Soci 210 - General Mid-Term Review Flashcards
What are the three focuses of Sociology?
-Social Inequality
- Social institutions
-Primary institutions in Canadian society: family, education, religion, economy, and government
-Norms, values and rules of conduct
-Social Change
What are the three core aims of sociology?
- To see general themes in everyday life
- To critically assess what seems to be familiar/common sense
- To examine how individuals both shape society and are shaped by society
What is Sociological imagination by C. Wright Mills?
- Core of sociology
- Ability to see connections between individual lives and larger society
- Individuals are only able to understand their own lives by understanding the larger
history of society- Can then see relationships between personal troubles and larger social issues
* Personal troubles: occur within character of individual/have to do with the self
* Social issues: transcend the individual/are public matters
- Can then see relationships between personal troubles and larger social issues
What were Émile Durkheim’s main contributions?
- Coherence of human societies
- Focus is on social facts
* Facts must be studied as ‘things’; as realities/elements of society that are beyond the individual - Society cannot be understood as sum of its parts
* This whole (of society) is different in kind and greater than a sum of parts
* Individual is to society as a cell is to the organism of which it is a part
What is Durkheim’s Social solidarity:
bond between individuals in society, based on division of labour
What is Durkheim’s Mechanical solidarity:
exists when individuals resemble one another; small-scale, rural society
What is Durkheim’s Organic solidarity:
exists when individuals are different and work is separated into variety of specialized tasks where every person has role to play in larger whole; large-scale, urban society
What is Durkheim’s Anomie:
moral confusion and alienation; can arise from sudden shifts from
mechanical to organic solidarity
What is Durkheim’s Collective conscience:
shared worldview/culture; connects people; passed down through generations
* Still have individual conscience
What are the basics of Durkheim’s Suicide study?
If suicide is a fundamentally private act, how can we explain that some groups
experience higher rates of suicide? Difference in suicide rates across groups can only be explained by ‘social facts’
- Checked country’s with religious differences (catholic vs protestant)
What are Durkheim’s four types of suicide?
- Egoistic: low levels of integration/cohesion (social outcast)
- Altruistic: high levels of integration/cohesion (mass suicide of cult members)
- Anomic: excessively low levels of regulation (normlessness; no meaning and
connection) - Fatalistic: excessively high levels of regulation (life totally controlled by another;
suicide as way to escape this)
What was Karl Marx’s main focus on society? (and the two social groups he describes)
- Core struggle in all societies is the struggle between social classes
* Bourgeoisie: those who own the means of production and property; live on the
surplus value of the proletariat (oppressors/exploiters)
* Proletariat: working class; those who do not own the means of production nor
property; only have their own labour to sell (oppressed/exploited)
According to Marx, why do classes struggle?
- Struggles exist because classes have contradictory interests
- Struggle primarily defined by battle over surplus value of labour
* Bourgeoisie want to keep wages low so as to increase surplus value
* Proletariat want to increase their wages
- Struggle primarily defined by battle over surplus value of labour
What is Alienation according to Marx
Proletariat is alienated from the control of the labour production process, the product of their labour, other human beings, and thus themselves
What is Ideology according to Marx
class interests of those in power presented as universal values
* Produced and reproduced by powerful institutions: school, family, religion
* Oppressed tend to accept the moral views of their oppressors
* Through coercion and/or because Proletariat class does not own means of
production so they cannot formulate/circulate their own ideologies
* ‘False consciousness’ “way of thinking that prevents a person from perceiving the true nature of their social or economic situation.”
What is Class consciousness according to Marx
awareness of shared class interests; necessary for a revolution
of the Proletariat/away from capitalism; allows class to become a ‘class for itself’
(unions)
What did Max Weber believe the task of sociology is?
Task of sociology is to determine how patterns form and how structures emerge
What are Social acts: according to Weber
acts with a purpose that have an impact on how people behave; society is a sum of all social acts
What are Weber’s four types of social acts?
- Rational: motivated by calculation
- Value-rational: motivated by moral considerations
- Traditional: motivated by custom
- Affectual: motivated by emotion
What is Verstehen according to Weber?
deep understanding/comprehension
* Process of imagining self in the position of someone else
* Understanding is not necessarily about finding the ‘truth’, as information and the
tools we gather information with are full of subjectivities
What is Rationalization according to Weber?
everyday life becoming more orderly and calculated (ex. charts for children)
* Rise of bureaucracies, codified rules, hierarchies, idea of efficiency
* Rationalization as an ‘iron cage’ that traps individuals in systems of efficiency,
rational calculation, and control
What did W.E.B. Du Bois study?
- Race and racism as structural forces that shape life chances and identities
- ‘Colour line’ as the problem of the 20th century
* Deprivation of education, jobs, and other opportunities for black individuals
What is The vail according to Du Bois?
division between black and white Americans; white people do not see
black people as true Americans; this in turn impacts how black people see
themselves
What is Double consciousness according to Du Bois?
internal division; navigation of black identity in white- dominated society
What was Harriet Martineau’s opinion on society?
- Society should be judged and understood by its treatment of its least powerful
groups - Need social reform to create more equal/just society
- Tensions between moral values and social structures/institutions create the
conditions necessary for social reform
What is Structural functionalism?
Macro perspective
- Focus is on how social patterns contribute to the maintenance of equilibrium,
harmony, stability, consensus - Organs in body working together
- Something can be bad for an individual while simultaneously serving society as a
whole
What is Structural functionalism according to Talcott Parsons?
- 4 basic functions needed for social systems to persist
- Adaptation: sufficient resources
- Goal attainment: setting and implementing goals
- Integration: coordination and solidarity between subunits of system
- Latency: creating, preserving, and transmitting culture and values
- Functions of the nuclear family: educational, economic, reproductive, sexual
What is Conflict theory?
Macro perspective
- Focus is on power inequalities, domination, competition over limited resources
- Role of conflict in creating social change
- Social institutions emerge from the struggles between groups; social institutions are
designed to reinforce existing inequalities - Marx
What is Symbolic interactionism?
Micro-level theory
- Focus is on the individual/small groups; identities, attitudes, values, group
interactions - People ascribe meaning to their interactions
- Symbols (words, gestures, artifacts) have meaning
- People react to these meanings based on interactive process; subjective
interpretation of situations - Reality is constructed
- Charles Cooley, George Herbert Mead, Herbert George Blumer, Erving Goffman
What is the Scientific method?
- Application of scientific logic and objectivity; work outside of own political and social agendas
- Hypothesis testing: focus on finding generalizable results
What are the Three components of scientific method?
- Reliability: likelihood research results can be replicated (if study were to be
repeated; if study were to be conducted on different population) - Accuracy: proper/reliable methods and tools utilized
- Validity: how well the study designed what it is intended to
What are the Criticisms of scientific method?
no knowledge can be treated as purely objective;
all knowledge is created in the context of existing power structures;
social relationships influence research (networks of scholars, hierarchies, funding)
What is Random sampling?
everyone in the population of interest has an equal chance of being selected for the study
What is Convenience sampling?
the researchers’ friends
What is Snowball sampling?
introduced to participants by other participants
What is Theoretical sampling?
adding different data sources as you go through research process to further your data collection based on your initial findings
Clarification: targeted inquiries into relevant areas and conducting comparative analysis across different groups or field settings to build variation and complexity into the analysis
What are Surveys?
large samples allow for generalizability of findings; often lack depth and flexibility
What are Interviews?
detailed information from smaller groups; allows access to generally
excluded populations that surveys do not reach; problem of reactivity
What are Focus groups?
analysis of nature of interaction and how collective opinions develop; problem of reactivity
What is Ethnography?
observe group and how they understand themselves; detailed, complex, focus on context; issue of generalizability and reactivity
What is case study?
in-depth analysis of a single event, situation, or individual
What is an Experiment?
conditions are controlled; allows for isolation of different variables of
interest; very difficult to do in sociology
What are Strategies of secondary data analysis?
- Content analysis, discourse analysis, historical analysis
- Examining policy, protocols, reports, media
No reactivity; but data is pre-existing/data was not created with the research
question in mind
What is an issue of people studying people?
- Issue of reactivity and power
- Researchers need to be wary of personal bias in interactions with subjects and of
their own power/power relations
What is Confirmation bias? (with people studying people)
looking for a particular answer; researcher projects expectations into what they are seeing and ignores what does not fit their expectations/hypothesis
What is Triangulation of data is important based on?
unequal power relationships
- Confirming findings with multiple methods
- Ideally, should combine interviews, observations, statistical data, secondary
analysis (of course, this is not always possible)
What is Socialization?
- Process of learning to live in society; process through which we learn about culture (norms, beliefs, values, expected behaviours); helps us interact with others and develop a sense of self
- Ongoing, lifelong, interactive process
Even most basic interactions and most intimate experiences/emotions are
influenced by socialization.
Explain Goffman and Loftland’s explanation?
- Goffman’s (2008) civil inattention: learn to avoid direct/long periods of eye
contact in public to maintain sense of personal privacy and thus maintain order - Lofland’s (1985) The Social Shaping of Emotion: social arrangements, culture, history shape experience of grief and thus feelings of grief
What is socialization tied to? (Include Anderson Example)
- Tied to power and class; different classes teach their children different values
- Anderson’s (2009) Code of the Street: children socialized into violence as the respect that is gained is a valuable form of social capital in inner city neighbourhoods; learn this through socialization with other children and from families/parents
What is the Conflict perspective of socialization?
- Socialization reproduces inequalities and maintains divisions
- Teaches us to be ‘normal’ and pathologizes anything that is deemed abnormal
What is Primary socialization?
early childhood, family plays an essential role, learn the most basic things/unwritten rules of society; most of what we learn here is not explicitly taught, but is rather learned through observation and imitation
What is Secondary socialization?
occurs throughout life, different groups involved, learn appropriate behaviours in new social settings and in subcultures; behaviour is altered to fit into new groups/new behaviours are learned
What is Anticipatory socialization?
Rehearsal of potential roles you may take on in future; rehearsing and readying ourselves for responsibilities
What is Resocialization?
take on new roles and discard old roles; can be voluntary (moving
to a different country) or involuntary (being fired from your job)
What are Major agents of socialization?
family, school, peer groups, work, media
What are Primary groups of socialization?
small groups, face-to-face interactions, strong ties
What are Secondary groups of socialization?
interactions are more impersonal and limited
What are Large secondary groups of socialization?
anonymity, greater freedom
What are reference groups in socialization?
used to define how you want to fit into society
What are In groups/out groups in socialization?
establish solidarity; potential for conflict
What is Status? (Ascribed vs Achieved)
social position relative to others
* Ascribed: assigned sex at birth
* Achieved: becoming a lawyer
What is a role? (And role strain)
expected behaviours associated with status
* Possibility of role strain/conflict when two roles collide
* Ex: expectation of being a ruthless lawyer and a nurturing mother
What is george herbert mead on role taking?
“taking the other’s role” to describe the way people perceive themselves concerning others.
- In reference to childhood
- In stages
What is George Herbert Mead’s Preparatory stage?
learn to use language and symbols through simple imitation/mimicking; do not know why you are doing what you are doing (baby smiling back
at you)
What is George Herbert Mead’s Role Playing?
more sophisticated type of imitation where you take on the role of others that you see in your life (playing ‘house’ as a child)
What is George Herbert Mead’s Social Games?
games with rules to follow, require the projection of your own role
and the imagination of other people’s roles (playing a sport)
What is George Herbert Mead’s Other generality
how we appear to others generally rather than to a specific other
(like our parents); taking on the perspective of people you do not know well or at all
What is the Looking glass self (Charles Cooley)?
- Other people act as a mirror to help us understand ourselves; self-awareness and
self-image is a product of social experience and our interpretation of interactions
with others - Social self
What are the three stages of the Looking glass self (Charles Cooley)?
- 3 stages:
- Imagine how you appear to the other person
- Imagine the other person’s judgment
- React and adapt to this perceived judgment
What is the Dramaturgical approach (Erving Goffman)
- Individuals strive to create/maintain a particular, positive image of the self
- Daily interactions are like putting on a play/a constant performance
- Front stage: actions/behaviours that are visible to an audience; part of a
performance - Back stage: actions/behaviours that occur when there is no audience; preparing
oneself for the performance
What is Doxa (Pierre Bourdieu)?
- Derives from socialization; daily rituals
- Common sense beliefs that we do not reflect upon; things that are taken for
granted; unquestioned truths - Doxa is the ‘whole reality’
- Power relations and hierarchies are naturalized and legitimized
What is Deviance?
- Any act that breaks accepted social standard
- Deviant acts are not always ‘unusual’ (jaywalking)
- Perception of deviance depends on its perceived harm and degree of public
agreement of its seriousness
What is Social constructionism (Berger & Luckmann)? (What it’s based on)
- Based on symbolic interactionist perspective
- Knowledge production as an interactive effort; knowledge is created, maintained,
and reinforced by social interactions - This created knowledge is seen as natural/unchanging; forget the social origins of
categories/classifications - Social construction of deviance:
* Nothing natural about what is considered deviant
* Norms change over time and are different across cultures
What is Durkheim’s theory of deviance?
- Crime and deviance are necessary, functional, and good for society
- 4 basic functions of deviance:
- Affirms cultural values and norms
- Helps people understand what is right and wrong; reaffirms social boundaries
- Unites individuals in society; increases social solidarity
- Enables/encourages social change
What is Merton (Strain theory) theory of deviance?
- Mismatch between normative goals and institutionalized means for attaining them
- Opportunities to obtain material success are not equally distributed
- Individuals seek alternative means to achieve these goals as they lack the ‘legitimate’ resources to do so
What is Sutherland’s (Social learning theory) theory of deviance?
- Values and techniques associated with deviance must be learned
- Learn through socialization/association with deviant peer groups
- Different environments provide different opportunities to learn deviant behaviour
What is Cohen’s (Subcultural theory) theory of deviance?
- Role of culture in deviance
- Deviant/criminal groups as subcultures with their own values and norms that differ
from larger, mainstream culture - Can understand these subcultures as collective adaptation to social conditions and
rejection of normative cultural goals
What is Hirschi’s (Control theory) theory of deviance?
- What prevents individuals from deviance?
*Social bonds and stakes in conformity
* Attachment (to social bonds);
*commitment (something to lose from letting go of
social bonds);
*engagement (in variety of conventional activities); belief (in the rules)
What is Lemert and Becker’s (Labelling theory) theory of deviance?
- Response to deviant act can influence an individual to engage in further deviance
- Being labelled ‘deviant’ leads to more deviancy; creates deviant/criminal identity;
self-fulfilling prophecy - Primary deviance: initial, small, random acts of deviance/rule breaking
- Secondary deviance: persistent deviant behaviour that occur due to taking on the
‘deviant’ identity
What are Moral panics?
- Condition, group, person defined as a threat to societal values and interests
- Disproportionate reaction relative to the actual threat
What are folk devils? (Moral Panics)
bearers of the deviant label, stereotypes, hostility, and exaggerations
What is the Media’s role in moral panics (Cohen)?
- Exaggeration and distortion of events
- Prediction of the inevitable growth of the problem
- Symbolization of conditions, groups, things as a threat
What is the Penological perspective of punishment?
punishment as a technique of crime control
- Recidivism rates; questions of cost, management and control of crime
- Question is ‘what works?’
What is the Philosophical perspective of punishment?
punishment as a moral problem/concern
* Ethical reasoning and moral appeal
* Question is ‘what is just?’
What are some general opinions on punishment? (Possible freebe cuz it wasn’t labelled)
- Punishment as a social institution that is connected with other social institutions
and is shaped by social and historical forces - Social effects of punishment go beyond crime control and reach far beyond
population of criminals - Different views within sociological perspective on punishment; no single, unified framework
What is Durkheim’s view of punishment?
- Punishment as moralizing mechanism; reaffirms moral order and preserves shared
values; restores collective confidence in moral order; social solidarity - Punishment as a ritualized expression of social values; directed to members of the
public, not the criminal individual - Punishment has changed in form but not in function
What is Marx’s view of punishment?
- Punishment as component of class rule; punishment as hegemonic form of control
that seeks to control the poor/control struggle between classes - Economic and political determinants of punishment
What is Wacquant’s view of punishment?
- Penalization of urban marginality; punishment to control insecurity/the working class
- Social policies (welfare) and criminal justice (punishment): two modalities of state
power that work together to control the poor; must be understood/analyzed
together - Crime control policies are intended to: warehouse the most ‘disruptive’ segments of population; create/maintain boundaries between deserving citizenry and the urban
poor; reinforce precarious wage work
What is Foucault’s view on punishment?
- Intersection of punishment, power, and knowledge
- Focus on internal workings of specific technologies of penal power: surveillance,
control, discipline - Move from punishing the body to disciplining the mind
- Normalization: occurs through discipline; creation of docile, obedient, useful body
- Populations that are punished, controlled, disciplined change throughout history;
modern prison is linked to broader networks of discipline/regulation - Ex: historical warehousing of the ‘mad’/‘madness’
- Panopticon: idea of constant surveillance; behave as if you are being watched even
though this cannot be confirmed/you cannot see the guard in the tower
What are the Basic concepts of inequality?
- System by which society categorizes people; ranked in hierarchy; based on the
uneven distribution of resources (money, power, status) - Exists in every contemporary society, but levels differ
- Functions of inequality (structural functionalism point of view):
- Ensure most important positions are filled by most qualified people
- Incentive for people to work hard/do their jobs well
- Income inequality related to other issues/inequalities, both social and individual
- Ex. Levels of imprisonment, homicide, mental illness
What is Meritocracy?
idea that there is opportunity for social mobility based on personal merit/talent; views class system as an ‘open’ system where you can move from the bottom up with hard work
What is Hegemony? (Gramsci)
- Strategies that dominant groups use to make their worldview appear as ‘common sense’
- Cultural/ideological form of control of lower class by ruling class
Explain the three main topics of hegemony?
Spontaneous consent:
Misconception:
Flexible appropriation:
Spontaneous consent:
- does not come from conscious decision making; things/norms are accepted as they are seen to be ‘just the way things are’
Misconception:
-creation of cultural conflicts (regarding non-fundamental issues) that diminish the focus on similar economic interests/the shared problem of unequal capital; diversion; lower classes falsely identify with interests of ruling class
Flexible appropriation:
-even with resistance/failure of spontaneous consent, hegemonic systems often do not go away; may change forms/respond to resistance, but dominant ideologies evolve and persist
What is Webers Structure of inequality?
- Class alone is not enough to understand inequality
- 3 primary bases of power:
- Class:
* Power in economic order; classes differ based on ownership of property and
what services are available to them - Status:
* Social honour/prestige gained through social positions; can also be negative - Parties:
* Political parties; groups aimed at improving specific social problems
- Class:
What is Social mobility?
movement (up or down) on the stratification system
- If there is high level of social mobility, society is achievement-based (rather than
ascription-based)
Explain the Two types of social mobility?
Intragenerational
Intergenerational
Intragenerational:
- within single generation; parents were born into working class
but became middle class
Intergenerational:
- between generations; parents or grandparents are working
class but you become middle class
What is Intergenerational income elasticity?
statistical relationship between a parent and child’s economic standing at the same age; higher number means less social mobility where child’s economic standing is highly correlated to parent’s
How does Stratification occur?
occurs in many forms; many barriers to social mobility
What are Social factors associated with mobility?
family background, culture, education
-Children from high-income families do better in school; those who do better in
school are likely to make more money
What is Intersectionality (by Kimberlé Crenshaw)?
multiple forms of inequality and
disadvantage that compound themselves and create unique obstacles
What does Bev Skeggs’ talk about in Social media siloing?
- Facebook divides/stratifies people by friendship networks and browsing history
- Targets those that are vulnerable (those without wealthy/influential friendship
networks) with advertisements for bad loan companies, low quality education, etc. - ‘Repeated stratification’
What does Bourdieu say Habitus is?
- Shared tastes, experiences, leisure pursuits, humour, methods of self-expression that vary greatly between different groups/are products of different social arragenemnts (based on family background, class, culture, etc.)
- Acquired by socialization; internalized
What does Bourdieu say Social capital is?
- Related to cultural capital, but ‘bigger’; aggregate of all resources (actual and
potential) - Dependent on size of one’s network and who is in this network/the capital they have
What is the Gini index?
compares income of richest and poorest within society and across countries
(the lower the index, the more equal)
What does Bourdieu say Cultural capital is?
- Translation of cultural behaviour into currency through ‘acculturation’; social structure reproduced culturally as well as through material wealth
- Direct consequence of parents’ wealth/how much they can invest into your cultural capital
What is the Modernization theory of globalization?
- Society’s economic, social, cultural systems either aid 0r hinder its development
- Countries remain poor because they hold onto traditional/inefficient attitudes and
institutions; all countries can (and should) become modernized/developed like
Western societies if they tried to - Seen as a linear progression from undeveloped/traditional (bad) to developed/
modernized (good)- Rostow’s (1991) stages of modernization: traditional society - precondition for
economic takeoff - economic takeoff - technological maturity - mass consumption
- Rostow’s (1991) stages of modernization: traditional society - precondition for
- Criticism: highly ethnocentric view; no recognition of colonialism/exploitation/etc
What is Global inequality and globalization?
- Inequalities within and between countries; connected to colonialism
- Also important to think of inequality in terms of more than just income; ‘social health’
(education, health)
What is Globalization?
(Three mechanisms: Material/physical connections, Spatio-temporal element, and cognitive element)
- Process of increasing interconnectedness of people, places, ideas, and products; not
linear or unidirectional - Increased interconnectedness through three mechanisms:
* Material/physical connections - movement of people/products across borders
* Spatio-temporal element - world ‘feels smaller’ (shared connection through media)
* Cognitive element - dissemination of ideas and culture
What is the World systems theory (Of globalization)?
Wallerstein
* Inherent inequality of globalization; based on Marxist principles
* World-wide division of labour between core (most powerful), periphery (least
powerful), and semi-periphery nations
* Core nations exploit labour and take resources from periphery nations; materials go
from periphery to core nations, whereas ideas go from core to periphery; this unequal
power relationship is highly problematic and damaging to periphery nations
* Criticism: foreign trade can benefit countries/support their economies
* Chang (2016) Disposable Domestics: extraction of resources by USA forces many
peoples to migrate to follow their countries’ wealth; then, they/their labour is
exploited; remain in low-paying jobs and needed services are intentionally minimized
World systems theory
What is the World society theory?
Meyer
* First two theories focus on growing inequality; world society theory focuses on
importance of global institutions and global cultural models in shaping nations
* Countries becoming increasingly similar (isomorphic) by adopting common cultural
frames
* Human rights, democracy, educational expansion, environmentalism, progress
* Guidelines/scripts on how to enact and uphold these shared values/frames
* Results in one ‘world culture’
* International not-for-profits oriented towards social/political change
Explain the following Strategies for addressing inequality:
Development assistance:
Debt relief:
Labour migration:
Micro-financing:
Fair trade certification:
- Development assistance: financial aid by governments/charitable agencies to
support economic, social, political development; has been relatively successful - Debt relief: call for richer countries to forgive debt of less wealthy countries;
repaying debts limits the development of less wealthy countries; less money to
spend on things like eduction and health care - Labour migration: individuals move to another country/region for employment;
send portion of their earnings back to their home country - Micro-financing: small loans to individuals/businesses who lack access to larger institutional loans
- Fair trade certification: guarantees labourers are paid stable, minimum price for their product; gives them entry into global market
