Sociology: A Canadian Perspective (Ch.1-5)

The Sociological Imagination, according to C. Wright Mills refers to the ability to \________.

connect personal problems with larger social forces in society

\________ would say that all of our ideas about the world and our place within it reflect theories of society that have been built into our intellect

Antonio Gramsci

Which of the following is an accurate explanation of the three stages through which, according to Comte, social thinking passed?

In the first stage, the world was run by supernatural powers, by Gods.

Herbert Spencer believed that \________.

the strongest and best individuals inevitably rose to the top of the social pyramid and deserved their privileged status

With which of the following statements would functionalists disagree?

Change comes from conflict—between generations, between the government and the people, between rich and poor.

With which of the following statements about the simplest societies and modern societies would Durkheim disagree?

Over time, the secular part of life will be overshadowed by the sacred.

According to Jean Baudrillard, \________.

modern individualism is paradoxically expressed by participation in the rites of mass consumption

According to Durkheim, suicide \________.

rates vary with the degree of social solidarity

With which of the following statements about simple hunting and gathering societies would Marx agree?

People were close to being social equals.

With which of the following statements about feudalist societies, such as Europe during the Middle Ages, would Marx disagree?

Over time, the majority grew into a rich and powerful dominant class.

With which of the following statements about capitalist societies would Marx agree?

The middle class, through a series of revolutions (such as the French revolution of 1789), took political power from the monarchs and aristocracies.

Marx expected that \________.

a working-class revolution would replace capitalism with a more cooperative and collective society: socialism

According to Weber, modern society differed from traditional society in that \________.

science tended to erode mysticism and supernatural beliefs

With which of the following statements about authority would Weber disagree?

Traditional monarchies are based on legal-rational authority.

With which of the following statements about the rise of capitalism would Weber disagree?

Capitalism was the inevitable outgrowth of European feudalism.

According to Charles Cooley, individuals develop a consciousness of their self \________.

by imagining how they are perceived and judged by others and then develop a sense of themselves from these imaginings

Socialist feminists seek to \________.

free women from domestic slavery and integrate them fully with men into productive work

In the view of radical feminism \________.

capitalism is a modern form of patriarchal dominance of women maintained through violence, whether by agents of the state or by men in the privacy of the household

With which of the following statements would post-modernists disagree?

What we think of as real exists separately from images fabricated for our consumption and spread through the mass media.

\________ believed that it was up to African Americans to fight for their own liberation.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Dorothy Smith argues that feminist research \________.

should begin with the everyday experiences of women and with their understanding of these lived experiences

\________ stated that we perceive society through the veil of mass media so that 'reality' has been overtaken by simulations, such as Disney World, that impose on us images of what we take to be real.

Jean Baudrillard

Which of the following is NOT considered a distinguishing characteristic of science?

Knowledge is based on various social factors.

Relativism is the belief that \________.

we should abandon science or at least alter it radically because there is no ultimate truth

\________ express relationships between variables and they must be observable or testable.

Hypotheses

\________ are abstract ideas, composed of concepts.

Theories

Which of the following is NOT a variable?

language

Operationalization refers to \________.

translating theories into observable ideas before they can be tested

The prevailing view among sociologists is that leaders \________.

are bred because leadership can be taught

Which of the following statements about independent variables is NOT true?

They are equivalent to effects.

Which of the following statements about validity is NOT true?

A valid measure is one that produces the same measurements of the same phenomenon again and again.

\________ refers to the extent to which the results from that research can be generalized to a larger population.

External validity

To achieve a level of validity and reliability in qualitative research, sociologists do all of the following except \________.

engage in an extensive process of testing the different dimensions of validity and reliability as they do in quantitative research

An example of bias in research would be \________.

respondents answering questions the way they think the researcher wants them to

What does Weber mean by 'verstehen'?

In order to study properly the cultures of other peoples, a researcher needs to develop an empathetic understanding of their lives in order to see the world as that group sees it.

If you wanted to find out the voting preferences of university students, what method of research would be most appropriate?

surveys

Which of the following statements about surveys is NOT true?

They provide a controlled environment in which it is possible to manipulate specific factors in an attempt to determine their effect on an outcome.

Pseudo-surveys \________.

are done by companies only to find out what their customers and potential customers want and do not want to see in their products and services

Which of the following is NOT necessary when designing good survey questions?

comfort - avoid asking people about uncomfortable topics

Randomization \________.

is the only way that we can be confident that our sample is representative of the population in which we are interested

If you wanted to investigate why youth in the inner-city turn to drug dealing, what method of research would be most appropriate?

participant observation

Which type of research did Ben Killingsworth use in his study (2006) of how mothers interact with each other in a 'moms and tots' playgroup to construct ideas about what a good mother is and how mothers can reconcile that with the consumption of alcohol?

participant observation

Which type of research did Elizabeth Murphy use to investigate the connections between health care conversations (2000) and images of childhood (2007) and ideals of good mothers?

in-depth interviews

If you wanted to study formal organizations like police forces or law firms, you would most likely use this method of research

documentation

With which of the following are field researchers NOT concerned?

collecting quantitative or numerical data that can be generalized to a larger population

Which of the following is NOT a consideration in choosing a site for field research?

characteristics of the field researcher

Secondary data analysis refers to \________.

the analysis of official statistics and existing surveys

Exploratory research refers to studies \________.

in which the goal is to find out more about a particular group or topic

Which one of the following is NOT an important aspect of Canadian culture?

belief that there should be a high degree of occupational segregation by gender

With which of the following statements would Marxists NOT agree?

Culture is more than simply the reflection of the underlying economic base.

With which of the following statements would Neo-Marxists, such as Antonio Gramsci, NOT agree?

Culture is simply the reflection of the underlying economic base

With which of the following statements would cultural studies practitioners, such as Stuart Hall, NOT agree?

Meaning simply exists as part of cultural creations.

With which of the following statements about culture would functionalists, such as Durkheim, NOT agree?

Culture supports dominant groups in their efforts to maintain their dominance.

According to \________, religion reinforces collective sentiments and collective ideas and plays an important role in strengthening social bonds.

Durkheim

With which of the following statements about culture would symbolic interactionists, such as Goffman, NOT agree?

Culture is a product of social action.

According to \________, when we are interacting with others and are in our roles, we are managing impressions and performing in a front-stage area.

Goffman

With which of the following statements about culture would 'production of culture' theorists, such as Peterson, NOT agree?

We need to examine the resources and constraints that specific actors were working with and that influenced the kind of art or other symbols that they created

What is the origin of culture according to symbolic interactionists?

Culture is produced in the meanings that people create through social interaction at the micro level.

\________ refers to a set of ideas, concepts, and vocabulary that are regularly used together.

Discourse

How would a collectivist discourse view crime?

A collectivist discourse focuses on the social conditions that influence the likelihood that crime will be committed in society.

In the excerpt from the article on 'Why both social structure and culture matter in a holistic analysis of inner-city poverty', William Julius Wilson (2010) argues that \________.

one of the effects of living in a racially-segregated poor neighbourhood is the exposure to cultural traits that may not be conducive to facilitating social mobility

With which of the following views of the media would the author of the chapter on culture, Shyon Baumann, NOT agree?

The mass media are the primary source of high culture.

We often distinguish between popular culture and high culture. This distinction points to the existence of a cultural hierarchy which refers to all of the following, except \________.

the fact that audiences who typically attend the opera are wealthy and highly educated encourages an understanding of opera as high culture

\________ capital refers to the knowledge, preferences, and tastes that people have concerning art and aesthetics.

Cultural

According to \________, culture is a reflection of the underlying economic basis of society.

Marxists

Which one of the following was NOT one of the causes of the development of youth culture?

The maintenance of a middle-class standard of living required that more youth enter the labour market.

Which of the following is NOT an example of how technology leads to cultural change?

Technological advances and changing attitudes about women and work lead to more women entering jobs that used to be the exclusive domain of men, such as engineering.

Cultural change in inevitable because of all of the following except \________.

culture is composed of both individual and collective self-expression

\________ is change for the sake of change in the realm of aesthetics

Fashion

Multiculturalism as a fact of contemporary Canadian society refers to \________.

ethnic subcultures thriving

Which of the following is NOT one of the changes that have been brought about by globalization according to the author of the chapter on culture, Shyon Baumann?

National governments around the globe are now more able to impede American cultural dominance through laws that require national medias to maintain a sizeable proportion of their content to be of national origin.

According to the emerging science of epigenetics, \________.

our genes are constantly activated by environmental stim

With which of the following statements would learning/behaviourist theorists, such as Skinner, NOT agree?

Humans, unlike animals, have the capacity to share symbolic meanings and symbols in ways that animals cannot

\________ conditioning focuses attention on the response, which is not related to any known stimulus.

Classical

According to Freud, the 'id' refers to \________.

impulsive, pleasure-seeking, and selfish energies

According to Freud, socialization consists of a number of stages of development. Which one of the following is NOT one of the stages?

regressive

Erikson \________.

viewed socialization as a lifelong process occurring through eight stages

Piaget developed all of the following major stages of intellectual development, except \________.

post-operational period

According to \________, children develop their cognitive abilities through interaction with the world and adaptation to their environment.

Piaget

With which of the following statements would Kohlberg NOT agree?

In the earliest stages, children say 'it's wrong to steal'.

With which of the following assumptions would symbolic interactionists NOT agree?

The social self is fixed and static.

With which of the following statements would George Herbert Mead NOT agree?

A newborn baby is born with certain capacities.

According to Mead, children pass through all of the following stages except for the \________ in developing a full sense of selfhood.

preoperational stage

With which of the following statements about socialization would conflict theorists NOT agree?

Through cultural transmission, values and norms that are widely shared in society are critical to solidarity and cooperation.

With which of the following statements about socialization would feminist theorists NOT agree?

Parents today are less likely to encourage their children to play with gender-specific toys.

What does Connell (1996) mean that each school has its own 'gender regime'?

A school's style of dress can act as a powerful signifier of social acceptability and expression of identity that separates the girls from the boys

Which of the following is a primary agent of socialization?

family

Which of the following has NOT contributed to the diversification and experience of 'family'?

children still growing up in two-parent households

Which of the following is NOT an intra-familial factor that influences socialization?

neighbourhood in which the family lives

Kohn (1969) found that \________.

working-class parents tend to stress conformity in their children, whereas middle-class parents are more likely to encourage their children to attend university

With respect to religious institutions, Statistics Canada documents that \________.

attendance at formal religious services has fallen dramatically over the past several decades, particularly among younger age groups

Which one of the following is NOT an example of anticipatory socialization?

a new immigrant to Canada learning about Canada's food

With which of the following statements about resocialization by total institutions would Goffman NOT agree?

Occurs in business schools where people are taught how to succeed in business.

With which of the following statements about roles and statuses would functionalists NOT agree?

Statuses and roles are independent of norms.

Role conflict occurs when all of the following occur except \________.

competing demands are built into a single role, causing tension and stress

Which of the following situations is an example of a role strain?

lawyers balancing their duty to represent their clients to the best of their ability, at the same time, as being expected to mentor young lawyers and generate new clients

With which of the following statements about the sick role would Talcott Parsons NOT agree?

People who are sick can choose to be treated by an allopathic or a naturopathic doctor.

With which of the following statements about roles and statuses would symbolic interactionists NOT agree?

Role-taking involves looking at others from our own point of view and trying to anticipate the consequences of our own plan of action.

\________ is the process by which we co-ordinate or align our action with those of others.

Role-taking

With which of the following statements about our self and identity would symbolic interactionists, such as Cooley, NOT agree?

Once we develop a self-image, it remains fairly stable throughout our lives.