Verified Test Bank Ch4 The Cultural Construction Of Social

Chapter 4: The Cultural Construction of Social Hierarchy

Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. The rise in global wealth over the past two decades has been concentrated mostly among the ______.

a. poor

b. middle class

c. wealthy

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Income and Wealth Inequality

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. In a country with a Gini coefficient of 0.1, ______.

a. each person earns exactly the same amount of money

b. there is little income inequality

c. one person has all the wealth and others have none

d. each person earns money based on merit

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Income and Wealth Inequality

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. Over the past several decades, the wealthy in the United States have ______.

a. gained total wealth and gained their percentage of national income

b. gained total wealth but decreased their percentage of national income

c. lost both total wealth and their percentage of national income

d. lost total wealth but gained their percentage of national income

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Income and Wealth Inequality

Difficulty Level: Easy

4. Which of the following people is most likely to be wealthy in the United States?

a. A young man from Bolivia

b. A teenaged Black girl from Arkansas

c. A grandmother from Nebraska

d. A middle-aged white man from New York

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Income and Wealth Inequality

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. Why are teenagers, especially those of color from poor neighborhoods, often treated as dangerous criminals?

a. Crime rates among Black and Hispanic juveniles has sharply increased over the last 30 years in the United States.

b. Behaviors associated with the poor, the young, and people of color are criminalized.

c. They cause greater societal harm than older, wealthier people.

d. Teenagers do not vote, so it is okay to treat them poorly.

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Stratification and Youth

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. Why did the high school students studied by Murray Milner, Jr. distinguish themselves into various cliques?

a. Some students were demonstrably better than others, and the groups reflected the natural hierarchy.

b. High school students lack empathy for others and take pleasure in destruction.

c. Students have little power over their lives except to construct their own systems of social status.

d. The youth are disenfranchised by their own poor behavior.

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Stratification and Youth

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. The refusal to do well in school by the working-class boys in Willis’ study is one example of ______ in schools.

a. racism

b. sexism

c. ageism

d. environmentalism

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Stratification and Youth

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. Which type of earnings tends to grow the fastest?

a. Wage income

b. Social capital

c. Political capital

d. Investment income

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Easy

9. The majority of American families’ wealth is ______.

a. from returns on investment

b. the value of their homes

c. inherited from their ancestors

d. growing more quickly than the economy

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. According to the text, income inequality in the United States is ______.

a. increasing

b. decreasing

c. nonexistent

d. unchanging

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. How does the level of income inequality in the United States change?

a. The wealthy give donations to the poor to level incomes.

b. Political leaders make laws designed to reduce income inequality.

c. The poor do not contribute to economic growth, so they do not benefit from it.

d. The wealthy have access to more profit from economic growth than do the poor.

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Medium

12. The government contributes to income inequality in which of the following ways?

a. Passing laws that aid the wealthy at the expense of the poor

b. Increasing public services that aid the poor

c. Limiting the ability of companies to externalize the human rights costs of their businesses

d. Prioritizing the needs of the people as a whole over those of the wealthy

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Medium

13. What is the impact of keeping inflation low?

a. Unemployment decreases since companies have more money to pay workers.

b. There is more money in the economy.

c. Interest rates and worker wages increase.

d. Investors make more money from interest while worker wages are kept lower.

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. Student loan debt is the result of national policies to ______.

a. control inflation

b. lower taxes on the wealthy

c. privatize government functions

d. allow the concentration of corporate ownership

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Medium

15. Ideas about social class in the United States reflect the assumption that ______.

a. individual hard work will lead to success

b. social class is influenced by gender, race, and other factors

c. all people are born with equal value

d. poverty is the result of bad luck

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Constructing the Ideology of Racism

Difficulty Level: Medium

16. Which of the following social hierarchies in the United States is often justified based on assumed biological differences?

a. religion

b. sexuality

c. class

d. race

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Constructing the Ideology of Racism

Difficulty Level: Medium

17. The social hierarchy based on race is ______.

a. natural

b. nonexistent

c. socially constructed

d. inevitable

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Constructing the Ideology of Racism

Difficulty Level: Medium

18. What did Samuel Morton’s measurements of cranial capacity prove?

a. White people were more intelligent than everyone else

b. Biased scientists produce biased science

c. Brain size and intelligence are correlated

d. Volume measurements are objective data

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Constructing the Ideology of Racism

Difficulty Level: Medium

19. Cranial capacity is correlated with ______.

a. intelligence

b. race

c. social class

d. body size

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Constructing the Ideology of Racism

Difficulty Level: Easy

20. Why does the idea of the natural superiority of the wealthy persist today?

a. The wealthy really are superior to the poor

b. Every American has an equal chance to be successful

c. Economic redistribution policies have not helped the poor to be successful

d. The flawed concept of intelligence lends legitimacy to this biological ranking of people

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: The Social Construction of “Intelligence”

Difficulty Level: Medium

21. Which of the following is true about intelligence?

a. Intelligence is measurable.

b. People who score well on intelligence tests are more successful in life.

c. There are many ways to be intelligent.

d. People have varying amounts of intelligence based on their race.

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The Social Construction of “Intelligence”

Difficulty Level: Medium

22. What was one major flaw in the early studies of the inheritance of intelligence?

a. The scientists and participants were highly objective

b. They relied on biased judgments of peers and teachers

c. They measured many kinds of intelligence

d. They focused too much on the impact of environment

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The Social Construction of “Intelligence”

Difficulty Level: Medium

23. Spearman’s “g factor” was significant because ______.

a. its identification would prove the existence of intelligence and its impact on people’s value

b. it proved the existence of multiple intelligences

c. it showed the biological equality of all races

d. it would lead to a social hierarchy based more on gender than race

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: The Social Construction of “Intelligence”

Difficulty Level: Medium

24. What was the impact of early scientific studies of race and intelligence?

a. Scientists advocated for objectivity and equality.

b. Early scientists disproved the concept of intelligence as easily measurable and correlated with race.

c. Early scientific studies lent an “illusion of objectivity” that legitimized harmful and incorrect ideas about racial differences.

d. Early scientists showed conclusively that all races were biologically equal.

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The Social Construction of “Intelligence”

Difficulty Level: Medium

25. What is one way in which the illusion of objectivity places women lower in the social hierarchy today?

a. Textbooks often discuss women’s biological functions in negative terms

b. Scientific studies show that women are less capable of holding public office

c. Biology classes teach about how women’s bodies differ from those of men

d. Women have smaller cranial capacities than men, showing that they are less intelligent

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Constructing Stratification by Gender

Difficulty Level: Medium

26. The United States Supreme Court ruled that women’s bodies were a matter of public interest due to ______.

a. the role of women as subservient to men

b. beliefs in communal well-being

c. their biological inferiority

d. their reproductive capacity

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Constructing Stratification by Gender

Difficulty Level: Medium

27. The medical treatment of menopause and menstruation as failures of the body reflect the belief that ______.

a. healthy bodies may or may not experience menstruation and menopause regardless of biological sex

b. the body is at constant war with itself

c. childbearing is the primary purpose of women’s lives

d. menopause and menstruation can be painful experiences

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Constructing Stratification by Gender

Difficulty Level: Medium

28. The behavior of people in poverty is seen by anthropologists as ______.

a. proof of their inferiority to the wealthy

b. the result of fatherless households and broken homes

c. stemming from lower intelligence

d. adaptations to systemic inequality

Learning Objective: Question 4.4: How do people living in poverty adapt to their condition?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Question 4.4: How Do People Living in Poverty Adapt to Their Condition?

Difficulty Level: Medium

29. The people of The Flats, studied by Carol B. Stack, adapted to poverty by ______.

a. selling crack to earn quick money

b. forming strong kinship bonds

c. directly trading items

d. robbing wealthier people who came to the neighborhood

Learning Objective: Question 4.4: How do people living in poverty adapt to their condition?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Kinship as an Adaptation to Poverty

Difficulty Level: Medium

30. One example of generalized reciprocity in American society is ______.

a. paying for a close friend’s lunch one day and knowing that person will pay for yours in the future

b. trading a night of babysitting for fixing your neighbor’s computer

c. borrowing your friend’s car and refusing to replace the gasoline you used

d. paying taxes that then pay for schools, healthcare, and defense

Learning Objective: Question 4.4: How do people living in poverty adapt to their condition?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Kinship as an Adaptation to Poverty

Difficulty Level: Medium

31. Parents in The Flats were unlikely to be married to one another because ______.

a. they had no sense of right and wrong

b. fathers did not want their children

c. it was more advantageous to remain unmarried

d. they could not afford weddings

Learning Objective: Question 4.4: How do people living in poverty adapt to their condition?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Kinship as an Adaptation to Poverty

Difficulty Level: Medium

32. Which of the following is an example of an underground economic activity?

a. Working a full-time job at a factory

b. Serving at a restaurant for less than minimum wage

c. Babysitting for cash

d. Working a part-time job as a receptionist

Learning Objective: Question 4.4: How do people living in poverty adapt to their condition?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio

Difficulty Level: Medium

33. Which social factor that has the biggest impact on people’s well-being, according to the text?

a. the degree of inequality in a country

b. the amount of money a person makes

c. how much people trust their government

d. the tax rate

Learning Objective: Question 4.5: What are the effects of inequality on society?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: The Health Effects of Inequality

Difficulty Level: Easy

34. Why is international law not effective in reducing human rights abuses by corporations?

a. cultural relativism dictates that all cultural practices be considered morally equal

b. it is difficult to get many countries to agree to one definition of abuse

c. international laws are written by those who profit from the abuses

d. individual countries are left to enforce the laws, but are also the major violators

Learning Objective: Question 4.5: What are the effects of inequality on society?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Anthropology and Human Rights

Difficulty Level: Medium

35. What is one example of structural violence studied by Paul Farmer?

a. A mother allowing her child to be treated by a Voodoo priest

b. Catholic priests advocating for human rights

c. The construction of the Péligre Dam

d. Training local people to administer vaccinations

Learning Objective: Question 4.5: What are the effects of inequality on society?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Anthropology and Medical Rights: The Work of Paul Farmer

Difficulty Level: Medium

True/False

1. Inequality around the world has decreased over the last two decades, according to the text.

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Income and Wealth Inequality

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. Tax rates for the wealthy have been on the decline.

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Easy

3. Intelligence is a social construct.

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: The Social Construction of “Intelligence”

Difficulty Level: Easy

4. Philippe Bourgois described selling crack in El Barrio as much easier than working legal jobs.

Learning Objective: Question 4.4: How do people living in poverty adapt to their condition?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio

Difficulty Level: Easy

5. Children today have higher levels of anxiety on average than those in the 1950s.

Learning Objective: Question 4.5: What are the effects of inequality on society?

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: The Health Effects of Inequality

Difficulty Level: Easy

Short Answer

1. What is the Gini coefficient as it relates to the economy? Discuss how a society with a Gini coefficient of 0 would look in reality.

Learning Objective: Question 4.1: How unequal are we?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Income and Wealth Inequality

Difficulty Level: Hard

2. Is the United States a plutocracy? Give evidence from the text to support your answer.

Learning Objective: Question 4.2: Why is social and economic inequality increasing?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Question 4.2: Why Is Social and Economic Inequality Increasing?

Difficulty Level: Hard

3. Discuss why the belief that some are naturally more suited for success than others persists today.

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Constructing the Ideology of Racism

Difficulty Level: Hard

4. How have scientists contributed to problematic ideas about race, gender, and social class?

Learning Objective: Question 4.3: How do people come to accept inequality as natural?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Constructing the Ideology of Racism

Difficulty Level: Hard

5. Discuss the societal factors that led to the poverty in El Barrio.

Learning Objective: Question 4.4: How do people living in poverty adapt to their condition?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio

Difficulty Level: Hard