Chapter 1

Question 1

The capacity of individuals to act and make decisions independently

Answer 1

agency

Question 2

A social condition or normlessness in which a lack of clear norms fails to give direction and purpose to individual actions

Answer 2

anomie

Question 3

An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership, production, and sale of goods in a competitive market

Answer 3

capitalism

Question 4

The shared meanings, symbols, concepts, categories and images of a social collectivity

Answer 4

collective representations

Question 5

The specific reasons or drives that motivate individuals to interact

Answer 5

content

Question 6

A theoretical perspective that focuses on inequality and power relations in society in order to achieve social justice and emancipation through their transformation

Answer 6

critical sociology

Question 7

A group’s whole way of life including shared practices, values, beliefs, norms and artifacts

Answer 7

culture

Question 8

The mutual understanding of the tasks or situation at hand shared among co-participants

Answer 8

definition of the situation

Question 9

A type of analysis that proposes that social contradiction, opposition, and struggle in society drive processes of social change and transformation

Answer 9

dialectics

Question 10

The replacement of magical thinking by science, technological rationality, and calculation

Answer 10

disenchantment of the world

Question 11

The belief that physiological sex differences between males and females are related to differences in their character, behaviour, and ability

Answer 11

dominant gender ideology

Question 12

The experience of a fissure or division in consciousness when one crosses a line between the abstractions of institutional knowledge and the direct, lived experiences of everyday/every night life

Answer 12

dual consciousness

Question 13

A stable state in which all parts of a functioning society are working together properly

Answer 13

dynamic equilibrium

Question 14

Social patterns that have undesirable consequences for the operation of society

Answer 14

dysfunctions

Question 15

The philosophical tradition that seeks to discover the laws of the operation of the world through careful, methodical, and detailed observation

Answer 15

empiricism

Question 16

Suicide which results from the absence of strong social bonds tying the individual to a community

Answer 16

egoistic suicide

Question 17

The idea that the characteristics of persons or groups are significantly influenced by biological factors or human nature, and are therefore largely similar in all human cultures and historical periods

Answer 17

essentialism

Question 18

The critical analysis of the way gender differences in society structure social inequality

Answer 18

feminism

Question 19

The process of simultaneously analyzing the behaviour of an individual and the society that shapes that behaviour

Answer 19

figuration

Question 20

The study of structures and processes that extend beyond the boundaries of states or specific societies

Answer 20

global-level sociology

Question 21

An approach to understanding society that explains social change, human ideas, and social organization in terms of underlying changes in the economic (or material) structure of society

Answer 21

historical materialism

Question 22

A perspective that explains human behaviour in terms of the meanings individuals attribute to it

Answer 22

interpretive sociology

Question 23

A social process in which an individual’s social identity is established through the imposition of a definition by authorities

Answer 23

labelling

Question 24

The unrecognized or unintended consequences of a social process

Answer 24

latent functions

Question 25

The study of society-wide social structures and processes

Answer 25

macro-level sociology

Question 26

Sought consequences of a social process

Answer 26

manifest functions

Question 27

The study of specific, local relationships between individuals or small groups

Answer 27

micro-level sociology

Question 28

The way a human society acts upon its environment and its resources in order to process and distribute them to meet their needs

Answer 28

mode of production

Question 29

Philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them

Answer 29

paradigms

Question 30

Institutions of male power in society

Answer 30

patriarchy

Question 31

The study of social structures and processes on the basis of a systematic description of the contents of subjective experience

Answer 31

phenomenology

Question 32

The scientific study of social patterns using the methodological principles of the natural sciences

Answer 32

positivist sociology

Question 33

A sociological approach which transforms aspects of social life into numerical variables, such as statistical methods and surveys with large numbers of participants

Answer 33

quantitative sociology

Question 34

The general tendency of modern institutions and most areas of life to be transformed by the application of instrumental reason

Answer 34

rationalization

Question 35

The philosophical tradition that seeks to determine the underlying laws that govern the truth of reason and ideas

Answer 35

rationalism

Question 36

Referring to abstract concepts, complex processes, or mutable social relationships as “things.”

Answer 36

reification

Question 37

Actions to which individuals attach subjective meanings

Answer 37

social action

Question 38

A theoretical perspective that focuses on the socially created nature of social life

Answer 38

social constructivism

Question 39

The external laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and cultural rules that govern social life

Answer 39

social facts

Question 40

The role a social phenomenon performs in satisfying a social or biological need and ensuring the continuity of society

Answer 40

social function

Question 41

An approach to social change that advocates slow, incremental improvements in social institutions rather than rapid, revolutionary change of society as a whole

Answer 41

social reform

Question 42

Pre-established patterns of behaviour that people are expected to follow in specific social situations

Answer 42

social script

Question 43

The degree to which a group of people cohere or are bound together through shared consciousness, qualities or social ties

Answer 43

social solidarity

Question 44

General patterns of social behaviour and social coordination that persist through time and become habitual or routinized at micro-levels of interaction or institutionalized at macro or global levels of interaction

Answer 44

social structure

Question 45

A group of people whose members interact, reside in a definable area, and share a culture

Answer 45

society

Question 46

The ability to understand how personal problems of milieu relate to public issues of social structure

Answer 46

sociological imagination

Question 47

The systematic study of society and social interaction

Answer 47

sociology

Question 48

The examination of how society is organized and coordinated from the perspective of a particular social location, group or perspective in society

Answer 48

standpoint theory

Question 49

A theoretical approach that sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of individuals that make up that society

Answer 49

structural functionalism

Question 50

A theoretical perspective that focuses on the relationship of individuals within society by studying their communication (language, gestures and symbols)

Answer 50

symbolic interactionism

Question 51

An explanation about why something occurs

Answer 51

theory