Name ______________________________ (Family name first) Section: 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f Soc. 157, Social Stratification Midterm Examination, Thursday 2 May 1996 This examination consists of 20 multiple choice questions, worth 1 point each, and two short answer questions worth 5 points each, for a total of 30% of the course grade. Put your name at the top of each page. PART 1. MULTIPLE CHOICE. Read each answer, and circle the letter in front of the one best answer. No credit will be given if you circle more than one. ***************************************************************** 1. According to the definition provided in lecture, "Social Stratification" is the field of sociology that studies the _____ distribution of things which are _____ but widely _____. a) just, scarce, desired. b) eventual, private property, coveted. c) unequal, scarce, desired. d) unfair, needed, lacking. 2. Which of the variables in the basic Blau-Duncan model exemplify ascribed, rather than achieved, social status? a) Father's education and occupation. b) The error term in the prediction of Respondent's education. c) Respondent's education. d) None of the above. 3. The basic Blau-Duncan status attainment model, with only five variables, omits which types of variables? a) family background b) personality characteristics c) socialization d) socioeconomic status. 4. Correlations among the five variables in the basic Blau- Duncan status attainment model: a) describe the extent to which those who score high on one of the variables also score high on the other. b) are all fairly large, ranging from nearly .3 to nearly .6. c) are all considerably below the maximum possible correlation. d) all of the above. 5. In a handout on the basic Blau-Duncan Status Attainment model, the equation for respondent's first occupation (RFOc) was shown as: RFOc = 0 FaEd + .224 FaOc + .440 REd + .818 Err2 The zero coefficient for father's education (FaEd) signifies: a) In preliminary calculations, its direct effect on RFOc was found to be statistically insignificant, so it could be eliminated from the model. b) The variable RFOc is the mean, and therefore not capable of prediction. c) The information needed to estimate that coefficient was unavailable. d) Whatever effect FaEd may have on RFOc, it is a direct effect rather than an indirect effect. 6. Some critics of the U. S. educational system have argued that it serves mainly as an ascriptive mechanism whereby affluent parents' offsprings are given credentials that will permit them to become the affluent of the next generation. The Blau-Duncan status attainment research includes some evidence bearing on that hypothesis. In the equation for respondent's education: a) REd depends almost entirely on FaEd. b) REd depends almost entirely on FaOc. c) REd depends much more on FaOc than on FaEd. d) REd depends much more on other variables, which are represented in the error term, than on either FaEd or FaOc. 7. Intergenerational occupational mobility, with people obtaining occupations considerably different from those of their parents, has been widespread in: a) American society, unlike the European societies from which its immigrants had come. b) most historical and contemporary societies of western Europe and former colonies thereof. c) modern industrial societies. d) practically all societies about which such contemporary or historical information is available. 8. The concept of "status discrepancy" refers to: a) some people having much higher or lower status than other people do. b) a prediction error in a status attainment model, the discrepancy between the observed status and the status that would be predicted based on variables included in the model. c) a person having different rankings in different status hierarchies, such as someone with a highly ranked occupation but a low income. d) aspirations of a person who desires a status higher than his or her current status. 9. One of the tables that was assigned in conjunction with readings on social mobility gave frequency counts in a 5 by 5 table of father's occupation by respondent's own first occupation. Which occupational category best met all three parts of the following description? (i) declining in size, (ii) frequently a source of mobility to other categories, but (iii) seldom a destination for mobility from other categories. a) upper nonmanual b) upper manual c) lower manual d) farm 10. Hout's inflow table shows black men's mobility between 1962 and 1973. Each column showed the source of inflows to that column's occupational category; i.e., the 1962 occupational categories of the men who were in that column's occupational category in 1973. In each of the five columns, the three largest inflows were from: the column occupational category itself, the Not Employed category, and ... a) Upper Nonmanual b) Upper Manual c) Lower Manual d) Farm 11. The Duncan scale and other occupation-based scales measure social status inadequately, or fail to measure it at all, for: a) persons with extreme wealth or power. b) housewives. c) persons without regular employment. d) all of the above. 12. In "human capital theory": a) Workers are seen as rational individuals who attempt to maximize their lifetime incomes by investing in their productive capacities. b) Education is the primary investment by which workers improve their productivity. c) Emphasis on the supply side (workers and their qualifications) leads some critics to complain that the demand side (available jobs) and the matching process are being neglected. d) All of the above. 13. Granovetter's sociological theory of income differences places the main emphasis on which of the following factors as determinants of income level? a) characteristics of the job and employer b) characteristics of the individual who gets the job c) the process wherein particular individuals and particular jobs are matched d) All three of the above exert separate and independent influences on earnings. 14. Wright distinguishes types of class structures as differing in the principal asset that is unequally distributed in them. For capitalist class structure, that asset is the means of production. For feudal class structure, that asset is: a) labor power b) management c) organization d) skills 15. The two major classes in traditional Marxism are the "bourgeoisie" or capitalists who own the means of production, and the "proletariat" or low skilled workers who do not. Wright developed a more elaborate class scheme, which involves those two classes plus ten others, and actually assigned survey respondents to his twelve classes. What percents of Wright's US survey respondents were in the two traditional Marxist classes? a) about 2% bourgeoisie, 40% proletariat. b) about 10% bourgeoisie, 40% proletariat. c) about 30% bourgeoisie, 50% proletariat. d) about half bourgeoisie, half proletariat. 16. Which of the following is NOT part of the "new class theory" discussed by Szelenyi? a) Marx was correct in predicting that the class rule of the bourgeoisie under capitalism would not last forever. b) The new ruling class will not be the proletariat. c) Marx was correct in predicting dictatorship of the proletariat. d) There are many unanswered questions regarding "new class" theories. 17. The direct effect of "mental ability" on "educational aspiration", which was reported in the Sewell-Haller-Portes study, was: a) about .8. b) about half as large as the coefficient of the residual or error term. c) larger than the direct effect of significant others' influence. d) negligible; mental ability affects educational aspirations only indirectly, with academic performance and the influence of significant others (notably teachers and parents) as intervening variables. 18. Karl Marx' theory of class conflict emphasized property rights, with conflict between the class of capitalists (the bourgeoisie), who have ownership rights to the means of production, and the class of workers (the proletariat), who do not. Frank Parkin, drawing on earlier writings of Max Weber, generalized on property rights to also include other forms of "social closure". (cont.) (18, cont.) Like property rights they involve legal distinctions between those eligible and those ineligible for certain rights, but the rights in question involve things other than ownership of productive property. Principle among such other rights are: a) lifestyle and ownership of consumer goods. b) academic or professional qualifications and credentials. c) rights to services rather than goods. d) employment by the state rather than by privately owned firms. 19. In comparisons of different western capitalist democracies, Esping-Anderson discussed changes in occupational structure, remarking that everywhere, _____ are declining in number while _____ are increasing in number. a) industrial mass-production workers; low-paid service workers. b) industrial mass-production workers; professionals. c) service workers; unemployed. d) professionals; low-paid service workers. 20. When a man who owns and runs a small copy shop first employs his son to give him on-the-job experience, then uses profits from his business to set up the son in the same business in a nearby town, that would be involved in an instance of: a) a direct effect of father's occupation on son's occupation. b) an indirect effect of father's occupation on son's occupation, with son's education as an intervening variable. c) a common antecedent, with family income affecting both father's and son's occupations. d) an attenuated correlation, since the occupation for which the son is training is different from that of the father. ***************************************************************** PART 2. SHORT ANSWER. The following questions are to be answered in what you consider the most appropriate format. An answer might require a few sentences or a couple of paragraphs, a list, or some computations, for example, but should NOT require more than a couple of handwritten pages. 21. In discussing the concept of "closure", Parkin compared professionals with athletes and entertainers. What was the key closure mechanism used in the professions? In what two important ways does Parkin see it as differing from the systems of ranking or evaluation applied in sports and entertainment? What evidence did he provide to support his interpretations? 22. Robinson and Kelley elaborated the basic Blau-Duncan model to include "social class" in specific senses based on writings of Karl Marx (control of the means of production) and Ralf Dahrendorf (authority over others in the workplace). The US data they analyzed lacked such information for the respondents' fathers, but a British dataset included both variables for both generations (albeit, not without other dataset shortcomings, especially lack of information about fathers' educational levels). The handout includes both, but this examination question deals with only the Great Britain data. A father with a high level of "Control of the Means of Production" might affect his son's "Income" two ways: --directly, as when a father who owns a company puts his son on the company payroll. --indirectly, as when a father who owns a company passes it on to his son, or otherwise sets up the son in business; but the son himself takes the second step, of exploiting his high "Control of Means of Production" to produce high "Income". From the path diagram for Great Britain, how large is the direct effect of "Father's Control of Means of Production" on "Income" of the respondent? How large is the indirect effect, with "(Respondent's) Control of Means of Production" as an intervening variable? Your answer should clearly label which is which, and show your calculations. *****************************************************************