Social Inequality

• Social Inequality


  all societies exhibit ...based on their membership in a social category
• Patterned Inequalities


  ... are statistical regularities - not absolute laws

  - the presence of exceptions doesn't negate the empirical reality of the pattern
• Possible Dependent Variables (of social inequality) (that exhibit patterned inequalities)

  - wealth, access to material resources(Pierre Bourdieu "proximity to necessity")

  - safety(victimization and access to police protection)

  - access to education

  - health outcomes(ex: mortality rates)

  - social recognition(to be included in the public sphere as one's authentic self)
• Independent Variables (of social inequality)

  (CRENDIGS)

  CRENDIGS

  - Class

  - Race

  - Ethnicity

  - Nationality

  - Disability Status

  - Immigration Status

  - Gender

  - Sexuality
• Demographic Variables


  ex: race gender, immigration status, etc

  - can be isolated in a statistical model but are never isolated in experience
• Intersectionality


  intersecting identities which are often associated withparticular experiencesof social inequality
• Additive Effects


  When inequalities arecombined together

  ex:

  women - 15,000

  black - 20,000

  black women -35,000
• Interactional Effects


  Occupies the 2 positionsseparatelyand is associated with its own specific disadvantagerather than combined

  ex:

  women - 15,000

  black - 20,000

  black women45,000
• Race


  physical differences
• Ethnicity


  shared culture (ex: language, religion, traditions)
• Nationality


  country of original citizenship
• Racialization


  the process through whichphysical differences(i.e. skin colour)gets signified as a fundamental category
• Observing Race and Inequality

  the sociological study of ... can address their relationship at each level of analysis: macro, meso, and micro

  ex:

  Macro - immigrants + income level

  Micro - why there's an income gap

  - concerned about the subjective experience of racialization
• Double-Consciousness


  consciousness of how one is perceived by both, white individuals or the dominant white culture more generally AND consciousness of one's self, one's own self-understanding
• The Veil


  describes the inability to escape racial categorization for non-whites

  - race is standing in front (...) and is the first thing a person sees but once you get to know them you see behind (...)

  - white people are judged based on what they do while black people are judged on what they do based on their racial category

  - Black Americans are "born with ..." which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world."
• Upward Mobility


  when a person moves from a low to a high socioeconomical class

  ex: 3rd generation is doing better than 1st generation (therefore they're moving up)
• Education


  - although its relationship with upward mobility is decreasing, it still remains to be the single most important predictor of upward mobility

  - however it's by no means a guarantee of upward mobility
• 3 Ways in Which a Person Goes About a Stereotype

  1. Conform

  2. Reject

  3. Overperform to Combat the Influence (prove them wrong)
• Patriarchy


  describes gender-based inequality

  - political inequality and exclusion

  - economic inequality

  - sexual violence

  Gayatri Spivak (post-colonial feminist theorist): The inequality that exists "from the bottom to the top."
• Occupational Sex Segregation


  women areconcentratedin lower income professions (ex: daycare workers, domestic service providers, etc.)
• Vertical Occupational Sex Segregation


  within every occupation (including high income professions), women areclusteredin the lower earning sectors of the occupation