Sociology Exam 1

Sociology

The systematic or scientific study of human society and social behavior, from large-scale institutions and mass culture to small groups and individual interactions.

Sociological perspectives

A way of taking a sociological approach or thinking sociologically about the world.

Society

A group of people who shape their lives in aggregated and patterned ways that distinguish their group from other groups.

What are the three segments of sociology?

Social Institution, social groups, and social interactions.

Who coined the term sociological imagination?

C.Wright Mills

What did C.Wright Mills say?

To understand social life, we must understand the intersection between biography and history.

Social imagination

A quality of the mind that allows us to understand the relationship between our particular situation in life and what is happening on a personal level and often leads to critical thinking.

Microsociology

examines small-group interactions to see how they impact larger institutions in society.

Macrosociology

Examines large-scale social structures to determine how they impact groups and individuals.

What was Pam Fishmans approach on micro-level analysis?

She studied issues of power in male-female relationships. She found that in conversation, women ask nearly three times as many questions as men do, perhaps because a speaker is much more likely to ask a question if he or she does not expect to get a response simply by making a statement.

What was Christine Williams macro-level analysis?

Studied women in male-dominated occupations and men in female-dominated occupations. She found that women in male-dominated positions faced limits on their advancement, while men in female-dominated positions experienced rapid rates of advancement.

Glass ceiling

When women and male-dominated fields faced limits on their advancement.

Glass escalator

When men in female-dominated fields experienced rapid rates of advancement.

Sociological theories

Prepositions that explain the social world and help to make predictions about future events.Theories can and do change because theories seek to explain society, which itself changes over time.

What are theories also referred as?

approaches, schools of thought, paradigms, or perspectives.

What were the emergence of sociology?

Changes in Europe during the 18th and 19th century. Changes in reasoning/explanations for worldwide events. Instead of manifest destiny, scientific reasoning was emphasized. Changes in society itself — movement from a feudal based society to an industrial based society. This led to increased urbanization, immigration, varying social classes and more social institutions.

Who were the founders of sociology?

Auguste Comte, Harriet Martineau, and Herbert Spencer.

Auguste Comte

Coined the term sociology. Stated that sociology needed to be treated like any other scientific discipline. Laid the groundwork for future sociologist. He placed emphasis on the study of social statics and social dynamics. He developed the theory of positivism. he developed positivism to identify laws that describe the behavior of a particular reality, this theory was the result of the French revolution and the instability that followed it.

Positivism

Argues that sense perceptions are the only valid source of knowledge.

Harriet Martineau

A social activist who traveled the United States and wrote about social changes which were radical for this time period. She believed America was flawed and hypocritical because of the existence of slavery and the fact that both women and blacks were denied equal rights. She supported labor unions and the abolition of slavery. She translated Comte’s work into English.

Herbert Spencer

The first great English-speaking sociologist. Spencer believed in evolution and coined the phrase “survival of the fittest”. He believed that societies evolve through time by adapting to their changing environment. His philosophy is often referred to as “social Darwinism”. He believed that societies, like living organisms, evolve through time by adapting to their changing environment and that competition was good for society.

Sociology’s Family Tree — The Classical Period

The era of the 1800s is referred to as sociology’s classical Period because it marked the beginning of sociology as a substantive discipline and the work done in this period forms the theoretical foundation for all sociological work that followed.

Emile Durkheim

Worked to establish sociology as an important academic discipline. He was interest in the social factors that bond and hold people together. He believed that agrarian, pre-modern societies were held together by mechanical solidarity. On the other hand, he believed that industrial societies were held together by organic solidarity. He also studied the correlation between social isolation and suicide. He theorized that suicide was one result of anomic/normalness/ loss of social connections — a sense of disconnection brought about the changing conditions of modern life.

What were the 4 researchs identified by Durkheim?

Social integration — altruistic and egoistic.

Social regulation — fatalistic and anomic.

Altruistic

Too much integration

Egoistic

Too little integration

Fatalistic

Too much regulation

Anomic

Too little regulation

What are the sociological perspectives?

Structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.

Structural 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).The origins of the structural functionalist perspectives can be traced to the ideas of Comte, Spencer, and Durkheim.

Society is a stable, ordered system of interrelated parts or structures. Each structure has function that contributes to the continued stability or equilibrium of the whole.

Talcott Parsons

Address the types of functions that social structures (or institutions) might fulfill, such as: adaptation to the environment (socialization of children). Realization of goals )opportunity for success provided by the education system). Social cohesion (shared values provided by religion helping to bring people together) The maintenance of cultural patterns (the passing along of traditions by families).

Robert Merton

classified the difference between manifest functions and latent functions.

Manifest functions

the obvious intended functions of a social structure for the social system.

Latent functions

The less obvious unintended functions of a social structure.

Karl Marx

A German philosopher and political activist. He contributed significantly to sociology conflict theory. Believed that capitalism was creating social inequality between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, this leads to class conflict. He believed that the Proletariat suffered from alienation because of the process of production and the fact that they were unable to directly benefit from the fruits of their own labor.

Conflict theory/Perspective

Sees social conflict as the basis for society and social change, and emphasizes a materialist view of society, a critical view of the status quo, and a dynamic model of historic change. Conflict is typically from over scarce resources and power. Karl Marx wanted the workers to develop a class consciousness.

Max Weber

Was interested in how society was becoming industrialized. Although he saw the benefits of bureaucracy he warned that it could become an “iron cage”. He believed that contemporary life was filled with disenchantment, the result of the dehumanizing features of modern societies. He believed that religion was the catalyst for social change. Laid the groundwork for interactionism perspective.

verstehen

emphasizes the need for empathy with the actor’s experiences.

Paradigms

Ways of thinking or theoretical umbrellas, meant to provide a broad explanation for the way things work.

George Herbert Mead

Was interested in the connection between thought and action — between the individual and society. He suggested that the meanings that we give to objects in our society are social processes—people interact, and meanings come from these interactions.

Symbolic Interactionism

Emphasis is placed on how the self is shaped by society and how society shapes the self. Meaning for symbols is negotiated through interaction with others. This perspective led to the development of theories such as Dramaturgy and Ethnomethodology.

Erving Goffman

Was interested in how the “self” is developed through interactions with other in society. Goffman used the term Dramaturgy to describe the way people strategically present themselves to others.

Postmodernist theory

Suggests that social reality is diverse, pluralistic, and constantly changing.

What is the first step in social research?

Select a topic

What is the second step in social research?

Define the problem

What is the third step in social research?

review the literature

What is the fourth step in social research?

Formulate a hypothesis

What is the fifth step in social research?

Choose a research method.

What is the sixth step in social research?

Collect the data

What is the seventh step in social research?

Analyze the results

What is the eighth step in social research?

Share the results

Quantitative Research

translates the social world into numbers that can be studied mathematically.

Qualitative research

Uses non numerical data like texts, interviews, photos, and recording to help understand social life.

Scientific Method

A procedure for acquiring knowledge that emphasizes collecting data through observation and experiment.

Correlation

A relationship between two variables.

Causation

A relationship where one variable causes another variable to change.

Spurious correlation

A relationship that seems to appear between two variables, but is actually caused by some external, or intervening, variable.

Value-free sociology

Coined by Max Weber, states that researchers should identify facts without allowing their own personal beliefs or biases to interfere.

Ethnography/ naturalist approach

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

Participant observation

The researcher both observes and becomes a member in a social setting

Interviews

Involves direct, face-to-face contact with respondents. Can generate large amounts of qualitative data. The researcher identifies the target population of interest, then selects a sample of people to be interviewed from that population.

Surveys

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

Existing Sources

Refer to any data that has already been collected by earlier researchers and is available for future research.

Experiments

Formal tests of specific variables and effects that are performed in a setting where all aspects of the situation can be controlled.

two main problems are: spuriousness and the Hawthorne effect.

Culture

Is the entire way of life for ba group of people. Culture can also be defined as our designs for living. It includes things such as language, standards of beauty, hand gestures, styles of dress, food, and music.

Ethnocentrism

Occurs when a person uses their own culture as a standard to evaluate another group or individual, leading to the view that cultures other than one’s own are abnormal.

Cultural relativism

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

What does culture consists of?

material culture and symbolic culture.

Material culture

Includes the objects associated with a cultural group, such as tools, machines, utensils, buildings, and artwork. Tangible elements.

Symbolic culture

Includes ways of thinking (beliefs, values, and assumptions) and ways of behaving (norms, interactions, and communication). Intangible elements.

Signs (or symbols)

Traffic signal or product logo, are used to meaningfully represent something else.

Gestures

The signs that we make with our body, such as hand gestures and facial expressions; it is important to note that these gestures also carry meaning.

Language

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

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

the idea that language structures thought and that ways of looking at the world are embedded in language, supports this premise.

Values

Shared beliefs about what a group considers worthwhile or desirable’ these guide the creation of norms.

Emerging values

Education, religiosity, romantic love, health and fitness.

Value cluster

Times when values are closely intertwined and under these circumstances.

Value contradiction

Values seem to conflict with each other or they are mismatched.

Norms

Can be specific to a culture, time period, and situation. Can be either formal such as a law or the rules for playing soccer, or informal.Not written down and unspoken.

Folkway

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

Mores

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

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

Sanctions

Positive or negative reactions to the ways that people follow or disobey norms, including rewards for conformity and punishments for norm violators.

Social control

The formal and informal mechanisms used to increase conformity to values and norms and thus increase social cohesion.

Multiculturalism

Values diverse racial, ethnic, national, and linguistic backgrounds and so encourage the retention of cultural differences within society, rather than assimilation.

High culture

refers to those forms of culture usually associated with the elite or dominant classes.

popular culture

Refers to the forms of cultural expression usually associated with the masses, consumer, good, and consumer products.

Polysemy

Used to describe how many cultural products are subject to multiple interpretations. This helps us understand how one person may love something and another person may hate the same cultural artifact.

Dominant culture

refers to the values, norms,and practices of the group within society that is most powerful in terms of wealth, prestige, status, and influence.

Subculture

A group within society that is differentiated by its distinctive values, norms, and lifestyle.

Counterculture

A group within society that openly rejects and/or actively opposes society’s values and norms.

Culture Wars

Mainstream culture is often characterized by points of dissension and division.

Cultural diffusion

Which is when different groups their material and nonmaterial culture with each other.

cultural leveling

Occurs when cultures that were once distinct become increasingly similar to one another.

Cultural imperialism

The imposition of one’s culture's beliefs, practices, and artifacts on another culture through mass media and consumer products.