Chapter 1

Front 1

AGIL schema

Back 1

Talcott Parsons’ division of society into four functional requisites: Adaptation,Goal attainment, Integration, and Latent pattern maintenance

Front 2

anomie

Back 2

a social condition or normlessness in which a lack of clear norms fails to give direction and purpose to individual actions

Front 3

capitalism

Back 3

an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership and production of goods and their sale in a competitive market

Front 4

content

Back 4

the specific reasons or drives that motivate individuals to interact

Front 5

critical sociology

Back 5

a theoretical perspective that focuses on inequality and power relations in society in order to achieve social justice and emancipation through their transformation

Front 6

culture

Back 6

includes the group’s shared practices, values, beliefs, norms and artifacts

Front 7

disenchantment of the world

Back 7

the replacement of magical thinking by technological rationality and calculation

Front 8

dominant gender ideology

Back 8

the belief that physiological sex differences between males and females are related to differences in their character, behaviour, and ability

Front 9

dramaturgical analysis

Back 9

a technique sociologists use in which they view society through the metaphor of theatrical performance

Front 10

dual consciousness

Back 10

the experience of a fissure or dividing point in everyday life where one crosses a line between irreconcilable forms of consciousness or perspective

Front 11

dynamic equilibrium

Back 11

a stable state in which all parts of a healthy society are working together properly

Front 12

dysfunctions

Back 12

social patterns that have undesirable consequences for the operation of society

Front 13

feminism

Back 13

the critical analysis of the way gender differences in society structure social inequality

Front 14

figuration

Back 14

the process of simultaneously analyzing the behaviour of an individual and the society that shapes that behaviour

Front 15

formal sociology

Back 15

a sociology that analytically separates the contents from the forms of social interaction to study the common forms that guide human behaviour

Front 16

function

Back 16

the part a recurrent activity plays in the social life as a whole and the contribution it makes to structural continuity

Front 17

functionalism (functionalist perspective)

Back 17

a theoretical approach that sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of individuals that make up that society

Front 18

historical materialism

Back 18

an approach to understanding society that explains social change, human ideas, and social organization in terms of underlying changes in the economic (or material) structure of society

Front 19

idealism

Back 19

an approach to understanding society that emphasizes that the nature of society and social change is determined by a society’s ideas, knowledge, and beliefs

Front 20

idealist

Back 20

one who believes in idealism

Front 21

interpretive sociology

Back 21

a perspective that explains human behaviour in terms of the meanings individuals attribute to it

Front 22

labelling

Back 22

a social process in which an individual’s social identity is established through the imposition of a definition by authorities

Front 23

latent functions

Back 23

the unrecognized or unintended consequences of a social process

Front 24

law of three stages

Back 24

the three stages of evolution that societies develop through: theological, metaphysical, and positive

Front 25

macro-sociology

Back 25

a wide-scale view of the role of social structures within a society

Front 26

manifest functions

Back 26

sought consequences of a social process

Front 27

mechanical solidarity

Back 27

social solidarity or cohesion through a shared collective consciousness with harsh punishment for deviation from the norms

Front 28

metaphysical stage

Back 28

a stage of social evolution in which people explain events in terms of abstract or speculative ideas

Front 29

micro-sociology

Back 29

the study of specific relationships between individuals or small groups

Front 30

mode of production

Back 30

the way human societies act upon their environment and its resources in order to use them to meet their needs

Front 31

multi-perspectival science

Back 31

a science that is divided into competing or diverse paradigms

Front 32

organic solidarity

Back 32

social solidarity or cohesion through a complex division of labour and restitutive law

Front 33

paradigms

Back 33

philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them

Front 34

patriarchy

Back 34

institutions of male power in society

Front 35

positive stage

Back 35

a stage of social evolution in which people explain events in terms of scientific principles and laws

Front 36

positivism (positivist perspective or positivist sociology)

Back 36

the scientific study of social patterns based on methodological principles of the natural sciences

Front 37

Protestant ethic

Back 37

the duty to work hard in one’s calling

Front 38

quantitative sociology

Back 38

statistical methods such as surveys with large numbers of participants

Front 39

rationalization

Back 39

the general tendency of modern institutions and most areas of life to be transformed by the application of instrumental reason

Front 40

reification

Back 40

referring to abstract concepts, complex processes or mutable social relationships as “things”

Front 41

social action

Back 41

actions to which individuals attach subjective meanings

Front 42

social facts

Back 42

the external laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and cultural rules that govern social life

Front 43

social reform

Back 43

an approach to social change that advocates slow, incremental improvements in social institutions rather than rapid, revolutionary change of society as a whole

Front 44

social solidarity

Back 44

the social ties that bind a group of people together such as kinship, shared location, and religion

Front 45

society

Back 45

is a group of people whose members interact, reside in a definable area, and share a culture

Front 46

sociological imagination

Back 46

the ability to understand how your own unique circumstances relate to that of other people, as well as to history in general and societal structures in particular

Front 47

sociology

Back 47

the systematic study of society and social interaction

Front 48

standpoint theory

Back 48

the examination of how society is organized and coordinated from the perspective of a particular social location or perspective in society

Front 49

symbolic interactionism

Back 49

a theoretical perspective through which scholars examine the relationship of individuals within their society by studying their communication (language and symbols)

Front 50

theological stage

Back 50

a stage of social evolution in which people explain events with respect to the will of God or gods

Front 51

theory

Back 51

a proposed explanation about social interactions or society

Front 52

tragedy of culture

Back 52

the tendency for the products of human cultural creation to accumulate and become increasingly complex, specialized, alienating, or oppressive

Front 53

Verstehen

Back 53

German for “understanding”; in sociology it refers to the use of empathy, or putting oneself in another’s place, to understand the motives and logic of another’s action