The second exam in this course will be held on Thursday, April 9th. Be sure to arrive on time and to bring a pencil and eraser. The exam will focus on Ferrante Chapters 6-9 and on what you've learned in the MicroCase exercises up through #6, as well as class lectures, films, and discussions. If you are familiar with the subjects below, you should do well. As before, some questions will be taken from the tutorial quizzes at the text website and from the MicroCase workbook.

Please Note: If an emergency prevents you from taking the exam, you must contact me no later than the day of the exam itself and be prepared to provide documentation. Otherwise you may not be eligible to take a make-up exam.

In general, you should understand the meaning of the core concepts in each chapter.

Formal Organizations and secondary groups
Why Ferrante focuses on McDonald's--its status as a dominant organization paradigm
Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy. What it "ideal type" means in this context. Bureaucracy's basic characteristics.
Research modifications of Weber: the informal dimension of bureaucracy and glocalization. Positive and negative functions of the informal dimensions.
The concept of rationalization: value-rational thought, efficiency, "the disenchantment of the world"
The concept of Mc Donaldization: the four dimensions and the potential "irrationality of rationality."
Unintended consequences and externalities (or externality costs).
Multinational corporations: what they are. Understand that there are both benefits and drawbacks associated with them
Know the world's two largest global corporations
The extremes of value-rational action, as discussed by Ferrante: trained incapacity, problematic measures of performance, the problem of concentration of power and goal displacement (Robert Michels' iron law of oligarchy), and alienation.
Zuboff: automating vs. informating work environments
Privatization and deregulation--know what these terms mean. The example in the video, Water War in Bolivia
Wal-Mart film and discussion: why some people see Wal-Mart as the new dominant organization paradigm. Key themes in the film.

Deviance. Its distinctively sociological meaning. Why defining deviance simply in terms of norm violation is not enough.
The concept of social audience
Understand the basic meaning of each of Ferrante's core concepts in this chapter
Video on sexual harassment. Stigma contests. How definitions of deviance change.
How the case of China illustrates basic characteristics of deviance
What Emile Durkheim meant by saying that crime (and deviance generally) is both normal and functional for society.
Social control (formal and informal)
Sanctions: positive and negative, formal and informal
Know what country has the highest incarceration rate in the world (and also one of the five highest execution rates)
What country exercises the most extensive censorship of the internet
Labeling theory and Constructionist theory. Master status and the transition from primary to secondary deviance. Claims-makers and rule makers and rule enforcers.
Milgram experiment: what it demonstrated and why its findings were so shocking
Two explanations of deviant behavior: strauctural strain theory and differential association theory
Merton's typology of deviance: what it is and what it shows
Be familiar with the overview of different theories of deviance on p. 192

The concepts of social stratification and inequality
Film: "In Sickness and in Wealth," from the series, "Unnatural Causes...Is Inequality making us sick?" Understand the film's basic argument about the most important determinant of health and the key mechanisms involved in this. What can be learned from other countries about how to offset the negative health impacts of inequality?
Gini index: what it measures and how to read it. Where the US stands compared to other countries.
Social stratification and life chances
Know what percent of global consumption is accounted for by the 20% of the world's population living in the richest countries (see p. 202)
Ascribed vs. achieved status
Caste vs. class systems. The idea of a caste-class continuum. How this applies to different societies. Different types of mobility
Open and closed stratification systems
The different types of social mobility (p. 206)

Know what was the modal response in the 2006 General Social Survey (GSS) when people were asked what their social class was.
Be familiar with the Gilbert and Kahl model of the U.S. class structure (presented in class). Also available at http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/~wood/332/gilbert-class-model.htm
Poverty in the US. Know: the poverty rate for the U.S. population and how many people live below the U.S. poverty line. Be familiar in a general way with how the poverty line is defined and why many sociologists consider it to be set too low. Know what age group has the highest poverty rate.
Explaining inequality: the two major theories
The functionalist theory of stratification: basic tenets and criticisms
Conflict theories of stratification: how they are different
Our discussion of Herbert Gans' "Functions of Poverty." Is he mainly a functionalist or a conflict theorist in this piece?
Poverty: the World Bank's $1.25 and $2 standards: know roughly what proportion of the world's population falls in each category. Know where the largest number of poor people live and where the greatest decline in poverty has taken place.
Three strategies to address global poverty: be familiar in a general way with the meaning of and difference between foreign aid, trade concessions, and the activities of NGO's (non-governmental institutions) as strategies to reduce global poverty. Know what microcredit programs do.

Film, Race: The Power of an Illusion: the meaning of its title and its basic argument. The issue of concordance. The issue of whether race is "real." Race as a social construct. What the racial classification of Tiger Woods and Barack Obama tell us.
Be familiar with the ten short points about "Is Race for Real" at the film website (linked to daily schedule for April 2)
The US Census Bureau: what changed in the 2000 census and what didn't, in terms of racial classification
Ferrante's concepts of chance, context and choice in determining racial and ethnic classification at the individual level
The concepts of race and ethnicity
The "racialization" of Hispanic ethnicity
Minority groups: key characteristics. Know what is the largest minority group in the U.S. today
Unequal separation, assimilation and accommodation as different societal outcomes
Absorption vs. melting pot assimilation
Prejudice and Stereotypes
Individual and institutional (or institutionalized) discrimination (be familiar with examples of the latter discussed in class)
Merton's typology of prejudice and discrimination: what it shows about social context
The importance of measurement/operationalization in answering the question: Is racial inequality declining?
Know what % of white family median income was earned by the median black family. Be familiar with how poverty rates vary between racial and ethnic groups.
Be familiar with the range of factors explaining the persistence of racial inequality, including family structure and wealth, among others.
Understand what it means to ask if the causes of inequality today are primarily ones of race or class--and how the answer would suggest different policy solutions
Film, People's Century: Skin Deep: the two systems of racial inequality it surveys and what it took to bring about change. Nelson Mandela. The significance of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

MicroCase Exercises: be able to read and test hypotheses with both cross-tabulations and scatterplots. Be able to distinguish between independent and dependent variables. Be able to interpret both statistical significance and the strength of correlations (cutoff points will be provided). Understand the proper format for hypotheses.

April 1, 2009