Sociology Final Exam

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Marx's view of religion

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Marx believes that religion keeps the working class divided (no class consciousness); it prevents any changes from occuring; it provides a justification for inequality.

human emancipation can occur only with the abolition of religion;

religion keeps people from forming a class-for-itself;

it holds history back; and also prevents people from forming a revolutionary consciousness.

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Protestant ethic leading to spirit of capitalism:

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The ideas and ethical actions of the Protestant world view led to capitalistic ideas and a new world economy.

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Tenets of Protestant ethic

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Calling

Predestination

Asceticism

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Calling:

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to fulfill obligations imposed upon the individual by his position in the world;

fulfilling worldly duties

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Predestination:

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one's place in the 'hereafter' is preordained; to insure one's place in the hereafter, must do good deeds, and avoid sin. To avoid sin, you must work in accordance with your calling, and not waste time, which is a deadly sin.

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Asceticism:

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renouncing worldly gifts;

since work brings a person grace and a place in hereafter, even the wealthy must work, which leads to people reinvesting wealth into enterprises.

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Sick Role

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Talcott Parsons:

The individual is not responsible for being sick, it is not a moral failure; the origins of being sick are out of the person's control.

The sick person is entitled to certain privileges which includes a withdrawal from normal responsibilities; others are to take on the role of caregivers, with compassion and sympathy. These rights are not indefinite, only temporary; the sick person must take an active role in getting well-- medicine, therapy, going to a doctor etc.

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Conditional Sick Role

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Individuals who are suffering from an illness that they will recover from; must play his/her own part in recovery by seeking medical help.

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Unconditionally Legitimate Sick Role

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Individuals who are suffering from an incurable disease or a long-term illness and are unable to get better with their own behavior... cancer, MS, dementia, etc.

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Illegitimate Sick Role

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Concerns those who are believed to be ill because of something they themselves did, or those who do nothing to improve their situation... STDs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.

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Medicalization

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Refers to the way that medical treatments have supplanted other options for both the healthy and the ill.

Critiques our tendency to make medical conditions out of everything.

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Hegemony

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When the ideas of the dominant society filter down to the masses and the ideas serve to support the dominant order;

what doctors say, we believe only because of the 'MD' after their name.

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Zola's Thesis

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that medicalization is ever increasing and becoming a major institution of social control;

he contends that the medical profession is claiming its right of jurisdiction over the label of illness and anything attached to that, regardless of its effectiveness to deal with it properly. The institution of medicine does this by:

1)expanding definitions of good medical practice
2)retaining absolute control over certain technical procedures
3) retaining near absolute access to certain taboo areas
4)Expanding of What in Medicine is Deemed Relevant to the Good Practice of Life

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Demedicalization

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Renee Fox

Dampening the effects of medicalization; emphasizes patients' rights and started the self-help movements.

homosexuality- 'illness' in the 1970s

physical rather than emotional problems in women- cramps, morning sickness, etc.

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Functions of Media

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Schaefer says the main function is entertainment;
Other functions:

1. Agent of socialization: the media presents a common and standardized view of culture
2. Enforcer of social norms: it reaffirms proper behavior by showing what happens to people who act in a way that violates expectations
3. Conferral of status: the mass media tells us who is important, who is a celebrity and what issues should command our attention
4. Promotion of consumption: the media advertises the many products produced in a capitalist economy

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Dysfunctions of Media

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the media is narcotizing; it repeats the same information so much that the audience becomes numb to it. Then they fail to act on the issues no matter how compelling they are.

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Media Consolidation

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Various media outlets are controlled by fewer and fewer number of companies; this raises fears of reliability and quality of the products, mainly the news.

Top 6:

1. Viacom
2. Disney
3. Time Warner
4. General Electric
5. Bertelsmann
6. News Corp.

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Conflict critique on the Media

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When fewer corporations control the media, there is less range of opinion and more time to perpetuate a dominant ideology;

the media is a gatekeeper-- in order to get into the news, the item must pass through a series of editorial screens. if there are fewer gatekeepers, then there will be a limited range of opinions that will be present in the media;

the media is driven by market forces, and therefore the media is less about informing and more about entertaining.

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Who edits refereed journals?

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They are peer-reviewed

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Who sponsors refereed journals?

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A professional association.

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What kind of information is found in refereed journals?

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Theoretical or position papers based upon scholarship; Empirically based research papers; scholarly book reviews

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Who writes in refereed journals?

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Professors
Graduate Students
Independent Scholars

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Structure and its Components

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underlying regularity or pattern to social behavior in any society;
The framework upon which society rests;

Status: a socially defined position
Role: the behavior expected of someone with a given status in society
Groups: two or more people who share a common identity, goals and expectations (groups also have structures)
Institutions: stable cluster of social structures that is organized to meet the basic needs of societies.

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Qualitative VS Quantitative

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Qualitative:rely more on inductive and inferential reasoning to understand the texture of social life, the actual felt experience of social interaction.

Quantitative: one uses powerdul statistical tools to help understand patterns in which the behaviors, attitude, or traits under study can be translated into numerical values.

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Independent VS Dependent Variables

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Independent: the event or item in the experiment that you will manipulate to see if that difference has an impact; the variable that you wish to explain.


Dependent:it depends on, or is caused by, the independent variable.

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Ethnography

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used to study other cultures; you try to understand the world from the point of view of the people whose lives you are interested in and attempt to put your values and assumptions about their activities on hold

ex: Slim's Table

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Material VS Non-Material Culture

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Material:the things people make and the things used to make them.

Non-Material: the ideas and beliefs that people develop about their lives and their world.

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Symbols

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anything that meaningfully represents something else.

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Language

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human speech in social and written forms.

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Values

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idea of what is good and bad.

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Norms

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how people are expected to act, think or feel in given situations, “rules that govern our behavior”.

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Laws

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formal norms that have been enacted by the state to regulate human conduct.

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Folkways

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rules broken without serious consequence.

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Mores

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rules broken with serious consequences.

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Prescriptive

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what a person should do.

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Proscriptive

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what a person should not do.

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Socialization

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the process by which we become aware of ourselves as part of a group, learn how to communicate with others in the group and learn the behavior expected of us: spoken and unspoken rules of social interaction, how to think, how to feel.

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Looking-Glass Self

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CH Cooley

a way in which we develop our sense of self using these three steps:

1. we imagine how we appear to others around us.
2. we draw general conclusions based on the reactions of others.
3. based on others' reactions, we develop our sense of personal identity.

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Significant and generalized other

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Significant: the imitation of other roles around you; ex: fireman policeman etc.

Generalized: when you realize and understand the roles of those around you; when you become the 'i' and 'me' .

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I and Me

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GH Mead

The 'I' is the spontaneous and unique aspects of self.


the 'me' represents the social part of self the internalized demands society makes upon it; develops in three stages: imitative, play, and game stage.

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Group VS Aggregate

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Group: two or more people working together for a common goal.

Aggregate: people in some place at the same time; may have a common goal, but they do not realize it. i.e. crossing the street

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Formal Organization

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an organization that has been consciously constructed to achieve specific goals; states rules, regulations, and procedures as sometimes written in bylaws, constitutions, charts, etc.

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Group size VS Member Participation

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As the group size increases, the less likely it is for member participation because each person has the mindset that someone else will participate.

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Diffusion of responsibility

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Each person in a group will think that someone else is going to participate, and with this mindset no one will participate; however someone will step up and take the responsibility

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Bureaucracy

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1) Hierarchical structure: clear levels with assignments flowing downward and accountability flowing upward; authority and responsibility clearly defined
2) concentration of power in the hands of leaders or executives, use power to control organization’s activities and direct towards goals
3) division of labor; division of staff and workload into smaller units, called offices or bureaus
4) written rules , communications and records; rules and regulations governing the way officials are to perform their jobs
5) Impersonality and replaceability; employment based upon technical or professional qualification
6) Establishment of a bureaucratic career, with specific lines of promotion or advancement and rewards in the form of tenure and seniority for years of service
7) Membership that allows the organization to exist beyond the lifetime of particular members (from Henslin, pp. 177-8 and other sources)

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Voluntary Organization

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a type of formal organization where the participants organize based upon some mutual interest.

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Ideology

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a set of cultural beliefs that helps to maintain various political, social and class interests.

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Deviance:Functionalist Definition

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Norm breakers

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Deviance:Conflict Theorist Definition

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Powerful

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Deviance:Interactionist Definition

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Those so Labeled

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Labeling Theory

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Labelling theory focuses on processes by which society creates deviants. To them, a deviant is who society labels as such.

Labeling Theorists they are reporting who society labels as a deviant, how the label is applied and internalized, and how people resist the application of the label.

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Primary and Secondary deviance

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Primary deviance: act that violates some social norm

Secondary deviance: results from application of deviant label, “self fulfilling prophecy

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Stratification

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system of ranking people; ranked based on class, status, or power.

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Class

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one’s position on the market, defined by one’s purchasing power.


Class conflicts then are a struggle for control over a sector of the market, with various classes striving to gain a monopoly over particular markets.

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Status

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people with common lifestyles, cultures, world view, a sense of belonging to a common group.


Any successful dominant class must organize as a status group, turning economic capital into cultural capital, or turning property into status (pg. 114). Upper classes in the United States have debutante balls, contribute to the symphony and art museums.

Front 56

Party

Back 56

power groups.


Parties strive to acquire social power in order to influence communal action. The power they obtain may range from naked violence to canvassing for votes utilizing less than democratic means. Politicians’ conflicts are not reducible to class conflict, because they have economic interests of their own, acquiring the power of states and property, weapons, income, etc.

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Workers and capitalists

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Capitalists: Owners of large scale industries or companies that produces commodities or services that are the product of worker’s labor

Workers: People that work for the capitalists and earn a wage

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class for itself

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Labor, of course, resists this exploitation. They seek to get more than a mere subsistence wage. However, without a consciousness of themselves as a “class-for-itself,” they well remain atomized and divided.

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class in itself

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“economic conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter.”

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prejudice VS discrimination

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prejudice:set of beliefs or ideas that cause us to negatively prejudge people based on their social location.

discrimination: set of actions based on prejudice and stereotypes.

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Racism

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a set of attitudes;

prejudice that is systemically applied to members of a group;

is a powerful form of prejudice-- not only a belief in general stereotypes but a belief that one race is superior to another.

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Ageism

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differential treatment based on age

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race as "real"

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Race went beyond people’s physical differences, such as hair texture and color, nose and eye shape, or skin pigmentation. They argued that the different races had different genetic make-up, which gave rise to specific racial characteristics or personalities.

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Functions of Family

Back 64

-economic unit
-socializes children
-provides care for the sick/aged
-provides recreation for its members
-exists as an institution of sexual control through incest taboos
-regulates reproduction

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Functions of Education

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-provides basic facts
-transmission of job skills and cultural norms
-agent of socialization

gatekeeping*

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Functions of Religion

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- society creates religion
-hinders deviance
-binds people together

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Functions of Health Care

Back 67

?

Front 68

Functions of the Media

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-to entertain
- agent of socialization
- enforces norms
- conferral of status
- promotion of consumption

Front 69

Manifest VS Latent Functions

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manifest: what are intended by the social institution

latent: provide unintentional benefits to the society.

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Dysfunction

Back 70

?

Front 71

Feminism

Back 71

oppression and discrimination towards women; women's rights

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Patriarchy

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men hold power over women.

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1st 2nd and 3rd wave feminism

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1:men as breadwinner , women stay home

2: liberation from the home

3:wanted to end oppression for ALL women

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Nuclear VS extended family

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nuclear: mom dad kids

extended: grandparents aunts uncles etc.

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uncoupling

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entails a redefinition of self that occurs as mutual identity unravels into singularity, regardless of marital status or sex of the participants.

1. Changing definitions of the coupled identity, either of the initiator, significant other, relationship
2. Validating oneself outside of relationship
3. “Trying:” attempting to convince the significant other to develop a separate identity, hesitate to formally break-up the relationship.
4. Reorganizing the private sphere--reorganizing space, telling others
5. Presenting a new definition of the relationship in the public sphere
6. Redefining self
7. Actively construct continuities, keeping a temporary bridge between the separated subworlds.
8. Reconciliation is always a possibility

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sacred

Back 76

that which is holy or divine

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profane

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anything in our lives that is non-religious in subject matter

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ritual

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solemn reenactments of sacred events

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monotheistic VS polytheistic religions

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mono: western

poly: eastern

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World Systems Theory

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draws on dependency theory but focuses on the global economy as an international economy as an international network dominated by capitalism.

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Core VS Periphery

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core:these are the most advanced industrial countries; goods people and services tend to flow into the core.

peripheral: supply core nations with cheap raw materials and manual labor and also extensive markets for their products.