Unit one

Question 1

Sociological Imagination
Provide a description along with the Author and Timer Period

Answer 1

Book Definition: “The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals.”

The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between
the two within society.

Simplified Definition: “The sociological imagination allows us to identify the links between our personal lives and the larger social forces of life—to see that what is happening to us immediately is a minute point at which our personal lives and society intersect”

Author: C. Wright Mills
Date: 1959

Question 2

Troubles
Give Definition Author and time period introduced

Answer 2

Book definition: “Troubles occur within the character of the individual and within the range of his or her immediate relations with others; they have to do with one’s self and with those limited areas of social life of which one is directly and personally aware. Accordingly, the statement and the resolution of troubles properly lie within the individual as a biographical entity and within the scope of one’s immediate milieu - the social setting that is directly open to her personal experience and to some extent her willful activity. A trouble is a private matter: values cherished by an individual are felt by her to be threatened.”

Author: C. Wright Mills
Date: 1959

Question 3

Issues
Give Definition Author and time period introduced

Answer 3

Book Definition: “Issues have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of her inner life. They have to do with the organization of many such milieu into the institutions of an historical society as a whole, with the ways in which various milieux overlap and interpenetrate to form the larger structure of social and historical life. An issue is a public matter: some value cherished by publics is felt to be threatened. Often there is a debate about what that value really is and about what it is that really threatens it. This debate is often without focus if only because it is the very nature of an issue, unlike even widespread trouble, that it cannot very well be defined in terms of the immediate and everyday environments of ordinary people. An issue, in fact, often involves a crisis in institutional arrangements, and often too it involves what Marxists call ‘contradictions’ or ‘antagonisms.”

Author: C. Wright Mills
Date: 1959

Question 4

Personal Family
Give Definition and author

Answer 4

Book: It is the people we feel related too and who we expect to define us as members of their family as well. By this definition, people who define themselves as family, based on their own understanding of the concept related.

“In short, defining our families is an important step in the construction
of our personal identities, and the personal family is the
definition we apply in that process.”

Author: Phillip Cohen

Interesting thought: “So even if our family choices seem highly personal, they reflect the interaction of our own decisions with all the influences we face and the practices of those around us.”

Question 5

Legal Family

Answer 5

“A legal family is generally defined as a group of individuals related by birth, marriage, or adoption”

Question 6

Household

Answer 6

A group of people that lives and eats separately from other groups.

As created 200 years ago when city living became more common, and it become more difficult to define family.

Question 7

Family Arena

Answer 7

The institutional arena is where people practice intimacy, childbearing, socialization, and caring work.

-very child-centric

Question 8

Institutional Arena

Answer 8

A social space in which relations between people in common positions are governed by accepted rules of interaction

Question 9

State Arena

Answer 9

the institutional arena where, through political means, behavior is legally regulated, violence is controlled, and resources are redistributed.

Question 10

Census Family

Answer 10

-A legal family (related by blood, marriage, or adoption) who lives together
-Census Bureau limits each family to one household, and people can only be counted in one place

Question 11

Family of origin or natal family

Answer 11

Family you are born into

Question 12

Family of procreation

Answer 12

The family you create

Question 13

Nuclear Family

Answer 13

Parents and their (usually minor) children

Question 14

Extended Family

Answer 14

-Anything beyond a nuclear family; can include grandparents, uncles, other relatives

Question 15

Stem Family

Answer 15

A couple’s firstborn child stays in the family home, even after marriage; younger couple’s children are raised in a home with their parents and grandparents.

Question 16

Blended Family

Answer 16

Includes children of a previous marriage/relationship of one or both spouses

Question 17

consensus perspective

Answer 17

A perspective that projects an image
of society as the collective expression
of shared norms and values.

Author: Ritzer 2000

Question 18

breadwinner-homemaker family

Answer 18

An employed father, a non-employed mother, and their children,

Author: Talcott Parsons

Question 19

structural functionalism

Answer 19

Everything fills a function and is happening for a reason.

The assumption is that the nuclear family is best, e.g. men are the breadwinners.

Families serve roles as an instrument of social control serving the political system and economy

Book:
“a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability”.

“Researchers adopting this perspective, in general, examine some
common pattern of behavior and ask, “What are the functions of this? What
good is it doing that permits it to survive?” The theory often assumes that
there is a good reason for things to be the way they are and tries to explain
them based on this premise.”

Authors: Emile Durkheim (1858—1917). and Talcott Parsons (1902-1979).

Question 20

conflict theory

Answer 20

• Full of conflict over scarce resources
  -This conflict drives social change
  -Power struggles occur within families

The view that opposition and conflict define a given society and are necessary for social evolution.

Author: Carl Marks

Question 21

feminist theory

Answer 21

A theory that seeks to understand and ultimately/ reduce inequality between men and women

Author: Allen 2016

Question 22

socialization

Answer 22

The process by which individuals internalize elements of the social structure in their own perspectives

Question 23

Exchange Theory

Answer 23

The theory that individuals or groups with different resources, strengths,
and weaknesses enter into mutual relationships to maximize their
own gains.

Question 24

symbolic interactionism

Answer 24

-People act based on the meaning they have assigned to things and those meanings are created in interactions.

-How we create meaning about family (how social norms shape us)

A theory concerned with the ability of humans to see themselves through the eyes of others and enact social roles based on others expectations

Question 25

modernity theory

Answer 25

A theory of the historical emergence
of the individual as an actor in society
and how individuality changed
personal and institutional relations.

Authors: (Beck and Lau 2005).

Question 26

demographic perspective

Answer 26

The study of how family behavior and
household structures contribute to
larger population processes.

Question 27

life course perspective

Answer 27

The study of the family trajectories
of individuals and groups as they
progress through their lives, in social
and historical context.

Question 28

History of Family Studies

Answer 28

-Late 1800s-early 1900s: emerged out of the deep belief in the need to document and ameliorate social problems

-Concern with “deterioration” of traditional family life caused by rapid change

-Early family scholars were pro-traditional family and tended to be conservative

-Confused difference with disorganized

-Traditional scholars wanted things to stay the say (maintain the status quo)

-Many were protestant Christians (in the west)

-They also were generally against slavery and child labor (both good and bad)

Question 29

longitudinal surveys

Answer 29

A research method in which the same
people are interviewed repeatedly over
a period of time.

Question 30

Demography

Answer 30

Interested in how family patterns and changes contribute to larger societal patterns and changes

Question 31

Bias

Answer 31

The tendency to impose previously held views on the collection and interpretation of fact

Question 32

Sample Survey

Answer 32

A research method in which identical
questions are asked of many different
people and their answers gathered
into one large data file.

Question 33

Time-use study

Answer 33

Surveys that collect data on how people spend their time during a sample period, such as a single day or week

Question 34

Big Data

Answer 34

Data collections large enough to require
special computing resources, and
complex enough to require customized
computer applications.

Question 35

In-depth interview

Answer 35

To get deeper answers and be able to ask follow-up questions, some researchers do in-depth interviews. They are more time-consuming so you can’t achieve the same volume of participants

Question 36

Ethnography

Answer 36

Rather than trusting what people say, Ethnography involves following people around and researching them to understand interpersonal dynamics and subtleties of daily life

Even in-depth interviews, however, rely on the answers provided to the
researcher. Sometimes, interpersonal dynamics and the subtleties of daily life
are best studied through direct observation and interaction with the subjects of
the research, known as ethnography.

Question 37

cohort

Answer 37

A group of people who experience an
event together at the same point in time.

Question 38

Social construct

Answer 38

an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society

Question 39

Cult (or canon) of domesticity

Answer 39

1820s/1830s: Publications
began to flood the
market offering advice on
family life, child-rearing,
and women’s roles

›Encouraged people to
assimilate to changes of
industrialization by linking
it with a specific set of
sex-roles

›Solidified by 1840s/1850s

Tenants: Women should have extreme piety-purity-submissiveness- and should be domestic

Question 40

Separate Spheres Ideology

Answer 40

Men should brave the world of impurity and danger while women should stay home keeping it safe for his return

›“The world” is a place of earthly delights
and material possessions
›The business world (bosses, competition,
wages, profit) is full of “vexations and
embarrassments”
›Man is the “fiercest warrior”
›Home is the oasis, sanctuary, escape,
salvation

Question 41

Cult of true womanhood

Answer 41

The asumption that the ideal family involves having woman in the home

Question 42

Descent systems: bilateral, matrilineal, patrilineal

Answer 42

The person through which the family line is traced

Question 43

Power systems: matriarchal, patriarchal, egalitarian