Historical Figures and Concepts in Sociology

Vocabulary flashcards identifying key terminology and theoretical concepts associated with major figures in the development of sociology including Weber, Marx, DuBois, Cooley, Addams, Merton, and Bourdieu.

Verstehen

The German word for "understanding" or "insight," which Max Weber taught should be used to comprehend the subjective meanings people attach to their actions.

Ideal type

A conceptual tool developed by Max Weber that serves as a construct or model for evaluating specific cases, such as a model of bureaucracy used as a standard for measurement.

Proletariat

The term used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to describe the masses of people who have no resources other than their labor and should unite to overthrow capitalist societies.

The Communist Manifesto

A platform prepared by Marx and Engels in 1848 arguing that the history of all society is the history of class struggles and calling for the working class to unite.

Double consciousness

A term coined by W. E. B. DuBois in 1897 to refer to the division of an individual's identity into two or more social realities, specifically describing the experience of being Black in White America.

Atlanta Sociological Laboratory

An institution promoted by W. E. B. DuBois that conducted groundbreaking research on religion, crime, and race relations through extensive student interviews.

Small units

Face-to-face groups such as families, gangs, and friendship networks that Charles Horton Cooley identified as the "seedbeds of society" which shape people's ideals and values.

Settlement houses

Community centers in poor urban areas, such as Jane Addams's Hull House, where early women sociologists combined intellectual inquiry, social service, and political activism.

Innovators

In Robert Merton's classification of deviant behavior, individuals who accept the socially approved goal of material wealth but use illegal means like robbery or extortion to achieve it.

Macrosociology

A level of sociological analysis that concentrates on large-scale phenomena or entire civilizations, such as studies of international crime rates.

Microsociology

A level of sociological analysis that stresses the study of small groups, often through experimental means, such as how a teacher's expectations affect a student.

Mesosociology

An intermediate level of sociological analysis that embraces the study of formal organizations and social movements, such as the study of environmentalism.

Global sociology

A level of analysis that makes comparisons among nations, typically using entire societies as the units of analysis, such as Durkheim's cross-cultural study of suicide.

Cultural capital

Pierre Bourdieu's term for noneconomic goods, such as education and family background, reflected in the knowledge of language and arts valued by the socially elite.

Social capital

The collective benefit of social networks built on reciprocal trust, which provides value in health, happiness, and economic success.