FINAL EXAM- SOCI4333

Karl Marx

Prussian theorist who wrote The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels

Emile Durkheim

Developed the idea of the “collective conscience”

Auguste Comte

French philosopher said to be the father of sociology

Georg Simmel

Described social geometry using the geometric coefficients of numbers and distance

Abdel Rahman Ibn-Khaldun

Tunisian theorist from the 14th century who developed a “science of culture” featuring attention to sociological factors

Queer Theory

This theory has been noted to problematize “sexual and gender categories, and of identities in general.

French sociologist that opposed equality, favored freedom and opposed centralization.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Theorist who inspired Marx dialect -dealing with understanding the history of contradictions

G.F.W.Hegel

social Darwinist- coined the term survival of the fittest which suggested that organisms best adjusted to the environment are the most successful.

Herbert Spencer

In Marxian economic theory, the source of all values produced in a society (including use, exchange, and surplus value) is:

Labor

Emile Durkheim argued that social facts are:

Eternal and coercive

According to Marx, classes are groups of individuals who share a common position in relation to:

The forces of production

In complex modern industrial societies such as the United States, Weber would point out that the type of authority commonly found is:

Rational-legal authorities

According to Max Weber, the three dimensions of social stratification are:

Class, status and party

The Enlightenment

Thinkers argued that the universe could be explained and controlled via reason and empirical research.

The Conservative Reaction to the Enlightenment

they promoted religion and saw GOD as the source of society rather than research.

Political revolutions

impacted Comte, Durkheim, and Parsons

Industrial Revolution

impacted Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel

Rise of Socialism

impacted Marx

Rise of Feminism

impacted Jane Addams and Harriet Martineau

Urbanization

impacted Weber and Simmel

Religious Change

impacted many early sociologists as most were personally religious or had professional interests in religion

Growth of Science

impacted Comte, Durkheim, Spencer, Mead, and others

Vilfredo Pareto

Italian Sociologist- saw society had consisted of independent parts in equilibrium

Elite theory of social change

Pareto argued that social change comes from the elites first going down the chain (top-down)

Alienation (4 basic Components)

1) are alienated from their productive activity.

2) are alienated from the object of their productive activity (the product)

3) are alienated from their fellow workers

4) are alienated from their own human potential

Bourgeoisie

Capitalists (the bourgeoisie) own commodities, the means of producing commodities, and the labor time of workers

Commodity Fetishism

When objects become commodities, they become treated as if they have intrinsic value rather than value measurable from human labor.

Exploitation

(General law of capitalist acclimation) Surplus Value- the difference between what it costs to produce products (including the cost of labor) and the amount that the products of labor can be sold for

-Influence of Hegel and Use of the Dialectical Method

Marx utilized Hegel’s dialectic philosophy (dealing with understanding the history of contradictions) AND He Advocated for solving contradictions using philosophy in one’s mind

Materialist Conception of History

How people provide for their material needs determines their social institutions, how they interact, and their prevalent ideas

Proletariat

Wage earners/workers (the proletariat) are paid for their labor time

Relationships to the Means of Production

who own the means of production (the capitalists or bourgeoisie) and those who do not (the workers or the proletariat).

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx

The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation

(Exploitation) Marx- “The constant tendency of capital is to force the cost of labor back towards…zero.”

Anomie (Emile Durkheim)

state of normlessness where the standard norms and values are weak or unclear in a society. (state of confusion or disorder)

Collective Conscience

“the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society.”

Collective Representations

represent the sum total of collective practices of society (often represented by material objects but not always)

Collective Effervescence

collective energy in groups (Classroom acts as microcosmos of society)

Dynamic Density

two combinations: population density and the amount of social interaction within that population. why societies transition from simple to more complex forms, specifically in terms of the division of labor within that society.

Social Currents

prevalent moods across people which are not as crystalized as beliefs or practices

-Social Facts (and the distinction between material and nonmaterial social facts)

Material- directly observable social structures

-styles of architecture

-laws

-forms of technology

Nonmaterial- not directly observable

-norms

-values

-culture

Solidarity (mechanical vs. organic)

Mechanical solidarity- found where there is homogeneity (where people are very similar)

  -primarily utilizes repressive law

Organic solidarity- found where there is heterogeneity (where people differ in tasks and responsibilities)

  -primarily utilizes restitutive law

The Division of Labor in Society

The Anomic Division of Labor—(people lack moral restraint)

The Forced Division of Labor— (so they may lack

  competence)

The Poorly Coordinated Division of Labor— (so labor may be inefficient)

The Four Types of Suicide

1) Egoistic Suicide-Detached from society

2) Altruistic Suicide-(social integration is too high) MORE LIKELY

3)Anomic Suicide- Low regulation (destructive)

4) Fatalistic Suicide-High regulation leads to feelings of hopelessness

The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

-Sought to explain religion via social facts (SACRED AND PROFANE)

-Conceptualized God as “society transfigured and symbolically expressed.”

Said, “Religion protects man against the desire for self-destruction…the stronger the integration of the religious community, also the greater its preservative value.”

Adequate Causality (Max Weber)

If x occurs, then it is probable that y will occur

Authority (and its types)

Legitimate domination

  -Rational-legal- Based on belief in the legality of enacted rules and the right of those elevated under those rules to issue commands

  -Traditional- Authority exercised based on agreement that traditions establishing positions are legitimate

  -Charismatic- Exercised based on belief by followers in the charisma of the leader

Bureaucracy (and the components of its ideal type)

*Consists of a continuous organization of offices bound by rules

*Offices have specified spheres of competence/obligations/authority to carry out functions

*Organized hierarchically

*Offices may carry technical qualifications

*Staff do not own the means of production

*Incumbents do not appropriate positions—positions remain part of the organization

*Administrative acts, decisions, and rules recorded in writing

Calvinism (and its influence on the Protestant Ethic)

Protestantism (and Calvinism in particular) provided a moral justification for the pursuit of money.

Class

-in the same economic or market situation

Ideal Types

Historical ideal types- found in some particular historical time period

General sociological ideal types- cut across multiple time periods/societies

Action ideal types- based on actors’ motivation

Structural ideal types- about the causes and consequences of social action

Party

“structures struggling for domination”

Status

-“every typical component of the life of men that is determined by a specific, positive or negative, social estimation of honor.”

Rationalization (and the differences between formal and substantive rationality)

1)substantive rationality  -ordering actions into patterns and choosing a means to an end within a system of values

formal rationality  -means-end calculation regarding “universally applied rules, laws, and regulations.”

Types of Social Action

Rational Action -means-end rationality vs. value rationality

Affectual Action-action determined by the emotional state of actors

Traditional Action -action determined by the actor’s habitual and customary ways of behaving

Value-Free Sociology (and what it looks like in teaching and research)

Teaching

-Academics should leave their values out of the classroom

Research

-Academics should be careful to distinguish between reporting data and commenting on it from a personal standpoint reflecting individual values

Verstehen

Understanding!! Social phenomena are not intuitive or easy to understand but can be understood with rigorous research and study (whereas some concepts in natural science cannot)

The Heterosexual/Homosexual Binary- Judith Butler

Heterosexual matrix- Makes heterosexuality seem like the only natural form of sexuality

imposes compulsory heterosexuality

leads to homosexual melancholy

Major Tenets of Queer Theory

1) Sexuality is Conceptualized by Relations of Sexual Power

2) Sexual and Gender Categories are Problematized

3) Deconstruction/Decentering Rather than Civil Rights

4) Areas Not Typically Seen as Sexual Interrogated Through the Lens of Sexuality

Basic Tenets of Critical Race Theory

1) Racism is a “normal” part of American life.

2) Most Americans do not have much incentive to get rid of racism.

3) Race is not objective.

4) Racialization changes over time

Distinction between Critical Race Theory and Critical Theories of Race and Racism

Critical Race Theory

-emerged primarily from legal studies

-focused on legal scholarship and activism

Critical Theories of Race and Racism

-from social science

-consider issues like agency vs. structure, globalization, political economy, etc.

-incorporate many forms of classical and contemporary theory

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

Color-blind racism

-a smokescreen for oppression

Individual vs. Structural Approaches to Race and Racism

Individual-Level Approaches

-focus on issues between people

Structural-Level Approaches

-Focus on social structures and institutions

Michel Foucault

Archaeology of Knowledge- search for a general system of speech and writing

Language as “genealogy of power”-Wanted to understand how discourses begin and change and how knowledge is passed through history by the powerful

Madness and Civilization- (Foccult) During the Renaissance, the mad were not separated from the sane.  This changed between 1650 and 1800 through the power of discourse.

Structuralism

Response to French humanism (which had emphasized human value and agency)

Focuses on how language shapes the social world

Language is orderly and stable and constrains people.

Structural Marxism

There is a hidden logic to what people are doing and saying that empiricism can’t really determine…

Postmodernism

Language structures are disorderly and unstable, and words can mean different things depending on the context.  Thus, language must be deconstructed.

Leslie Sklair

Economic Theory -Four factions of the transnational capitalist class

(corporate, state, technical, and consumerist)

McDonaldization

-Efficiency

-Calculability

-Predictability

-Control by Means of Technology

-Irrationality of Rationality

Ulrich Beck

Globality vs. Transnationalism

Our present globality is different from previous transnationalism in that it:

-covers more geographic space

-has become more stable over time

-involves denser transnational relationships and networks

Zygmunt Bauman

The human consequences of globalization for winners and losers

Globalization = a space war with winners (with more freedom of movement) and losers (with less freedom of movement)

Winners still face certain constraints (inability to slow down, seemingly unending choices, and the constant possibility of risk or danger

Agency

Agency

-usually refers to ability to at the micro-level by individuals (although collectivities can also act)

Macroscopic Theories

Macroscopic/macro-level theories: primarily focused on large-scale social phenomena such as groups or societies

Ex: World Systems Theory, structural functionalism

Microscopic Theories

Microscopic/micro-level theories:  primarily focused on the individual actor

Ex: Symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, exchange theory, rational choice theory

Pierre Bourdieu

Wanted to overcome opposition between objectivists and subjectivists and bridge agency and structure

Structures

-usually refers to large-scale social structures (although it can refers to micro structures of interaction)

Habitus (Bourdieu)

the “mental, or cognitive structures” people use to deal with the social world—“internalized, ‘embodied’ social structures”  (common sense based on socialization

inappropriate habitus = hysteresis

3 types of Capital (Bourdieu)

economic capital- assets easily converted to currency

cultural capital- the ability to act “cultured” through language, accents, and mannerisms of the eliteà objectified in cultural goods (e.g., art, literature, etc.)

social capital- value from personal connections (through family, clubs, and other groups)

Cultural Feminism

Claims that women are different from men but important because they offer cooperation, caring, pacifism, nonviolence, etc

Gender Inequality Theories of Feminism

Liberal Feminism

-The Future of Marriage- men and women experience different marriages within the same marriage based on societal expectations of roles and conformance to those expectations

Gender Oppression Theories

-Patriarchy: Patriarchy is the most significant form of social inequality and drives men and women to other forms of tyranny

-Psychoanalytic Feminism: Boys grow up ambivalent toward their mothers whom they love but also feel controlled by and develop a deep emotional need to control women.

-Radical Feminism: Physical violence is the fundamental way of maintaining patriarchy.

Institutional Theories of Feminism

Different roles/divisions of labor between men and women lead to differences in behaviors and personalities.

Interactionist Theories of Feminism

Women are oppressed differently based on race, sexual orientation, social class, etc.

Simone de Beauvoir

essence vs. existence -The Second Sex

Essence (what we truly are) follows existence (what we actually do

Structural Oppression Theories of Feminism

Focus on how domination is achieved through social structures

Two major forms:

-Socialist Feminism

-Intersectionality

Waves of Feminism

-First Wave Feminism: Wave-focus on women’s political rights

-Second Wave Feminism: focus on economic and social equality

-Third Wave Feminism: incorporation of women of color, lesbians, working-class women, women in the global South, and others left out by previous forms of feminism

Examples of sociological areas into which rational choice theory was introduced

James Coleman

of Social Theory extended rational choice theory principles to sociology

Founded the journal Rationality and Society

Influenced sociology to incorporate rational choice theory as president of ASA, including in his keynote address

Gary Becker

3 key assumptions of rational choice theory:

1)Individuals try to maximize benefits and reduce costs (maximizing behavior)

2)The market will maintain a basic equilibrium in the face of maximizing behavior

3)Preferences will maintain a relative stability over time

Centrality

-Betweenness Centrality

-Closeness Centrality

-Degree Centrality

Behavior (Individual vs. Social)

Individual- (the realm of Psycology)

Social- (the realm of sociology)

George Homans

Exchange theory

Developed two kinds of behavior

1. individual behavior

2. Social behavior

Talcott parsons

structural functionalism

• wrote The Structure of Social Action and The social system

The Chicago school

-Became center of sociology for a strong connection to religion, social reform and empirical work.

People attended:

• Charles Cooley- the looking glass: your sense of self grows out of your interactions with others and their perceptions of you (primarily developed in primary groups)

• George Mead- MOST IMPORTANT theorist at the school and developed symbolic interactionism

W.E.B. Du Bois

• The veil: African Americans and Whites separated by thin but deliberate barrier

• Double-Conscious: African-Americans see themselves not just through their eyes but also through prejudicial eyes of others