SOC 1020 Midterm Study Guide - Sociology Study Notes

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the core concepts, theories, paradigms, and major thinkers from the SOC 1020 Midterm Study Guide.

Sociology

The study of social patterns, relationships, institutions, and structures through systematic inquiry.

Four faces of sociological analysis

A provisional study framework consisting of empirical (what evidence?), theoretical (why?), critical (who benefits?), and public/practical (how can knowledge be used?).

Personal troubles

Difficulties that involve an individual's immediate circumstances.

Public issues

Matters that arise from broader institutional arrangements.

Public sociology

Engaging public audiences with sociological research.

Microsociology

The study of small-scale interaction and everyday meanings.

Mesosociology

The study of groups, organizations, and communities.

Macrosociology

The study of large-scale social structures and institutions.

Quantitative methods

Methods examining numerical evidence and statistical patterns.

Qualitative methods

Methods examining meanings, experiences, and nonnumerical evidence.

Objectivity

Commitment to evaluating evidence independently of personal preference.

Positivism

An approach emphasizing systematic empirical observation.

Subjectivity

Personal interpretation and lived experience.

Biosocial research

Study of interactions between biological and social factors.

Epistemology

A philosophical area concerning how we know.

Ontology

A philosophical area concerning what exists.

Structural functionalism

A perspective examining interconnected social parts, solidarity, and stability.

Conflict paradigm

A perspective emphasizing unequal power and competing interests.

Symbolic interactionism

A perspective focusing on meaning and identities created through everyday interaction.

Standpoint theory

The theory that knowledge is shaped by social position and lived experience.

Intersectionality

Analysis of interacting systems of inequality and privilege that overlap rather than operating independently.

Connected sociologies

An approach emphasizing the historical interconnections and interdependence between social formations, challenging isolated accounts.

Autonomous sociologies

A course-specific idea describing sociological traditions or societies considered independently rather than relationally.

Culture

Shared beliefs, values, norms, symbols, objects, and practices.

Social constructionism

An approach examining how shared social meanings and categories are produced.

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures by the standards of one's own.

Cultural relativism

Interpreting cultural practices in their own social context.

Agents of socialization

People and institutions that teach cultural norms and behaviours, such as family, peers, school, religion, media, and work.

Homophily

The tendency or attraction to associate with similar others.

Cultural competence

The ability to understand and navigate cultural expectations effectively.

Embodiment

The ways cultural meanings are lived, expressed, and experienced through bodies.

Subcultures

Groups that have distinctive practices within a larger society.

Culture-as-value thesis

A thesis emphasizing that culture provides internalized moral values guiding behaviour.

Culture-as-rationale thesis

A thesis emphasizing that culture provides ideas used to explain and justify behaviour.

Symbolic structure

A system or network of connected social and cultural meanings and categories.

Deviance

The violation of social expectations that may attract negative reactions.

Criminalization

The process by which actions are legally defined as crimes.

Strain theory

Robert Merton's theory that deviance may arise from tension between valued goals and blocked legitimate means.

Differential association

Edwin Sutherland's theory that criminal behaviour is learned through interaction.

Neutralization theory

Sykes and Matza's theory examining the rationalizations used to justify deviant behaviour.

Primary deviance

Initial rule-breaking that may attract a deviant label.

Secondary deviance

Further deviance influenced by social reactions and the adoption of a deviant identity.

Stigma

A socially discrediting mark or characteristic.

Stigmatization

The process of socially devaluing people based on a characteristic.

Anomie

The weakening or disruption of social norms and normative regulation.

Collective conscience

Shared moral beliefs and understandings that contribute to solidarity.

Collective effervescence

Intense shared emotion produced through collective participation.

Social structure

Stable patterns of roles, relationships, and institutions.

Status

A socially recognized position occupied by a person.

Social stratification

Persistent ranking of groups into unequal hierarchies.

Institutional discrimination

Organizational practices that systematically disadvantage particular groups.

Disproportionate representation

A situation where a group's share of an outcome differs from its share of a relevant population.

Bureaucracy

A formal organization characterized by hierarchy, written rules, and specialized roles.

Traditional authority

Legitimate power based on inherited customs and traditions.

Premodern thought

A mode of thought emphasizing tradition and supernatural or inherited authority.

Modern thought

A mode of thought emphasizing science, reason, and rational social organization.

Postmodern thought

A mode of thought questioning universal truths and emphasizing varied perspectives and fluid identities.

Rationalization

The growing organization of social life around calculation, efficiency, and formal rules.

McDonaldization

The spread of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control.

Gig work

Short-term, task-based, or contract-based work.

Sociological paradox

The reality that humans collectively create social structures, yet those structures subsequently shape and constrain people.

Bugs versus features

The distinction between accidental flaws and outcomes systematically produced by a system's design.

Normal

That which is typical or statistically common.

Normative

Concerned with what ought to be.

Sociological sympathy

Seeking to understand others within their own social circumstances and contexts.

Values

Ideas about what is important or desirable.

Norms

Shared expectations for behaviour.

Beliefs

Ideas about what is true or false.

Social facts

External social forces that influence individual behaviour.

Sociological imagination

The framework introduced by C. Wright Mills that connects personal biography with history and social structure.

Dorothy Smith

Key theorist in feminist sociology known for standpoint theory and institutional ethnography.

Albion Small

Early sociologist who helped establish sociology as an academic discipline in the United States.

John Porter

Sociologist who examined Canadian stratification and authored The Vertical Mosaic.

Horace Miner

Anthropologist/sociologist known for writing about the Nacirema to examine ethnocentrism.

Harold Innis

Thinker who analyzed communication media and power.

Julian Go

Scholar known for work on empire, postcolonial sociology, and connected histories.