Sociology Midterm Key terms

Scientific

a way of learning about the world that combines logically constructed theory and systematic observation.

Sociology

the scientific study of human social relations, groups, and societies.

Social Embeddedness

the idea that economic, political, and other forms of human behavior are fundamentally shaped by social relations.

Sociological Imagination

the ability to grasp the relationship between individual lives and the larger social forces that help shape them.

Agency

the ability of individuals and groups to exercise free will and to make social changes on a small or large scale.

Structure

patterned social arrangements that have effects on agency.

Critical Thinking

the ability to evaluate claims about truth by using reason and evidence.

Norms

accepted behaviors and beliefs.

Anomie

a social condition of normlessness; a state of normative uncertainty that occurs when people lose touch with the shared rules and values that give order and meaning to their lives.

Social Statics

the way society is held together.

Social Dynamic

the laws that govern social change.

Positivist

science that is based on facts alone.

Social Facts

qualities of groups that are external to individual members yet constrain their thinking and behavior.

Social Solidarity

the bonds that unite the members of a social group.

Collective Conscience

the common beliefs and values that bind a society together.

Class Conflict

competition between social classes over the distribution of wealth, power, and other valued resources in society.

Proletariat

the working class; wage workers.

Bourgeoisie

the capitalist (or property-owning) class.

Means of Production

the sites and technology that produce the goods we need and use.

Verstehen

the German word for interpretive understanding Weber's proposed methodology for explaining social relationships by having the sociologist imagine how subjects might perceive a situation.

Formal Rationality

a context in which people's pursuit of goals is shaped by rules, regulations, and larger social structures.

Bureaucracies

formal organizations characterized by written rules, hierarchical authority, and paid staff, intended to promote organizational efficiency,

Double Consciousness

among African Americans, an awareness of being both American and Black, never free of racial stigma.

Sociological

logical, rigorous frameworks for the interpretation of social life that make particular assumptions and ask particular questions about the social world.

Macro-level Paradigms

theories of the social world that are concerned with large-scale patterns and institutions.

Micro-level Paradigm

a theory of the social world that is concerned with small-group social relations and interactions.

Structural Functionalism

a theory that seeks to explain social organization and change in terms of the roles performed by different social structures, phenomena, and institutions; also known as functionalism.

Manifest Functions

functions of an object, an institution, or a phenomenon that are not obvious and intended.

Latent Function

functions of an object, an institution, or a phenomenon that are not recognized or expected.

Social Conflict Paradigm

a theory that seeks to explain social organization and change in terms of the conflict that is built into social relations; also known as conflict theory.

Symbolic Interactionism

a microsociological perspective that posits that both the individual self and society as a whole are products of social interactions based on language and other symbols.

Symbols

representations of things that are not immediately present to our senses.

Power

the ability to mobilize resources and achieve goals despite the resistance of others.

Inequality

differences in wealth, power, political voice, educational opportunities, and other valued resources.

Globalization

the process by which people all over the planet become increasingly interconnected economically, politically, culturally, and environmentally.

Social Diversity

the social and culture mixture of different groups in society and societal recognition of difference as significant.

Ethnocentrism

a worldwide whereby one judges other cultures by the standards of one's own culture and regards one's own way of life as "normal" and better than others.

Scientific Method

A way of learning about the world that combines logically constructed theory and systematic observation to provide explanations of how things work

deductive reasoning

The process of taking an existing theory and logically deducing that if the theory is accurate, we should discover other patterns of behavior consistent with it.

Hypotheses

Ideas about the world, derived from theories, which can be disproved when tested against observation.

Inductive Reasoning

The process of generalizing to an entire category of phenomena from a particular set of observations

Quantitative Research

Research that gathers data that can be quantified and offers insight into broad patterns of social behaviors and social attitudes.

Qualitative Research

Research that is characterized by data that cannot be quantified (or converted into numbers, focusing instead of generating in-depth knowledge of social life, institutions, and processes.

Scientific Theories

Explanations of how and why scientific observations are as they are

Concepts

Ideas that describe a number of things that have something in common

operational definition

A definition of a concept that allows the concept to be observed and measured

Variable

A concept or its empirical measure that can take on multiple values.

Quantitative variable

factors that can be counted

qualitative variable

variables that express qualities and do not have numerical values

correlation

the degree to which two or more variables are associated with one another

Casual relationship

a relationship between two variables in which one variable is the cause of the other

spurious relationship

a correlation between two or more variables that is actually the result of something else that is not being measured, rather than a casual link between the variables themselves

Negative correlation

a relationship between two variables in which one increases as the other decreases

principle of falsification

the principle, advanced by Karl Popper, that a scientific theory must lead to testable hypotheses that can be disproved if they are wrong

Falsifiability

The ability for a theory to be disproved; the logical possibility for a theory to be tested and proved false

Validity

the degree to which concepts and their measurements accurately represent what they claim to represent

reliability

the extent to which researchers' findings are consistent with the findings of different studies of the same thing, or with the findings of the same study over time

Bias

A characteristic of results that systematically misrepresent the true nature of what is being studied

objectivity

the ability to represent the object of study accurately

value neutrality

the characteristic of being free of personal beliefs and opinions that would influence the course of research

Replication

the repetition of a previous study song a different sample or population to verify or refute the original findings

Research methods

specific techniques for systematically gathering data

survey

a research method that uses a questionnaire or interviews administered to a group of people in person or by telephone or e-mail to determine their characteristics, opinions, and behaviors.

population

the whole group of people studied in sociological research

random sampling

sampling in which everyone in the population of interest has an equal chance of being chosen for the study

stratified sampling

dividing a population into a series of subgroups and taking random samples from within each group

fieldwork

a research method that relies on in-depth and often extended study of a group or community

interview

a detailed conversation designed to obtain in-depth information about a person and his or her activities

leading questions

questions that tend to elicit particular responses

experiments

research techniques for investigating cause and effect under controlled conditions

independent or experimental variables

variables that cause changes in other variables

dependent variables

variables that change as a result of changes in other variables

statistical data

quantitative information obtained from government agencies, businesses, research studies, and other entities that collect data for their own or others' use.

document analysis

the examination of written material or cultural products: previous studies, newspaper reports, court records, campaign posters, digital reports, films, pamphlets, and other forms of texts or images produced by individual, government agencies, or private organizations

culture

the beliefs, norms, behaviors, and products common to the members of a particular group

material culture

the physical objects that are created embraced or consumed by society that help shape peoples lives

nonmaterial culture

the abstract creations of human cultures including language and social practices

beliefs

particular ideas that people accept as true

folkways

fairly weak norms that are passed down from the past, the violation of which is generally not considered serious within a particular culture

mores

strongly held norms, the violation of which seriously offends the standards of acceptable conduct of most people within a particular culture

taboos

powerful mores the violation of which is considered serious and even unthinkable within a particular culture

laws

codified norms or rules of behavior

values

the general standards in society that define ideal principles, like those governing notions of right and wrong

ideal culture

the values, norms, and behaviors that people in a given society profess to embrace

real culture

the values, norms, and behaviors that people in a given society actually embrace and exhibit

cultural inconsistency

a contradiction between the goals of ideal culture and the practices of real culture

doxic

taken for granted as "natural" or "normal" in society

etic perspective

the perspective of the outside observer

emic perspective

the perspective of the insider the one belonging to the cultural group in question

cultural relativism

a worldview whereby the practices of a society are understood sociologically in terms of that society's norms and values and not the norms and values of another society

subcultures

cultures that exist together with a dominant culture but differ in some important respects from that dominant culture

language

a system of symbolic verbal, nonverbal, and written representations rooted within a particular culture

multiculturalism

a commitment to respecting cultural differences rather than trying to submerge them into a larger dominant culture

high culture

the music, theater, literature, and other cultural products that are held in particularly high esteem in society

popular culture

the entertainment, culinary, and athletic tastes shared by the masses

mass media

media of public communication intended to reach and influence a mass audience

rape culture

a social culture that provides an environment conducive to rape

social class reproduction

the way in which class status is reproduced from generation to generation, with parents "passing on" a class position to their offspring

cultural capital

wealth in the form of knowledge, ideas, verbal skills, and ways of thinking and acting

habitus

internalization of objective probabilities and subsequent expression of those probabilities as choice