Quiz 1 Flashcards
What is sociological imagination?
It helps us understand how seemingly personal trouble, such as suicide, are actually related to larger social forces. It is the ability to see the relationship between individual and larger society.
What is sociology and how can it help us understand ourselves and others?
Sociology is a systematic study of human society and social interaction. We study it to help us understand how human behavior is shaped by group life and how group life affects us as individuals. In return we start to consider ,ore complex connections between our personal lives and the larger world.
What is the major contributions of early sociologists such as Durkheim, Marx, and weber?
Durkheim: argued societies are built on social facts that rapid social change produces strains in society, and the loss of shared values with result in anomie.
Marx: within society there is a clash between the owners and the workers
Weber: sociology should be value free & people should become more aware of the role of bureaucracies play in daily life
How did simmels perspective differ from that of other early sociologist?
Whereas other sociologist primarily focused on society as a whole, simmel explored small social groups and argued that society is best seen as a web of patterned interactions amount people.
What are major contemporary sociological perspectives?
Functionalist: assume society is a stable, orderly system characterized by social consensus.
Conflict perspectives: society is a continuos power struggle among competing groups often based on class, race, ethnicity, or gender.
Symbolic interactionist- focus on how many people make sense of everyday interactions
Postmodern: new ways of examine social life are needed and that it is time to move beyond functionalist, conflict and symbolic approaches
How does quantitative research differ from qualitative?
Quantitative: focuses on data that can be ,ensured numerically
Qualitative: focuses on interpretive description (words) rather than numbers to analyze underlying meaning and patterns of social relationship
What are the key steps in the conventional research process?
- it’s based on deduction
1) select and define research problem
2) review previous research
3) formulate hypothesis which include constructing variable
4) develop research design
5) collect and analyze data
6) draw conclusion and report finding
What steps are often taken by researchers using the qualitative approach?
1) formulate the problem to be studied instead of creating a hypothesis
2) collect and analyze the data
3) report results
Major types of research methods?
Surveys: polls used to gather facts
Secondary analysis: analysis existing data
Field research: study social life in its natural setting through participant observation
Experiments : study the impact of certain variables on their subjects
Content analysis
Systematic examination of cultural artifacts or various forms of communication to extract thematic data and draw conclusion about social life
Ethnography
Detailed study of the life and activities of a group of people by researchers who may live with that group over period of years
Experiment
Research method involving a carefully designed situation in which the researcher studies the impact of certain variables on subjects attitude or behavior
Experimental group
Group that has subjects who are exposed to independent variable
Correlation
Relationship that exists when two variables are associated more frequently then by chance
Validity
The extent to which a study instrument accurately measures what it is to measure
Reliability
Extent to which a study instrument yields consistent results when applied to different individuals at one time or to the same individuals over time
Qualitative research
Words not numbers
Quantitative
Numbers
Postmodern perspectives
Attempts to explain social life in modern societies that are characterized by postindustrial consumerism and global communications
Macrolevel
Examines whole societies , large scale structures
Micro level
Focus on small groups rather than on large scale
Symbolic interactionist
The sociological approach that views society as the sum of the interactions of individuals and groups
Manifest functions
Are intended or overly recognized by the participants in a social unit
Latent
Unintended functions That are hidden and remain un acknowledged by participants
Conflict perspective
Sociological approach that views groups in society as engaged in a continuous power struggle for control of scarce resources
Theory
Set of logically interrelated statements that attempts to describe explain and predict social event s
Functionalist perspective
Approach the views society as stable and orderly system
Social facts
Emilie durkheims designation term for patterned ways of acting thinking and feeling that exist outside any one individual but that exert social control over each person
Anomie
Emilie durkheims designation for a condition in which social control becomes ineffective as a result of the loss of shared values and of a sense of purpose in society
Positivism
Term describing Auguste cometes belief that the world can best be understood through scientific inquiry
Industrialism
From dependence on agriculture and handmade products to an emphasis on manufacturing and related industries
Urbanization
Process by which an increasing proportion of the population lives in cities rather than in rural areas
Sociology
Systematic study of human society and social interaction
Society
Large social grouping that share the same geographical territory and is subject to the same political authority and dominant curtail expectations
Sociological imagination
The ability to see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society
Auguste Comte
Father of sociology
Jane Adams
Undertook a path breaking study of immigrants in Chicago and won a prestigious award for his/her research
Herbert spencer
Took an evolutionary perspective on social life
Emilie durkheims
Believed rear human potential was not biologically based but rather depended on social environment
Harriet martineua
Believed society would improve when people of all classes were treated equally
Robert Merton
Proponent of a theory called functionalism
Karl Marx
Viewed history as a clash between conflicting ideas and forces . a proponent of conflict theory
Max weber
Believed that the understanding of social world required versteahen-empathic or interpretive- understanding
Marianna weber
Used women as the starting point of her analysis
George simmel
Analyzed how social interactions vary depending on group size
Robert. E. Park
Studied the effects of urbanization on social life particularly crime and race relations
w.e.b DuBois
Emphasized the internal conflict between de,I crash freedo, equality racism and discrimination
Oliver Cromwell cox
Framed race relations in capitalism
Power according to c.w mills
- believed the most important decisions in the United States are made largely behind the scenes by the power elite( a small clique composed of top corporate political and military officials).
Global independence
Relationship in which the lives of all people are intertwined closely and anyone nations problems are apart of a larger global problem
Who is the founder of symbolic interaction?
George Hebert and Herbert bloom
