Sociology Mid-Term Vocabulary Review

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards generated directly from sociological mid-term review lecture notes.

Thought-Communities (Callero)

Variations in thinking/understanding between cultures, ethnicities, social classes, etc. shaped by the group one belongs to.

Value-Free Science (Max Weber)

The principle that sociologists should keep personal opinions, political beliefs, and moral judgements separate from their analysis of facts. Values shape topic selection, but should not affect research findings.

Agency

The ability of individuals to actively and independently choose and affect change; having self-determination.

Social Agency of Dead Bodies (Sheila Harper)

The concept that dead bodies act as symbols whose meaning changes across cultures and settings, meaning is applied through social relations and categorization of death, and dead bodies provoke action and emotion in others.

Generalizability

Whether a finding from a study can be applied beyond the specific people/sample studied to a larger population.

Ethnography

A research method in which a researcher immerses themselves in a community or culture to study it up close.

Verstehen (Max Weber)

The concept that understanding social behavior must be viewed from the perspective of those experiencing it.

Macrosociology

Sociological focus on large-scale social dynamics, social barriers, institutions, and structures.

Microsociology

Sociological focus upon small-scale, local, interactional contexts.

Functionalism

The theory that social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some necessary function for society to continue as a system of independent parts.

Social Structure

The organized pattern of relationships and institutions in society.

The Black Box (Harrington & Fine)

Refers to how social science often overlooks small group processes, leaving the link between individual action and social instruction unexamined.

Sociological Imagination

The ability to understand the social world in relationship to larger social forces, helping individuals locate themselves in time to connect personal troubles to public issues.

Validity

Whether a measuring instrument actually measures what it intends to measure.

Dramaturgy

The conception that social interaction is comparable to a stage performance.

Positive Sociology

The view that the social world can be described and predicted scientifically and objectively by certain identifiable relationships.

Ethnocentrism

The tendency, conscious or unconscious, to view one's own culture and group as superior when evaluating other societies and cultures.

Cultural Relativism

Understanding other cultures without assuming one's own culture as "normal".

Individualism

A belief system and worldview that privileges the individual over the group, values autonomy, independence, and self-reliance, and privileges private life over public life.

Historical Materialism (Karl Marx)

The perspective that social activity and social relationships are determined by the economic system of society.

Norms

Principles or rules people are expected to observe in a given range of social institutions.

Claim Makers

Individuals who are in a position that gives them the ability to identify and shape the definition of an issue or social problem.

Material Culture

Every part of our constructed physical environment.

Operationalization

Establishing a precise method for defining and measuring a variable or term being examined.

Status

A recognizable social position that an individual occupies.

Intentional Psychology

The attribution that a dead body holds some "thought", spirit, or soul that can understand.

(Framework by which we explain and predict people's behavior by attributing mental states to themrather than describing behavior in purely physical or neurological terms.)

Bourgeoisie

The capitalist owning class who own the means of production, such as factories and businesses.

Hypothesis

A proposed relationship between two variables; a testable prediction sociologists make about relationships.

Sign

Provides clues giving hints for action and learned response.

Symbol

Material and immaterial culture items that have meaning and can change over time.

Values

Abstract ideas held by individuals and groups as to what is desirable and good.

Correlation

When two variables move together in a pattern.

Causality

When one variable actually produces a change in another variable.

Achieved Status

A voluntary status into which one enters.

Ascribed Status

An involuntary status into which an individual is born.

Biography (C. Wright Mills)

An individual's position within society.

History (C. Wright Mills)

The point in time of a society.

Conflict Theory (Karl Marx)

A critical theory holding that social rules and structures are contested through competition and conflict, focusing on who holds power.

The Power Elite (C. Wright Mills)

The argument that real power is concentrated in the hands of a small group of elites, specifically corporate, military, and political leaders.

Culture

The sum total of social categories, concepts, and practices that are not part of the natural environment.

Eugenics

The practice of controlling fertility to influence inherited traits.

Culture of Individualism

The combined narratives presented throughout a culture/society that promote autonomy, independence, and self-reliance.

Alienation (Karl Marx)

A sense of disconnection and powerlessness experienced by workers under capitalism regarding the production process, other people, and themselves.

Mechanical Solidarity (Durkheim)

Social cohesion in small, traditional societies where people are held together because they are very similar.

Organic Solidarity (Durkheim)

Social cohesion in modern, industrialized societies held together by interdependence and specialized differences.

Symbolic Interactionism

A micro-level theory stating that social actions are motivated through shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions.

Social Constructionism

The perspective that reality is a social process and a human construction.

Public Issue

Occurs when a value cherished by the public is felt to be threatened.

Personal Trouble

Occurs when cherished values of an individual are felt to be threatened.

Variable

A measurable trait or characteristic that can change or take on different values, consisting of independent variables (causes) and dependent variables (effects).

Protestant Ethic & Spirit of Capitalism (Max Weber)

The thesis that religious beliefs—specifically Protestantism—played a key role in the rise of modern capitalism.

Scripts

"Guidelines" that individuals use for particular social settings.

Front Stage

The social space that defines the situation and presents the individual's impression or image to the audience.

Small Group

A group of individuals in an interaction scene that has a meaningful purpose, with participants placed in different roles.

Socialization

The lifelong process by which people learn the norms, values, beliefs, and behaviors of their society.

Media Literacy

Skills that allow individuals to critically analyze information conveyed through the media.

Proletariat

The working class under capitalism who work to get by but do not own private property or industry.

Generalized Other (Mead)

An internalized understanding of society's general expectations, norms, and attitudes as a whole; society's viewpoint.

Auguste Comte

Known as the father of sociology who introduced positivism, the law of three stages of human understanding development, and social statics vs. social dynamics.

Public Sphere

A social space that allows differing views, problems, and general issues to be discussed.

Reflexivity

The practice of researchers critically examining and being aware of their own position, biases, and influence on research.

Reliability

The likelihood of obtaining consistent results using the same measure or method.

Quantitative Methods

Research methods that seek to obtain information that can easily be expressed in numeric form.

Qualitative Methods

Research methods that collect information about society that cannot be easily converted to numeric form.

Indexes (Gell's Relational Theory of Agency)

Material entities which motivate abductive inferences and cognitive interpretations.

Abduction of Agency

The effect that objects (indexes) have on others that promote social actions and social relations.

Status Sets

All the statuses that one individual holds simultaneously.

Division of Labor (Durkheim)

Alienated from the products that we produce. Workers are no longer artisans.

Age of Enlightment

Movement in Europe that emphasized reason, science, and individual rights over tradition, religion, and monarchy as the bias

Economic Idividualism

A component of capitalist economies that benefit the private property of a Capitalist Society (cont)

Groups and Control

- socialize others to rules of the group

- monitor and direct behavior on others in the group.

Groups and Network

- members have connections to others and resources

- Goals can be expanded through network nodes

Non-material Culture

values, beliefs, practices, and social norms

Industrialization (Marx)

Industrialization has dismantled the guild and craft world of the feudal era