Chapter 1: Foundations of Sociology

Question 1

Agency

Answer 1

The ability of individuals and groups to exercise free will and to make social changes on a small or large scale

Question 2

Anomie

Answer 2

A state of normlessness occurs when people lose touch with the shared rules and values that give order and meaning to their lives

Question 3

Bourgeoisie

Answer 3

The capitalist (property-owning) class

Question 4

Bureaucracies

Answer 4

Formal organizations characterized by written rules, hierarchical authority, and paid staff, intended to promote organizational efficiency

Question 5

Class Conflict

Answer 5

Competition between social classes over the distribution of wealth, power, and other valued resources in society

Question 6

Collective Conscience

Answer 6

The common beliefs and values that bind a society together

Question 7

Critical Thinking

Answer 7

The ability to evaluate claims about truth by using reason and evidence

Question 8

Double Consciousness

Answer 8

Among American Americans, an awareness of themselves as both American and Black, never free of racial stigma

Question 9

Ethnocentrism

Answer 9

A worldview where one judges other cultures by the standards of their own. Regards their own way of life as normal and better than others

Question 10

Formal Rationality

Answer 10

The context in which people’s pursuit of goals is shaped by rules, regulations, and larger social structures

Question 11

Globalization

Answer 11

The process by which people all over the world become increasingly interconnected (economically, politically, culturally, environmentally, etc.)

Question 12

Inequality

Answer 12

Differences in wealth, power, political voice, educational opportunities, and other valued resources

Question 13

Latent Functions

Answer 13

Functions of a phenomenon or institution that are not recognized or expected

Question 14

Macro-level Paradigms

Answer 14

Theories of the social world that are concerned with large-scale patterns and institutions

Question 15

Manifest Functions

Answer 15

The obvious and intended functions of a phenomenon or institution

Question 16

Means of Production

Answer 16

The sites and technology that produce the goods we need and use

Question 17

Micro-level paradigm

Answer 17

A theory of the social world that is concerned with small-group social relations and interactions

Question 18

Norms

Answer 18

Accepted social behaviors and beliefs

Question 19

Positivist

Answer 19

Science that is based on facts alone

Question 20

Power

Answer 20

The ability to mobilize resources and achieve goals despite the resistance of others

Question 21

Proletariat

Answer 21

The working class; wage workers

Question 22

Scientific

Answer 22

A way of learning about the world that combines logically constructed theory and systematic observation

Question 23

Social Conflict Paradigm

Answer 23

A theory that seeks to explain social organization and change in terms of the conflict that is built into social relations; also known as conflict theory

Question 24

Social Diversity

Answer 24

The social and cultural mixture of different groups in society and the societal recognition of difference as significant

Question 25

Social Dynamics

Answer 25

The laws that govern social change

Question 26

Social Embeddedness

Answer 26

The idea that economic, political, and other forms of human behavior are fundamentally shaped by social relations

Question 27

Social Facts

Answer 27

Qualities of groups that are external to individual members yet constrain their thinking and behavior

Question 28

Social Solidarity

Answer 28

The bonds that unite members of a social group

Question 29

Social Statics

Answer 29

The way society is held together

Question 30

Sociological Imagination

Answer 30

The ability to grasp the relationship between individual lives and the larger social forces that help to shape them

Question 31

Sociological Theories

Answer 31

Frameworks for the interpretation of social life, make particular assumptions and particular questions about the social world (Logical)

Question 32

Sociology

Answer 32

The scientific study of human social relations, groups, and societies

Question 33

Structural Functionalism

Answer 33

A theory that seeks to explain social organization and change in terms of roles performed by different social structures, also known as functionalism

Question 34

Structure

Answer 34

Patterned social arrangements that have effects on agency and are, in turn, affected by agency

Question 35

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 35

A micro-sociological perspective that posits that both the individual self and society as a whole are the products of social interactions based on language and other symbols

Question 36

Symbols

Answer 36

Representations of things that are not immediately present to our senses

Question 37

Verstehen

Answer 37

The German word for interpretive understanding