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Sociology > Chapter 1 > Flashcards

Chapter 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the 3 perspectives in sociology?

A

Positivist, interpretive, and critical

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2
Q

What is the positivist perspective?

A

Emphasis on empirical observation and measurements, values objectivity and search for “law like” statements.

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3
Q

What is the interpretive perspective?

A

A focus on understanding or interpreting human activity in the terms of the meanings that humans attribute to it.

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4
Q

What is the critical perspective?

A

Focuses on power relations and the understanding of society as historical. Looking to develop knowledge that can be used to emancipate people from conditions of subordination.

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5
Q

Does being in a group change your behaviour?

A

Yes

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6
Q

Does sociology use different levels of analysis?

A

Yes, from face to face to the examination of large scale historical processes affecting entire civilizations.

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7
Q

What are the 4 levels of analysis in sociology?

A

Micro, meso, macro and global

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8
Q

What is the micro level of analysis?

A

Focuses on social dynamics of intimate face to face interactions.

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9
Q

What is the macro level of analysis?

A

Focuses on the properties of large scale, society wide social interactions that extend beyond the immediate milieu of individual interactions eg dynamics of institutions, class structures etc

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10
Q

What is global level analysis?

A

Focus is on structure and processes that extend beyond the boundaries of states or specific societies.

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11
Q

What is Sociological imagination?

A

Also known as sociological perspective. How individuals understand their own and others lives in relation to history and social structure.

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12
Q

What is another way to look at sociological imagination?

A

The capacity to see an individual’s private troubles in the context of the broader social process that structure them.

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13
Q

If private troubles are widely shared with others, does it indicate anything?

A

Yes, a common social problem that has its source in the way social life is structured. A collective response is required to help reduce the issue.

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14
Q

Does culture and social forces put pressure on people to select one choice or another?

A

Yes

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15
Q

What is social structure?

A

General patterns that persist through time and become habitual or rationalized or institutionalized.

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16
Q

What is reification?

A

Refers to the way abstract concepts, complex processes, or mutable social relationships come to be thought of as “things”

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17
Q

What is the sociological problem?

A

The ability to see the individual as a thinking social being and an a being who has agency and free will.

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18
Q

Should an individuals behaviour have an understanding of their social context?

A

Yes

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19
Q

Are an individuals responsibilities socially defined?

A

Yes, but they take on individual responsibilities in their everyday social roles

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20
Q

What is another aspect of the sociological problem?

A

The ability to see societies as a detention of experience characterized by regular and predictable patterns of behaviour at the same time acknowledging that society is nothing more than the ongoing social relationships and activities of individuals

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21
Q

What is the key basis of the sociological perspective?

A

The concept that the individual and society are inseparable.

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22
Q

What is figuration?

A

The process of simultaneously analyzing the behaviour of individuals and the society that shapes their behaviour

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23
Q

What is a norm?

A

Social rule that regulates human behaviour

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24
Q

Is the human social life a product of nature?

A

No, it is a human creation, otherwise all cultures would be the same.

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25
What 3 major transformations resulted in the impetus for sociology?
Development of modern science, emergence of democratic forms of government with the American and French Revolutions, and the Industrial Revolution.
26
What was the disenchantment of the world?
From belief in spirits and gods causing ailments etc. to systemically observing and testing the world of things through science and technology
27
What is rationalism?
Laws that governed the truth of reason and ideas
28
What is empiricism?
Laws of the operation of the world through the careful methodical and detailed observation of the world
29
Why did sociology start using the scientific method when conducting research?
To emphasize that claims about social life had to be clearly formulated and based on evidence based procedures
30
Could reason be applied to address social ills?
Yes
31
How did the Industrial Revolution change societies?
It exposed many people to other societies and cultures
32
Who is seen as the father of sociology?
Comte - he believed in the potential of social scientists to work towards the betterment of society for a rational social order.
33
What is positivism?
Scientific study of social patterns to reveal the laws by which societies and individuals interact
34
What was the social order Comte imagined?
Very conservative and hierarchical with every level of society obliged to reconcile itself with its allotted place
35
What did Karl Marx do for sociology?
Developed critical analysis of capitalism and saw the material or economic basis of inequality and power relations as the cause of social instability and conflict
36
What is historical materialism?
To use rigorous scientific analysis as a basis to change society
37
What is critical sociology?
The framework used to analyze society
38
What did Marx’s analysis of capitalism show?
The social relationships that had created the market system and the social repercussions of their operation.
39
What did Marx feel critical social theory should do?
Must clarify and support the issues of social justice
40
What did Harriet Martineau do for sociology?
One of the first women in sociology who brought a women’s perspective, developed public health care and social reform for women’s rights.
41
What did Émile Durkheim do for sociology?
Established sociology as a formal academic discipline. He saw healthy societies as stable, while pathological societies experienced a breakdown in social norms between individuals and society.
42
What is anomie?
A lack of norms that give clear direction and purpose to individual actions
43
What are social facts?
Things that are defined externally to the individual (eg laws, language, money etc). They precede the individual and will continue to exist after they are gone. Consist of details and obligations of which individuals are frequently unaware of. And endowed with an external coercive power by reason of which individuals are controlled
44
How do individuals experience social facts?
As obligations, duties, and restraints on their behaviour, operating independently of their will. They are hardly noticeable when individuals consent to them, but provoke reaction when individuals resist
45
What did Durkheim believe about social facts?
They serve one or more functions within a society. They exist to fulfill a societal need.
46
What is social solidarity?
Laws that create order and togetherness.
47
Can social facts be analyzed?
Yes, to see what its function in society is. A healthy society depends on particular functions or needs being met.
48
What is egotistic suicide?
Suicide which results from the individual ego having to depend on itself for self-regulation (and failing) in the absence of strong social bonds tying it to a community
49
What did Max Webber contribute to sociology?
He believed culture had to be taken into account when predicting human behaviour. Also believed it could not be understood independently of the meanings that individuals attributed to it.
50
What does Verstehen mean?
To understand from a subjects viewpoint.
51
What did Webber believe sociology was concerned with?
Social action
52
What is social action?
Actions to which individuals attach subjective meanings
53
What is Interpretive Sociology?
Social researchers who strive to find systemic means to interpret and describe the subjective meanings behind social processes, cultural norms, and societal values.
54
What did George Simmel contribute to sociology?
He had profound insights into how social forms emerg at the micro-level of interaction and how they relate to macro-level phenomena.
55
What is formal sociology?
Sociology of social forms
56
What is rationalization in sociology?
The replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behaviour in society with concepts based on rationality and research.
57
What is micro-sociology?
Refers to the ongoing, unfinished process of interactions between specific individuals.
58
What is theory in sociology?
A way to explain different aspects of social interactions and create testable propositions about society.
59
What is a multi-perspectival science?
A number of distinct perspectives or paradigms offer competing explanations of social phenomena.
60
What are paradigms?
Are philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the research performed in support of them.
61
What is Structural functionalism?
Identifiable social structure (eg roles, families etc.) could be explained by the particular function it performed in maintaining the operation of society as a whole.
62
What are two other sociological paradigms?
Critical sociology and symbolic interactionism
63
What are two other sociological paradigms?
Critical sociology and symbolic interactionism

Sociology (1 decks)

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