Intro to Sociology Exam 2 Flashcards
Achieved Status
a concept developed by the anthropologist Ralph Linton for a social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit and is earned or chosen. It is the opposite of ascribed status and reflects personal skills, activities, and efforts.
Ascribed Status
a term used in sociology that refers to the social status of a person that is assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life. The status is a position that is neither earned by the person nor chosen for them.
Social Class
a social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle, and lower classes.
Status
the relative level of social value a person is considered to possess. Such social values includes respect, honor, assumed competence, and deference. On one hand, social scientists view status as a “reward” for group members who treat others really well and take initiative.
Role
A role is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given individual social status or social position.
Poverty
a state or condition in which one lacks the financial resources and essentials for a certain standard of living. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects.
Wealth
the abundance of financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions.
Types of Societies
- Hunting and Gathering-can be nomadic
a. Egalitarian
b. few social divisions
c. few personal possessions
d. consensus in decision-making - Pastoral and Horticultural Societies
a. potential for stable food supply
b. division of labor opportunities to pursue other activities
c. trading with other groups
d. Beginning the development of social divisions based upon possessions
e. formation of leadership(political)-inequality - Agricultural Societies
a. larger food surpluses
b. development of urban centers( trade)
c. Territorial identity
d. social divisions - Industrialized Societies
a. aftermath of Industrial Revolution
b. established state(political entity) - Post industrial societies-information
Social Institutions
the way each society develops its structure to meet its basic needs.
Malowinski
the functions of society serve the individual needs of the society
Levi-Strauss
the functions of society are maintained through social organization
Identification and Addressing Social Problems
Stage 1: Transformational Process-private issue becomes public
Stage 2: Legit mentation process-determination as to the manner in which the problem will be handled
Stage 3: Distrust: Evaluation is a procedure adopted to address the problem
a. acceptable
b. rejection
Stage 4: Bail Out: rejection of present response
a. change the present procedure
b. work outside the present system
Communes
a group of people living together and sharing possessions and responsibilities
Reasons to join a commune
- Anomie: sense of powerlessness or worthlessness, leading eventually leading eventually to a feeling of alienation
- Perfectibility of Humanity: it is not humanity who corrupts society, but society corrupts society, but society that corrupts humanity.
- Search for freedom: social environment hinders individuals expression
- Consciousness of kind:
a. creates group cohesion: the tendency of people with like interests and attitudes to associate with one another.
Reasons communes fail
a. the economic factor-lack of skills and resource
b. abberant membership-quality of membership
c. lack of leadership-no experience/no enforcement
d. social organization and commitment-voluntary
e. cliques and factions
Social mobility
the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one’s current social location within a given society.
Intergenerational mobility
refers to any change in the status of family members between generations. This change can be either achieving higher status than the previous generation or dropping to a lower social status than the previous generation.
Exchange Mobility
aka circular mobility, refers to the simultaneous move of people to upper and lower status jobs or occupational roles. As a result of exchange mobility, the ratio between different classes in society remains the same.
Structural Mobility
happens when societal changes enable a whole group of people and non up/down the social class ladder. Structural mobility is attributal to changes in society as a whole, not individual changes.
Intragenerational mobility
social mobility that occurs are in the course of a family or individual’s lifetime. This type of social mobility can be seen across a lifetime and often does not result in the movement away from the individual’s generational social class.
Family of Procreation
refers to the family that we create when we marry someone and have or adopt children.
Family of Orientation
the family that an individual is born into and/or raised within. The family of orientation includes the family that a person is a part of from birth or the family they grew up in.
Blended Family
a family consisting of a couple and their children from this and all previous relationships.
Nuclear Family
a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit.
Bilateral Family Descent System
a system of family lineage in which the relative’s on the members on the mothers side and father side are equally important for emotional ties or for transfer of property or wealth. It is a family arrangement where decent and inheritance are passed equally through both parents.
Unilateral Family Descent System
sometimes referred to as unilateral descent determines kin through only one gender.
Patrillineal Family Descent System
refers to a system where an individual’s clan or lineage group is determined through men or male relatives. Some societies, nations, or religions use a patrillinel descent system
Matrilineal Family Descent System
a matrillineal is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant of either gender in which the individual in all intervening generations are mothers. In a matrilineal descent system, an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as their mother
Exogamy
the custom of marrying outside a community, clan, or tribe
Endogamy
the custom of marrying only with the limits of a local community, clan, tribe
Structural Fundamentalism
a school of thought according to which each of the institutions, relationships, roles, and norms that together constitute a society gives a purpose , and each is indispensible for the continued existence of the others and of society as a whole.
Symbolic Interaction
a micro level theory that focuses on meanings attached to human interaction, both verbal and non-verbal communication-the exchange of meaning through language and symbols–is believed to be the way in which people make sense of their social worlds.
Conflict
holds that social order is maintained by domination and power, rather than by consensus and conformity. According to conflict theory, those with wealth and power try to hold on to it by any means possible, chiefly by supressing the poor and powerless.
Macrosociology
the study of the outside influences we live in. It involved the widespread social processes that people engage in like political systems, educational systems, and religious systems.
Microsociology
small scale sociological analysis that studies the behavior of people in face to face social interactions and small groups to understand what they do, say, and think
C. Wright Mills
a social-conflict sociologists who studied the power structure within the U.S. in his work, The Power Elite, Mills explained how just a few individual, within the government, military, and corporate worlds held most of the wealth and power within the country.
