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sociological theories Flashcards

1
Q

what does consensus mean?

A

general agreement

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2
Q

what is value consensus?

A

An agreement among society’s members about what values are important.

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3
Q

what is anomie?

A

lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group

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4
Q

what were Durkheim’s ideas of society?

A
  1. society shapes an individual (top down theory)
  2. socail solidarity and cohesion is achieved an maintained through socialisation process and learning norms and values
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5
Q

what were the reasons Durkheim said people were committing suicide?

A
  1. individualism
    2.excessive hope
  2. we have too much freedom
  3. atheism
    5.weakening of the nation and family
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6
Q

what are the two ways of maintaining value consensus and social order?

A

formal and informal social control

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7
Q

what are the four basic needs of society?

A
  • goal attainment
  • adaptation
  • interegation
  • latency
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8
Q

what is goal attainment?

A

the problem of settling and implementing goals

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9
Q

what is adaption

A

providing to the needs of the members to help them survive

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10
Q

what is intergration?

A

institutions developed to reduce conflict in society

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11
Q

what is latency?

A

the problem of creating, perserving, and transmitting the system’s distinctive culture and values

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12
Q

What did Talcott Parsons believe?

A

society acts in a similar way to the human body through the wat that social institutions interact in the same wat as human organs

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13
Q

what are some internal criticisms of functionalism? (Robert K Merton)

A
  • not all institutions play a single role
  • not all institutions are as tightly linked as Parson’s suggests
  • not all institutions play a constant positive role
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14
Q

what are some external criticisms of functionalism?

A
  • contradicts itself by saying that things are functional and dysfunctional
  • unable to explain conflict and change in society
    -unable to explain diversity and instability in society
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15
Q

what did Karl Marx say about society?

A
  • society is in a state of conflict between the rich and poor
  • society has a system to keep the rich- rich and the poor - poor
  • capitalism as a system that keeps the wealthy minority in charge of the means of production
  • the relations of production exploit the subject class
    -education and religion teach workers to follow orders
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16
Q

what is the relations of production?

A

the relationship between the ruling and working class

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17
Q

ttttt

A

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18
Q

what are the stages of society?

A

-primitive communism
- slavery
- feudalism
- capitalism

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19
Q

why are people tied to their possessions?

A

it gives them a sense f identity and is some sort of compensation for the lack of identity in the workplace

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20
Q

what is infrastructure?

A
  • the economy of a society, basic physical and organisational structures needed for a society to function
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21
Q

what is ideology?

A
  • the way in which people are told to think by people in power
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22
Q

what is althusser?

A

ideological state apparatus

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23
Q

what are the strengths of marxism?

A
  • links to major institutions
  • emphasises the importance of the economy
  • tries to link the structural elements of society with the consciousness of thought of the individual
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24
Q

what are some criticisms of marxism?

A
  • communist societies have a bad reputation
  • overemphasise on conflict
  • ignores the role of women
  • no said revolution
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25
Q

what is feminism?

A

the belief that men and woman should have equal rights and opportunities

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26
Q

how useful is feminism as a sociological perspective?

A
  • it gives us a good understanding of the effects of society on women and allows us to see the inequality, however it only focuses on gender
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27
Q

what are the different types of feminism?

A
  • radical
  • liberal
  • difference
  • post modernist
  • Marxist
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28
Q

what happened in the first wave of feminism?

A
  • in the 19th and 20th century
  • improved rights for women in marriage and property
  • lead by the suffragettes
  • in 1918, women over 30 who owned property won the vote
29
Q

what happened in the second wave of feminism?

A
  • in the 1960s and 1970s
  • extended beyond political rights
  • ” private made political” - Gloria Steinem
  • focused on issues like abortion, contraception and domestic violence
30
Q

what happened in the third wave of feminism?

A
  • 1990s- present
  • widened the feminist movement beyond, middle class, white women
  • focuses on issues like representation in the media and sexual harassment
  • moving away from the inequality of the history of feminism
31
Q

what did Germaine Freer (1970) argue?

A

that women are “castrated” by society and that gender roles are not natural, but learned. the women in our society are conditioned to restrictive femininity

32
Q

what are some criticisms of liberal feminism?

A
  • overly optimistic
  • deals with the effects of the patriarchy, not the causes
33
Q

what are some criticisms of radical feminisms?

A
  • gives other forms of feminism a bad reputation
  • in this theory, gender equality is never achieved
34
Q

what are some criticisms of marxist feminists?

A
  • revolution isnt required for equality and it hasn’t happened yet
  • patriarchy exists in non-capitalist societies
  • it is men not capitalism that benefit from women oppression
35
Q

what are some criticisms of intersectionality feminism?

A
  • focuses on the minutia of oppression which lessens the impact and power in feminism as a whole
36
Q

what are some criticisms of duel- systems feminism?

A
  • patriarchy is not a system in the same way capitalism is
37
Q

what is symbolic interactionism?

A

it focuses on the interactions between individuals and is about these interactions rather than social structure

38
Q

what did George Herbert Mead believe? (interactionist)

A

that the development of individuals change depending on different interactions

39
Q

what else did George Herbert Mead say?

A
  • we act based on the meaning we give something
  • we give meaning to things based on different interactions
  • the impression that we have of something is not permanent
  • “things become real in their consequences”
40
Q

what did Cooley believe with the looking glass self?

A
  • we aren’t influenced by the opinions of others, but rather the imagined perspective
  • we use the way other people interpret our behaviour as evidence of who and what we are
  • we use the behaviour of others as a mirror of how we should act
41
Q

what did Goffman believe?

A
  • the social world is represented as a play in which various members adopt certain roles and speak certain lines (presentation of self)
42
Q

what is dramaturgical analogy?

A
  • our social encounters have scenery that lines the situation for the actors and props used to enhance our performance
43
Q

what did Goffman argue about stigma?

A
  • some experience stigmatised or spoiler identities
  • none of these behaviours themselves caused the stigmatised identity
  • it occurs as a result of how others view these behaviours
44
Q

what are some criticisms of symbolic interactionism?

A
  • ethnomethodology argues that it fails to explain who the actors create meaning
  • not all action is meaningful, especially weber’s idea of traditional actions which may hold little meaning for the actor
  • fails to explain the origin of the labels
45
Q

what is phenomenology?

A

the study of lived experience and phenomena from the experience of being in the world

46
Q

what does edmund husserl say? ( meaning and the world )

A
  • the world only makes sense because we impose meaning and order on it
  • we construct mental categories to classify and file information
  • the world as we know is a product of the individual mind
47
Q

what did alfred schutz say?

A
  • the categories and concepts we create about the world are not unique to ourselves –> we share them with other people allowing us to live in a community
48
Q

what is typifications?

A

the shared categories that help us organise experience and world around us

49
Q

what is typifications?

A

the process of relying on general knowledge as a way of constructing ideas about proper and the social world

50
Q

why are typifications important?

A

they help stabilise and clarify meaning

51
Q

what is meant by recipe knowledge?

A

the ability to interpret a situation, action or motivation without really thinking about it

52
Q

what is involved in the natural attitude?

A

it is the belief that society is a real objective thing that exists outside of us

53
Q

what are some evaluation points for phenomenology?

A
  • recognises that people create society through their on meanings and have their own motivations
  • ignores wider societal structural such as inequality and doesn’t explain the origins of labels
  • some actions are habits and not intentional to what meaning they have
54
Q

what does Garfinkel say about ethnomethodology?

A
  • interested in how social order is achieved from the bottom up
  • social order is an accomplishment that people in society construct due to the development of common-sense knowledge
55
Q

what does ethnomethodology study?

A

the process of creating the meanings by which we make sense of the world

56
Q

what is indexicality?

A

nothing has a fixed meaning ; everything is dependant on context

57
Q

what is reflexicality?

A

the use of common sense knowledge to interpret everyday situations to construct a sense of meaning and order

58
Q

what is the evaluation for ethnomethodology?

A
  • Marxists argue that the “shred common sense knowledge” is in fact the ruling class ideology and the order that it creates serves the interests of capitalism
  • functionalists argue that norms and values are not fiction, but a social fact
59
Q

what are the 5 features of social action theory?

A
  • social structure are are social construction created by individuals
  • voluntarism
  • micro approach
  • behaviour is driven by the beliefs, meaning and feelings people give to a situation
  • the use of interpretivist methodology
60
Q

what does micro approach mean?

A

that the sociologists are looking at the individuals in society and how they shape the world around them

61
Q

what did Weber believe?

A

in order to fully understand society, you need to use a combination of both structural and action approaches

62
Q

what are the 4 types of action?

A
  • instrumental rational action
  • value rational action
    -traditional action
  • affectual action
63
Q

what is instrumental rational action?

A

social actors work out the most efficient way to reach a goal

64
Q

what is value rational action?

A

action towards a goal that seen as desirable for its own sake

65
Q

what is traditional action?

A

routine, customary or habitual actions that are done without thought or choice

66
Q

what is affectual action?

A

action that expresses emotion. Weber saw this as important in religious and political movements with charismatic leaders who attract followers based on emotional appeal

67
Q

what is some evaluation of weber?

A
  • too individualistic
  • doesn’t explain shared nature of meanings
    it is difficult to apply these ideas as meaning can be misinterpreted
  • it is never truly possible to put yourself in the shoes of another person
68
Q

what does Vertehem mean?

A

empathy – >to fully understand social groups, we must “walk in their shoes”

sociology (9 decks)

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