Ch. 1 - Defintions

sociology

the systematic study of human behaviour in social context.

social solidarity

the degree to which group members share beliefs and values and the intensity and frequency of their interaction.

Term: social structures

stable patterns of social relations.

Microstructures

patterns of relatively intimate social relations formed during face-to-face interaction, such as families, friendship circles, and work associations.

global structures

patterns of social relations that lie outside and above the national level, including international organizations, patterns of worldwide travel and communication, and economic relations between countries.

Term: Macrostructures

Definition: overarching patterns of social relations (including classes, bureaucracies, and power systems) that lie outside and above a person’s circle of intimates and acquaintances.

patriarchy

the traditional system of economic and political inequality between women and men that exists in most societies.

sociological imagination

the quality of mind that enables a person to see the connection between personal troubles and social structures.

Term: Scientific Revolution

Definition: the revolution that began about 1550 and emphasized that people should use evidence, not speculation, to draw conclusions about how society works.

Research

Definition: the process of systematically observing reality to assess the validity of a theory.

Theories

Definition: tentative explanations of some aspect of social life that state how and why certain facts are related.

values

Definition: ideas about what is good and bad, right and wrong.

Industrial Revolution

historical period of rapid economic transformation that began in Britain in the 1780s and involved large-scale application of science and technology to industrial processes, the creation of factories, and the formation of a working class.

Democratic Revolution

period of history that began around 1750 that suggested that people are responsible for organizing society and that human intervention can therefore solve social problems.

Term: functionalism

theory that stresses that human behaviour is governed by relatively stable social structures, underlines how social structures maintain or undermine social stability, emphasizes that social structures are based mainly on shared values or preferences, and suggests that re-establishing equilibrium can best solve most social problems.

Term: dysfunctional consequences

effects of social structures that create social instability.

manifest function

Definition: obvious and intended effects of social structures.

Term: class conflict

the struggle between classes to resist and overcome the opposition of other classes.

cultural hegemony

Definition: the control of a culture by dominant classes and other groups to the point when their values are universally accepted as common sense.

Conflict theory

theory that focuses on macrolevel or global structures and shows how major patterns of inequality in society produce social stability in some circumstances and social change in others.

poststructuralism

a school of thought that originated in mid-twentieth-century France that denied the stability of social relations and of cultures, their capacity to always shape how people think and act, and their neat categorization of social and cultural elements as binary opposites.

Term: latent function

Definition: non-obvious and unintended effects of social structures.

Term: Symbolic interactionism

theory that focuses on interaction in microlevel social settings and emphasizes that an adequate explanation of social behaviour requires understanding of the subjective meanings people attach to their social circumstances.

Term: Protestant ethic

the belief that religious doubts can be reduced, and a state of grace ensured, if people work diligently and live simply, which had the unintended effect of increasing savings and investment, thus stimulating capitalist growth.

feminist theory

theory that claims patriarchy is at least as important as class inequality in determining opportunities in life, holds that male domination and female subordination are determined by structures of power and social convention, examines the operation of patriarchy in both micro and macro settings, and contends that existing patterns of gender inequality can and should be changed for the benefit of all members of society.

Globalization

the process by which formerly separate economies, states, and cultures become tied together and people become increasingly aware of their growing interdependence.

Social constructionism

Definition: theory that argues that apparently natural or innate features of life are often sustained by social processes that vary historically and culturally.

Term: Postindustrial Revolution

the technology-driven shift from manufacturing to service industries and the consequences of that shift for virtually all human activities.

Term: Queer theory

theory that argues that people’s sexual identities and performances are so variable that such conventional labels as male, female, gay, and lesbian fail to capture the sexual instability that characterizes the lives of many people.