Soc 101 Test #3

Question 1

What are the 4 different types of social institutions that we looked at in class?

Answer 1

Education, Family, Religion, and Political

Question 2

What are social institutions?

Answer 2

social organizations that help a society meet certain needs (ex. educational institution meets the need of learning)

Question 3

What are the three functions of education?

Answer 3

equalizer of opportunity, social placement and sorting and as a socializing agent.

Question 4

Of the three functions of education which of the two functions have tension between each other?

Answer 4

Equalizing opportunity and placement/sorting. (how equal is the placement of people in the education system? does it reproduce existing inequalities? )

Question 5

In the 19th century mass public education emerged with what major change in production?

Answer 5

Industrialization!

Question 6

Education helps prepare people to be productive members of society and helps promote an national culture. What is the type of theoretical perspective that is being demonstrated here?

Answer 6

functionalist.

Question 7

Education systems reproduce inequalities by setting credentials to “weed” people out of higher paying jobs. What is the type of theoretical perspective that is being demonstrated here?

Answer 7

conflict theory

Question 8

What is a religious plural society?

Answer 8

A society in which more than one dominant religion (currently in the United States there are a whole bunch of churches)

Question 9

Which classic theorists thought that secularism would lead to the end of religion? (Marx, Weber or Durkheim?)

Answer 9

All of them!

Question 10

there is some evidence showing that a greater amount of secularism has caused a decline in __________________ (hint: not just one word)

Answer 10

the influence of religious authority and influence of religious organizations

Question 11

What is religious economy?

Answer 11

A theoretical framework within the sociology of religion, which argues that religions can be fruitfully understood as organizations in competition with one another for followers.

Question 12

What is a criticism of the religious-economy approach?

Answer 12

It overestimates the extent to which people rationally* pick their religion. (*Rationally here can be thought of like Rational Choice Theory in which people weigh the costs and benefits of choosing a religion like they would when buying a car.)

Question 13

What are the four types of religious organizations?

Answer 13

Churches, sects, denominations, and cults. (can you name one of each and know the difference between them?)

Question 14

What is the difference between a religiously dominant society and a religiously plural society?

Answer 14

religiously dominant society= one religion is dominant and is contrasted with society as a whole (the world of Marx, Durkheim and Weber)

Question 15

What (from a sociological perspective) can explain the persistence of religion even with an increase in secularization?

Answer 15

Religious organizations have become more adaptive. Since more religions are tolerated there are also more options for people to chose which religion is for them.

Question 16

Which theorists thought religion was a stabilizing force?

Answer 16

Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim

Question 17

Each individual vote is important in deciding which party gets elected to the office and thus what kind of policy is enacted. Which of the theories of democracy does this sound like?

Answer 17

Pluralist theory

Question 18

There ain’t a dimes worth of difference between em (referencing the political parties). What kind of theory of democracy does this sound like?

Answer 18

Power Elite theory.

Question 19

What are examples of intermediary organizations in democracies?

Answer 19

political parties, social movements and news media.

Question 20

What is the general trend of the crime rate in the United States according to your text book?

Answer 20

Peaked in the 1990’s and has been going down since.

Question 21

True or false- Low income people commit more crimes than higher income people.

Answer 21

False.

Question 22

How are laws related to social norms?

Answer 22

Laws can be thought of as social norms that have been codified by the government (they have been made official)

Question 23

What is deviance?

Answer 23

non-conformity to a given set of norms that are accepted by a significant number of people in a community or society.

Question 24

What are the two causal factors or theories that we talked about in relation to social movements and terrorism?

Answer 24

Deprivation theories and Resource mobilization theories (know what these are and how they differ from each other)

Question 25

In 2011 what was the world population? United States? Milwaukee?

Answer 25

World=7 billion people

Question 26

What is demography?

Answer 26

The study of size and changes in population

Question 27

If in the United States there is one birth every 8 seconds and one death every 11 seconds and 1 net international migrant gained every 45 seconds then what is happening to the population of the United States? (hint you don’t need to do any math to figure this out)

Answer 27

The population is going up. With these questions just know the general trends.

Question 28

The rate of population growth is arithmetical T/F

Answer 28

False. The rate of population growth is exponential. (it multiplies instead of adds)

Question 29

According to demographic transition theory what is the main reason for the rise in population in nations going through the Urbanizing/Industrializing stage?

Answer 29

The death rate sharply declines while the birthrate stays the same. (stage two)

Question 30

According to Malthusianism when will people choose to have less children? (thus causing the rate of population growth to decline)

Answer 30

Never. According to this theory the only way in which the population would decrease is lack of food, disease and war.

Question 31

The main reason for the population explosion in third world nations is:

Answer 31

a rapid drop in the death rate. (this is the one many people got wrong in class)

Question 32

What is the difference between infant mortality rate and the crude birth rate?

Answer 32

The Infant Mortality Rate (IMF) describes the number of deaths that occur within the first year of life per 1000 births (so if 1000 children are born to a given population in a given year but 5 do not survive the first year then the IMR=5/1000)