SOCY100 Concept List

Vocabulary flashcards covering core concepts from the introductory sociology course concept list.

Sociology

The study of human society.

Sociological imagination

The ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual's life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces.

Social institution

A complex group of interdependent positions that, together, perform a social role (fulfilling a societal need) and reproduce themselves over time. Examples

• governments

• families

• education (schools)

• organized religions

• the economy (all businesses)

• the media.

Positivism

emphasizes the scientific method as an approach to studying the objectively observable behavior of individuals irrespective of the meanings those actions have for the subjects

Interpretive sociology

Researchers imagine themselves experiencing the life positions of the social actors they want to understand rather than treating people as objects to be examined

Perspective includes what?

Biography and history

Auguste Comete

• believed best way to understand society is by determining scientific laws that govern human behavior

• Believed in observation

Karl Marx

• proposed theory of historical materialism which identified class conflict as primary cause for social change

• Class consciousness

WEB Du Bois

• first to study a community and undertake ethnography in the African American community

• Double consciousness

Double Consciousness

Conceived by WEB Du Bois to describe the behavioral scripts, one for moving through the world and the other incorporating the external options of prejudices in onlookers, which are constantly maintained by African Americans

Max Weber

• Emphasized subjectivity

• To truly understand people you have to talk to understand meaning they attach to their actions

• Interpretive sociology

Emile Durkheim

• wished to understand how society hold itself together

• Proposed division of labor can affect productivity and social solidarity

• Coined anomie (social force leading to suicide)

• Founder of positivist sociology

Social paradigms

1. Structural functionalism

2. Conflict theory

3. Symbolic Interactionism

Structural functionalism

Examines which society’s many parts-institutions, norms, traditions, etc- mesh to produce a stable, working whole that evolved over time

Ex. Emile Durkheim

Conflict theory

The idea that conflict between competing interests, especially class struggle, is the basic animating force of social change and society

ex. Karl Marx & WEB Du Bois

Symbolic Interactionism

Micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations and assumptions form that basic motivations behind people’s actions

Ex. George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman

What is the main difference between functionalist and conflict theorist

Functionalist argue that inequality is necessary to maintain balance while conflict theorists state that it is unfair for inequality to exist

Topics sociologist study:

• Aging

• Art

• Collective behavior

• Culture

• Demography

• Stratification

• Deviance

• Religion

• Race & Ethnicity

• Family

• Sports

• Mass Marisa

• Gender

• Healthcare

• Economy

• Education

• Law/politics

Micro-sociology

Understands local international context focusing on face to face encounters

Macro-sociology

Looks at social dynamics across whole societies and rely on statistical analysis

Life chances

The opportunities an individual has to improve their life in terms of income, wealth, health, and happiness

Scientific Method

a procedure involving the formulation, testing and modification of hypotheses based on systematic observation, measurement and/or experiments.

Which type of sociology emphasizes the scientific method?

Positivism

Theory

An abstracted, systematic model that articulates a system of relationships between facts and suggests causes and effects emerging out of those relationships

Research Methods

Approaches (quantitative or qualitative) that social scientists use for investigating the answers to questions

Quantitative Methods

Seek to obtain information about the social world that is already in or can be converted to numeric form.

Qualitative Methods

attempt to collect information about the social world that cannot be readily converted to numeric form.

Which approach supports the Qualitative method?

Interpretive Sociology

Causal Relationship

The idea that one factor influences another through a chain of events

Is it easy to establish a causal relationship? Why?

No, it is one of the most difficult things to do in sociology due to all of the different factors at play in the social world.

Correlation

When two variables tend to track each other positively or negatively.

what is the relationship between correlation and causation?

Correlation ≠ Causation

Causality

The notion that a change in one factor results in a corresponding change in another.

Reverse Causality

A situation in which the researcher believes that A results in a change in B, but B in fact is causing A.

Dependent Variable

The outcome the researcher is trying to explain.

Independent Variable

A measured factor that the researcher believes has a causal impact on the dependent variable.

Manifest Functions

intended, obvious, on the surface observations

Latent functions

unintended, hidden, beneath the surface intentions

Validity

The extent to which an instrument measures what it is intended to measure.

Reliability

The likelihood of obtaining consistent results using the same measure.

Generalizability

The extent to which we can claim our findings inform us about the population of study and/or other populations

Types of data collections

• observation

• interviews

• surveys

• historical methods

• content analysis

• experimental methods

Participant observation

A qualitative research method that seeks to uncover the meanings people give to their social actions by observing their behavior in practice.

Pros:

• Excellent validity

Cons:

• Not reliable unless done repeatedly over several time periods

• Unable to generalize unless done with a representative sample.

Interviews

A qualitative research method that involves speaking with a person at length about their experiences in order to learn who and why people do things.

Can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured.

Survey

A quantitative research method (typically) that involves an ordered series of questions intended to gain information from respondents.

Population

An entire group of individual persons, objects, or items from which samples may be drawn.

Sample

The subset of the population from which the researcher is actually collecting data.

Representative sample

The idea that a particular slice of social observation captures accurately the larger set of those phenomena that it is meant to stand in for.

Historical methods

Research that collects data written from reports, newspaper articles, journals, transcripts, television programs, diaries, artwork, and other artifacts that date back to the period under study.

Content analysis

Can be qualitative or quantitative

A systematic analysis of the content rather than the structure of a communication

Involves manifest and latent content

Experimental methods

Methods that seek to alter the social landscape in a very specific way for a given sample of individuals and then track what results that change yields

Often involves comparisons to a control group that did not experience such an intervention

Mixed methods

uses a combination of the above methods in order to get good validity, reliability and generalizability.

Culture

The sum of the social categories and concepts we embrace in addition to beliefs, behaviors (except instinctual ones), and practices

everything but the natural environment around us.

Material Culture

Everything that is a part of our constructed, physical environment, including cellphones, chairs, sticks, etc.

Nonmaterial Culture

Values, beliefs, behaviors, and social norms.

Cultural lag

The time gap between the appearance of a new technology and the words and practices that give it meaning.

Values

Moral beliefs.

Ex. family, independence, freedom, cooperation, solidarity

Norms

How values tell us to behave. Explicit and implicit rules.

ex. do not murder, monogamy, manners, drive on right side of street

Ideology

A system of concepts and relationships; an understanding of cause and effect.

ex. essentialism, individualism, collectivism, science, capitalism, Christianity.

Socialization

The process by which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a given society and learn to function as members of that society.

Status

a position in society that comes with a set of expectations.

Two main kinds of statuses: achieved and ascribed.

Achieved Status

statuses we have earned through individual effort or that is imposed by others

ex. college student, friend, lawyer, mother, artist

Ascribed Status

statuses we are born with that are unlikely to change.

ex. gender, physical attributes, age, ethnicity