Intro Flashcards
who invented sociology
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
What is sociology
the systematic or scientific study of social behaviour in human societies
Society
A group of people who occupy a particular territory, feel they make up a unified and distinct entity, and share a standard set of assumptions about reality.
Macrosociology
examines populations and social systems on a large scale including whole societies
Microsociology
Focus on face-face interactions in small groups
Sociological imagination
concept developed by C. Wright Mills (1959)
a learned capacity to shift from one way of thinking to another; to think from an alternative point of view
Émile Durkheim (1858-1917)
studied suicide rates in Europe and concluded social causation:
-lack of social integration
-lack of collective moral regulation
Anomie
social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and valuee
Conflict theory
views society as an arena of continual struggle between groups competing for resources and power
asserts that some groups have privileged access to resources and power
Karl Marx
believed that capitalism was alienating; capitalism alienated people from each other and from the products of their labour
Alienation
the estrangement of people from their true human potential
Feminist sociology
conflict theory to inequality between the sexes
Dorothy Smith
Canadian sociologist and feminist theorist
critical of the top-down approach in sociological studies of women
Symbolic interactionism
use of everyday forms of social interaction to explain society as a whole
Social construction
theory of knowledge that holds that characteristics typically thought to be immutable and solely biological
such as gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality
