Lecture 1 Flashcards
(52 cards)
Basic sociological questions (HWW)
what is human nature? why is society structured as it is? how and why do societies change?
C. Wright Mills
came up with sociological imagination; relationship between “public issues and personal troubles”; how personal issues are related to society as a whole; “neither the life nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both”
drinking coffee (sociological imagination) (BIOSS)
symbolic value where the ritual is more important than the drink itself (lets meet for coffee); a socially acceptable stimulant drug; ;important valuable commodity in international trade; origins in colonial expansions; “branded and politicized” good lifestyle choice
antipositivism
the view that social researchers should strive for subjectivity as they worked to represent social processes, cultural norms, and societal values
conflict theory
a theory that looks at society as a competition for limited resources
constructivism
an extension of symbolic interaction theory which proposes that reality is what humans cognitively construct it to be
culture
a group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs
dramaturgical analysis
a technique sociologists use in which they view society through the metaphor of theatrical performance
dynamic equilibrium
a stable state in which all parts of a healthy society work together properly
dysfunctions
social patterns that have undesirable consequences for the operation of society
figuration
the process of simultaneously analyzing the behavior of an individual and the society that shapes that behavior
function
the part a recurrent activity plays in the social life as a whole and the contribution it makes to structural continuity
functionalism
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
generalized others
the organized and generalized attitude of a social group
grand theories
an attempt to explain large scale relationships and answer fundamental questions such as why societies form and why they change
latent functions
the unrecognized or unintended consequences of a social process
manifest functions
sought consequences of a social process
paradigms
philosophical theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them
positivism
the scientific study of social patterns
qualitative sociology
in-depth interviews, focus groups, and/or analysis of content sources as the source of its data
quantitative sociology
statistical methods such as surveys with large numbers of participants
reification
an error of treating an abstract concept as though it has a real, material existence
social facts
laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and all of the cultural rules that govern social life
social institutions
patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs
