2015 Final Study Guide Flashcards
What is sociology?
Scientific study of society.
What do sociologists study?
Religion, music, medicine, sports, and they question EVERYTHING. “A successful sociologist makes the familiar strange.”
What is the social imagination?
The ability to create connections between one’s personal experiences and society at large. C. Wright Mills founded it.
What does the sociological imagination allow us to do?
The sociological imagination allows us to “make the familiar strange,” or to question habits or customs that seem “natural” to us.
What are the main sociological theories?
Conflict theory, functionalism, symbolic interactionalism.
What do they tell us about how society is organized?
Society is organized and developed through social institution and conflict. It’s made up of individuals and groups who conflict in ideologies and desires, which produces change in society itself.
Who are the classical theorists in sociology?
Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, W.E.B. DuBois, August Comte, and C. Wright Mills.
Auguste Comte
He is the founder of what is called “social physics” or “positivism,” which explained the logic and laws that govern human behavior. He is the father of sociology, as he studied sociology scientifically and viewed historical changes.
Karl Marx
Historical materialism is something he developed. It identifies class conflict as a primary driver of social change. His writings provide the theoretical basis for communism.
Max Weber
Said subjectivity is the foundation of interpretive sociology. He criticized Marx for his exclusive focus on the economy and social class, advocating sociological analysis that allowed for the multiple influences of culture, economics, and politics. He founded the concept of “Verstehen” (understand in German). This means to truly understand why people act the way they do, a sociologist must understand the meanings that people attach to their actions.
Emile Durkheim
He wished to understand how society holds together and the ways that modern capitalism and industrialization have transformed how people relate to one another. He argued that the division of labor didn’t just affect work and productivity but had social and moral consequences as well. He is the founding practitioner of positivist sociology. E.g. Doctors (skilled laborers) are considered the creme of the crop and the medical factory workers (non-skilled workers) are the scum at the bottom of the barrel.
W.E.B DuBois
He is the first African American Harvard Ph.D and is involved with the double consciousness.
C. Wright Mills
Thinking beyond our own lives to include the lives of others, being aware of larger historical context, and thinking differently = comprehensively.
What are the main sociological research methods?
Qualitative, quantitative, experimental, and historcal. Within these methods are the inductive and deductive approaches.
What makes a study scientific?
The study must be valid, reliable, and generalizable.
Validity
The study measures what it is intended to measure.
Reliability
The likelihood of obtaining consistent results using the same methods in future studies.
Generalizability
Forms from particular facts or statistics. It doesn’t have to be generalizable, but if it isn’t, you must explain why.
How do you know the study is safe and ethical?
Do no harm, informed consent, protect population, preserve confidentiality, IRB (international review board), and disclosed fundings.
Do no harm
You can’t emotionally, physically, or psychologically harm anyone involved.
Informed Consent
You have to inform participants know that they are involved or are participating in a study.
Protected Population
Minors, pregnant women, prisoners, unborn children, and disabled are all protected.
Confidentiality
Privacy is protected.
IRB
Review proposals and are the valid ethical standards.
Disclosed funding
To prevent research from being manipulated.
What are the social institutions?
Family, State, Education, Religion, Economy, and Media.
Qualitative
Quality. The meanings or social processes, rich in detail, only a small amount of participants, and it’s most likely an interview.
Quantitative
Numbers. Large scales of trends, which includes, surveys and experimental methods. Large number of participants.
Historical Methods
research that collects data from written reports, articles, newspapers, journals, transcripts, television, diaries, artwork, and other artifacts that dates to a prior time period under study.
Experimental Methods
methods that seek to alter the social landscape in a specific way for a given sample of individuals and the track what resist that change yields; involves comparisons to a control group that wasn’t altered in the same way.
Content Analysis
a systematic analysis of the content such as written work, speech, or film. E.g. Ann Morning used content analysis to investigate depictions of race in American textbooks.
What was Sir Ken Robinson’s main points in his TED talk?
“Education Kills Creativity.” Ken Robinson strives to promote an educational system that nurtures creativity rather than stifles it.
What was Burgois’ main argument in his article?
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