Module 1 Flashcards
Sociology
The study of groups and groups interactions, societies, and social interactions from small and personal groups to very large groups. A group of people who live in a defined geographic area, who interact with one another, and who share a common culture is what sociologists call a society.
Culture
Refers to the group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs. Culture encompasses a group’s way of life, from routine, everyday interactions to the most important parts of groups members lives. It includes everything produced by a society, including all of the social rules.
Sociological Imagination
Sociologists often study culture using the sociological imagination, which pioneer sociologist C. Wright Mills described as an awareness of the relationship between a person’s behavior and experience and the wider culture that shaped the person’s choices and perceptions. Its a way of seeing our own and other people’s behavior in relationship to history and social structure.
Reification
Is an error of treating an abstract concept as though it has a real, material existence (Sahn 2013)
Figuration
The process of simultaneously analyzing the behavior of an individual and the society that shapes that behavior.
Society
A group of people who live in a defined geographical area who interact with one another who share a common culture.
Sociology
The systematic study of society and social interaction.
Antipositivism
The view that social researchers should strive for subjectivity as they worked to represent social processes, cultural norms, and societal values.
Generalized Others
The organized and generalized attitude of a social group.
Positivism
The scientific study of social patterns.
Qualitative Sociology
In-depth interviews, focus groups, and/or analysis of content sources as the source of its data.
Quantitative Sociology
Statistical methods such as surveys with large numbers of participants..
Significant others
Specific individuals that impact a person’s life.
Verstehen
A German word that means to understand in a deep way.
Personal Troubles
Private problems experienced by one individual and the range of their immediate relation to others.
Public issues
Issues that lie beyond one’s personal control and the range of one’s inner life, are rooted in society instead of at the individual level.
Sociological imagination.
The use of imaginative thought to understand the relationship between the individual (personal troubles) and the broader workings of society (public issues).
Conflict Theory
A theory that looks at society as a competition for limited resources.
Critical Race Theory
A theory that looks at structural inequality based on white privilege and associated wealth, power, and prestige.
Dominant Gender Ideology
The assumption is that physiological sex differences between males and females are related to differences in their character, behavior, and ability (i.e., their gender).
Feminism
The critical analysis of the way gender differences in society structure social inequality.
Patriarchy
A set of institutional structures (like property rights, access to positions of power, and relationship to sources of income) that are based on the belief that men and women are dichotomous and unequal categories.
Dominant Gender Ideology
The assumption is that physiological sex differences between males and females are related to differences in their character, behavior, and ability (i.e., their gender).
Heterosexism
Is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination that favors male-female sexuality and relationships.
Patriarchy
A set of institutional structures (like property rights, access to positions of power, and relationships to sources of income) that are based on the belief that men and women are dichotomous and unequal categories.
Standpoint Theory
The theory that feminism social science should be practiced from the standpoint of women.
Conflict Theory
A theory that looks at society as a competition for limited resources.
Constructivism
An extension of symbolic interaction theory which proposes that reality is what humans cognitively construct it to be.
Dramaturgical Analysis
A technique sociologists use in which they view society through the metaphor of theatrical performance.
Functionalism
A theoretical approach that sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of individuals that make up that society.
Symbolic Interactionism
A theoretical perspective through which scholars examine the relationship of individuals within their society by studying their communication (language and symbols).
Theory
A proposed explanation about social interactions or society.
Dependant Variables
A variable is changed by other variables.
Hypothesis
A testable educated guess about predicted outcomes between two or more variables.
Independent Variables
Variables that cause changes in dependent variables.
Interpretive framework
A sociological research approach seeks an in-depth understanding of a topic or subject through observation or interaction; this approach is not based on hypothesis testing.
Literature Review
A scholarly research step entails identifying and studying all existing studies on a topic to create a basis for new research.
Operational Definitions
Specific explanations of abstract concepts that a researcher plans to study.
Reliability
A measure of a study’s consistency that considers how likely results are to be replicated if a study is reproduced.
Scientific Method
An established scholarly research method involves asking a question, researching existing sources, forming a hypothesis, designing and conducting a study, and drawing conclusions.
Validity
The degree to which a sociological measure accurately reflects the topic of study.
Correlation
When a change in one variable coincides with a change in another variable but does not necessarily indicate causation.
Hawthorne effect
When study subjects behave in a certain manner due to their awareness of being observed by a researcher.
Interview
A one-on-one conversation between the researcher and the subject.
Participant Observation
When a researcher immerses herself in a group or social setting in order to make observations from an “insider” perspective.
Population
A defined group serving as the subject of a study.
Primary Data
Data that are collected directly from first-hand experience.
Quantitative Data
Represent research collected in numerical form that can be counted.
Qualitative Data
Comprise information that is subjective and often based on what is seen in a natural setting.
Random Sample
Small, manageable number of subjects that represent the population.
Secondary Data Analysis
Using data collected by others but applying new interpretations.
Surveys
Collect data from subjects who respond to a series of questions about behaviors and opinions, often in the form of a questionaire.
Experiment
The testing of a hypothesis under controlled conditions.
Field Research
Gathering data from a natural environment without doing a lab experiment or a survey.
Case Study
In-Depth analysis of a single event, situation, or individual.
Correlation
When a change in one variable coincides with a change in another variable but does not necessarily indicate causation.
Ethnographer
Observing a complete social setting and all that it entails.
Participant Observation
When a researcher immerses herself in a group or social setting in order to make observations from an “insider” perspective.
Primary Data
Data that are collected directly from firsthand experience.
Content Analysis
Applying a systemic approach to record and value information gleaned from secondary data as it relates to the study at hand.
Secondary Data Analysis
Using data collected by others but applying new interpretations.
Code of Ethics
A set of guidelines that the American Sociological Association has established to foster ethical research and professionally responsible scholarship in sociology.
Value Neutrality
A practice of remaining impartial, without bias or judgment during the course of a study and in publishing results.
Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)
Martineau was a writer who addressed a wide range of social science issues. She was an early observer of social practices, including economics, social class, religion, suicide, government, and women’s rights. Her writing career began in 1931 with a series of stories titled Illustrations of Political Economy, in which she tried to educate ordinary people about the principles of economics (Johnson 2003).
Martineau was the first to translate Comte’s writing from French to English and thereby introduced sociology to English-speaking scholars (Hill 1991). She is also credited with the first systematic methodological international comparisons of social institutions in two of her most famous sociological works. Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838). Martineau found the workings of capitalism at odds with the professed moral principals of people in the United States; She pointed out the faults with the free enterprise systen in which workers were exploited and impovrished while business owners became wealthy. Much like Mary Wollstoncraft, Martinau was often dicounted in her own time by the male domination of academic Sociology.
Auguste Comte (1798-1857) The Father of Sociology
The term sociology was first coined in 1780 by the French essauist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes (1749-1836) in an unpublished manuscript (Faure et al. 1999). In 1838, the term was reinvented by Auguste Comte originally studied to be an engineer, but later became a pupil of social philosopher Claude Henri Rouvroy Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825). They both thought that social scientists could study society using the same scientific methods utilized in natural sciences. Comte also believed in the potential of social scientists to work governed society, sociologists could address problems such as poor education and poverty (abercrombie et al. 2000).
Comtenamed the scientific study of social patterns positivism. He described his philosophy in a series of books called The Course in Positive Philosophy (1830-1842) and A General View of Positivism (1848). He believed that using scientific methods to reveal the laws by which societies and individuals interact would usher in a new “positivist” age of history. While the field and its terminology have grown, sociologists still believe in the positive impact of their work.
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
A German philosopher and economist. In 1848 he and Fredrich Engles (1820-1895) coauthored the Communist Manifesto. This book is one of the most influential political manuscripts in history. It also presents Mark’s theory of society, which differed from what Comte proposed.
Mark rejected Comte’s positivism. He believed that societies grew and changed as a result of the struggles of different social classes over the means of production. At the same time, he was developing his theories, the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism led to great disparities in wealth between the owners of the factories and workers. Capitalism, an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of goods and the means to produce them, grew in many nations.
Marx predicted that the inequalities of capitalism would become so extreme that workers would eventually revolt. This would lead to the collapse of capitalism, which would be replaced by communism. Communism is an economic system under which there is no private or corporate ownership: everything is owned communally and distributed as needed. Marx believed that communism was a more equitable system than capitalism.
While his economic predictions may not have come true in the time frame he predicted, Marx’s idea that social conflict leads to change in society is still one of the major theories used in modern sociology.
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
In 1873, the English philosopher Herbert Spencer published The Study of Sociology, the first book with the term “sociology” in the Title. Spencer rejected much of Comte’s philosophy as well as Mar’s theory of class struggle and his support of communism. Instead, he favored a form of government that allowed market forces to control capitalism. His work influenced many early sociologists including Elile Durkeim (1858-1817).
Georg Simmel (1858-1918)
Simmel was a German art critic who wrote widely on social and political issues as well, Simmel took an anti-positivism stance and addressed topics such as social conflict, the function, the function of money, individual identity in city life, and the European fear of outsiders (Stapley 2010). Much of his work focused on the micro-level theories, as the creative capacities of individuals. Simmel’s contributions to sociology are not often included in academic histories of the discipline, perhaps overshadowed by his contemporaries Durkheim, Mead, and Weber (Ritzer and Goodman 2004).
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
Durkheim helped establish sociology as a formal academic discipline by establishing the first European department of sociology at the University of Bordeaux in 1895 and by publishing his Rules of the Sociological Method in 1895. In another important work, Division of Labor in Society (1893), Durkheim laid out his theory on how societies transformed from a primitive state into capitalist, industrial societies. According to Durkheim, people rise to their proper levels in society based on merit.
Durkheim believed that sociologists could study objective “social facts” (Poggi 2000). He also believed that through such studies it would be possible to determine if a society was “healthy” or “pathological.” He saw healthy societies as a table, while pathological societies experienced a breakdown in social norms between individuals and society.
In 1897, Durkheim attempted to demonstrate the effectiveness of his rules of social research when he published a work titled Suicide. Durkheim examined suicide statistics in different police districts to research differences between Catholic and Protestant communities. He attributed the differences to socioreligious forces rather than to the individual or psychological causes.
George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)
Mead was a philosopher and sociologist whose work focused on the ways in which the mind and the self were developed as a result of social processes (conk n.d.). He argues that how an individual comes to view himself or herself is based to a very large extent on interactions with others. Mead called specific individuals that impacted a person’s life significant others, and he also conceptualized “generalized others” as the organized and generalized attitude of a social group. Mead’s work is closely associated with the symbolic interactionist approach and emphasizes the micro-level of analysis.
Max Weber (1864-1920)
Prominent sociologist Max Weber established a sociology department in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich in 1919. Weber wrote on many topics related to sociology including political change in Russia and social forces that affect factory workers. He is known best for his 1904 book, The Protestant Thic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The theory that Weber sets forth in this book is still controversial. Some believe that Weber argued that the beliefs of many Protestants, especially Calvinists, led to the creation of capitalism. Others interpret it as simply claiming that the ideologies of capitalism and Protestantism are complementary.
Weber believed that it was difficult, if not impossible, to use standard scientific methods to accurately predict the behavior of groups as people hoped to do. They argued that the influence of culture on human behavior had to be taken into account. This even applied to
