After completing Chapter 9, you should be able to:
- Identify the two ways presented in this chapter of categorizing people and to explain the difference between the two.
- Identify the hierarchies of stratification (also referred to as structures of inequality) and how they impact our access to life chances.
- Explain how class, race, and gender intersection to form what Patricia Hill Collins calls a "matrix of domination."
- Discuss social stratification from both the order and conflict perspectives and explain the key differences between the two approaches.
- Discuss the biological and cultural deficiency theories and understand how they contrast to each other and to structural theories.
- Explain the Jensen and Herrnstein theories of intelligence and Murray and Herrnstein's "Bell Curve" hypothesis and discuss their implications and limitations.
- Explain the "Culture of Poverty" hypothesis along with the criticisms that have been made of it.
- Discuss the two major strains of structural theory (institutional discrimination and the political economy approach) and how they explain poverty and its perpetuation.
- Explain who benefits from poverty in our society.
