2. Course themes Flashcards
So, the ____ ____ of sociology refers to analysis of culture (that is those things that largely have to do with the meaning we give things and relationships here we refer to things like values, norms and practices of social groups). Culture is embedded in, and shapes every aspect of social life.
cultural dimension
You might be asking yourself what the difference is between a theme and a sociological dimension. The dimensions described in the previous section can be thought of as forms of ____.
analysis
The ____ ____ of sociology examines the impact of social structures (eg. patriarchal social relations capitalism, the occupational division of labour) on the organisation of social life.
structural dimension
The ____ ____ draws our attention to the way that current social practices have developed over time, and that the past helps to shape the present.
historical dimension
Finally, the _____ ____ asks that sociologists be reflexive about their own positions, as well as ask how things might be otherwise.
critical dimension
The ____ and ____ theme explores how the roles and identities that individuals inhabit are shaped by the social groups they belong to. All four sociological dimensions can contribute to understanding the connection between the social and the personal.
social and personal
S&P. The ____ dimension might throw some light on the changes that have occurred in gender roles - what it means to be a man or woman has changed significantly over time (and therefore how people feel about their masculinity or femininity has also changed).
historical
S&P. The ____ dimension alerts us to the fact that being masculine or feminine is experienced differently in different cultures.
cultural
S&P. The ____ dimension might direct our attention to exploring how different workplaces, with different rules of entry and socialisation of workers, expect different things from men and women (e.g. the manual trades still have very traditional ideas of how to be a good male worker, while the teaching profession allows more scope for variation in acceptable forms of masculinity or femininity)
structural
S&P. Finally, the ____ dimension would lead us to ask questions about who benefits from the acceptable forms of masculinity and femininity.
critical
S&P. The point here is that we make choices within the ____ and ____, already provided for us by culture, history and social structure.
constraints and opportunities
The ____ and the ____ theme addresses concerns around globalisation as a newish, but increasingly significant, social process.
local and the global
L&G. Sociologists are interested in how processes of _____ and rationalisation impact on the local lives of social groups and individuals.
globalisation
L&G. The point about this theme is not that global processes completely dominate the local scene, but that the two are _____.
interrelated
L&G. In addition local communities often attempt to ____ global processes, and are sometimes successful.
resist
The theme of ____ and ____ draws our attention to the fact that society is made up of a range of social groups that are different from each other.
differences and divisions
D&D. In terms of _____ we have men and women, as well as people who we are transgendered.
gender
D&D. In relation to ____ New Zealand society is made up of people who are Maori, Chinese, Samoan, Tongan, Dutch, Pakeha and so on.
ethnicity
D&D. In terms of ____ categories, there are people who live in poverty as well as those who are comfortably off.
economic
D&D. To say that there are social divisions is to point to two things. Firstly that there are ____ between people. Secondly, social divisions often involve ____ between groups.
Inequalities, conflict
D&D. Sociologists recognise that different social groups have different interests in things (like wealth redistribution) because of their different position within hierarchical social relations of ____ or ____.
class or ethnicity
D&D. Sociologically what is significant about some of these differences is that they also involve divisions between ____.
people
S&P. The expectations and attributes associated with social positions such as teacher, mother, father, worker, etc.
Social roles
S&P. Refers to the distinctive characteristics of persons in relation to social groups.
Identity
L&G. Refers to the increasing interdependence between societies on a worldwide basis.
Globalisation
L&G. Refers to the replacement of traditions, values, and emotions as motivators for behaviour in society with rational, calculated ones.
Rationalisation
D&D. Social ____ occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons.
Inequality
S&P. Who we are can thus be seen, whether positively or negatively, as the creation of collective ____, ____ and ____.
traditions, resources and values
L&G. There is not actually something called the ‘____ ____’ as such that works coherently: there are only global phenomena working in, through and across nation states.
global system
L&G. The failure to ____ the local is also a matter of social meaning. We can never be the children of everywhere our identities and lives are always lived out in a particular way, in a particular place and time.
obliterate
L&G. Brand New Zealand is one kind of expression of ‘____’ rather than of straightforward globalisation - the social space in which the local meets the global, with sometimes unpredictable results.
glocalisation
L&G. In many ways, critics are right to say that globalisation is the way in which the powerful ____ the powerless in the world; that economic globalisation equates to exploitation.
dominate
L&G. So whilst there are certainly imbalanced power relations at work, and ‘the local’ is constanty being pressured by ‘the global’, at the same time the global still ____ the local, and the local can even sometimes shape the global by reacting back on it.
needs
L&G. McDonalds thus became the very paradigm of modern service capitalism and dumbed-down ____ ____, and many other firms followed its model, cementing a common global culture of consumption that covered not only the production of food and the venue for family occasions, but all sorts of leisure needs and even easential services.
cultural imperialism
D&D. Sociologists are first of all interested in group differences of all sorts; then they are interested in how it is that some group differences get reproduced as _____ _____.
social divisions
D&D. The force of the concept of social division is that differences are often experienced not just as interesting variations, but as ____ between people, classes, and cultures.
inequalities
____ are abstract ideas that refer to the general properties of chosen aspects of social life. For example, the concept of riot does not include details about specific riots, but allows us to make some general statements about how to understand the phenomenon of riots.
Concepts
_____ are propositions put forward for empirical testing.
Hypotheses
_____ are bodies of ideas that attempt to explain in a general way why things happen as they do. Theorising involves abstracting an explanation from the particular features of a situation.
Theories
