Sociology 1000 - Midterm: Units 1-5

Sociological Imagination

An approach that makes the connection between private troubles and public issues by looking to larger social forces to explain individual experiences and challenges.

Microsociology

A level of sociological analysis that looks at individual interactions of small groups, focusing on the zoomed-in, small picture.

Macrosociology

A level of sociological analysis that looks at larger social processes, institutions, or rates of occurrence, focusing on the big picture.

Sociological Theories

The lens that a researcher or theorist uses in understanding something sociologically.

Structural Functionalism

A theoretical approach, often associated with Durkheim, that views society as a system where every element functions to sustain equilibrium and views inequality as natural and inevitable.

Conflict Theory

A theoretical approach, associated with Marx and Weber, that views society as competing groups divided by power differences, where struggle drives social change and inequality is created rather than natural.

Symbolic Interaction

A theoretical approach that views society as fluid and constantly built through individual actions, where people behave based on meanings that arise from social interactions.

Feminist Sociology

An approach emerging from Conflict Theory asserting that gendered inequality and the unequal valuation of masculinity and femininity shape all components of social life.

Operationalization

The process of taking ideas about how the world works and turning abstract concepts into measurable variables to examine and test social world hypotheses.

Variable

An observable and measurable factor that varies by degree, amount, or type.

Dependent Variable

The outcome or social behaviour that researchers measure to observe how it changes in response to the independent variable.

Independent Variable

The variable that is hypothesized to influence or determine changes in the dependent variable.

Quantitative Research

Research methods that collect numerical data to address sociological questions.

Qualitative Research

Research methods that collect non-numerical data to help understand social processes through rich description.

Culture

The symbolic and learned dimension of any and all societies. includes beliefs, ideas, objects, artifacts, norms, values, worldviews, and meanings.

Structure

The organized relationship between organizations and institutions that constitute a society.

Analytically Distinct

Two or more items that are different in how they’re viewed. Can be told apart by their features, roles, or how they are set up, not just by how they look or feel.

Cultural Appropriation

when a culture (usually with more power) takes or uses the symbols, values, artifacts, or rituals of another culture without permission or invitation and uses it for its own advantage, entertainment, or enrichment.

Socially Constructed

Agency

The capacity of individuals to act on their own will, make decisions, and shape their circumstances.

Production of Culture Perspective