Test: Social Inequality - MCAT MCQ

• There are many types of discrimination, such as discrimination based on gender, race, or class.
• Some people experience overlapping categories of discrimination, such as discrimination in gender and race (e.g., female, Hispanic).
• Higher mental health risks for individuals who are discriminated in two or three stratification categories can be referred to the “double jeopardy” or “triple jeopardy” hypotheses.
• The theory of intersectionality proposes that we need to understand how all these discriminations (double or triple jeopardy) can simultaneously exist.

• The passage posits that the main cause of poverty is the lack of skills and knowledge due to unequal educational opportunities.
• The policy suggested that providing ample educational opportunities for people to acquire skills and knowledge would be the most effective way to reduce poverty.
• For example, structural inequality occurs when educational institutions have biases which provides advantages for some members and marginalizes or produces disadvantages for other members.
• Therefore, aiming to provide equal education and training opportunities for all social groups (aiming for structural changes), is a structuralist perspective.

• The broken windows hypothesis talks about alleviating neighborhood disorders would help prevent more serious street crimes.
• Neighborhood factors such as vandalism or disorders are environmental factors.
• This theory links crime rates to the environmental influences of a neighborhood. In other words, the organization or disorganization of a residential location contributes to whether an individual would be involved in street crimes.
• Social disorganization theory states that the conditions of a neighborhood shapes the likelihood that a person in that environment will become involved in street crimes.

• Crime prevention can be accomplished through formal and informal control mechanisms.
• Family, neighbors, and friends are considered informal social control.
• The police, or laws can be considered formal social control.

• Marx believed that workers (the proletariat) would come to realize that capitalists are the source of their oppression.
• Marx believed that the workers would unite as the proletariat class and become free of their oppressors.
• Marx believed that the workers would seize the means of production and usher in a classless society--where everyone was equal.
• Marx argued that what holds back the workers’ unity and revolution is the presence of “false class consciousness”, where workers mistakenly identify with the interests with the capitalists.

• The social disorganization model links crime rates to the environmental influences of a neighborhood.
• The organization or disorganization of a residential location contributes to whether an individual would be involved in street crimes.
• Environmental factors include things such as poverty levels, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility of an area.
• Learning criminal behavior by observing other people and witnessing the rewards or consequences that their behavior receives is not considered neighborhood, environment, or ecological factors (traits of the social disorganization model).

• For Marx, factory workers become a mechanistic part of a social class.
• For Marx, factory workers are estranged from their humanity.
• For Marx, factory workers lose their ability to determine their destinies and the ability to own goods they produce.
• This estrangement is referred to as the alienation of labor.

• This concept is an attempt to explain the cycle of poverty.
• This concept argued that the poor are not simply lacking resources, but also acquire a poverty-perpetuating value system.
• This poverty-perpetuating value system is referred to as the culture of poverty.

Social inequality refers to the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges among individuals or groups within a society. The distribution of wealth is a prime example of social inequality as it often leads to disparities in income, education, and social mobility.

Racism refers to the belief that some races are inherently superior or inferior to others, leading to discriminatory practices and unequal treatment based on race or ethnicity. It involves the systematic marginalization and exclusion of individuals from certain opportunities or privileges based on their racial background.