Sociology Study Guide: Key Concepts, Theories, and Approaches, Exams of Sociology

Download Sociology Study Guide: Key Concepts, Theories, and Approaches and more Exams Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! soci 287 FINAL STUDY GUIDE WITH CORRECT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS sociological imagination - >>>Capacity to shift from one perspective to another Approach to sociology: Structural Functionism - >>>How social systems operate and produce consequences; explains social forms and social cohesion Approach to Sociology: Conflict Theory - >>>Approach to sociology focusing on social conflict, class, contestation, and social change. Approach to sociology: symbolic interactionism - >>>Looks at the meaning of social interactions. Microsociology, individual focus Approach to sociology: feminist theory - >>>Conflict theory focusing on feminism Approach to sociology: postmodern theory - >>>Conflict theory focusing on post modernism; recognizing varying perspectives. Social facts - >>>patterned ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that exist outside any one individual but that exert social control over each person Sociology by Audience: Professional Sociology - >>>Academic sociology departments, scholarly journals, professional sociologists Sociology by Audience: Critical sociology - >>>professional sociology specifically for the purpose of bringing about social change Sociology by Audience: Policy Sociology - >>>generating data for governments and corporations to be used towards laws, rules, and planning Sociology by audience: public sociology - >>>not academic, intended for public consumption to further sociological knowledge. cultural mosaic - >>>A society that is made up of many distinct cultural groups. Melting Pot Theory - >>>when people form other cultures assimilate to the point where their original identities and culture disappear- they become a uniform culture Vertical Mosaic - >>>a highly ethnically and racially stratified society Goffman's front stage and back stage - >>>Front stage: site of social interactions designed for public display. Back stage: site of private, personal, and intimate interactions total institution - >>>institution that regulates all aspects of a person's life under a single authority like military, asylum, convent, prison... Ethnocentrism - >>>occurs when someone holds up a culture (typically their own) as the standard by which other cultures are judged. Eurocentrism - >>>involves taking a broadly defined "European" position to address others and assumes audience shares that perspective. reverse ethnocentrism - >>>occurs when someone holds up a culture, not their own, as the standard by which other cultures are judged Culture - >>>A system that human beings create and then use to define their identities Folkways - >>>Norms governing simple day to day matters; etiquette Mores - >>>Norms taken more seriously than folkways, like laws, policies, rules. Taboos - >>>Norms so deeply ingrained that mentioning them arouses displeasure Values - >>>Standards used by a culture to describe abstract qualities such as goodness, beauty, justice, etc How is culture created and recreated - >>>Agents of consciousness reinforce culture in the form of norms and sanctions on children from an early age. As children age they develop their own subculture to differentiate from parents' generation. Positive Sanction - >>>reaction that supports the behaviour or norm Negative Sanction - >>>reaction designed to indicate norm violation Three facts about culture - >>>Culture is important; helps us define how we think and act in the world. Culture is created by cultural engineers (chief among them artists). Culture is enforced, some are more compulsory than others. Socialization - >>>The process by which the social order is involuntarily and coercively transferred onto a person, beginning as a newborn baby. Primary socialization - >>>the process of socialization that begins at birth and occurs in the home and family Secondary socialization - >>>socialization outside the family after childhood, later in life Social roles - >>>sets of behaviors and attitudes associated with a particular status. Roles attached to a status may differ across cultures. Agents of socialization - >>>social institutions, including families and schools, that shape individuals' socialization. Significant others include parents, siblings, and friends that children model themselves after. Generalized others include the composite of a community, team, or society. Mechanisms used by agents of socialization - >>>Positive and Negative sanctions, peer pressure, broad socialization (independence and individualism promotion), narrow socialization (obedience and conformity promotion), mass media, education, hazing Social status - >>>A recognized social position that a person occupies. status hierarchy - >>>the ranking of a person's statuses from high to low based on prestige and power Status inconsistency - >>>case where a person holds social statuses that are ranked differently and do not align social roles - >>>sets of behaviors and attitudes associated with a particular status. Roles attached to a status may differ across cultures. role strain - >>>develops where there is conflict between roles within the role set of a particular status role conflict - >>>occurs when a person is forced to reconcile incompatible expectations generated from 2 or more statuses they hold role interaction - >>>statuses lay the groundwork for social interaction. ascribed status - >>>a position an individual either inherits at birth or receives involuntarily later in life achieved status - >>>a social position a person takes on voluntarily that reflects personal ability and effort Mead's 3 Stages for social development - >>>1. Prepatory stage: imitation by child. 2. Play stage: child engages in role-taking 3. Game stage: child is able to consider several roles and viewpoints simultaneously Cooley's Looking Glass Self - >>>How you imagine you appear to others. How you imagine they judge your appearance. How you feel as a result. Re-socialization - >>>the process of learning new norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors Culture and Personality Theory - >>>a theoretical position in sociology that held that cultures could best be understood by examining the patterns of child rearing and considering their effect on adult lives and social institutions Absolute Deviance - >>>When an act of deviance is considered morally wrong in every circumstance Statistical Deviance - >>>any behaviour, attitude, or opinion that strays from "normal" behaviour. Intersection of Power and Deviance - >>>people with power use deviance to characterize subcultures or deviating individuals as "others", providing framework for negative sanctions. Helps dominant culture retain power and control. to the top of the Canis lupus social fabric. This was a very popular conclusion that has in fact been adopted by many human males all over the world as a justification for bullying, exploitation, and domination (Sosteric, 2012). The problem is (and as Mech has since admitted on his website), Mech was wrong. His observations were based on wolves in captivity, a very unnatural situation indeed. As he has since pointed out, in their natural environment, male and female wolves act within cooperative, interdependent, families. Male wolves are family patriarchs and nothing more. Master Narratives and Buried Knowledge - >>>A master narrative is the story a nation tells about itself to celebrate its past and present, perpetuated by the dominant class. Buried knowledge includes events that are glossed over or omitted, which would complicate the national self identity. Four Elements of Racism - >>>1.) Master narratives and the construction of race and superiority. 2.) Predjudice ; pre-judgement of others on basis of group membership 3.) Discrimination ; treatment of individuals above 4.) Power ; Manifested when institutionalized advantages are regularly handed to one or more groups over others. Ethnicity - >>>membership in a cultural group that has roots in a particular place, associated with distinct cultural practices and behaviours A colonizing people - >>>Culture that enters a region with intent to assimilate indigenous peoples and establish their culture as dominant. Ethnic elite - >>>Culture that is appointed superior social status Subjugated minorities - >>>culture that is appointed inferior/subordinate social status Racialization - >>>the process by which understandings of race are used to classify individuals or groups of people in terms of their intellect, morality, values, and innate worth due to perceived differences in appearance or heritage Theories for framing discussions of ethnicity - >>>1.) essentialism (view that ethnic groups are defined by traits carried over from the past with little or no change) 2.) Post-colonialism (view that analyzes destructive impact of colonialism) 3.) Ethnicity vs Epiphenomenal (suggests ethnic conflict is a byproduct of class struggle) 4.) Instrumentalism (opposite of essentialism, focuses on emerging ethnicity) 5.) Social Constructionism (view that ethnicity is artifical and constructed by individuals to serve an agenda) Standpoint Theory - >>>asserts that our points of view arise from the social groups to which we belong and influence how we socially construct the world Famous Five - >>>The Famous Five, also known as The Valiant Five, and initially as The Alberta Five, were five prominent Canadian suffragists who advocated for women and children: Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Emily Murphy, and Irene Parlby. they petitioned the federal government to refer the issue of the eligibility of women to be senators to the Supreme Court of Canada. This petition was the foundation of the Persons Case, a leading constitutional decision. Although most Canadian women had the vote in federal elections and all provinces but Quebec by 1927, the case was part of a larger drive for political equality. This was the first step towards equality for women in Canada and was the start to the first wave of feminism. Liberal Feminism - >>>A strand of feminism that emphasizes gender equality and views the "essential" differences in men's and women's abilities or perspectives as trivial or nonexistent. Essentialist Feminism - >>>a feminist approach that involves looking at differences between the way women and men think while arguing for the equality - and sometimes female superiority - in that difference Socialist Feminism - >>>claims that gender equality will come about by replacing capitalism with socialism postmodern feminism - >>>An social constructionist effort to combine feminist and postmodernist perspectives with the aim of uncovering the hidden influences of gender and showing how arbitrary the construction of gender roles is. Social constructionism - >>>idea that there is no natural basis for identities based on gender Feminization of work - >>>Occurs when a job, industry, or profession is predominantly associated with women. Masculinity - >>>Hegemonic Masculinity: practices that normalize male dominance. Subordinate masculinity: practices that threaten the legitimacy of hegemonic masculinity Marginalized masculinity: adaptation of masculine practices to such issues as race and class. Complicit masculinity: practices that do not embody hegemonic masculinity but still benefit from them