Introduction to Sociology, Take-home Exam 2 Spring 2009
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Printed copy due in class during the Final Exam Period on:
Friday, May 8 from 1:00-300 in this room for MWF 1:00 Class, OR
Monday, May 11 from 2:00-4:00 in this room for MWF 2:00 Class
DIRECTIONS: Answer ALL 4 questions below. There is no page limit for this exam, but keep
in mind that it is the quality of the evidence that you use to support your answers that counts. Use
everything you have at your disposal to answer these questions, including your textbook, lecture
notes, videos, and discussions from class. (Please note: I have placed a copy of your textbook on
“closed reserve” under my last name in the library.)
PLEASE NOTE: You may choose to work alone or with one other person on this exam. If you
choose to work with another person, you will turn in ONE copy of the exam with BOTH of your
names at the top. You would then all both receive the same grade.
QUESTION 1:
“[Judy] Illes believes that scientists may be able, for example, to decode a 7year-old’s genes and scan the brain to determine his or her risk for future
criminal behavior…. Someday [by looking at genetics] we may be able to tell if
a 7-year-old will become a criminal.” (From the article “The Brain Age” in
Mindwise November 2008)
Using the lecture notes, book, and class discussion on the topic of crime and deviance:
1. Explain whether you agree or disagree with the assumption that we may be able to
determine, from genes, someone’s likelihood of engaging in criminal behavior. While it
is up to you to put together the explanation, you may find the following questions (i.e.,
hints) useful in getting started and in determining what to include in your response:
a. What is deviance? What is the difference between deviance and crime?
b. How do we define something as deviant or criminal?
c. Does the definition of something as deviant change across time and place or stay
the same? How does this impact our ability to find a biological basis for crime or
deviance?
d. Is it the act or the reaction to the act that we define as deviant?
QUESTION 2: In class, we discussed several of the main theories or paradigms in sociology.
Using your book and notes from class:
1. Describe the functionalist (or structural functionalism) perspective. What kinds of
questions does a functionalist ask? What are the basic assumptions of functionalism?
2. Describe the conflict perspective. What kinds of questions does a conflict theorist ask?
What are the basic assumptions of conflict theory?
3. Using the article below, explain (using detail from the article to support your
explanation!) how each of these two theoretical perspectives would interpret the move to
wall-in the slums in Rio? Be very detailed here in explaining how you would use each
perspective to explain the article.
4. Which of these interpretations makes the most sense to you in this situation? Why does it
make more sense to you in this situation?
Rio Gov't Building Walls Around Slums
Walls go up around Rio's slums to halt deforestation, raising concerns
of economic segregation
By BRADLEY BROOKS
The Associated Press
RIO DE JANEIRO
Rio's state government will build seven miles (11 kilometers) of concrete walls around
some of the biggest slums in an effort to halt deforestation of the jungle surrounding the
metropolis, officials said Tuesday.
Walls reaching 10-foot-high will be built this year around sections of at least 11 slums,
said Icaro Moreno, president of the state's public works department. The project will cost
$17 million.
Standing atop the Dona Marta slum in the shadow of Rio's famed Christ statue, Moreno
pointed to a 100-yard (100-meter) section of the first wall under construction. Work
began a few weeks ago.
"Each year that passes we're losing more of the Atlantic rain forest," Moreno said,
gesturing toward to the lush green jungle on the other side of the wall. "Now, we're
setting limits on where these communities can expand."
Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, which monitors forest destruction,
reported in December that between 2005 and 2008, deforestation of Rio's urban rainforest
had doubled as compared to the previous three years.
About 506 acres (205 hectares) were destroyed in the last three years — most of which
officials blame on the expansion of slums as more newcomers from Brazil's interior
arrive in this city of 6 million people.
Some 600 houses in the 11 slums will have to be destroyed to make way for the walls,
Moreno said. People living in those homes will be provided with new housing the state is
constructing inside the slums.
Some rights groups have suggested the walls are being constructed to segregate the slums
from the richer areas of Rio, a city where those mired in poverty can gaze into the
windows of luxury high rises, Many of the slums — called "favelas" — are built on the
steep mountains that dot Rio's landscape and look down on the wealthy, beach front
areas.
Moreno rejected the criticism, saying the only objective is to protect the rainforest. The
government is planning to build walls around at least 40 slums by the end of next year, he
said.
In Dona Marta, residents mostly shrugged off the controversy surrounding the
construction of the wall.
Poking her head out the window of her small wooden shack sitting just meters away from
the wall, Maria da Graca Martins da Silva, who has spent most of her 62 years living in
the slum, chuckled when asked if the wall would be a good or bad thing for the
community.
As workers in blue uniforms and hard hats lugged 50-kilo (110-pound) sacks of cement
up painfully steep stairs in front of her abode, Silva said most people living in Dona
Marta didn't see the wall as segregating them from the rest of Rio, anymore than the
poverty they lived in — though doubts lingered.
"We don't feel imprisoned. But, I wonder about one thing: Is this wall going to curtail our
freedom? I hope not," she said.
Silva's home is one slated to be destroyed to make way for the wall. She said she was
happy the government was going to give her a new home — but also expressed a some
skepticism.
"I think it is a good project," she said. "But only if they really build new homes for us."
QUESTION 3: We discussed the fact that the gap between “the rich” and “the poor” is the
largest it has been in recent history and growing. Using your book (especially the chapters on
Social Stratification and Work and Economy), lecture notes, in-class readings, and videos, etc.,
answer each of the questions below:
1. What is wealth? Describe the distribution of wealth in society? What is income?
Describe the distribution of income in society? (Lecture notes, in-class demonstrations,
and your textbook pg. 233-243 may be helpful for this question.)
2. What factors are contributing to the growing inequality in wealth and income in our
society? Describe each of these factors in detail and explain why they are contributing to
wealth and income inequality. (You may find pages 417-429 in your book and your
lecture notes to be helpful here.)
3. Do you feel that something should be done to reduce the gap between the rich and the
poor? Which of the solutions to narrow the gap in the textbook do you think would be
good (or not good) to implement and why? [Hint: Check out the last slide on social
stratification.]
QUESTION 4: On her CD, “Revolution,” comedienne Margaret Cho states that: “Living as a
minority in America is like dying of a thousand paper cuts.”
1. First of all, what does the term “minority” mean in this context? How is it different from
the “majority”? What are all of the groups in society that would qualify as “minorities”?
2. What is the most compelling evidence at a macro-level (in other words, looking at
patterns across social institutions and structures like education, healthcare, employment,
etc.) to support Margaret Cho’s statement for racial/ethnic minorities in society?
3. What is the most compelling evidence at a micro-level (in other words, looking at the
ways in which individual interactions produce and reproduce our society) to support
Margaret Cho’s statement for racial/ethnic minorities in society?
4. [HINT: Your textbook chapter on Race and Ethnicity as well as videos and readings
from in-class (e.g., the Brent Staples essay)] will be helpful with this question.