Quiz Topics

Question 1

What are the Objects of Sociological Analysis?

Answer 1

• nature of social life (why do people act in orderly, routine, and generally predictable ways without thinking about it?)
• nature of social relations (social interactions like dominance, equality, inequality, etc)
• large sale social entities (eg: education, politics, the economy)

Question 2

What are sociological snapshots?

Answer 2

• looking at the current state of society and its main components (looking at things as they are today)
  eg: current divorce rate, number of people working 9-5

Question 3

Society in Flux

Answer 3

• society has changed historically, so it can change again
• how we live is only one way of doing things, it is not an unchangeable fact of nature
• our experiences are socially constructed, so they can be deconstructed and reconstructed

Question 4

What is the social construction of reality?

Answer 4

• reality around us is socially constructed, we don’t have an immediate relationship with the world around us
• the idea that everything we experience is through a socially constructed lense

Question 5

What is first-order social construction?

Answer 5

• things that are created by humans through our social relations (does not exist naturally)
  eg: money, the state, morality

Question 6

What is second-order social construction?

Answer 6

• things in nature that we assign our own meaning to, they exist outside human social relations (our ideas about things developed through social interactions)
  eg: race and ethnicity

Question 7

What is the difference between the concept of “subjectivity” and a social construct

Answer 7

• subjective=individual state of mind
• socially constructed= ideas that many people in a society hold and that are created over time through social interactions

Question 8

Explain the idea of the sociological imagination according to Mills

Answer 8

• the context was that in post-war Ameria, people felt stuck in their private spheres and did not have the tools to comprehend the bigger scenes (politics, global issues) therefore they remained spectators
• Mills proposed the sociological imagination as a tool used to comprehend the world around us
• enables us to understand our own biographies (what happens in our personal life) and their connections to wider society and history

Question 9

Saint Simon’s contribution to sociology

Answer 9

-was August Comte’s teacher, claimed to have coined the term sociology

Question 10

Auguste Comte Contributions to Sociology

Answer 10

• considered founder of sociology
• positivism (the idea that knowledge must be obtained objectively, claims must be verified somehow)
• society as an organism (a whole with parts) eg: society is composed of different institutions, people interacting, education, family culture (can study these parts individually)

Question 11

Harriet Martineau’s Contribution to Sociology

Answer 11

• wrote the first book on sociological methodology (methods on how she studied American society, applied positive theories)
• wrote an analysis of American society (studied certain parts like race relations)
• condensed and translate Comte’s work into English (cours de philosophie positive)

Question 12

Emile Durkheim’s Contribution to Sociology

Answer 12

• was a student of comte
• a supporter of positivism argued that sociology was the study of the science of institutions, where they came from, and their functions
• society is supra individual (has characteristics different from its parts
• society is external (has a reality of its own-not juts in our heads)
• society is suis generis (reality different from other realities-distinct from geological reality, psychological reality, etc)

Question 13

What did Emile Durkheim say about the Sociological Method

Answer 13

• sociology should focus on discovering and interpreting what is external to the individual
• sociological method must be empirical (verifiable), represent positive science, and must be separate from philosophy
• sociological method must be objective (should not be influenced by own morals and values)

Question 14

What are Social Facts?

Answer 14

• external things that exercise coercive power over an individual, resistant to their will (will affect you whether you are aware or not, you agree or disagree)
  eg: women and men having different clothing standards ( can stray from this but there are social consequences)
• are “supra individual” (above the individual, have a general social existence)

Question 15

Social Currents

Answer 15

• a step below social facts

- becomes trendy for a brief period of time and then disappear eg: Me Too, wearing masks

Question 16

How is the suicide rate a social fact?

Answer 16

• it is something that is external to any individual and is the product of the social structure of any given society
• know this because the suicide rate stays consistent every year

Question 17

What makes social order possible? (Lowering of suicide rates)

Answer 17

• social solidarity
  1. Integration (more similarities between members)
  2. Regulation (when there are similar opinions and values among members and more opposition to broken rules- this creates a sense of order and attachment to the community-something to live for)

Question 18

What are some specific social factors affecting suicide?

Answer 18

-suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of religious society (Jews

Question 19

How do suicide rates have a coercive power?

Answer 19

-suicide rates keep being reproduced every year because the forces that cause suicide will always be there

Question 20

What were Max Weber’s main thoughts on sociology?

Answer 20

• interested in social action (interpreting meanings in social action)
• creating ideal types

Question 21

What is an action (Webber)?

Answer 21

All human behavior that an individual attaches a subjective meaning to (there is a purpose behind the action)

Question 22

What is a social action (Webber)?

Answer 22

• Takes into account the meanings others may draw from your actions eg: putting a hand up in class
• sociologists understand meanings behind peoples social actions

Question 23

What are the ideal types of social action (Webber)?

Answer 23

• traditional (conforming to how things have always been done)
• affectual (motivated by affection for another person)
• value-rational (very well thought out before executed and is oriented towards a certain value)
• instrumentally rational (oriented towards the means of achieving a goal-may not be a value for you eg: driving

Question 24

What were Webber’s ideas on rationalization?

Answer 24

• believed our current social world in modern societies is defined by the dominance of planning, technical procedure, and instrumentally rational action
• seen in many social spheres eg: education, interpersonal relations (crying out method)

Question 25

What is the Idealist Theory of History?

Answer 25

-the idea that society changes because our ideas change (hunting/gathering to agriculture to having different religions)

Question 26

What is the Materialist Theory of History?

Answer 26

-Engels argues that our ideas change because society changes, the change is based on the material conditions of our existance (hunting/gathering= more cooperation and everyone is equal, agriculture=saw origins of inequality and poverty because of introduction to private property, industrial=dodon’t own means of production so most sell labor

Question 27

What were the main ideas behind the materialist conception of history?

Answer 27

• private property leads to class inequalities (characteristic of capitalism)
• history of human history is a history of class struggle (those who have vs don’t have)

Question 28

Who were the Bourgeoisie?

Answer 28

-owners of the mean of production (factories, technologies)

Question 29

Who were the Proletariat?

Answer 29

• workers or wage laborers
• don’t own means of production so would sell labour for wages
• the majority of people

Question 30

Who were the petite bourgeoisie?

Answer 30

• small and independent owners eg: farmers, small business owners
• do not own the means of production

Question 31

Use Value

Answer 31

-value is determined by its use and what you need eg: you know people need shows so you provide in exchange for another good that you need

Question 32

Exchange Value

Answer 32

-disconnected from use, make commodities to make profits, not because people need them (connected with the capitalist mode of production, not present in feudalism or communism)

Question 33

Wage Labour

Answer 33

-production of commodities necessitates a class of people who own nothing but mental and physical capacity that they sell for a wage

Question 34

Alienation

Answer 34

• loss of control over the product or the process of making it during commodity production
• wage labourers have no control over what is produced, how it is produced, and how much it is sold for

Question 35

Anomie

Answer 35

a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals. … Durkheim believed that one type of suicide (anomic) resulted from the breakdown of the social standards necessary for regulating behavior