Unit 6 Questions

Question 1

Define pre-modern thought

Answer 1

a belief in supernatural sources of truth and a commitment to traditional practices

Question 2

Explain how and why thought changed from pre-modern to modern

Answer 2

Modern thinkers replaced faith and tradition with science and progress

Question 2

Define comparative sociology

Answer 2

collecting and analyzing data about two or more cases that can be compared and contrasted

Question 3

Define bureaucracy

Answer 3

organizations with formal policies, strict hierarchies, and impersonal relations

Question 3

Define the type of authority that exists in a bureaucracy

Answer 3

authority isn’t traditional in bureaucratic organizations. Its rational legal, derived from logical principles.

Authority in these societies comes not from (“this is how we do things”) but from rationality (“this is the best way to do things”).

Thus, modern individuals may not be as quick to subject themselves to the will of elders and ancestors, but they may defer to bureaucrats, legislators, and accountants.

Question 3

Provide an example of premodern, modern and postmodern thought.

Answer 3

Premodern: They obeyed gods, spirits, or the souls of their ancestors. In their daily lives, they deferred to people with traditional authority, the kind that comes from custom.4 They were wedded to tradition and had no narrative of “progress,” so they didn’t generally seek to change their societies

Modern: Humans invented agriculture, the practice of cultivating crops and rearing animals. We slowly gave up our foraging lifestyles in exchange for fields, pastures, and farmhouses. Now we worked from daybreak to nightfall. Humans invented writing to keep track of who owed what to whom. They invented money, a symbolic measure of surplus, to facilitate trade. These inventions freed some people from tending to farms, and they began earning their money as weavers, toolmakers, blacksmiths, and more.

Postmodern: Such thinkers argue that it doesn’t exist or, if it does, we’re not able to know it. In which case, the only source of something resembling truth is individual experience, which means there are as many truths as there are individuals. From this perspective, no one’s point of view is any more valid than anyone else’s. Taken to its logical conclusion, this assumes that every interpretation of reality is equally correct. And because everyday life is built upon a foundation of shared interpretations, reality itself is fleeting, unstable, and unpredictable. Does red mean stop? Not really. Tomorrow we might change our minds, and why not?

Question 4

List the characteristics of a bureaucracy

Answer 4

division of labor, ranking of authority, employment based on formal qualifications, rules and regulations, and specific lines of promotion and advancement

Question 5

Describe McDonaldization and define its main concepts.

Answer 5

the process by which more and more parts of life are made efficient, predictable, calculable, and controllable by nonhuman technologies

predictability, calculability, efficiency, and control

Question 5

Explain how social institutions socialize us into ideologies

Answer 5

incorporating us into a system of shared beliefs, values, and norms that reduce uncertainties and establish a predictable routine

Question 6

Explain the difference between modern and postmodern thought and identify which style of thinking is more common in today’s world

Answer 6

Modernism often embraced grand narratives and a belief in progress, rationality, and the possibility of achieving universal truths. It aimed for purity, simplicity, and clarity in art, literature, and design. Postmodernism: Postmodernism rejected grand narratives and the idea of a single, objective truth

Modern thought is more popular

Question 6

Define social institution

Answer 6

widespread and enduring patterns of interaction with which we respond to categories of human need

Question 6

Define ideology

Answer 6

shared ideas about how human life should be organized

Question 7

Explain what it means for something to be institutionalized

Answer 7

the process of embedding some conception (for example a belief, norm, social role, particular value or mode of behavior) within an organization, social system, or society as a whole.

Question 7

Explain how social structure works to constrain and enable individuals

Answer 7

enable us to do things and to transcend our individuality by becoming more than just an individual. When we perform our social roles we have been coerced into this but it also makes us feel like we are connected to others engaged in the same role

Question 8

Define social structure

Answer 8

the entire set of interlocking social institutions in which we live

Question 9

Explain the connection between social structure and individual structural position

Answer 9

while we are individuals, all of our existence resides within our social structures

Question 10

Describe why structural position is important

Answer 10

Our structural position influences all manner of outcomes

while our personal qualities and life experiences influence whether we are likely to die by suicide, the kind of society we live in and our social groups matter too.

Question 10

Explain the link between structural position and Durkheim’s forms of suicide

Answer 10

Durkheim illustrated the power of structural position, concluding that while our personal qualities and life experiences influence whether we are likely to die by suicide, the kind of society we live in and our social groups matter too.

Question 11

Define institutional discrimination and explain how it contributes to social stratification

Answer 11

institutional discrimination: widespread and enduring practices that persistently disadvantage some kinds of people while advantaging others