Sociology 13

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

The Burakumin of Japan have a history of discrimination, but have similar education achievements as non-Buraku Japanese.

In 2010, approximately what percentage of American adults over age 25 had a college degree?

19 percent

Marilee Jones, former dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), resigned from her position in April 2007 after it came to light that she had fabricated her academic record and claimed to have academic degrees she did not have. While this is an extreme case, it illustrates the overemphasis on qualifications such as college degrees in order to be hired for a job. This is known as:

credentialism.

Boys are more likely to engage in risky behaviors and experience problems at school; boys are also more likely to ____________ than girls.

take math and science AP classes, and score higher

What is the relationship between birth weight and education?

Siblings who weighed less at birth exhibit lower educational attainment than their heavier siblings.

According to Bourdieu, the three types of cultural capital are

embodied, objectified, and institutional

Which of the following is NOT a sociological criticism of the idea that IQ affects educational outcomes?

If there is a relationship between innate intelligence and educational performance, then there is no need to look at social factors.

All of the following are among the best practices for effective teaching listed by Langlois and Zales EXCEPT:

adopting strategies to encourage students to share compliments and insults.

William, a 17-year-old high school student, chooses products in the grocery store by looking at the pictures on the labels of the goods on the shelves because he cannot read many of the words. William would be considered:

functionally illiterate.

The embodied cultural capital that parents have may work with institutional cultural capital. Which of the following illustrates this?

If a parent has confidence in social settings, he or she may be better able to advocate for children in front of the school board or at parent-teacher meetings.

Research has shown that the ____________ the family, the ____________ the children’s achievement on test scores and grades.

larger; lower

Results from the Coleman Report were surprising because findings indicated that

achievement differences between schools could be explained best by family background and peers with whom children attended school.

Which of the following is most likely to be a conflict perspective argument about why education levels have continually risen in the United States over the course of the last century?

As education became more common for all people, social elites needed to obtain more education in order to set themselves apart from others.

One of the major reasons that lower-status parents use more directives and teach their children to be more obedient than inquisitive is that they:

tend to have jobs that require them to be obedient and they want their children to learn this

Jackson’s parents pay for him to take private violin lessons and send him to language lessons after school. In the summer, he attends science camp. His parents try to take him on one vacation to a foreign country every year. Jackson’s parents hope that these activities will build his skills and better position him to get into a competitive university. Jackson’s parents are investing in his:

human capital.

Though she graduated from high school, Jenny does not possess the skills necessary to balance her checkbook or make change for a customer without the aid of a cash register. Jenny is:

innumerate.

Affirmative action practices refer to policies that

grant preferential treatment to subgroups within a population.

Which of the following statements is FALSE?

Abolishing affirmative action programs would significantly increase white students’ chances of gaining admission to elite schools.

Knowledge and skills that make someone more productive and bankable are known as

human capital.

According to Espenshade and Chung (2005), eliminating affirmative action programs would do which of the following?

decrease black and Hispanic admission acceptance rates by one-half to two-thirds

With regard to race and college degree completion, which of the following is correct?

in 2010, about 20 percent of blacks aged 25 and older had graduated from college, as opposed to about 30 percent of whites in the same age range.

Suzanne and Jessica are best friends. Both have been in the same classes throughout elementary school and have performed similarly with respect to grades. Suzanne’s dad owns his own company and her mom is a lawyer. Jessica’s dad is a plumber and her mom works at Wal-Mart. All other things being equal, which is a true statement?

Suzanne is more likely than Jessica to stay in school longer, score higher on cognitive tests, and be placed in college preparatory classes in high school.

Jacqui is a student at a Catholic middle school. One day she is asked by her friends from the public school to skip school. Though Jacqui wants to be with her friends and is excited by the thought of breaking the rules, she decides not to go. Jacqui is concerned that if she were seen skipping school, her actions would reflect badly on her school, her parents, and her teachers. She also does not want to undermine the trust that adults have placed in her. This example illustrates how ____________ in Catholic schools may influence behavior.

social capital

Which of the following is NOT an argument against tracking in schools?

Tracking benefits children with less-advantaged backgrounds, but only if their parents can advocate on their behalf to get them into college-preparatory tracks.

Which of the following trends in current educational achievement is NOT supported by research evidence?

Only girls whose parents are college-educated achieve as much as boys.

With regard to the effects of families on children’s educational outcomes, which of the following is true?

When a family goes from two to three children, middle children are significantly more affected by the loss of family resources.

Which of the following is a functionalist explanation for the increased number of Americans with college degrees throughout the course of the twentieth century?

Jobs have become more skilled and technologically advanced, and a more educated workforce is necessary to fill these jobs.

The SAT was developed in order to provide children from public schools with a chance to demonstrate their fitness for college and to show they were as able as students from private high schools. It is therefore ironic that:

researchers now question how meritocratic the SAT is, because the SAT may test knowledge that is biased against certain groups

Which of the following is NOT an argument that would be made by a conflict theorist?

Schools are the one place where all children, despite their family background, can move up in the world.

Which of the following is NOT an argument in support of the sorting function served by schools?

Students are sorted in ways that reproduce existing social inequalities.

Social capital is

the collection of relationships that can facilitate the actions and behaviors of others.

At 9:05 A.M., the bell rings and children file into their third-grade classroom. The first student to sit at his or her desk—book open and pencil ready to write—wins a star for the day. The students love this little bit of competition. This example of nonacademic socialization (which can teach students the benefit of competition) can be referred to as the:

hidden curriculum.

The Coleman Report is a systematic:

wide-scale evaluation of data from students and school facilities that showed that differences in school characteristics explained only a small portion of educational differences between schools.

What might be a reason that upper-status students score higher on SATs?

Their parents are better able to obtain help for them, as in SAT prep courses and extra tutoring if they are doing poorly in school.

According to your text, approximately what percentage of the nation’s population 16 years and older is functionally illiterate?

14 percent

Which of the following would NOT be an example of social capital?

A high percentage of students at St. Mary’s Academy take music lessons and are taking college preparatory classes.

Bill Cosby is concerned with black underachievement in the American school system. He suggests that:

more African American parents actually parent.

One of the most interesting findings from the Coleman Report was that:

when lower-class students went to school with more upper-status students, their grades improved

Stereotype threat is:

a psychological process of fear that develops when members of a negatively stereotyped group are placed in a situation in which they may confirm the stereotype.

In 2010, women earned ____________ percent of graduate degrees.

60

Suzanne and Jessica are best friends. Both have been in the same classes throughout elementary school and have performed similarly with respect to grades. Suzanne’s dad owns his own company and her mom is a lawyer. Jessica’s dad is a plumber and her mom works at Wal-Mart. All other things being equal, which is a true statement?

Suzanne is more likely than Jessica to stay in school longer, score higher on cognitive tests, and be placed in college preparatory classes in high school.

Which of the following is NOT a finding of research examining the effects of class size on educational achievement?

Students who have been in small classes are less likely to have discipline problems when they are subsequently placed in regular-sized classes.

When studies control for family background characteristics, the SAT:

no longer predicts college grades very well.

Which of the following scenarios illustrates "stereotype threat"?

Antoine, a black student at Yale University, is nervous about taking the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). He fears that if his score is low, he will confirm negative perceptions about the intelligence of black men. His fear then affects his performance, and he scores lower on the actual test than he did on practice tests.