociology of religion of W.E.B. Du Bois (English). Sociology Of

Religion, 63(2), 239-253.