Help
Options
Didn't know it?
click below
click below
Knew it?
click below
click below
Don't Know
Remaining cards (0)
Know
retry
shuffle
restart
0:00
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Sociology Ch. 1
The Sociological Perspective
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| The systematic study of human society and interaction; a science based on the social theory of human phenomena | Sociology |
| A large social grouping that shares the same geographical territory and is subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations; an autonomous group with solidarity or cohesion | Society |
| Society is composed of interrelated parts that work together to maintain stability; stability is threatened by dysfunctional acts and institutions | Functionalist Theory |
| Society is characterized by social inequality; social life is a struggle for scarce resources between two groups; social arrangements benefit some groups at the expense of others | Conflict Theory |
| Social reality is a process in which interacting people create the world they experience, define the meaning joe situations they find themselves in, and determine how they will behave in response to the behavior and meanings in interaction process | Symbolic Interactionist Theory |
| Narratives are used to make sense of various view points expressed in the extremely diverse situations of everyday reality; reject the idea that society and knowledge are progressing; science and rationalism do not necessarily lead to truth about world | Post-Modernist Theory |
| 1820-1903; worked in England responding to industrial revolution; fundamental idea was The Struggle for Existence; also introduced Law of Increasing Heterogeneity | Herbert Spencer |
| Simple societies replicate and spread out; as resources decrease, struggle increases which leads to universal warfare which favors larger societies; warrior societies replaced simple societies | The Struggle for Existence |
| Increase in social mass equals an increase in structure and complexity of society; social differentiation becomes more pronounced; leads to struggle between societies | Law of Increasing Heterogeneity |
| 1818-1883; known as Father of Communism; believed society should be able to provide for all; introduced Law of Exploitation; believed population constantly grows or society will collapse | Karl Marx |
| The size of resource-controlling class is proportional to the size of resource-deprived class and rate of exploitation; leads to struggle between classes | Law of Exploitation |
| 1858-1917; French head of education and professor of sociology; known as Father of Functionalism; believed that society has an interdependence of parts to function as a whole | Emile Durkheim |
| A relationship in which the lives of all people are intertwined closely and any one nation's problems are part of a larger global problem | Global Interdependence |
| Guides ordinary conduct in everyday life | Commonsense Knowledge |
| A popular but false notion that may be used, either intentionally or unintentionally, to perpetuate certain beliefs or "theories" even in the light of conclusive evidence to the contrary | Myth |
| The ability to see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society | Sociological Imagination |
| Private problems that affect individuals and the networks of people with which they regularly associate | Personal Troubles |
| Problems that affect large numbers of people and often require solutions at the societal level | Public Issues |
| Nations with highly industrialized economies; technologically advanced industrial, administrative, and service occupations; and relatively high levels of national and personal income | High-Income Countries |
| Nations with industrializing economies, particularly in urban areas, and moderate levels of national and personal income | Middle-Income Countries |
| Primarily agrarian nations with little industrialization and low levels of national and personal income | Low-Income Countries |
| A term used by many people to specify groups of people distinguished by physical characteristics such as skin color | Race |
| The cultural heritage or identity of a group; based on factors such as language or country of origin | Ethnicity |
| The relative location of a person or group within the larger society, based on wealth, power, prestige, or other valued resources | Class |
| Refers to the biological and anatomical differences between females and males | Sex |
| Refers to the meanings, beliefs, and practices associated with sex differences, referred to as femininity and masculinity | Gender |
| An open house held to stimulate discussion and intellectual debate | Salon |
| The process by which societies are transformed from dependence on agriculture and handmade products to an emphasis on manufacturing and related industries | Industrialization |
| The process by which an increasing proportion of a population lives in cities rather than in rural areas | Urbanization |
| Coined the term sociology; considered by some to be the "founder of sociology"; French philosopher | Auguste Comte |
| Forces for social order and stability | Social Statics |
| Forces for conflict and change | Social Dynamics |
| A belief that the world can best be understood through scientific inquiry | Positivism |
| Explanations were based on religion and the supernatural | Theological Stage |
| Explanations were based on abstract philosophical speculation | Metaphysical Stage |
| Explanations are based on systematic observation, experimentation, comparison, and historical analysis | Scientific/Positive Stage |
| Wrote Society in America; translated the works of Comte; advocated racial and gender equality | Harriet Martineau |
| A theory to explain the mechanisms of organic/social change | Evolutionary Theory |
| Society, like a biological organism, has various interdependent parts (such as the family, the economy, and the government) that work to ensure the stability and survival of the entire society | Spencer's Theory of General Evolution |
| The belief that those species of animals, including human beings, best adapted to their environment survive and prosper, whereas those poorly adapted die out | Social Darwinism |
| Patterned ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that exist outside any one individual but that exert social control over each person | Social Facts |
| A condition in which social control becomes ineffective as a result of the loss of shared values and of a sense of purpose in society | Anomie |
| The struggle between the capitalist class and the working class | Class Conflict |
| Comprises those who own and control the means of production-the tools, land, factories, and money for investment that form the economic basis of a society | Capitalist Class/Bourgeoisie |
| Composed of those who must sell their labor because they have no other means to earn a livelihood | Working Class/Proletariat |
| A feeling of powerlessness and estrangement from other people and from themselves | Alienation |
| Refers to objects that people produce to meet their personal needs or the needs of those in their immediate surroundings | Use Value |
| Refers to the value that a commodity has when it is exchanged for money in the open market | Exchange Value |
| The situation in which workers fail to recognize that their labor gives the commodity its value and instead come to believe that a commodity's value is based on the natural properties of the thing itself | Fetishism of Commodities |
| The existing state of society | Status Quo |
| The process by which the modern world has come to be increasingly dominated by structures devoted to efficiency, calculability, predictability, and technological control | Rationalization |
| German social scientist; author of The protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; emphasized that sociology should be conducted in a scientific manner and exclude the researcher's personal values and economic interests | Max Weber |
| A social group with two members | Dyad |
| A social group with three members | Triad |
| An approach that calls attention to the universal recurring social forms underlying the varying content of social interaction | Formal Sociology |
| German sociologist; referred to the "geometry of social life"; analyzed how group size influences social interactions | Georg Simmel |
| Where the first department of sociology in the United States was established; faculty started the American Sociological Society (American Sociological Association) | University of Chicago |
| Founded the symbolic interaction perspective; emphasized the importance of studying the group; called attention to the importance of language and gesture communication | George Herbert Mead |
| Founded Hull House; awarded a Nobel Prize for assistance to underprivileged | Jane Addams |
| founded the second department of sociology in the U.S. at Atlanta University; created a sociology lab, instituted a systematic research program, founded and conducted regular conferences on research, and founded two journals | W.E.B. Du Bois |
| The identity conflict of being both a black and an American | Double-Consciousness |
| A set of logically interrelated statements that attempts to describe, explain, and (occasionally) predict social events | Theory |
| An overall approach to or viewpoint on some subject | Perspective |
| Based on the assumption that society is a stable, orderly system | Functionalist Perspectives |
| The majority of members share a common set of values, beliefs, and behavioral expectations | Societal Consensus |
| Most influential contemporary advocate of the functionalist perspective; stressed that all societies must provide for meeting social needs in order to survive | Talcott Parsons |
| Intended and/or overtly recognized by the participants in a social unit | Manifest Functions |
| Unintended functions that are hidden and remain unacknowledged by participants | Latent Functions |
| Undesirable consequences of any element of a society | Dysfunctions |
| Groups in society are engaged in a continuous power struggle for control of scarce resources | Conflict Perspectives |
| The ability of a person within a social relationship to carry out his or her own will despite resistance from others | Power |
| A positive or negative social estimation of honor | Prestige |
| Key figure in the development of contemporary conflict theory; involved in social reform; observe the major resource and power inequalities in society | C. Wright Mills |
| A small clique composed of the top corporate, political, and military officials | Power Elite |
| Directs attention to women's experiences and the importance of gender as an element of social structure | Feminist Approach |
| A system in which men dominate women and in which things that are considered to be masculine are more highly valued than those considered to be feminine | Patriarchy |
| The continuous public display of one's wealth and status through purchases | Conspicuous Consumption |
| Discussed the relationship between social class and consumption patterns; described conspicuous consumption | Thorstein Veblen |
| Examines whole societies, large-scales social structures, and social systems | Macrolevel Analysis |
| Focuses on small groups rather than on large-scale social structures | Microlevel Analysis |
| Society is the sum of the interactions of individuals and groups; coined by Herbert Blumer | Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives |
| Immediate reciprocally oriented communication between two or more people | Interaction |
| Anything that meaningfully represents something else | Symbol |
| Existing theories have been unsuccessful in explaining social life in contemporary societies that are characterized by postindustrialization, consumerism, and global communications | Postmodern Perspectives |
Created by:
Vanity
Popular Anthropology sets