GS 2

Question 1

Who are the 3 founding fathers of sociology?

Answer 1

Marx, Weber, Durkheim

Question 2

What does Marx talk about as a whole?

Answer 2

Social inequality

Question 3

What does Weber talk about as a whole?

Answer 3

Rationalization

Question 4

What does Durkheim talk about as a whole?

Answer 4

Social cohesion

Question 5

What was the emergence of sociology? (what events were important)

Answer 5

The French revolution & Industrial revolution

Question 6

How did the French revolution impact sociology?

Answer 6

By overthrowing the monarchy, there was an abolition of the feudal system and the class society making it possible for different ways of thinking about society to emerge

Question 7

How did the Industrial revolution impact sociology?

Answer 7

There was a decline of traditional communities and of familiar social order, the traditional authority structures crumbled in its place democracy. Urban growth as well as a new industrial economy that emerged modern capitalism especially capital accumulation and profit principle

Question 8

How did the Enlightenment influence sociology?

Answer 8

Because of the core ideas of the Enlightenment that are its emphasis on rationality and reason, empiricism, belief in science, universalism and believing in progress

Question 9

Sociology as a positivist, modern science?

Answer 9

Comte & Spencer: use positivist science to find social laws. Social darwinism, survival of the fittest. Meritocracy: social allocation of people by achievement = by own merit not inheritance (example: education degree). Emphasis on individual

Question 10

Karl Marx GS

Answer 10

• Seeking to understand society and how it has changed out of concern for the working class.
• Economic elites own means of production and are dominants in society
• Consumers society keeps people ignorant and happy through senseless entertainment
• People are made to ‘want’ products they don’t need
• Exploitation of workers

Question 11

Durkheim GS

Answer 11

• the social, social life and institutions have a life of their own
• study social facts to understand social change and growing societal complexity: division of labor, solidarity

Question 12

Talcott Parsons: Functionalism

Answer 12

• What keeps societies together?
• Internalization of social rules through socialization (micro-level)
• did not work to conceptualize society as in conflict-free equilibrium

Question 13

Weber GS

Answer 13

• Social action theory, interactionism
• protestant ethic (hard work, efficiency)
• work can be a calling

Question 14

Symbolic interactionism: beyond weber

Answer 14

• Focusing on micro-level interactions and meaning-making through the use of language and symbols
  George Herbert Mead:
• the self emerge through social interaction
• the self (creative), and the ME (socially conditioned part of the self)
  Symbolic interaction assumes meaning and interpretation, we must empathize with the perceptions of others
• imagining how others see us helps us develop

Question 15

Phenomenology: beyond weber

Answer 15

It is to understand the world as it presents itself to actors: how do they make sense of their (taken for granted) life world
- typification: how we classify people and experiences in daily life
(Example: she’s smart, he looks untrustworthy, they are scary)

Question 16

Ethnomethodology: beyond weber

Answer 16

Also wants to understand how ‘natives’ construct their social world. They are not functionalism’s ‘cultural dopes’ but create their own understanding

Question 17

Macro-level examples

Answer 17

Studying religious values to explain differences between countries
- learning political systems to explain differences across countries
- Inflation

Question 18

Intersectionality examples

Answer 18

• black lesbians face more harassment than white lesbians

Question 19

Structuralism

Answer 19

Assumes the existence of relatively fixed social structures often expressed in binaries, underlying social reality
- Origin in the study of language
(Examples: edible, non-edible, public, private, life, death
-these binaries let people create meaning

Question 20

Poststructuralism

Answer 20

Claims that such structures are less fixed and determining the structuralist thought claimed
- studies the power relations and discourse to argue how meanings change historically due to narratives of the powerful

Question 21

Postmodernism

Answer 21

Emerged as a critique of modernist ideas of social progress or meta-narratives (big stories claiming to understand and predict where we are going)
But: science brings risks, inequality is growing, censorship so how can sociology deal with these upcoming issues using ideas of founding fathers who only theorized the modern world

Question 22

Decolonizing sociology

Answer 22

Modern sociology did not incorporate colonized countries and did not address colonialism when discussing european societies. As well as knowing that the voices of the colonized should be included in the sociological narrative rather than Western scholars who could offer a biased story

Question 23

Structure versus agency: unresolved business

Answer 23

Society feels like an external thing that affects us while at the same time it is created and maintained by humans

Question 24

Elias: unresolved business

Answer 24

People only exist in network groups in which they are dependent on other
- we are not autonomous but social selves
- what we find normal today was developed over a long period of time
- studying society like this implies there is no structure-agency dichotomy as structure and agency cannot be separated

Question 25

Giddens: structuration theory: unresolved business

Answer 25

People make or remake social structures by challenging or complying
- socia structures only exist as long as actors act within them, making continuity
- people can stop accepting these structures or authorities

Question 26

Consensus versus conflict: unresolved business

Answer 26

Specialized institutions in society work together in harmony
- conflict perspective sees much inequality divergence of interests
- dominant ideology can blur the boundary by agreement or consensus because the powerless accepts this ideology, that covers up differences of interest
- if ideological domination no longer works, those in power resort to violence or military force

Question 27

Social reflxivity: unresolved business

Answer 27

The need to constantly reflect upon our insecure circumstances in post-traditional societies, leads to change as a consequence of continuous reevaluation

Question 28

Risk society: unresolved business

Answer 28

Risks we face today are often man-made (tech, science, climate change) and potentially affect all of us. Attempting to even control this requires a global change

Question 29

Cosmopolitanism: unresolved business

Answer 29

Traditional sociology was more focused on nation state as the macro-level

Question 30

Mechanical: durkheim

Answer 30

• solidarity through likeness
• low division of labor
• strong collective consciousness
• repressive law

Question 31

Organic: durkheim

Answer 31

• solidarity through difference
• high division of labor
• weak collective consciousness
• restitutive law

Question 32

Micro

Answer 32

meaning making, how we interact with one another

Question 33

Macro

Answer 33

Bigger collective group, how those groups interact with each other