Topic 1: Decolonizing Social Science -- Theory and Practice

Question 1

How did sociology as a discipline develop?

Answer 1

Widely accepted view is that sociology emerged as a discipline two or three centuries ago and was influenced by the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. These events challenged traditional hierarchies, religious superstition, and despotic political power, and promoted science, rationality, and securalism

Question 2

How does symbolic interactionism differ from conflict theory and functionalist theories?

Answer 2

Focuses on the ways people interact with one another, and the meanings, definitions, and interpretations that influence these interactions. Conflict theory is mainly concerned with the unequal distribution of wealth and power in a society. Finally, functionalism views society as a set of parts that work together to preserve the overall stability and efficiency of the whole.

Question 3

How does studying sociology teach critical thinking?

Answer 3

You learn to apply critical thinking skills to social issues. Sociology involves carefully examining evidence, thinking about how individual lives interact and evolve in time, and seeing life in new, more interesting and provocative ways.

Question 4

Symbolic Violence

Answer 4

Non-physical violence or harm perpetrated by the powerful against the powerless.

Question 5

Negotiation

Answer 5

An interaction whose goal is to define the expectations or boundaries of a relationship.

Question 6

Interaction

Answer 6

A patterned exchange of information, judgment, confirmation or emotions between at least two people in a social setting.

Question 7

Role

Answer 7

The way people expect us to act in a social situation as a member of a particular category. Ex: The way people expect us to act as a man or woman a teacher or student etc.. We play multiple roles and they change as we pass through life.

Question 8

Status

Answer 8

The rights, duties, and lifestyle that people associate with a particular role in an institution or society.

Question 9

Social Relationship

Answer 9

A pattern of continuing contact and communication between two or more people that follows an expected pattern.

Question 10

Social Institution

Answer 10

A social structure governed by stable patterns of rules and expectations. Includes the family, the school, the church, the economy, the polity.

Question 11

Transformative Power

Answer 11

The ability of a social institution or experience to radically change people’s routine practice.

Question 12

Constraining Power

Answer 12

The ability of a social institution to control people’s behaviour and increase their obedience to social norms and to limit their life chances and opportunities.

Question 13

Culture

Answer 13

The shared lens of values and beliefs through which we view reality.

Question 14

Social Structure

Answer 14

Any enduring, predictable pattern of social relations among people in society that constrains and transforms peoples behavior, shaping it to the requirements of the social situation.

Question 15

Values

Answer 15

A shared understanding of what a group or society considers suitable, right, and desirable; a way of viewing the world and attaching positive or negative sentiments. Values vary between communities and change over time.

Question 16

Norms

Answer 16

The rules or expectations of behaviour people consider acceptable in their group or society. Norms vary from one community to another and change over time.

Question 17

Society

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Sociological Imagination

Answer 18

The ability to see the underlying societal causes of individual experiences and issues.