Soc Midterm

What is the sociological imagination?

The ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual’s life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces; see your life as ordinary

2. What is a social institution?

o A complex group of positions that together perform a social role and reproduce themselves over time

o Any institution in a society that works to shape the behavior of the groups or people within it

o Positivism

1. Auguste Comte

2. Scientific method, secular basis for morality

3. Human behavior could be understood scientifically

o Feminism

1. Harriet Martineau

2. Child rearing, governing body relationships, marriage

3. Equality between women and men, working to see women’s lives and experiences represented in sociological studies

o Conflict theory

1. Marx

2. Opposite of functionalism

3. Society is structured around power dynamics and struggles between groups

4. When resources, status, and power are unevenly distributed then people will try to initiate change

5. Conflict is good for society because it drives society to change

o Functionalism

1. Talcott Parsons, George Herbert Mead, Durkheim

2. How do we work together to make society function

3. Interconnectedness, social cohesion

4. Anomie, suicide, isolation

5. We all are cogs in one giant machine that is society, we each fill a role and a status quo

o Symbolic interactionism

1. George Herbert Mead, Charles Cooley

2. Society is constructed through everyday interactions and meanings

3. People

4. self-concepts and behaviors are shaped by their social interactions and other

5. Symbols, gestures, dynamic

o Double Consciousness

1. W.E.B. DuBois

2. The use of two behavior scrips, one for moving through the general social world and the other incorporating the external options of prejudiced onlookers

4. Know Durkheim’s contributions to functionalism and the concept of anomie

o A sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable, too little social regulation, normlessness

o Lonely, isolation leads to suicidal thoughts

o Division of labor in a given society helps determine how social cohesion is maintained

1. What are the two basic methods in sociological research?

o Quantitative: seek to obtain information about the social world that is already in or can be converted to numeric form

o Qualitative: collect information about the social world that cannot be readily converted into numeric form

Inductive

starts with empirical observations and then works to form a theory

o Deductive

starts with a theory, form a hypothesis, makes empirical observations, then analyzes data to confirm, reject, or modify the original theory

o Methods

have to do with how you design a study and how you decide to collect data.

If the data is numerical, then it is quantitative;

if it’s based on interviews or observations, then it is qualitative.

o Approaches

Approaches to answering a research question would be deductive or inductive

o Causality

 The notion that a change in on factor results in a corresponding change in another

 Requires correlation, time order, and ruling out alternative explanations

o Correlation

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

5. How do researchers distinguish between independent and dependent variables?

o Dependent

 Variable the researcher is trying to explain

o Independent

 Measured factor that the researcher believes has a casual impact on the depend variable

6. What are some of the major lessons that researchers can glean from the Tuskegee Syphilis study? What was unethical about the study?

o The golden rules of sociology are extremely important. It turns people away from the world of sociology as a whole when you break their trust

o Denying medication, lying, targeting the poor, underpinnings of racism

Validity

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

 Is this a good measure of what I am trying to measure

o Generalizability

 The extent to which we can claim our findings inform about a group beyond the one we studied

 Indicate what is true of the whole population

o Operationalization

 How a concept is defined and measured in a given study

 What is necessary for a hypothesis to be tested

 Try to define the measure of the variables

 Create a solid understanding of your parameters and what they mean

8. What are the 3 golden rules for conducting research with human subjects? (according to the textbook)

o Do no harm

o Obtain informed consent

o Ensure voluntary participation

1. How do sociologists understand culture? What is the definition of culture according to sociology?

a. Culture = human + nature

b. The sum of social categories and concepts we operate within in addition to beliefs, learned behaviors, practices, and traditions that are separate from our environment

c. Everything but the natural environment around is

2. What is ethnocentrism?

a. The belief that one’s own culture or group is superior to others and the tendency to view all others and the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of one’s own

a. Material

i. Everything that is part of our constructed physical environment including technology

ii. Hijabs, rosaries

b. Nonmaterial

i. Values, beliefs, social norms, and ideologies

ii. Bowing head to others, saying hello

a. High culture

i. Cultural patterns of the elite, intellectualism

b. Low culture

i. Popular culture, patterns of more accessible experiences, more mainstream

a. Norms

i. How values tell us to to behave

ii. Opening the door for a lady

b. Values

i. Moral beliefs

ii. Good manner

6. What are the key elements of Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony? How does it relate to dominant ideology in society?

• a. A condition by which a dominant group uses its power to elicit the voluntary connection of the masses

• b. Oppressive regimes are able to stay in power through a combination of coercion and consent

• c. Naturalization of the rule of a particular group

• d. The media tends to encourage people to consent to the culture of the dominant power

• e. Dominant ideology

• i. The people that have the most power can set the ideology

• ii. Abel to convince others that the system you have is necessary, get away with abhorrent things

7. Where is Antonio Gramsci from? What was going on in his home country when he wrote? How was he treated by his government for writing about his social and political context?

a. Italy, the rise of fascism was occurring, he was arrested.

8. What is the political economy of media? What are potential consequences for the consolidation of media outlet ownership?

a. Study of how power, our economic system, and politics intersect

b. Consolidation means that the balance is off. Messages can be suppressed or spread. Mass censorship is possible. Hegemony can be upheld.

9. Be able to understand the significance of Christopher Bell’s Ted Talk on media and female superheroes. What is public pedagogy? How many corporations regulate our media industry? What are the consequences of media hegemony on portrayals of gender in Disney films?

a. Public pedagogy refers to the idea that education can happen outside formal institutions, with media being a major source of teaching societal norms and values

b. 6 corporations regulate our media industry

c. The consequences are that these corporations are able to maintain a gender status quo enforced through media hegemony, we unconsciously consent to this standard

10. How do mass media reinforce racial, ethnic, gender and/or cultural stereotypes? (from lecture)

a. The hegemony allows for stereotypes to be reinforced and taught to our children and upheld in our adults.

1. What is socialization? What are the 4 agents of socialization?

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

o Family, school, peers. media

2. How important is human interaction during the early years of development?

o Extremely important

3. What are the distinguishing characteristics of a total institution?

o An institution in which one is totally immersed and that controls all the basics of day-to-day life

o No barriers exist between the usual spheres of daily life, and all activity occurs in the same place and under the same single authority

o Cooley

 The looking-glass self

 This sense of self results from our ability to assume the point of view of others and thereby imagine how they see us

o George Herbert Mead

•  I

  • • Infants only know I

•  Me

  • • The self as a distinct object perceived by others

  • • Children then learn the me through social interaction

•  Generalized other

  • • Someone or something outside of oneself

  • • An internalized sense of the total expectation of others in a variety of settings, regardless of whether we’ve encountered those people or places before

  • • Reinforces learned norms and behaviors

o Resocialization

 The process by which one’s sense of social values, beliefs, and norms are re-engineered through intense social processes

o Adult socialization

 Learning a new way to act as a result, like a new workplace culture

 middle class

o structure their children’s leisure time with formal activities and reason with them over decisions in an effort to foster their success

 working class

o give their children the room and resources to develop but leave it up to the kids to decide how they want to structure their time

• Be able to apply the sociological imagination to the significance of this docuseries.

o See what the people in the docuseries do as normal. It is normal to them, but not to us. Don’t look at it through an American lens.

• What is the sociological research question? What is the social problem that motivated this study?

o What are the social patterns that these people engage in that allow them to live longer

o The social problem is that if these people ca live longer than others, then what are they doing that is so different?

• What is the methodology that the journalist uses? How does he study the social issue?

o He researches places with higher life expectancies and then travels there. Once there he interviews the locals and determines social patterns.

• Be able to name and discuss at least 2 examples/case studies that the journalist Dan Buettner travels to; be able to share some of the social patterns that he discovers lead to longevity in each of the blue zones.

o Okinawa

 It is important to eat a high-protein diet, have a reason that gets you up in the morning, have subconscious exercise, and have a network of friends

o Italy

 Subconscious exercise, strong sense of community, eat healthier where you can

• Share one major finding that you’re taking away from watching this docuseries!

o Isolation is extremely detrimental to health and longevity. Surrounding yourself with people who you love and care about is important and makes you live longer