Chapter 1: Sociological Imagination

Question 1

Sociology

Answer 1

The study of human society

Question 2

Sociological Imagination

Answer 2

The ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual’s life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces

Question 3

Social Institution

Answer 3

Any institution in a society that works to shape the behavior of the groups or people within it

Question 4

Verstehen

Answer 4

Understanding. The concept of Verstehen forms the object of inquiry for interpretive sociology- to study how social actors understand their actions and the social world through experience

Question 5

Anomie

Answer 5

A sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable; too little social regulation; normlessness

Question 6

Positive Sociology

Answer 6

A strain within sociology that believes the social world can be described and predicted by certain describable relationships

Question 7

Double Consciousness

Answer 7

A concept conceived by W.E.B. DuBois to describe the two behavioral scripts, one for moving through the world and the other incorporating the external options of prejudiced onlookers, which are constantly maintained by African Americans

Question 8

Functionalism

Answer 8

The theory that various social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some important function to keep society running

Question 9

Conflict Theory

Answer 9

The idea that conflict between competing interests is the basic, animating force of social change and society in general

Question 10

Symbolic Interactionism

Answer 10

A micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind people’s actions

Question 11

Postmodernism

Answer 11

A condition characterized by a questioning of the notion of progress and history, the replacement of narrative within pastiche, and multiple, perhaps even conflicting, identities resulting from disjointed affiliations

Question 12

Social Construction

Answer 12

An entity that exists because people behave as if it exists and whose existence is perpetuated as people and social institutions act in accordance with the widely agreed upon formal rules or informal norms of behavior associated with that entity

Question 13

Midrange Theory

Answer 13

A theory that attempts to predict how certain social institutions tend to function

Question 14

Microsociology

Answer 14

Seeks to understand local interactional contexts; its methods of choice are ethnographic, generally including participant observation and in-depth interviews

Question 15

Macrosociology

Answer 15

Generally concerned with social dynamics at a higher level of analysis- that is, across the breadth of society