SOCI 1000 Exam 1

C. Wright Mills

The Sociological Imagination, relation between biography and history

Emile Durkheim

social integration impacts suicide rates

freaknominics

Levitt and Dubner- People from higher socioeconomic classes tend to seek out unusual baby names to distinguish themselves from the lower classes

Political revolutions

French (1789) and American (1775), shift toward democracy

The Industrial Revolution

Capitalism was a new form of economic organization that swept through many Western societies

Urbanization

Mass migration from the rural to urban communities

socialism

an economic system where the means of production are publicly owned

The Scientific Revolution is said to have begun in

1550

Structuration Theory

Anthony Giddens, Structure and agency are interdependent

Functionalism

A perspective that sees society as a system of interconnected structures, each fulfilling a function, and working together to maintain order and stability, emphasizing microstructures, roots in the work of Durkheim

main critique of functionalism

places too much focus on the positive contributions of structures

Conflict Theory

emphasis on macrostructures, Not based on structures operating in equilibrium, but instead based on conflict

who responded to the critque of functionalism?

Robert Merton (Parsons’ student), latent and manifest function

Karl Marx two groups in conflict

Bourgeoisie and proletariat

what does karl Marx argue about religion

religion pacifies the working class

manifest functions

obvious and clearly stated

latent functions

unintended and less visible

anomie

instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from lack of purpose or ideals

class consciousness

occurs when members of an oppressed group come together in recognition of their domination and oppression and collectively act to change it

false consciousness

Marx’s term for when the working class mistakenly identifies with the capitalist class

symbolic interactionism

a sociological perspective asserting that people create meaning through interactions (microstructures)

George Herbert Mead two self parts:

our unsocialized self that is implusive and creative (I) and socialized by significant others and society (me)

W.E.B Du Bois

double consciousness, the experience of looking at one’s self through the eyes of a racist white society, feeling though your identity is divided into several parts, making it impossible to have one unified identity

standpoint theory

Dorothy Smith, a feminist political position that argues that knowledge stems from social position

Max Weber: verstehen

emphasis on subjective meaning and interpretation

Mary Douglas and dirtiness

matter considered out of place

postmodernism

everything we think of as real is really a social construction

Dorothy Smith

standpoint theory – highlights the importance of women's experiences and perspectives

dominance

not simply about “natural” differences; it’s primarily social in origin

3 waves of the feminist movement

the right to vote/ be recognized as “persons” (early 1900s), the fight for equality (1960s), intersectionality (present day)

Alfred Kinsey

pioneered sexuality research

scientific method pattern

theory-hypothesis-observation-empirical generalisation

durkheims theory

social solidarity: Social cohesion shifts from sameness to interdependence as societies evolve

deduction

starts with theory —>hypothesis, start with the abstract and move to concrete observation (i.e., test an existing theory/idea)

inductive reasoning

starts with observation —> empirical generalizations, start with concrete observation and move to abstract (i.e., formulate a theory/idea)

The idea that fashion trends reflect a cycle of structure and agency is central to whose theory

Anthony Giddens (structuration theory)

Positivist approaches

methods that are based on the methods of the natural sciences, quantitative, Durkheim proponent of positivist (causal relationships)

Auguste Comte

Coined the term “sociology”, Believed that society, like the natural world, operates according to laws that can be discovered through systematic observation and analysis

Interpretivist approaches

emphasize the need to understand human behavior from the perspective of those involved, Based on the belief that social phenomena are fundamentally different from natural phenomena (humans are reflective)

Positivist approaches are generally

deductive

Interpretivist approaches are generally

inductive

three key features of an experiment

stimulus, control group, randomization

static group comparison

no random assignment, pre-existing groups (still exp vs control group)

Operationalization

the process of turning a variable (or concept) into something that can be measured

Questions on surveys are often attempts to measure

variables

Likert-type questions

survey question using scale

Mechanical solidarity

based on similarities and shared beliefs

Organic solidarity

more diverse, so based on interdependence

surveys should be

reliable and valid

Detached observation aligns with

a positivist approach

Hawthorne Effect

individuals alter their behavior because they are aware that they are being observed

Ethnography

participant observation

experiments and surverys are said to be

quantitative, deductive, stats

ethnographies and interviews are said to be

qualitative, inductive, stories

4 tests for research to be ethical

voluntary participation, protected privacy, minimized harm, authentic research

what feminist thinker introduced intersectionality

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Postmodernist sociologists argue that

Knowledge is subjective and contestable

What type of suicide occurs when an individual has weak social ties and a lack of integration?

Egoistic

What type of suicide might soldiers sacrifice their lives for their comrades?

Altruistic

What sociological theory explains how macro and micro structures interact?

Structuration theory (Anthony Giddens)

Confidentiality

The researcher knows the participants' identities but keeps them private

Anonymity

No one, not even the researcher, knows the participants' identities.

Social desirability bias

type of response bias that occurs when participants in a study provide answers that they believe are more socially acceptable