Sociology Midterm

Sociology Midterm Sociology - the systematic study of human society-- what are people participating in and how are people participating in it Sociological Imagination - Concept proposed by C. Wright Mills. Ability to consider interconnections between societal history and individual biography in order to more fully understand one's choices, problems and circumstances. Perspective that links the private troubles to public issues Private Troubles vs. Public Issue - Individual circumstances are influenced by their time in history, the way society is organized, and specificconditions of the individual's family and friends Private Trouble - Root cause is seen to be within the individual—their particular biography—rather than broader social conditions. Can impact and be influenced by the individual and his/her immediate social circle public issue - Root cause within broader social conditions. cannot be solved by the individual alone and changes require broader community, government, or other forces Part of broader trends that can best be understood by incorporating an historical understanding of those trends Individualistic Thinking - Society as just a collection of individuals. This perspective limits our ability to understand social problems American Exceptionalism - The idea that the United States has a unique destiny to foster democracy and civilization on the world stage. Paths of Least Resistance - the default way to think, feel and behave as laid out by larger systems Mindful Skepticism - Schwable - questioning what you know and how you know it (truth is not static) Surveys - Ask neutral questions to allow respondents to express their opinion. appropriate for examining trends and to generalize about a population Population - Random Selection - A way of ensuring that a sample of people is representative of a population by giving everyone in the population an equal chance of being selected for the sample Representative sample - randomly selected sample of subjects from a larger population of subjects stratified sample - the population is divided into strata and a random sample is taken from each stratum Open vs. Closed-ended questions - open ended allow for long and specific answers, while closed ended are yes or no Rapport - mutual understanding and harmony, so respondent feels comfortable answering honestly Participant Observation - AKA fieldwork - Researcher participates in a research setting while observing what is happening in that setting Secondary Analysis - analyze data someone else has already collected Unobtrusive Measures - observing people who do not know they are being studied Experiments - Used to establish causation, and involve independent and dependent variables, control and experimental groups Validity - validity of data - Operational definitions of variables must measure what they are intended to measure. Reliability - Other researchers who use your operational definitions will attain findings consistent with yours Brajuha Study - graduate student doing participant observation of restaurant work. Lost his job as a waiter when the restaurant mysteriously burned down and was subpoenaed for field notes. he refused to give them to the DA, and got threatened by arsonists Scarce Study - doctoral student doing research on radical environmental groups. the Animal Liberation Front, broke into a research facility at the university and released all the animals (causing extensive damage to the facility),law enforcement brought Scarce in for questioning• He refused to violate his confidentiality agreements, and served 159 days in jail Humphreys Study - Humphreys studied "tea rooms," places where men go for quick anonymous sex with other men• He first did participant observation, and took on the role of the "watchqueen" who looked out for police and other unwelcome strangers during the encounters• Then Humphreys began recording the license plate numbers of the men and obtained their home addresses with the help of a friend in the police department• Finally, he arranged for the men to be included in a "medical survey" to gain access to their homes and record information about their lives. Zimbardo Study - prisoner and guard study to study the power of roles to transform behaviors. He and the guards got carried away with the research and the situation became abusive and had to be terminated prematurely ,but this took an outsider to identify Social Stratification - refers to social inequality Functionalist Theory - The system of stratification in a particular society depends on the two determinants of differential reward: functional importance and scarcity of personnel. the way they manifest may vary based on values and resources, stratification is both necessary and functional. Davis & Moore Marx - focused on stratification systems associated with industrialization in the 19th century Conflict Theory - society is composed of groups competing for scarce resources Proletariat - Marx's term for the exploited class, the mass of workers who do not own the means of production Bourgeoisie - small group of capitalists who own the means of production Feminism - conflict theory expanded to include conflict in all relations of power and authority, in this case men and women. Symbolic Interactionism - general statement about how some parts of the world fit together and how they work. An explanation of how two or more "facts" are related to one another Looking Glass Self - a person's self grows out of a person ́s social interactions with others. The view of ourselves comes from the contemplation of personal qualities and impressions of how others perceive us Culture - language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors and even material objects passed from one generation to the next Ethnocentrism - use of one's own culture to judge others in their society Culture shock - disorientation people experience when coming in contact with a fundamentally different culture Cultural relativism - not judging a culture but trying to understand it on its own terms Values - standards used to define what is desirable, good, bad, etc. Norms - expectations/rules of behavior borne out of a group's values Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis - Language determines, or at least influences, ways of thinking Sanctions - approval (positive) or disapproval (negative) for upholding or violating norms Folkways - loosely enforced norms Mores - strictly enforced norms Taboos - extremely strong norm; a norm so strong that it often brings revulsion if violated Subculture - the values and related behaviors of a group that distinguishes its members from the larger culture: world within a world counterculture - a group whose values, beliefs and elated behaviors place its members in opposition to the broader culture pluralistic society - a society made up of many different groups Real vs. Ideal culture - deal culture - the ideal values and norms of a people; the goals held out for them. Real culture - the norms and values that people actually follow Cultural Lag - humans lagging behind technological innovations. a group's material culture usually changes first, with the non-material culture lagging behind Cultural Diffusion - the spread of cultural characteristics from one group to another; a 2-way street cultural leveling - cultures become similar to one another socialization - cliques - Hierarchical Structure - Organize children's social world, Determine activities and relationships, and determine Feelings about themselves. Exclusive in nature, Function as bodies of power within grades peer group - in-groups - out-groups - Agents of socialization - family, media, peers, schooling, etc that communicates norms and mores to help an individual fit into the larger culture (school) Peer group - a group made up of people who are similar in age and social status and who share interests Gender socialization - The assumption is that your genitals dictate your gender identity. The moment that a baby's (or a fetus')gender is revealed lays out a whole set of expectations Heteronormativity - is the assumption that heterosexuality is the standard for defining normal sexual behavior and that male-female differences and gender roles are the natural and immutable essentials in normal human relations. Resocialization - the process of adopting new norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors total institutions - a closed social system in which life is organized by strict norms, rules, and schedules, and what happens within it Status - Social position an individual holds within a group or social system Role - Set of expectations about the behavior assigned to a particular status Inclusion - essential to the clique's foundation of of attraction: people want in but it's exclusive due to boundary maintenance and the power hierarchy In and Out-Group Subjugation - Out-Group Subjugation: Considered sporting to pick on outsiders▫ Different than teasing▫ Turning the group against the outsider▫ Fear, dominance of group prevent reporting to authorities In-Group Subjugation: Picking on those weaker members of the clique▫ Keeps positions in hierarchy▫ Pick on anyone but the leader Stigmatization - the technique of exclusion that involves being ignored or taunted for extended periods of time in response to being noncompliant Expulsion - excommunication, usually of those with a lower status in the group. caused by severe infarction or challenging the leader. Rarely happens to high status leader Compliance - Incestuous Amplification - Media Conglomeration - Synergistic Production - the difference between what individuals produce by acting together compared to what they produce as individuals working alone. It can be positive or negative Symbolic Annihilation - the systematic underrepresentation of a particular group or groups and/or media representations that favor stereotypes and omit realistic portrayals Title IX - No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance Mills - proposed sociological imagination in The Promise Alan Johnson - The forest the trees and one thing, -- you are always participating in something larger than yourself Gaines - Teenage Wasteland: studied Bergenfield suicides in 1980s Romero - race class & gender intersecting with systems of capitalism/white supremacy/patriarchy Meika Loc - working at hooters for participant observation Schwable - sociological mindfulness: finding out how the social world works Davis & Moore - argue that some stratification is necessary. (so that the most able will be in the most demanding positions.) Hunter & McClelland - Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology Tumin - pointed out the flaws of the structural functionalist perspective of stratification made by Davis & Moore Martin - normalizing heterosexuality