Chapter 1 - Social Problems

Question 1

Objective Element

Answer 1

Awareness of social conditions through one’s own life experience and through reports in the media

Question 2

Subjective Element

Answer 2

The belief that a particular social condition is harmful to society, or to a segment of society, and that it should and can be changed

Question 3

Claims-making Activities

Answer 3

The strategies and actions that individuals or groups undertake to define social conditions as social problems that require remedy

Question 4

Social Problem

Answer 4

A social condition that a segment of society views as harmful to members of society and in need of remedy

Question 5

Social Facts

Answer 5

Emile Durkheim refers to the phenomena that occur in the world as objectively identifiable facts. If the phenomena arise as a result of structural organization and functional needs, or dysfunctional problems, then those facts are not merely idiosyncratic happenings, but the result of social structures, they are part of the function of the society under consideration. Employment rates, morbidity, and mortality, as well as rates of population growth or decline, are all examples of “social facts”

Question 6

Institution

Answer 6

An established and enduring pattern of social relationships. The five traditional social institutions are family, religion, politics, economics, and education. Institutions are the largest elements of social structure.

Question 7

Social group

Answer 7

Two or more people who have a common identity and who interact and form a social relationship; institutions are made up of social groups

Question 8

Primary Group

Answer 8

A small group characterized by intimate and informal interaction

Question 9

Secondary Group

Answer 9

A group characterized by impersonal and formal interaction

Question 10

Status

Answer 10

A position a person occupies within a social group

Question 11

Ascribed status

Answer 11

A status that society assigns to an individual on the basis of factors over which the individual has no control

Question 12

Achieved Status

Answer 12

A status assigned on the basis of some characteristics or behaviour over which the individual has some control

Question 13

Master Status

Answer 13

The status that is considered the most significant in a person’s social identity

Question 14

Role

Answer 14

A set of rights, obligations, and expectations associated with a status

Question 15

Beliefs

Answer 15

Definitions and explanations about what is assumed to be true

Question 16

Values

Answer 16

Social agreements about what is considered good and bad, right and wrong, desirable and undesirable

Question 17

Norms

Answer 17

Socially defined rules of behaviour, including folkways, mores, and laws

Question 18

Folkways

Answer 18

The customs and manners of society

Question 19

Laws

Answer 19

Norms that are formalized and backed by political authority

Question 20

Mores

Answer 20

Norms that have a moral basis

Question 21

Sanctions

Answer 21

Social consequences for conforming to or violating norms. Types of sanctions including positive, negative, formal and informal

Question 22

Symbol

Answer 22

Something that represents something else

Question 23

Sociological Imaination

Answer 23

A term used by C. Wright Mills to refer to the ability to see the connection between our personal lives and the social world which we live in