Midterm

Question 1

Sociological imagination

Answer 1

The ability to see the relationship between personal experiences and the larger society

C. Wright Mills

Question 2

Functionalist Perspective

Answer 2

Society operates as a system made up of interrelated parts each of one serves an important social function or meets a vital social need

Parts/subsystems: social institutions; economy, family, education, religion, government, medicine, science, etc.

Question 3

Conflict Perspective

Answer 3

Social class, race, ethnicity, gender, age, etc. are linked to the unequal distribution of money, power, education, and social prestige; the social system typically benefits some people while depriving others

Question 4

False Obviousness

Answer 4

Explanations that seem so obvious, and compelling that research for evidence is not needed

Question 5

Symbolic-Interactionist Perspective

Answer 5

Social interactions in specific situations (face to face, reciprocal exchanges

Envisions society as the product of the everyday interactions of individuals

Question 6

Feminist Perspective

Answer 6

Focuses on the significance of gender in understanding and explaining inequalities between men and women in all areas of social life

Question 7

Emile Durkheim

Answer 7

Created the first rules of methods in sociology

Question 8

Karl Marx

Answer 8

Economic determinism, and the key to human history: class conflict

Stressed the importance of social conflict, and the need for further change and revolution

Question 9

Sociological Imagination: Coffee

Answer 9

purely a private matter?
Implies a cultural setting
Socially significant
Socially acceptable
Socially available
Impies an extensive social division of labour & social organization
Implies the world history, economics, and politics of coffee

Question 10

Common Sense

Answer 10

Something widley beleived to be true among a population

Question 11

Stereotype example

Answer 11

aborignals:
lazy
unemployed
alcoholics

men with long hair:
unhygenic
not professional
hippy

Question 12

Stereotype

Answer 12

overgeneralizations about the appearance, behaviour, mindset, or other characteristics of members of particular grou

Question 13

Prejudice

Answer 13

pre-judgement

Question 14

Perspectives viewing family

Answer 14

Feminist: would want mom to have equal power and authority
Conflict: how one family can have private school and another one can’t
Functionalist: see how mom&dad and kids fit into their roles
Symbolic interactionist: would view certain interactions as parents caring and supporting their children

Question 15

Critiques of Feminist Perspective

Answer 15

Woman-centered
Explicit ideological
Makes no claim of objectivity
Genders give you a different world view

Question 16

Key player in Feminist perspective

Answer 16

Dorothy Smith

Question 17

Key player in Functionalist

Answer 17

Talcott Parsons & Robert Merton

Question 18

Critiques in Conflict

Answer 18

How can we assume that society has a “natural” order when social patterns differ from place to place and change over time?

By emphasizing social integration, tends to gloss over inequality based on social class, race, ethnicity, and gender – divisions that may generate considerable tension and conflict

Question 19

Critiques in Symbolic-Interactionist

Answer 19

By focusing on day-to-day and face to face interactions, ignores the larger social institutions in which behaviour takes place

Downplays the global and historical aspects of culture, and the effects of socially imposed definitions of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and age on people’s lives

Question 20

What are the four C’s to Conflcit?

Answer 20

conflict, class, contestation, and change

Question 21

Key players in Conflict

Answer 21

Karl Marx & Max Weber

Question 22

Critques on Conflict

Answer 22

By highlighting inequality and division, glosses over how shared values or interdependence generates unity among members of a society

By pursuing political goals, relinquishes any claim to scientific objectivity

Question 23

Social Facts

Answer 23

Patterned ways of acting, thinking, feeling that exist outside any one individual but that exert social control over each person

Question 24

Stimulating curiosity

Answer 24

Cultivating oneself
Traveling
Social marginality

Question 25

Social transformations

Answer 25

Political revolutions: suggested that people could change society

Question 26

Max Webber

Answer 26

Meaningful social action:
–the motives that underlie human behaviour
–the ways in which people interpret and explain their own behaviour and that of others
–the way in which these actions and meanings affect the social order

Question 27

Theoretical Perspective

Answer 27

An overall approach or viewpoint toward some subject; a basic image of society that guides thinking and research

Question 28

Meton’s Functions

Answer 28

Manifest
Latent
Dysfunction

Question 29

Manifest Function

Answer 29

recognized and intended consequences of any social pattern

Question 30

Latent Function

Answer 30

consequences that are largely unrecognized and unintended

eg: the education system

Question 31

Dysfunction

Answer 31

undesirable consequences of any social pattern for the operation of society

Question 32

Sociology

Answer 32

is the systematic study of human society and social interactions