Sociology 13 – Sociology of the Family

Midterm Exam 

Short Answer Questions

Please answer questions in complete sentences on separate paper, typed, double-spaced. Be brief, using 1 – 2 sentences, and to-the-point. Due Tues Oct 23rd.

Sociological Theories of the Family

1. A) What is the functional view of the family using lecture, text, and “Functional  

Theory of the Family” (YouTube)?

B) What is the functional view of gender roles in the family?

2. A) What is the conflict or structural diversity view of the family using lecture, 

text, and “Sociological Theories of the Family” (YouTube)? 

B) What is the Marxist view of the family?

C) What is the feminist view of the family?

Images, Myths, and Ideals

3. A) What is the image of the ideal family in U.S. society, using text and lecture?

B) What is the image of the black family and how it differs from the ideal 

image, using Color Adjustments (in class)?

Preindustrial Families to the Emergence of a Modern Family 

4. Contrast the differences between the preindustrial family and the modern family 

in the: 

A) economic base and work

B) basis of marriage

C) the relationship between wives and husbands 

D) the view and treatment of children

5. A) How are the Amish family or the Mormon family examples of the 

preindustrial “godly” family, using clips from Shunned: An Amish Story and 

 the clip about the Mormon family.

B) How was the modern family shaped by industrialization and the separation of 

work and family using text and lecture?

The Historical Making of Family Diversity

6. A) What was the experience of white ethnic families such as Italian Americans  

who were exploited in the factories during early industrialization using clips 

from The Italian Americans (pbs video)? 

B) What was the role of the family for Italian American immigrants working in 

factories in early industrial society? 

C) What was the role of working class and poor children vs. middle class  

children in early industrialization?

7. A) What was the effect of slavery on black American families using the clip,  

“Rapper Nas Shown Bill of Sale” from Finding Your Roots (pbs video)?  

What was the effect of slavery on the white slaveowners and their families?

B) What strategies did black families use to cope with the attack on their 

families and maintain ties under slavery using the text and lecture?

8. A) How did the image of black women as the “Mammy” which was presented as

 the antithesis of the white “lady” suggest that black women were inferior 

because, while they were happily subservient to whites, they were “too 

strong” or dominant over black men, using Ethnic Notions (in class and in  

library only)?

B) How did that image of black women as controllers of their men reinforce 

both white supremacy and patriarchy? 

C) How did the image of black men as irresponsible, lazy, and dangerous 

suggest black men were inferior as fathers and husbands, using Ethnic 

Notions?

9. A) How did Sojourner Truth challenge the notion that only white women were 

“true” women or “ladies” (the cult of true womanhood) in her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” 

B) How did she challenge the patriarchal notion that women should not have 

the right to vote (doctrine of separate spheres) in her speech?

10. A) What was the effect of conquest, the loss of land and being reduced to low-

wage workers by Anglo Americans on Mexican American families in the 

Southwest using the clip from Latino Americans (pbs)?

What was the effect for the U.S. government and white settlers and their families?

B) What strategies did Mexican American families use to cope with labor  

exploitation and separation? 

C) How was Mexican American women’s tradition role in the family affected

by the migration of men for work?

11. A) How did the anti-Chinese exclusion acts affect Chinese American families

using Becoming American: The Chinese American Experience, Pt. 1  

(YouTube)?  

How did the exclusion act affect white workers?

B) How did the split household affect wives and husbands? How did it delay the 

second generation?

C) How did internment during World War II affect the relationship between 

parents and children in Japanese American families (lecture)?

12. A) How did conquest, genocide, and forced removal from their land by the 

U.S. government affect Native American families?

What was the effect for the U.S. government and white settlers?

B) What was the effect of genocide and forced removal of the Navajo on the 

Nez family using “Genetic Bottleneck” and “The Long Walk” from Sun 

Kissed (pbs video)?

C) What was the effect on Native children who were forcibly separated from 

their families and being put into Indian Boarding Schools (YouTube)? 

13. A) What was the effect of the convict leasing system on black families whose 

members were imprisoned and leased out to work as prison labor in mines 

in the newly industrializing South factories using Slavery By Another Name 

(pbs video)?

B) What was the effect of the convict leasing system on white families who 

owned the factories and mines?

Families and the New Economic Realities

14. A) What is the impact of the change from high-paid manufacturing jobs to low-

paid service jobs on working class families using the article, “The New 

Working Class” (nytimes)?

B) What is the effect of being confined to low-wage manual labor jobs on 

working class black fathers and sons using “A Family Man,” StoryCorps 

(pbs video)?

C) What has been the effect of the Recession and job loss, and foreclosure on

working class families, using Two American Families (pbs video)?

D) What is the effect of minimum wage jobs and the high tech boom on  

working class families in the Bay Area?

The New Immigration and the Aging of Society

15. A) What is the difference between the “old” immigration and the new 

immigration in the U.S. using Pew Research, the text and lecture? 

B) What is the effect of new immigration on the U.S. population?

C) What is the class of most new immigrants from the Middle East, Africa, 

South Asia, and China?

16. A) How has U.S. economic and military intervention in Latin America created 

violence, war, and poverty which has forced families to emigrate using The 

Harvest of Empire?

B) What is the effect of work on children in immigrant families using The 

American Dream – Family Style (nytimes video)?

C) What is the effect of the current U.S. government policy of family 

separation of immigrant and refugee families from Honduras, El Savador 

and Mexico on children and parents? 

Why are children being housed in internment camps?

17. A) How does the experience of Cambodian American parents as refugees from 

war and genocide created by the U.S. war in Vietnam on the family and children, using Pass or Fail in Cambodia (America by the Numbers, pbs)?

18. A) Why is the U.S. population aging?

B) How does the aging of the U.S. population affect the family? Why is there 

elder abuse?

C) Why are elderly women more likely to be poor but live longer than elderly

men?

Social Class and Families

19. A) How does social class shape families’ life chances using People Like Us: 

Social Class in America?

B) What are the life chances of members of upper class white families using 

“WASP Lessons” (shown in class)?

C) What are the life chances of upper-middle class black families in 

“Bourgeois Blues” (in class)?

D) What are the life chances of poor white families in “Tammy’s Story” and 

update (YouTube)?

20. What is the class of your family and how has it shaped your life chances?