Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
62 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
|
What is sociology? |
The relationship between individual and society |
|
|
Who are individuals influenced by in their views? |
Other individuals |
|
|
What is one thing society does? |
Measures specific values and enforces conformity to norms |
|
|
What does the state/society do to people? |
Coerce them to act in certain ways |
|
|
What do Sociologists study, in terms of interconnections? |
How the micro (individual) mixes with the macro (broader society forces) |
|
|
Why is eating lunch normative? |
Just the way things are, actually change happened in 90's, things can change again |
|
|
What is Sociology the systematic study of? |
Study of society using sociological imagination |
|
|
What is the goal of Sociology? |
To achieve objectivity, unbiased searching for patterns of behaviour |
|
|
What is the Sociological imagination? |
"the intersection of biography [micro] and history [macro]" - C Wright Mills |
|
|
Who is a precursor to modern Sociologists? |
Ibn Khaldun, 14th century |
|
|
When did Sociology begin in earnest? |
French Revolution and Enlightenment, 18th century |
|
|
What is the FIRST of the five founding elements? |
Reason, critical thinking applied to social issues |
|
|
What is the SECOND of the five founding elements? |
Considered the possibility of equality |
|
|
What is the THIRD of the five founding elements? |
Historical progress, no agreement on what is progress |
|
|
What is the FOURTH of the five founding elements? |
Secularization process, from faith to reason |
|
|
What is the FIFTH of the five founding elements? |
Nothing sacred, outside critique |
|
|
What does Sociology say about human biology? |
All humans equal |
|
|
What is the belief in equality an example of? |
An ideological belief |
|
|
What should Sociology strive to do? |
Separate personal opinions/beliefs from work |
|
|
What does Sociology do with morality and culture? |
Takes morality out of culture, no culture objectively better than another |
|
|
Where was the first Canadian Sociology dept? |
McGill, 1923 |
|
|
What did August Comte think? |
Science can be used to understand social change |
|
|
What did Sociology emerge from |
Philosophy, economics, history, psychology and law |
|
|
What is the fundamental axiom of Sociology? |
Society is greater than the sum of its parts |
|
|
What can't society be reduced to? |
The individual people, social life a complex web of interconnectedness |
|
|
How did Sociology change in the 20th cen? |
Distinct disciplinary boundaries formed |
|
|
How did Sociology change in the 21st cen? |
Sociology shifted to post-disciplinary and interdisciplinary work |
|
|
What Three tools build the Social Imagination? |
- Empirical research methods - Sociological theorizing - Critical thinking |
|
|
What is necessary for social action? |
Reliable knowledge |
|
|
How can verifiable knowledge be gained? |
Observation |
|
|
What do Theories do? |
Explain a set of facts |
|
|
What is the definition of a theory? |
A set of propositions intended to explain a fact or phenomenon |
|
|
Who created the Positivist Theory? |
Comte/Durkheim |
|
|
What does the Positivist Theory hold? |
That there are laws that govern society, use statistical modelling to discover |
|
|
Who created the Interpretive Theory? |
Max Weber |
|
|
What does the Interpretive Theory hold? |
First need to understand self/other, and contextualize data |
|
|
Who created the Critical Theory? |
Marx/Foucault |
|
|
What does the Critical Theory hold? |
Importance of power and emancipation, ending subordination and marginalization |
|
|
What are the five Core Theoretical Frameworks |
Functionalist perspective, conflict perspective, interactionist perspective, feminist perspective and post-modern perspective |
|
|
What is the Functionalist perspective? |
Dominant view, perspectives not prescriptions, functionalism does not care about details, just that the function is performed |
|
|
What assumptions does Functionalism make? |
Society stable, organized around societal consensus about shared norms/values |
|
|
In functionalism, what does society do? |
Functions when assigned roles are played, like a living organism, tries to return to homeostatis |
|
|
What are two important structures in Functionalism? |
Manifest function, explicitly known, and Latent functions, implicit |
|
|
What is the Conflict perspective? |
Competition over resources, powerful vs powerless or Bourgeoisie vs Proletariat |
|
|
What is Praxis? |
The movement where the Proletariat gain power and take control |
|
|
What does the Conflict perspective say about society? |
Characterized by inequality, social life a continuous power struggle over scarce resource, social arrangements benefit some at expense of others |
|
|
What is the Interactionist perspective? |
Focus on micro over macro, on individual |
|
|
What does the Interactionist assume? |
All behaviours learned, society a sum of these interactions (opposes that society greater than sum of parts) |
|
|
What are the two important Others of Interactionists? |
The importance of other people, family, friends, and the importance of a generalized 'other' |
|
|
What did the Feminist perspective introduce? |
Moral component, social analyses - use theory and research to critique social inequality |
|
|
What does Feminism assume? |
Gender is necessary to explain inequality and notions of gender and sex socially created, result is that men and women equal |
|
|
While Feminism is diverse in opinion what are some areas of agreement? |
Academic work has Androcentric bias, society and people's expectations gendered, research and theory must be intertwined with practice |
|
|
What formed the Post-Modern Perspective? |
Post WW2, transition from manufacturing to knowledge economy, crises in Western society as to how to handle new paradigms |
|
|
What are the four forms the transition to Post-Modernism has created? |
Skeptical, Affirmative, Postmodernism, Poststructuralism |
|
|
What is the Skeptical position? |
Social change created conditions of chaos and meaninglessness, shifted to pessimism |
|
|
What is the Affirmative position? |
Over arching theories/worldviews cannot explain reality, questions about what can be known |
|
|
What does Postmodernism describe? |
A historical period (is skeptical) |
|
|
What does Post-Structuralism describe? |
Suggests knowing is discursive and in crisis (is affirmative) |
|
|
What is a discourse? |
A set of ideas, beliefs, attitudes that circulate throughout society, the way we organize our thoughts |
|
|
What is an Elite discourse? |
The dominant discourse in society, has more authority, not forced though, accepted at individual level |
|
|
What are the assumption of the Post-Modern perspective? |
A rejection of Meta-narratives, defined as totalizing explanations justifying a particular point of view that is presented as true and unchallegeable |
|
|
How does language matter? |
Not just used to communicate, actually forms reality itself |
