Midterm Flashcards

(39 cards)

1
Q

What is sociology?

A
  • Sociology: systematic study of human society
  • Sociologists identify general social patterns in the behaviour of particular individuals
  • Understanding that society shapes our lives
  • You see and experience the world through a lens
  • Durkheim found that suicide (what seems like a personal choice) was grounded largely on social experiences and context (the more connected someone was to society, the less likely they are to commit society)
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2
Q

What is theory and the theoretical approach?

A
  • Theory: a statement of how and why specific facts are related
  • Theoretical approach: a basic image of society that guides thinking and research
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3
Q

What is structural-functionalism or the consensus theory?

A
  • Macro-level orientation
  • Society is a complex system whose parts work together for stability
  • If something ceases to function, we get rid of it
    Ignores inequality
  • August Comte, Emile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer, Robert K Merton
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4
Q

What is the social-conflict theory?

A
  • Macro-level orientation
  • Society is an arena of inequality that generates conflict and social change
  • Benefit a few at the expense of the majority
  • Factors such as race, sex, class, and age are linked to social inequality
  • Ignores how shared values and mutual interdepence unify society
  • Karl Marx, Web Du Bois
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5
Q

What is symbolic-interactionalism? Talk about postmodernism.

A
  • Micro-level orientation
  • Society is the product of everyday interactions of individuals
  • Society is nothing more than shared reality that people construct as they interact
  • Complex, ever-changing mosaic of subjective meanings and symbols to people

Postmodernists: observe with goal of achieving understanding

  • Human sciences cannot be scientific because of human subjectivity
  • Ignores larger social structures, effects of culture and inequality
  • Max Weber, Erving Goffman
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6
Q

What are the basic components of sociological investigation?

A
  • Science is a logical system that bases knowledge on empirical evidence (standards apart from faith, belief, or conventional wisdom)
  • Max Weber said sociologists select topics that are value-relevant but cautioned them to be value-free in their investigations
  • Replication by other researchers can limit distortion caused by personal values
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7
Q

What is scientific sociology?

A
  • Study of society based on systematic observation of social behaviour
  • Positivism: assumes that an objective reality exists “out there” that can be studied based upon empirical evidence
  • Using a scientific orientation, researcher gathers empirical, quantitative data
  • Concept: a mental construct that represents some part of world
  • Variable: concept whose value changes from case to case
  • Operationalize a variable: specify exactly what is to be measured
  • There are many types of relationships between variables:
  • Cause and effect: demonstrated correlation; independent variable occurs before dependent; no evidence of 3rd variable
  • Correlation: relationship in which 2+ variables change together
  • Spurious correlation: false relationship between 2+ variables caused by some other variable (to expose, use controls)
  • Corresponds to structural-functional approach
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8
Q

What is interpretive sociology?

A
  • Study of society that focuses on the meanings people attach to their social world
  • Sees reality as being constructed by people themselves in the course of their everyday lives
  • Relies on qualitative data; gives you more detail than quantitative data and tells you reasons for why you got the results
  • Researcher is participant; discovering subjective sense people make of their world
  • Corresponds to symbolic-interaction approach
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9
Q

What is critical sociology?

A
  • Study of society that focuses on the need for social change
  • Researchers should be social activists in pursuit of desirable change guided by politics
  • Looking to see solutions to problems
  • Critical sociologists say that all research is political or biased; either it calls for change or it does not
  • Corresponds to social-conflict approach
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10
Q

Talk about gender and how it may influence research.

A
  • Androcentricity and gynocentricity: approaching the topic from a male-only or female-only perspective
  • Overgeneralizing: using data collected from one sex and applying the findings to both sexes
  • Gender matters in the way people experience the world
  • Gender blindness: the failure to consider the impact of gender at all
  • Double standards: using different standards to judge males and females
  • Interference: a subject under study reacts to the sex of the researcher
  • Eg. participant thinks researcher is attractive or disgusting will alter their behaviour
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11
Q

What do feminist researchers claim?

A
  • Research should focus on the condition of women in society
  • Research should be grounded in women’s experience of subordination
  • Eg. Harriet Mratineau, Florence Nightingale
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12
Q

What are the methods of research?

A
  • Experiments
  • Surveys
  • Participant observation
  • Secondary and historical analysis
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13
Q

What are experiments?

A
  • Investigating cause and effect under highly controlled conditions
  • Testing a hypotheses (a statement of a possible relationship between variables)
  • Break group into experimental group (exposed to independent variable) and control group (exposed to a placebo)
  • Hawthorne effect: a change in behaviour caused by awareness of being studied
  • Provides the greatest opportunity to specify cause-and-effect relationships + replication of research is relatively easy
  • Laboratory settings have an artificial quality + unless research environment is carefully controlled, results may be biased
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14
Q

What are surveys?

A
  • A research method in which subjects respond to a series of statements or questions in a questionnaire or an interview
    Random sampling: every person has an equal chance of being in the sample
  • Questionnaire: a series or written/read (interview) questions
  • Closed-ended: fixed response
  • Open-ended: allowing free response
  • Allows surveys of large populations + interviews provide detailed responses
  • Questionnaires must be carefully prepared and may yield a low return rate + interviews are expensive and time-consuming
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15
Q

What is participant observation?

A
  • Investigators systematically observe people while joining them in their routine activities
  • Most of this research is exploratory and desciptive
  • Allows study of “natural” behaviour + usually inexpensive
  • Time consuming + replication is difficult + researcher must balance roles of participant and observer
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16
Q

What is secondary and historical analysis? Discuss content analysis.

A
  • Reanalyzing data collected by others (eg. census data)
  • Content analysis: counting or coding the content of written, aural, or visual materials (eg. letters and textbooks, television, websites)
  • Saves time and expense of data collection + makes histroical research possible
  • Researcher has no control over possible biases in data + data may only partially fit current research needs
17
Q

What is culture?

A

The ways of thinking, acting and the material objects that together shape a people’s way of life

18
Q

What is material and nonmaterial culture?

A
  • Nonmaterial culture: the ideas created by members of a society
  • Material culture: the physical things created by members of a society, reflects cultural values and a society’s technology
19
Q

What is social control and shame/guilt?

A
  • Social control: attempts by others to regulate people’s thoughts and behaviour
  • Shame: the painful sense that others disapprove of our actions
  • Guilt: a negative judgement we make about ourselves (self-imposed)
20
Q

What are the elements of culture?

A
  1. Symbols
    - Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture (eg. Tiffany’s blue box)
    - Societies create new symbols all the time
    - Reality for humans is found in the meaning things carry with them
  2. Language
    - A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another
    - Cultural transmission: the process by which one generation passes culture to the next
    - Sapir-Whorf thesis: people perceive the world through the cultural lens of language
  3. Values and beliefs
    - Values: culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness and beauty, which serve as broad guidelines for social living
    - Cultures have their own values that are very powerful and can influence individuals’ beliefs
    - Lower-income nations have cultures that value survival
    - Higher-income countries have cultures that value individualism and self-expression
    - Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts another and value conflict causes strain
    - What is ideal isn’t necessarily put into practice
    - Values change over time
    - Beliefs: specific statements that people hold to be true
    - Values support beliefs
  4. Norms
    - Rules and expectations by which society guides its members’ behaviour
    - Proscriptive: should not do, prohibited
    - Prescriptive: should do, prescribed like medicine
    - Taboos: widely observed and have great moral significance
    - Difference between right and wrong
    - Folkways: norms for routine and causal interaction
    - Difference bewteen right and rude
21
Q

What are the types of culture?

A
  1. Ideal culture
    - The way things should be
    - Social patterns mandated by values and norms
  2. Real culture
    - The way things actually occur in everyday life
    - Social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations
  3. High culture: cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite
  4. Popular culture: cultural patterns that are widespread among society’s population
  5. Subculture: cultural patterns that set apart some segment of society’s population
    - Subculture is part of the larger culture but you’re also a member of a particular group (eg. bikers have a harley)
  6. Counterculture: cultural patterns that strongly oppose the widely accepted culture a society
    - Some countercultures seek to disrupt society through violence
    - When Obama was elected in 2008, the group memberships of skinheads (KKK, neo-nazis) exploded
22
Q

What is multiculturalism and eurocentrism?

A
  • Social policy designed to encourage ethnic or cultural heterogeneity
  • Multiculturalism generates controversy
  • Eg. a Sikh RCMP officer wanted to wear his ceremonial dagger along with his uniform
    People were offended because the uniform is a Canadian icon and did not want it to be changed
  • Eurocentrism: the dominance of European cultural patterns
23
Q

What does multiculturalism do for society?

A
  1. Gives a more accurate picture of Canada’s past
    - We are all immigrants to Canada other than Natives
  2. Allows us to come to terms with our current diversity
  3. Strengthens academic achievements of children of immigrants
    - Letters from school boards are available in many languages
    - Parents can read and understand what is happening
    - #1 predictor of academic success is parental involvement
  4. Through it, Canadians can learn to live in an increasingly interdependent world
24
Q

Why is immigration good?

A
  • Immigration is good because an aging society means people are leaving the work force
  • Aging people are the most expensive (health care, etc.)
  • Not enough people to pay taxes and support elders
25
What is cultural integration?
The close relationship among various elements of a cultural system
26
What is cultural lag?
Some elements change at different rates, causing various degrees of disruption in cultural systems
27
What are the causes of cultural change?
- Invention: creating new cultural elements - Discovery: recognizing and better understanding something already in existence - Diffusion: the sprad of cultural traits from one society to another
28
What is ethnocentrism and cultural relativism?
- Ethnocentrism: the practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture - Cultural relativism: the practice of judging a culture by its own standards - “This is why things are happening in that culture”
29
What are global cultures?
Today we observe many of the same cultural practices the world over due to: - Global economy: the flow of goods - Global communications: the flow of information - Global migration: the flow of people Limits to the thesis: - All the flows have been uneven - Assumes affordability of goods - People don’t attach the same meaning to material goods
30
What are theoretical analysis of culture?
1. Structural-functional - Culture is a complex strategy for meeting human needs - Cultural universals: traits that are part of every known culture; includes family, funeral rites and jokes - Critical review: ignores cultural diversity and downplays importance of change 2. Social-conflict - Cultural traits benefit some members at the expense of others - Society’s system of material production has a powerful effect on the rest of a culture - Critical review: understates the ways cultural patterns integrate members into society 3. Feminist - Feminists claim that our culture is gendered - Our society defines masculinity as superior and this is reflected in our way of life - Cultural patterns reflect and support gender inequality 4. Sociobiology - Explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture - Approach rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution; living organisms change over long periods of time based on natural selection - Critical review: might be used to support racism or sexism; little evidence to support theory; people learn behaviour within a cultural system
31
What is society, nation and state?
- Society: people who interact in a defined terrority and share culture - Nation: political entity and its people - State: political entity in a territory with borders
32
What is Gerhard and Jean Lenski's approach?
- Sociocultural evolution: the changes that occur as a society gains new technology - Societies range from simple to the technologically complex - Technologically simple societies change very slowly - More technologically complex societies support bigger populations, more affluence and change at a faster pace 1. Hunter/gatherer societies: use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation (eg. Africa, Malaysia) - Depend on family and mobility (nomadic) - Sexes are of equal socio-economic importance 2. Horticultural and pastrol societies: use of hand tools to raise crops + domestication of animals (eg. South America, Africa, Asia) - Could support larger population - Division of labour and inequality - Rudimentary government and miltary - See God as directly involved in wellbeing of the world 3. Agrarian societies: large-scale cultivation using plows attached to animals or more powerful energy sources - Larger population and food surpluses - Greater specialization and inequality (men more dominant) - Societies expanded into empires 4. Industrial societies: production of goods using advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery - Huge populations, increased mobility/communication - Occupational specialization became greater than ever - Family is less the centre of social life 5. Post-industrial societies: technology that supports an information-based econmy - Significant changes in occupational structures and roles Informatin replaces objects as centre of economy - Worldwide flow of information affects everyone on the globe
33
What is Karl Marx?
- Social conflict: the struggle between segments of society over valued resources - To keep profits high, capitalists keep wages low = conflict - Social institutions: major spheres of social life, or societal subsystems, organized to meet basic human needs - Marx viewed the economic system as society’s infrastructure - Materialism: the means by which humans produce material goods shape their experiences - False consciousness: explanations of social problems as individual problems and shortcomings; not flaws in society - Over history, new productive forces undermined old orders and new social classes gained ascendance - In the “ancient world” warfare was frequent and produced masters and slaves - The feudal world saw lords and serfs - The productive forces of industry creatd the bourgeoisie and the proletariat - Capitalists and proletarians are engaed in class conflict today - Capitalists: people who own factories and productive enterprises in pursuit of profits - Proletarians: sell their labour for wages - Class conflict (struggle): conflict between entire classes over the distribution of wealth and power in society - Class consciousness: the recognition by workers of their unity in opposition to capitalists and to capitalism itself - Alienation: the experience of isolation and misery resulting from powerlessness - Workers are alienated from act of working (don’t fully benefit from work, other people get profits), product of work, other works and human potential - Socialism: a system of production that could provide for the social needs of all - Marx believed that the only way out of capitalism is to remake society
34
What is Max Weber?
- Rationalization: the historical change from tradition to rationality as the main type of human thought - Tradition: values and beliefs passed from generation to generation - Rationality: a way of thinking that emphasizes deliberate, matter-of-fact calculation of most efficient way to accomplish a particular task - Societies change when we put tradition behind us - Eg. waiting 30 minutes for food from a restaurant is not efficient; burgers from McDonalds are not home-made and are convenient which is how society has progressed - Societies differ not in terms of how people produce things but in how people think about the world - Disenchantment: scientific thinking has swept away most of people’s sentimental ties to the past - Key to the birth of industrial capitalism lay in Protestant Reformation - Protestants and Calvinists believed in pre-destination (some people are destined for salvation) - People started working harder because they wanted to know that God favoured them - This religious viewpoint (traditional ways of doing things) turned into a work ethic (rationality) - Characteristics of today’s rational social organization: - Distinctive social institutions (eg. company or university) - Large-scale organization (within institution) - Specialized tasks of workers - Personal discipline - Awareness of time - Technical competence (we have the necessary skills) Impersonality (absence of human character; cog in wheel)
35
What is Emile Durkheim?
- Durkheim’s great insight was recognizing that society exists beyond ourselves - Society is more than the individuals who compose it - Function of society is to provide the moral discipline that guides our behaviour and controls our desires - Anomie: when society provides little moral guidance to individuals - Patterns of human behaviour (cultural norms, values, beliefs) exist as established structures (social facts) that have an objective reality beyond the lives of individuals - Mechanical solidarity: social bonds based on common sentiments and shared moral values, strong among preindustrial societies - Organic solidarity: social bonds based on specialization and interdependence, strong among industrial societies - Division of labour: specialized economic activity - Modern society rests less on moral consensus and more on functional interdependence
36
What holds societies together?
- Lenski: a shared culture and patterns that vary technology - Karl Marx: elites force an uneasy peace, true unity comes from cooperative productive - Max Weber: rational, large-scale organizations connect lives - Emile Durkheim: specialized division of labour causes organic solidarity
37
How have societies changed?
- Lenski: changing technology; modern society has enormous productive power - Karl Marx: social conflict is now in the open - Max Weber: from traditional to rational thought - Emile Durkheim: from emchanical solidarity to organic solidarity
38
Why do societies change?
- Lenski: technological innovation transforms society - Karl Marx: struggle between social classes is the engine of change - Max Weber: ideas contribute to change - Emile Durkheim: expanding division of labour causes change
39
What are the ways of reasoning theories?
- Inductive logical thought: reasoning that transforms specific observations into general theory - Deductive logical thought: reasoning that transforms general theory into specific hypotheses suitable for testing