SOCY final

Functionalism

Society is viewed as an ordered system of interrelated parts, or structures, which are the social institutions that make up society (family, education, politics, the economy).

Each of these different structures meets the needs of society by performing specific functions for the whole system (society).

Conflict theory

Sees social conflict as the basis of society and social change

Symbolic interaction

Sees interaction and meaning as central to society and assumes that meanings are not inherent but rather are created through interaction

Micro sociology

Small-scale sociological analysis that studies the behavior of people in face-to-face social interactions and small groups to understand what they do, say, and think.

Macro sociology

the study of the outside influences on human societies on a wide scale. It focuses on the larger societies, communities, and organizations that individuals live in.

Karl Marx

believed that capitalism was creating social inequality between the bourgeoisie, who owned the means of production (money, factories, natural resources, and land), and the proletariat, who were the workers.

According to Marx, this inequality leads to class conflict

Emile Durkhem

worked to
establish sociology as an important academic discipline.

Interested in the social factors that bond and hold people together

Studied the correlation between social isolation and suicide

Max Weber

was also interested in how society was becoming industrialized.

He was concerned with the process of rationalization, applying economic logic to all human activity.

He believed that contemporary life was filled with disenchantment, the result of the dehumanizing features of modern societies.

Wright Mills

“To understand social life, we must understand the intersection between biography and history.”. Coined the term sociological imagination

Sociological imagination

a quality of the mind that allows us to understand the relationship between our particular situation in life and what is happening at a social level

Auguste Comte

Stated that sociology needed to be treated like any other scientific discipline

Laid the groundwork for future sociologists and helped build the discipline

cultural relativism

process of understanding other cultures on their own terms, rather than judging according to one’s own culture.

ethnography

studying people in their own environments in order to understand the meanings they give to their activities.

Happens in two steps: The researcher participates in and observes a setting. Then the researcher makes a written account (field notes) of what goes on there.

Interviews

involve direct, open-ended questions
face-to-face contact with respondents.

Can generate large amounts of qualitative data

Researcher identifies the target population of interest, then selects a sample of people to be interviewed from that population

Surveys

are questionnaires that are administered to a sample of respondents selected from a target population. Survey research tends to look at large-scale social patterns and employs statistics and other mathematical means of analysis.

Ethnocentrism

occurs when people use their own culture as a standard to evaluate another group or individual, leading to the view, that cultures other than their own are abnormal.

Language

is a system of communication using vocal sounds, gestures, and written symbols.

This is probably the most significant component of culture because it allows us to communicate.

Qualitative

Uses nonnumerical data like texts, interviews, photos, and recordings to help us understand social life.

Quantitative

Translates the social world into numbers that can be studied mathematically

Sapir Whorf hypothesis

which is the idea that language structures thought and that ways of looking at the world are embedded in language, is based on this premise.

material culture

Material Culture

includes the objects associated with a cultural group, such as tools, machines, utensils, buildings, and artwork

symbolic culture

ways of thinking (beliefs, values, and assumptions) and ways of behaving (norms, interactions, and communication). allows us to communicate through signs, gestures, and language.

Folkway

is a loosely enforced norm that involves common customs, practices, or procedures that ensure smooth social interaction and acceptance.

Mores

is a norm that carries greater moral significance, is closely related to the core values of a group, and often involves severe repercussions for violators.

Taboos

is a norm entrained so deeply that even thinking about violating it evokes strong feelings of disgust, horror, or revulsion for most people.

Sanctions

are positive or negative reactions to the ways that people follow or disobey norms, including rewards for conformity and punishments for norm violators. Sanctions help to establish social control, the formal and informal mechanisms used to increase conformity to values and norms and thus increase social cohesion.

socialization

the process through which people are taught to be proficient members of society by describing the ways that people come to understand societal norms/expectations, to accept society’s beliefs, and to be aware of societal values.

Nurture

Can be defined as the relationships and caring that surround us that makes us who we are.

Nature

our genetics (temperaments, interests, and talents) are setup before birth make us who we are, rather than the environment around us.

Self

refers to a person’s distinct identity that is developed and modified through social interaction.

family (agent)

Immediate and extended family

Historical and Societal context impacts the way a child is raised.

Socioeconomic status and related circumstances

Race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, and other elements of family background affect how people within the family are socialized.

Peers (agent)

refers to a group of people who are similar in age and social status, who share interests. Peer pressure tends to be most powerful during adolescence

Mass Media

distribute impersonal information to a wide audience via television, newspapers, radio, and the Internet (Most important agent)

Total institutions

Family, Education, Politics, religion. Economy, and work

cohesion

role

are the behaviors expected from a particular status.

Status

is a position in society that comes with a set of expectations.

Ascribed Status

is one we are born with that is unlikely to change.

Achieved status

is one we have earned through individual effort or that is imposed by others.

Master Status

is a status that seems to override all others and affects all other statuses that we possess.

Positive Deviance

Positive deviance is defined as an act that is outside of the norm, but may actually be heroic rather than negative.

Deviance

the fact or state of departing from usual or accepted standards. What is deviant in one culture may not be deviant in another culture!

Conflict on perspective on deviance

Deviance is a result of social conflict.

In order for the powerful to maintain their power, they marginalize and criminalize the people who threaten their power. Inequality is reproduced in the way deviance is defined.

Conformists

accept the goals of the society and the means of achieving those goals.

Innovators

accept the goals of the society, but they look for new, or innovative, ways if achieving those goals.

Ritualists

Interested in the goals of the society but they do accept the means of achieving those goals

Retreatists

accept the goals of the society or the means of achieving those goals

Rebels

don’t accept the goals of the society or the means of those goals, so they create their own goals using new means

Differential association

A symbolic interactionist perspective developed by Edwin Sutherland

States that we learn deviance from interacting with deviant peers

Labeling theory

A symbolic interactionist perspective developed by Howard Becker

States that deviance is caused by external judgments (labels) that change a person’s self-concept and the way others respond to him or her

Stigma

Term coined by Ervin Goffman

Describes any physical or social attribute that devalues a person or group’s identity, and which may exclude those who are devalued from normal social interaction

Social Stratification

the division of society into groups arranged in a social hierarchy.

Slavery

is the most extreme form of social stratification and is based on the legal ownership of people.

Caste System

is a form of social stratification in which status is determined by one’s family history and background and cannot be changed.

social class

refers to a system of stratification based on access to resources such as wealth, property, power, and prestige. Sociologists often refer to it as socioeconomic status

Life chances

elonging to a certain social class has profound consequences for individuals in all areas of life, including education, employment, and medical care.

poverty line

is frequently used to determine who should be categorized as poor

Sex

refers to an individual’s membership in one of two biologically distinct categories—male or female.

Gender

refers to the physical, behavioral, and personality traits that a group considers normal for its male and female members

Gender role socialization

is the lifelong process of learning to be masculine or feminine, primarily through four main agents of socialization: families, schools, peers, and the media.

Feminism

is the belief in the

social, political, and economic

equality of the sexes and the social movements organized around that belief.

race

is only a socially defend category, based on real or perceived biological differences between groups of people.

Ethnicity

is a socially defined category based on common language, religion, nationality, history, or another cultural factor.

Functionalists on race

Focus on the ways that race creates social ties and strengthens group bonds

Acknowledge that such ties can lead to violence and social conflict between groups

Conflict theory on race

Focuses on the struggle for power and control over scarce resources

Symbolic Internationalists on race

Focus on the ways that race, class, and gender intersect to produce an individual’s identity

See race as an aspect of identity established through interaction

Social institutions

are systems and structures that shape the activities of groups and individuals in society.

Family (Institution)

as two or more individuals related by blood, marriage, or adoption living in the same household.

sociologists define it as a social group whose members are bound by legal, biological, or emotional ties, or a combination of all three.

Education

is the process by which a society transmits knowledge, values, and expectations to its members so they can function in society.

solutions to issues of education

Some attempts have included early college high schools, homeschooling, school vouchers, and charter schools.

Hidden Curriculum

describes the values and behaviors that students learn indirectly over the course of their schooling because of the educational system’s structure and teaching methods.

Power elite

a relatively small number of people who control the economic, political, and military institutions of a society.

Politics

the methods and tactics of managing a nation or state, as well as administering and controlling its internal and external affairs

Religion

includes any institutionalized system of shared:

Beliefs: propositions and ideas held on the basis of faith

Rituals: practices based on those beliefs that identify a relationship between the sacred (holy, divine, or supernatural) and the profane (ordinary, mundane, or everyday)

Common religious denominations in US

Christianity

protestant - catholic

Evangelical

Religions role in politics

religious organizations have also been agents of social justice and political change.

Positives of religion

Shapes everyday behavior by providing morals, values, rules, and norms for its participants

Gives meaning to our lives

Provides the opportunity to come together with others to share in group activities and identity

Negatives of religion

can be made dysfunctional by promoting inequality with sexist, racist, or homophobic doctrines.

On the other hand, religious organizations have also been agents of social justice and political change.

Economy

deals not only with money but also with the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services within a society.

This is a major link between individuals (micro) and society (macro).

Capitalism

is an economic system based on the laws of free market competition, privatization of the means of production, and production for a profit, with an emphasis on supply and demand as a means to set price.

Socialism

is an economic system based on the collective ownership of the means of production, collective distribution of goods and services, and government regulation of the economy.