sociology midterm

Sociology

The study of how societies are organized and how the organization of a society influences the behavior of people living in it.

Sociology

The study of how societies are organized and how the organization of a society influences the behavior of people living in it.

Karl Marx - conflict theory

○Relational sociologist

○The central conflict in an industrialist society is between two groups

○Alienation - feeling separate from work, others and a sense of humanity

Max Weber - symbolic interactionism

○Sociologists generate interpretative understandings

○His approach is distinctly cultural

○Introduced the idea of methodological individualism

Emile Durkheim - Structural Functionalism

○Integration and regulation - Too little regulation leads to "Anomie"

○Introduced the concept of mechanical and organic solidarity

social phenomenon theory

Behaviors actions or events that take place because of social influences.

●Jane Adams

○Drew attention to the experiences of women

○Advocated for a socially engaged scholarship

○Funded Hull House

○First female to win a Nobel prize

●W.E.B. Dubois

○Insisted that sociology be an empirical science adhering to the methods utilized by physical sciences

○Criticized Marx for neglecting to include race in his theory

○Introduced the idea of psychological wages

○First African American to graduate from Harvard

method

A systematic study design.

Quantitative (numbers) and Qualitative (qualities and characteristics) designs

●A variable

is any characteristic that has more than one possible value.

Audit study

Research experiment in which researchers match participants on key characteristics.

●Co-variation:

Relationship between variables.

experiment

A research method in which the environment is controlled to isolate the effects of one factor or characteristic

participant observation

Research method in which researcher spends time among a group, observing and participating in their daily lives

content analysis

Analysis of existing sources, focusing on key themes and patterns.

survey

Gathering data by asking people sets of questions

Ethnography

a type of in-depth study of a group and its culture.

confirmation bias

Tendency we all have to look for and accept information that reinforces what we already believe

Nuremberg code

●First international guidelines establishing research ethics.

●Informed Consent

unit of analysis

Item observed in a study (ex: individual people, cities, neighborhoods, apartment complexes, nations).

hypothesis

a statement about how variables are expected to relate to each other.

Operationalization

A way of defining variables into measurable items.

correlation

relationship between variables.

Causation

One variable causes a change in another variable.

direction of relationship

Which variable is affecting the other when a relationship exists.

spurious relationship

When a third variable actually explains the apparent connection between two variables

Validity

Whether questions accurately measure the intended characteristic.

Reliability:

Consistency of measurements

social desirability bias

Problems introduced to data when respondents give answers they believe are socially acceptable.

social structure

set of social statuses, roles, groups, networks, and institutions that organize and influence the way people go about their lives. Resources and Rules

Socialization

●of internalizing a culture's norms, values and the like. Constant and ever evolving.

●Agents of socialization - People and groups who influence our orientation to life, our self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. The most prominent ones are the family, schools and peers. Others include institutions, media, religion and work.

●Ideology - Cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements, including patterns of inequality.

●Narrative - A set of stories that tie you to a social group.

status

A persons socially determined position within a social group.

●Achieved Status is one that results from your efforts.

Ascribed status is one that is assigned by society without regard for the person's unique talents, efforts, or characteristics

roles

●role is a set of expectations about the behavior and attitudes of people who occupy a particular social status.

●Social status is a person or group's socially-determined positions within a larger group or society.

Norms

Norms are rules and expectations by which a group guides the behavior of its members.

Resources

Resources are the things which are valuable or allow us to accomplish goals

life chances

Refers to the Opportunities to provide yourself with material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences

social network

Series of social relationships that link a person directly to other individuals and indirectly to even more people

social institutions

Central domains of social life that guide our behaviors and meet our

basic social needs

George Herbert Meade -

The generalized other

how the "self" internalizes the views of society, transcending the individual and situations.

Charles Horton Cooley -

The looking glass self

○ the "self" emerges from how an individual interacts with others and then interprets those interactions.

social class

A group of individuals who share a similar socio-economic position based on income, wealth, education, and occupation.

Stratification

A system that puts categories of people into a hierarchy

income

the amount of money an individual earns from employment or investments.

Wealth

the total amount of money that you possess or would possess if you sold off your assets.

social mobility

Movement from an ascribed social class position to a new achieved social class position

cumulative Advantages

Advantages that are built up over generations and contribute to social class inequality.

Meritocracy

A belief that personal responsibility and individual effort are the sole

determinants of success

Absolute Poverty

A measure that considers the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, and clothing; those without these necessities are considered poor.

Relative Poverty

Is a measure that takes into account the relative economic status of people in a society by looking at how income is distributed

social capital

The information you have and the people you know, the connections you have that help individuals enter pre-existing networks or gain power from them.

Ethnocentrism

Cultural or ethnic bias, whether conscious or unconscious. The belief that your culture is the norm or the ideal.

conspicuous consumption

Gaining prestige by exhibiting valuable cultural goods

cultural appropriation

Members of a dominant culture adopting cultural goods (e.g., ideas, symbols, skills, cultural expressions, intellectual property) of other cultural groups for profit.

cultural imperialism

Imposition of a dominant group's material and symbolic culture onto another group

Globalization

Integration of political and economic systems; has brought about intercultural communication and an exchange of ideas and values.

gender identity

as a personal conception of oneself as male, female, both, or neither. This conception is intimately related to a perceived gender role; this is defined as a presentation (typically within an external context) that reflects a given gender identity

lober

- Meanings of gender are created through social interaction and social norms.

doing gender

Candace West and Don Zimmerman developed the idea that we perform actions that produce gender. We do gender in interactions with others.

feminism

refers to a collection of movements that advocate for equality of all genders and sexes.

●By focusing on the experiences of women and adding these to the experience of men, feminist research allowed for findings to be more generalizable.

intersectional feminism

●feminists argued that the experiences of women too diverse to place them all in one category.

●Women of different racial, ethnic and social backgrounds have different struggles.

race

a system that humans created to classify groups of people based mostly on skin tone.

Ethnicity

common culture, religion, history, or ancestry shared by a group of people.

race as a social construct

●race has been used to justify some dimensions of the social world

●The concept is constantly evolving

●Not biological, only based on observable characteristics

●Has important social influences

Phenotype

The human phenotype is a set of visible characteristics like the color of our skin, hair and eyes. Has been used as a justification for racial classification and exploitation.