Name ______________________________ (Family name first) Section: 1a 1b 1c 1d 1e 1f Soc. 157, Social Stratification Second Midterm Examination, Tuesday 4 June 1996 This examination consists of 17 multiple choice questions, worth 2 points each, and two short answer questions worth 3 points each, for a total of 40% 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. In their elaboration of the basic Blau-Duncan model to incorporate gender, as well as other variables, Sewell, Hauser, and Wolf found that women obtain first jobs whose occupational status is, on the average, six points ______ on the Duncan SEI scale than those of men, (and/but) by mid-life women's mean occupational status is ______ than that of men. a) lower, still lower b) lower, higher c) higher, lower d) higher, still higher 2. In what Erikson and Goldthorpe call the "liberal" theory of industrialism, it is expected that as a society industrializes, "relative" rates of mobility become more equal, in the sense that individuals of differing social origins compete on more equal terms to attain (or to avoid) particular destinations. According to the Constant Social Fluidity hypothesis, in contrast, those relative rates would remain constant rather than becoming more equal. In how many of the nine nations studied does the Constant Social Fluidity hypothesis fit the data well enough to account for more than 90 percent of the total association between class of origin and of destination? a) none b) only the U. S. c) only Sweden d) all except Sweden. 3. C. Wright Mills defined the "power elite" as the top individuals in: a) military, police, and government b) science, education, industry c) culture, religion, education d) government, industry, military 4. "The Inner Circle" described by Useem: a) keeps a low profile, regarding political activism as not in its best interest. b) is defined in terms of significant ownership of the means of production. c) consists of members who pursue not only the interests of their own corporations, but the interests of large corporations generally. d) All of the preceding. 5. One of the two concepts Wilson considers most relevant to the situation of inner city neighborhoods is "social buffer", which he defines as: a) the constraints and opportunities associated with living in a neighborhood in which the population is overwhelmingly socially disadvantaged. b) the distance separating an affluent area from an impoverished area. c) the presence of working and middle-class professional families to cushion the effect of uneven economic growth and periodic recessions on inner-city neighborhoods. d) the number of public services that a given community can offer its residents. 6. The income level of the homeless in Rossi's Chicago study: a) averaged less than $2,000 per month. b) averaged less than $1,000 per month. c) averaged less than $200 per month. d) is unknown, since about 80% wouldn't or couldn't talk coherently with the interviewers. 7. In April 1996, the US civilian unemployment rate was: a) 7.5%, the lowest it had been in 14 months. b) 5.4%, the lowest it had been in 14 months. c) More than 2% higher than California's rate. d) Both a) and c). 8. In a place called Misery, nobody is happy. 50% of the residents have jobs, but hate their jobs. 30% don't have jobs but are trying to find jobs. And 20% don't have jobs but have stopped even trying to find jobs. The unemployment rate in Misery is: a) 20% b) 30% c) 37.5% d) none of the preceding 9. The lectures included discussion of (a) contemporary billionaires from the top of the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans, compared to (b) a similar number of individuals from 1900 and earlier, who were featured in Gustavus Meyer's History of the Great American Fortunes. Which of the following was an important source of the earlier fortunes, but not of contemporary fortunes? a) real estate b) retail trade c) railroads d) publishing 10. England's empirical work was addressed to attempts at explaining the very high degree of sex segregation in occupations. She found some of the theories were incompatible with the data, and after discarding some explanations whose premises were empirically false, concluded that sex segregation of occupations is due to: a) employers attempting to reduce information costs by engaging in "statistical discrimination"; that is, basing personnel decisions on sex group averages. b) women who plan to interrupt their labor force participation for childrearing maximizing their lifetime earnings by choosing occupations which penalize them least while out of the labor force. c) women who plan to work only a few years maximizing lifetime earnings by choosing occupations which have higher starting levels rather than higher rates of wage appreciation with experience. d) undetermined causes; England's empirical analysis refuted only two of the hypothesized explanations, leaving several other contending explanations untested. 11. The emergence of an ethnic enclave has three prerequisites, according to Portes and Manning. Which of the following is NOT one of those prerequisites? a) availability of sources of labor b) availability of sources of capital c) presence of a substantial number of immigrants with business experience acquired in the sending country d) resistance of native residents to the immigrant population. 12. Mobility tables, showing the relationship between father's occupation and respondent's own occupation, show that respondents typically have occupations similar to those of their fathers. A noteworthy exception is: a) Blacks in 1973 were most likely to be in lower manual occupations, almost regardless of their fathers' occupations. b) Blacks in 1962 were most likely to be in lower manual occupations, almost regardless of their fathers' occupations. c) Both a and b. d) Neither a nor b. 13. The lectures covered some lists of largest business firms owned by females, blacks and Hispanics. On which of the lists was the largest firm one whose major products are especially oriented to the group in question, rather than to a broader market? a) None of them. b) Working Woman c) Black Enterprise d) Hispanic Business 14. Christine Bose began with the Siegel prestige scores for occupations, and developed what she intended to be comparable scores for several non-labor-force statuses, including that of housewife. Consider the following occupations, each of whose work resembles part of what a housewife typically does. Which occupation's Siegel prestige score is closest to the Bose score for housewife? a) Child care worker, 24.0 b) Restaurant manager, 38.7 c) Dietician, 52.1 d) Psychologist, 71.4 15. Many more females than males do not have occupations, although this is less so in the respondents' generation than in the respondents' parents' generation. In elaborating the Blau- Duncan analysis to cover both genders, how did Marini deal with this problem? a) Omitted the cases where the respondent or her mother was a housewife. b) Substituted the score of the household head's occupation, when the female respondent or mother was a housewife. c) Used the Bose score for housewife along with Siegel prestige scores for occupations. d) Assigned a housewife the score of the most recent occupation she had held, even if that had been years earlier. 16. In her study of gender differences, Marini found that: a) When in high school, over 50% of females expected to be housewives. b) When in high school, over 40% of females expected to attend college. c) Over 90% of the females subsequently entered the labor force. d) All of the above. 17. During the past four decades what has happened to labor force participation rates for 25-35 year old males and females? a) Both rates have declined by more than 10%, as increasing proportions continue education past the bachelor's degree. b) Male rates have declined by more than 10%, largely due to postgraduate education, but female rates have increased by more than 15%, largely due to the decline in full-time housewives. c) Male rates have remained well over 90%, while female rates have risen from about 2/3 to 3/4. d) Male rates have remained well over 90%, while female rates have risen from about 1/3 to 3/4. ***************************************************************** 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. ***************************************************************** 18. We have studied various groups near the tops of hierarchies (e.g., the very wealthy, or the Power Elite, or the Inner Circle) and others near the bottoms of hierarchies (e.g., the homeless, or the Urban Underclass, or the Truly Disadvantaged). Why are these groups difficult to meaningfully discuss in terms of the various schemes of social classes (such as the 5 broad occupational categories, or Wright's 12 classes) or status scales (such as the Duncan socioeconomic index), which were explicitly covered in week 2 and used throughout the first half of the course? 19. Carefully distinguish the concept of "cultural capital", used by authors such as Bourdieu and DiMaggio, from other forms of capital, particularly "human capital". *****************************************************************