sociology 3 chapter 1

Social Institutions

Any set of persons, such as a family, economy, government, or religion, cooperating for the purpose of organizing stable patterns of human activity.

Cohort

Within a population, a group of indiciduals of similar age who share a particular experience

Demographic factors

Social characteristics of population, in particular those of race, age, and gender

Intersectionality

The ways in which several demographic factors- especially social class, race, ethnicity, and gender- combine to affect people's experiences

Social class

A category of people whose experiences in life are determined by the amount of income and wealth they own and control.

Sociology

The study of social behavior and human society

Social problem

A social condition, event, or pattern of behavior that negatively affects the well being of a significant number of people )or a number of significant people) who believe that the condition, event, or pattern needs to be changed or ameliorated

Data sources

Collections of information

Objective aspects of social problems

Those empirical conditions or facts that point to the concreteness of social problems "out there."

Subjective aspect of social problems

The process by which people define social problems

Social constructionism

The social process by which people define a social problem into existence

Social structure

The pattern of interrelated social institutions

Social movements

The collective efforts of people to realize social change in order to solve social problems

Sociological imagination

A form of self consciousness that allows us to go beyond our immediate envirnments of faimly, neighborhood, and work and understand the major structural transformations that have occured and are occurring.

Global perspective

A viewpoint from which we compare our own society to other societies

Quantitative

Research that studies social problems through statistical analysis

Research methods

Techniques for obtaining information

Survey

A research method that asks respondents to answer questions on a written questionnaire

Participant observation

A research method that includes observing and studying people in their everyday settings.

Interviewing

A method of data collection in which the researcher asks respondents a series of questions

Theory

A collection of related concepts

Concepts

Ideas that sociologists have about some aspect of the social world

Paradigms

Theoretical perspectives

Structural functionalism (or functionalism)

The sociological theory that considers how various social phenomena function, or work in a positive way, to maintain unity and order in society

Functions

Positive consequences of social structures or social institutions.

Norms

Social rules

Values

Social beliefs

Dysfuntions

Negative consequences of social structures or social institutions

Conflict theory

The sociological theory that focuses on dissent, cercion, and antagonism in society

Capitalism

an economic system that includes the ownership of private property, the making of financial profit, and the hiring of workers

Capitalists

The economically dominant class that privately owns and controls human labor, raw materials, land, tools, machinery, techonologies, and factories

Workers

Those who own no property and must work for the capitalists in order to suppor themselves and their families financially

Interest groups

Organized associations of people mobilized into action because of their membership in those associations.

Social interaction

The commnication that occurs between two or more people

Symbolic interactionism

The sociological perspectives that sees society as the product of symbols (words, gestures, objects) given meaning by people in their interactions with each other

Mind

The internal conversations we have within ourselves.

Symbols

Words, gestures, and objects to which people give meaning

Social self

A process by which people are able to see themselves in relationship to others