Key Terms Chapter 1 Flashcards
the growth of cities.
urbanization
social theories that focus on how society emerges from people’s use of shared symbols in the course of their everyday interactions.
Symbolic Interactionist theories
the recurring patterns of behavior in social life.
structure
theories that focus on consensus and cooperative interaction in social life, emphasizing how the different parts of a society contribute to its overall operation. Often referred to simply as “functionalist theories,” or “functionalism.”
structural-functionalist theories
social normlessness, without moral guidance or standards.
anomie
the shared norms, beliefs, and values in a community.
collective conscience
social theories that focus on issues of contention, power, and inequality, highlighting the competition for scarce resources.
conflict theories
the collection of values, beliefs, knowledge, norms, language, behaviors, and material objects shared by a people and socially transmitted from generation to generation.
culture
the way people specialize in different tasks, each requiring specific skills.
division of labor
inhibiting or disrupting the working of a system as a whole.
dysfuntional
structural-functionalist theories.
functionalist theories
the use of large-scale machinery for the mass manufacture of consumer goods.
industrialization
the largely unrecognized and unintended consequences of social phenomena.
latent functions
a focus on large-scale social systems and processes such as the economy, politics, and population trends.
macro level of analysis
the recognized and intended consequences of social phenomena.
manifest functions
a focus somewhere between very large and very small social phenomena—on organizations or institutions, for example.
meso level of analysis
a focus on small-scale, usually face-to-face social interaction.
a micro level of analysis
a historical era in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries characterized by the growth of democracy and personal freedom, increased reliance on reason and science to explain the natural and social worlds, and a shift toward an urban industrial economy.
modernity
a belief that accurate knowledge must be based on the scientific method.
positivism
a historical period beginning in the mid-twentieth century characterized by the rise of information-based economies and the fragmentation of political beliefs and ways of knowing.
post modernity
the ability to bring about an intended outcome, even when opposed by others.
power
the long-term historical process by which rationality replaced tradition as the basis for organizing social and economic life.
rationalization of society
a method of inquiry that uses logic and the systematic collection of evidence to support claims about the world.
science
the collective bonds that connect individuals.
social solidarity
a set of principles and propositions that explains the relationships among social phenomena.
social theory
a view of the social world that focuses on discovering and understanding the connections between individuals and the broader social contexts in which they live; what C. Wright Mills called the “sociological imagination.”
sociological perspective
the systematic study of the relationship between individuals and society.
sociology
