Sociological Imagination

Question 1

Study of human society

Answer 1

Sociology

Question 2

Ability to connect the most basic intimate aspects of an individual’s life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces; “making the familiar strange”

Answer 2

Sociological imagination

Question 3

Complex group of interdependent positions that, together, perform a social role and reproduce themselves over time; also defined in a narrow sense as any institution in a society that works to shape the behavior of groups or people within it

Answer 3

Social institution

Question 4

Way individuals define themselves in relationship to groups they are a part of or in relationships to groups they choose not to be a part of

Answer 4

Social identity

Question 5

Society can be better understood by determining the logic or scientific laws governing human behaviors

Answer 5

Social physics or positivism

Question 6

Believed that society can be understood by observing social relationships

Answer 6

Auguste Comte

Question 7

First to translate Comte’s written work to English; one of the earlier feminist social scientists

Answer 7

Harriet Martineau

Question 8

Created theory of historical materialism which identifies class conflict as the primary cause of social change (classes are necessary)

Answer 8

Karl Marx

Question 9

Emphasized on subjectivity becoming a foundation of interpretive sociology

Answer 9

Max Weber

Question 10

Founder of positivist sociology; developed the theory that division of labor helps to determine how social cohesion is maintained or not maintained in society

Answer 10

Emile Durkheim

Question 11

Formal sociology, or sociology of pure numbers

Answer 11

Georg Simmel

Question 12

Concept from Max Weber that is the basis of interpretive sociology in which researchers imagine themselves experiencing life position of the social actors they want to understand rather than treating those people as objects to be examined

Answer 12

Verstehen

Question 13

Sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonable expect life to be predictable, too little social regulation; normlessness

Answer 13

Anomie

Question 14

Strain within sociology that believes the social world can be described and predicted by certain relationships (akin to social physics)

Answer 14

Positivist sociology

Question 15

Concept conceived by W. E. B. Du Bois to describe the two behavioral scripts, one for moving through the world and the other incorporating the external opinions of prejudice onlookers, which are constantly maintained by African-Americans

Answer 15

Double consciousness

Question 16

Theory that various social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some important (or necessary) function to keep society running

Answer 16

Functionalism

Question 17

Idea that conflicts between competitive interest is the basic, animating force of social change and society in general

Answer 17

Conflict theory

Question 18

Micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind peoples actions

Answer 18

Symbolic interactionism

Question 19

Meanings of social entities are no longer based in shared understanding of society, but in specific interpretation of individual or group identities

Answer 19

Postmodernism

Question 20

Social entities exist because society allows them to exist

Answer 20

Social construction

Question 21

Theory that attempts to predict how certain social institutions tend to function

Answer 21

Midrange theory

Question 22

Understands local interactional contexts focusing on face-to-face encounters and gathering data through participant observations and in-depth interviews

Answer 22

Microsociology

Question 23

Views social dynamics across whole societies or large parts of them and often relies on statistical analysis

Answer 23

Macrosociology