1.7 Application and Discussion: Questions and Key Terms
Application and Discussion questions are intended to be used for student reflection and response; in class discussions or online forum discussions.
Key terms are needed to understand the concepts in this chapter and will appear in other chapters in the text.
1.7.1 Reflective Questions
- How does the social construction of difference contrast with a social construction?
- If you could add a third image in Figure 1.3, what television family would you choose and why?
- How is equity different from equality and fairness?
- What are the big demographic family trends in the United States, and how is your own family similar or different?
- What is a social identity? Can you describe your own social identity via your roles, characteristics and groups?
- How does intersectionality relate to equity?
- How has the government affected the structure of kinship and family? Families with which social identities have been most affected by this social structure?
1.7.2 Key Terms
- collectivist societies: a society viewpoint that focuses on meeting the needs and goals of all members of a group, rather than focusing on individual successes.
- comparative approach: within the fields of anthropology and sociology, the act of examining and contrasting social processes and institutions with a view to draw inferences and understand patterns.
- demographics: statistical data about particular groups and changes in trends within the overall population.
- equity: ensuring that people have what they need in order to have a healthy, successful life equal to others. Different from equality in that some may receive more help than others in order to be at the same level of success.
- individualist societies: emphasizes the needs and success of the individual over the needs of the whole community.
- intersectionality: an approach originally advanced by women of color that finds it critical to look at how identities and characteristics (such as ethnicity, race, gender, etc.) overlap and influence each other to create complex hierarchies of power and oppression.
- kinship: the social structure that ties people together (whether by blood, marriage, legal processes, or other agreements) and includes family relationships.
- nuclear family: a family group that consists of two parents and their children living together in one household.
- social characteristics: describes traits that may be biologically determined and/or socially constructed. Examples include sex, gender, race, ethnicity, ability, age, sexuality, nationality, first language, and religion.
- social construction: meaning assigned to an object or event by mutual agreement (explicit or implicit) of the members of a society; can change over time and/or location.
- social construction of difference: hierarchical value is assigned to perceived differences between one socially constructed idea and another. Class, race, and other hierarchies based on social identity are social constructions of difference.
- social identity: a person’s sense of self as defined by and in relation to the combination of social characteristics, roles, and groups to which they belong.
- social structure: the organization of institutions within society; this affects the ways individuals and families interact together.
1.7.3 Licenses and Attributions for Application and Discussion: Questions and Key Terms
1.7.3.1 Open Content, Original
“Application and Discussion: Questions and Key Terms” by Elizabeth B. Pearce is licensed under CC BY 4.0.