Rural Sociology Exam 1

Front 1

Sociology

Back 1

the study of human behaviors as they are affected by social interactions within groups, organizations, societies, and the planet (Auguste Comte created this term)

Front 2

The emergence of sociology as a discipline

Back 2

Sociology emerged as a discipline in response to the acceptance of the scientific method and the industrial revolution. It was a result to the Country Life Comission, which aimed to improve rural areas.

Front 3

The great transformation

Back 3

-Transformation from rural to industrialized
-Other key events that influenced rural america:
the great depression, world war 2, 1950s and 1969s economic boom, rural crisis of the 1980s, globalization

Front 4

The Sociological Imagination

Back 4

The ability to connect seemingly impersonal and remote social forces and historical events to the most basic incidents of an individual's life. The sociological imagination emables people to distinguish between personal troubles and public issues.

Front 5

Institution

Back 5

A relatively stable and predictable arrangement among people that has emerged over time to coordinate human interaction and behavior in ways that meet some social need.

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Issues

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-Focus: outside the individual
-Cause: flaws or breakdown in institutional arrangements
-Example of causes: unemployment resulting from downsizing
-Resolution: change in institutional structure
-Change strategies: institute tax incentives to encourage specific behaviors, new laws, etc

Front 7

Troubles

Back 7

-Focus: personal needs, problems, and difficulities
-Cause: individual shortcomings
-Example of causes: lack of motivation, bad attitude, flawed character, weak skills
-Resolution: change individual shortcomings
-Change strategies: seek therapy, find new friends, take medications, changes jobs

Front 8

Sociological theories

Back 8

A set of principles and definitions that tell how societies operate and how people relate to one another and respond to their surroundings.

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Functionalist focus

Back 9

-questions of order and stability
-society as system of interrelated parts
-function as the contribution of a part to the larger system

Front 10

Conflict focus

Back 10

conflict over scarce and valued resources

Front 11

Symbolic interactionist focus

Back 11

social interaction

Front 12

Cultural diffusion

Back 12

the process by which an idea, an invention, or some other cultural item is borrowed from a foreign source

Front 13

Values

Back 13

shared conceptions of what is good, right, appropriate, worthwhile, and important with regard to conduct, appearance, and states of being

Front 14

Norms

Back 14

written and unwritten rules that specify behaviors appropriate and inappropriate to a particular social situation

Front 15

Folkways

Back 15

norms that apply to the mundane aspects or details of daily life

Front 16

Culture shock

Back 16

the strain that people from one culture experience when they must reorient them selves to the ways of a new culture

Front 17

Reentry shock

Back 17

experienced upon returning home after living in another culture

Front 18

material culture

Back 18

all physical objects that people have borrowed, discovered, or invented and to which they have attached meaning

Front 19

non-material culture

Back 19

intangible creations or things that we cannot identify directly through the senses

Front 20

Country life comission

Back 20

-president Theodore Roosevelt appointed
-to determine how to improve rural living conditions
-first department of rural sociology established in 1915 at cornell university