Sociology 

sociology: The study of how societies are organized and how the organization of a society influences the behavior of people living in it.

Karl Marx - conflict theory

○Relational sociologist
○The central conflict in an industrialist society is between two groups
○Alienation - feeling separate from work, others and a sense of humanity

Max Weber - symbolic interactionism

○Sociologists generate interpretative understandings
○His approach is distinctly cultural
○Introduced the idea of methodological individualism

Emile Durkheim - Structural Functionalism

○Integration and regulation - Too little regulation leads to "Anomie"
○Introduced the concept of mechanical and organic solidarity

social phenomenon theory

Behaviors actions or events that take place because of social influences.

●Jane Adams:

○Drew attention to the experiences of women
○Advocated for a socially engaged scholarship
○Funded Hull House
○First female to win a Nobel prize

●W.E.B. Dubois:

○Insisted that sociology be an empirical science adhering to the methods utilized by physical sciences
○Criticized Marx for neglecting to include race in his theory
○Introduced the idea of psychological wages
○First African American to graduate from Harvard

method: A systematic study design.Quantitative (numbers) and Qualitative (qualities and characteristics) designs

A variable: is any characteristic that has more than one possible value

Audit study: Research experiment in which researchers match participants on key characteristics

Co-variation: Relationship between variables.

experiment: A research method in which the environment is controlled to isolate the effects of one factor or characteristic

participant observation: Research method in which researcher spends time among a group, observing and participating in their daily lives

Nuremberg code:

• First international guidelines establishing research ethics.
  ●Informed Consent

Operationalization: A way of defining variables into measurable items.

correlation: relationship between variables.

Causation: One variable causes a change in another variable.

direction of relationship: Which variable is affecting the other when a relationship exists.

spurious relationship: When a third variable actually explains the apparent connection between two variables

Validity: Whether questions accurately measure the intended characteristic.

Reliability: Consistency of measurements

social desirability bias: Problems introduced to data when respondents give answers they believe are socially acceptable.

social structure: set of social statuses, roles, groups, networks, and institutions that organize and influence the way people go about their lives. Resources and Rules

Socialization:

●of internalizing a culture's norms, values and the like. Constant and ever evolving.
●Agents of socialization - People and groups who influence our orientation to life, our self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. The most prominent ones are the family, schools and peers. Others include institutions, media, religion and work.
●Ideology - Cultural beliefs that justify particular social arrangements, including patterns of inequality.
●Narrative - A set of stories that tie you to a social group.

status:

• A persons socially determined position within a social group.
  ●Achieved Status is one that results from your efforts.
  Ascribed status is one that is assigned by society without regard for the person's unique talents, efforts, or characteristics

roles: a set of expectations about the behavior and attitudes of people who occupy a particular social status: a person or group's socially-determined positions within a larger group or society.

Norms: rules and expectations by which a group guides the behavior of its members.

Resources: the things which are valuable or allow us to accomplish goals

life chances: Refers to the Opportunities to provide yourself with material goods, positive living conditions, and favorable life experiences

social network: Series of social relationships that link a person directly to other individuals and indirectly to even more people

social institutions: Central domains of social life that guide our behaviors and meet our
basic social needs

George Herbert Meade -

The generalized other
how the "self" internalizes the views of society, transcending the individual and situations.

Charles Horton Cooley -

The looking glass self
○ the "self" emerges from how an individual interacts with others and then interprets those interactions.

social class: A group of individuals who share a similar socio-economic position based on income, wealth, education, and occupation.

content analysis: Analysis of existing sources, focusing on key themes and patterns.

survey: Gathering data by asking people sets of questions

Ethnography: a type of in-depth study of a group and its culture.

confirmation bias: Tendency we all have to look for and accept information that reinforces what we already believe

unit of analysis: Item observed in a study (ex: individual people, cities, neighborhoods, apartment complexes, nations).

hypothesis: a statement about how variables are expected to relate to each other.

Stratification: A system that puts categories of people into a hierarchy

income: the amount of money an individual earns from employment or investments.

Wealth: the total amount of money that you possess or would possess if you sold off your assets.

social mobility: Movement from an ascribed social class position to a new achieved social class position

cumulative Advantages: Advantages that are built up over generations and contribute to social class inequality.

Meritocracy: A belief that personal responsibility and individual effort are the sole
determinants of success

Absolute Poverty: A measure that considers the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, and clothing; those without these necessities are considered poor.

Relative Poverty: Is a measure that takes into account the relative economic status of people in a society by looking at how income is distributed

social capital: The information you have and the people you know, the connections you have that help individuals enter pre-existing networks or gain power from them.

Ethnocentrism: Cultural or ethnic bias, whether conscious or unconscious. The belief that your culture is the norm or the ideal.

conspicuous consumption: Gaining prestige by exhibiting valuable cultural goods

cultural appropriation: Members of a dominant culture adopting cultural goods (e.g., ideas, symbols, skills, cultural expressions, intellectual property) of other cultural groups for profit.

cultural imperialism: Imposition of a dominant group's material and symbolic culture onto another group

Globalization: Integration of political and economic systems; has brought about intercultural communication and an exchange of ideas and values.

gender identity: as a personal conception of oneself as male, female, both, or neither. This conception is intimately related to a perceived gender role; this is defined as a presentation (typically within an external context) that reflects a given gender identity

lober- Meanings of gender are created through social interaction and social norms.

doing gender: Candace West and Don Zimmerman developed the idea that we perform actions that produce gender. We do gender in interactions with others.

feminism: refers to a collection of movements that advocate for equality of all genders and sexes.●By focusing on the experiences of women and adding these to the experience of men, feminist research allowed for findings to be more generalizable.

intersectional feminism:

●feminists argued that the experiences of women too diverse to place them all in one category.
●Women of different racial, ethnic and social backgrounds have different struggles.

race: a system that humans created to classify groups of people based mostly on skin tone.

Ethnicity: common culture, religion, history, or ancestry shared by a group of people.

race as a social construct:

●race has been used to justify some dimensions of the social world
●The concept is constantly evolving
●Not biological, only based on observable characteristics
●Has important social influences

Phenotype: The human phenotype is a set of visible characteristics like the color of our skin, hair and eyes. Has been used as a justification for racial classification and exploitation.