Soc Test 1

Front 1

Agency vs. Structure

Back 1

Agency is the ability if individuals to make choices. Structure is how our social location enables and constraints the types of opportunities we have and influences out choices

Front 2

The Neoliberal Subject

Back 2

Our lives are the result of the decisions of the individual. The idea that every subject has the same political, social, and economic opportunities

Front 3

Ontology

Back 3

What is real?

Front 4

Epistemology

Back 4

How do we know what we know?

Front 5

Sociological Perspective

Back 5

Seeing the general in the particular, identifying patterns

Front 6

Sociological imagination

Back 6

A way of looking at the world which allows us to see the links between the apparently private problems of the individual and societal structures as a whole

Front 7

Functionalism

Back 7

Durkheim

Reestablishing equilibrium best solves most social problems

Front 8

Conflict Theory

Back 8

Karl Marx

Front 9

Symbolic Interactionism

Back 9

Weber

Front 10

Epistemology

Back 10

The science of knowing

Front 11

Methodology

Back 11

A subfield of epistemology

The science of finding out

Front 12

Agreement Reality

Back 12

What we "know" as part and parcel of the culture we share with those around us

Front 13

Experiential Reality

Back 13

What we know from personal experience and discovery

Front 14

The Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern view

Back 14

1. The view of reality has guided most of human history but as humans evolved, they came to recognize diversity

2. Accepts such diversity as legitimate

3. Nothing truly exists all that is "real" are the images we get through our points of view

Front 15

Theory

Back 15

The systematic explanation for observations

Front 16

Attributes

Back 16

Characteristics of people or things

Front 17

Variables

Back 17

Logical groupings of attributes

Front 18

Induction

Back 18

Particular -> general

Front 19

Deduction

Back 19

General -> particular

Front 20

Distanciation

Back 20

Gaining social insight through increased social distance

Front 21

Hermeneutics

Back 21

The science of interpretations

Front 22

Social Structure and its three levels

Back 22

Relatively stable patterns of social relations that affect our thoughts, feelings, actions, and identity

Micro, macro, global

Front 23

Microstructures

Back 23

Patterns of intimate social relations formed during face to face interaction

Front 24

Macrostructure

Back 24

Patterns of social relations outside and above one's circle if intimated and acquaintances

Front 25

Global structures

Back 25

Patterns of social relations outside and above the national level

Front 26

Verstehen

Back 26

empathetically understanding people's motives and meanings they attach to things to gain a better understanding of the significance of their actions

Front 27

Poststructuralism

Back 27

rejects essentialism and universalism by challenging the idea of fixed structures and meanings

Front 28

observer bias

Back 28

making unconscious mistakes in classifying or selecting observations

Front 29

spurious relationship

Back 29

a relationship in which two variables are not causally related to each other

Front 30

external validity

Back 30

the degree to which experimental findings remain valid in different contexts

Front 31

Hawthorne effect

Back 31

changes in people's behaviour caused by their awareness of being studied

Front 32

ethnography

Back 32

the researcher becomes immersed in the culture of the group being studied

Front 33

affinity

Back 33

a spontaneous or natural liking or sympathy for someone or something

Front 34

dogmatism

Back 34

the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others.

Front 35

idiographic

Back 35

explaining one case in great detail

Front 36

nomothetic

Back 36

explaining a set of cases using a handful of factors

Front 37

Operationalization

Back 37

Procedure by which researchers establish criteria for assigning values to variables

Front 38

Content analysis

Back 38

Study of recorded human communication

Front 39

Instinct

Back 39

an unlearned, biologically determined behaviour pattern common to all members of a species that occur whenever those environmental conditions exist

Front 40

Reflex

Back 40

unlearned, biologically determined involuntary responses to physical stimuli (example: sneezing)

Front 41

Drives

Back 41

unlearned, biologically determined impulses common to all members of a species that satisfy needs

Front 42

Material culture

Back 42

the physical or tangible creations which humans make and use

Front 43

Nonmaterial culture

Back 43

the abstract or intangible human creations. i.e. beliefs, political systems, family patterns

Front 44

Symbol

Back 44

anything that meaningfully represents something else

Front 45

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Back 45

The proposition that language shapes its speakers’ view of reality

Front 46

Values

Back 46

collective ideas in na particular culture about what is right and wrong

Front 47

Prescriptive norms

Back 47

what behaviour is appropriate or acceptable

Front 48

Proscriptive norms

Back 48

what behaviour is inappropriate or unacceptable

Front 49

Mores

Back 49

strongly held norms with moral and ethical connotations that may not be violated without serious consequences in a particular culture

Front 50

Taboos

Back 50

mores so strong that their violation is considered extremely offensive and even unmentionable

Front 51

Sanctions

Back 51

rewards for appropriate behaviour or punishment for inappropriate

Front 52

Folkways

Back 52

informal norms or everyday customs that may be violated without serious consequences; these are culture-specific

Front 53

Cultural lag

Back 53

a gap between technical development of a society (material and culture) and its moral and legal institutions (nonmaterial culture)

Front 54

Diffusion

Back 54

transmission of cultural items or social practices from one group or society to another through means of exploration, military endeavours, the media, tourism, and immigration

Front 55

Counterculture

Back 55

a group that strongly rejects dominant societal values and norms and seeks alternative lifestyles

Front 56

Ethnocentrism

Back 56

the tendency to regard one’s own culture as the standard - and thus superior - whereas all other groups are seen as inferior

Front 57

Cultural relativism

Back 57

the belief that the behaviours and customs of any culture must be viewed and analyzed by the culture’s own standards

Front 58

fad

Back 58

temporary but widely copied activity followed enthusiastically by large numbers of people

Front 59

Cultural Capital theory

Back 59

argues that the dominant class uses high culture to exclude subordinate groups

Front 60

fashion

Back 60

a currently valued style of behaviour, thinking, or appearance that is longer lasting and more widespread than a fad

Front 61

Cultural Imperialism

Back 61

the extensive infusion of one’s culture into other nations

Front 62

ethnic fractionalization index

Back 62

the probability that two randomly selected people from the same country and not of the same ethnic, linguistic, or cultural group.

Front 63

The Canadian Multiculturalism Act

Back 63

affirms the policy of the government to ensure that every Canadian receives equal treatment by the government

Front 64

macro social structure

Back 64

societal systems of stratification

Front 65

Meso social structure

Back 65

(intermediate groupings like organizations, networks, and subcultures)

Front 66

Dynamic nomillation

Back 66

only intervention once language to describe those phenomenon crystallized

Front 67

media literacy

Back 67

the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in a variety of forms

Front 68

4 functions of mass media

Back 68

surveillance, interpretation, socialization, entertainment

Front 69

status conferral function

Back 69

the process of giving prominence to particular individuals by focusing media attention on them

Front 70

nacrotization

Back 70

a situation in which people become so overwhelmed by the amount of information they receive that they become numb and do not act on the information

Front 71

Media concentration

Back 71

media employ the working class by promoting the cultural values of the rich and powerful

Front 72

Gender Socialization

Back 72

the process through which individuals learn to become feminine and masculine according to expectations current in their society

Front 73

Anticipatory socialization

Back 73

the process by which aspirants to a certain social role begin to discern what it will be like to function in that role

Front 74

Resocialization

Back 74

powerful socializing agents deliberately cause rapid change in people’s values, roles, and self-conception, sometimes against their will

Front 75

Total institutions

Back 75

institutions where people are isolated from society

Front 76

Social structure

Back 76

the stable pattern of social relationships that exist within a particular group/society

Front 77

Social marginality

Back 77

the state of being part insider part outsider in the social structure

Front 78

stigmatization

Back 78

any physical or social attribute or sign that so devalues a person’s social identity that it disqualifies that person full social acceptance

Front 79

master status

Back 79

a term used to describe the most important status a person occupies

Front 80

role conflict

Back 80

a situation in which incompatible role demands are placed on a person by two or more statuses at the same time

Front 81

role distancing

Back 81

occurs when people consciously foster the impression of a lack of commitment or attachment to a particular role and merely go through the motions of role performance

Front 82

formal organization

Back 82

a highly structured group formed for the purpose of completing certain tasks or achieving specific goals

Front 83

mechanical solidarity

Back 83

social cohesion that exists in preindustrial societies, in which there is a minimal division of labour and people feel united by shared values and common social bonds

Front 84

organic solidarity

Back 84

the social cohesion that exists in industrial (and perhaps post-industrial) societies, in which people perform specialized tasks and feel united by their mutual dependence

Front 85

Gemeinschaft

Back 85

a traditional society in which social relationships are based on personal bonds of friendship and kinship and on intergeneration stability: ASCRIBED STATUS

Front 86

Gesellschaft

Back 86

a large, urban society in which social bonds are based on impersonal and specialized relationships, with little long-term commitment to the group or consensus on values: ACHIEVED STATUS

Front 87

social construction of reality

Back 87

the process by which our perception of reality is shaped largely by the subjective meaning that we give to an experience

Front 88

self-fulfilling prophecy

Back 88

a situation in which a false belief or perfection produces behaviour that makes the originally false belief come true

Front 89

ethnomethodology

Back 89

the study of the common sense knowledge that people use in order to understand the situations they find themselves in

Front 90

Dramaturgical analysis

Back 90

the study of social interaction that compares everyday life to a theatrical presentation

Front 91

Impression management

Back 91

people’s efforts to present themselves to others in ways that are most favourable to their own interests or image

Front 92

self-socialization

Back 92

choosing socialization influences from a wide variety of mass media offerings

Front 93

background expectancies

Back 93

how each social context comes with an associated set of common expectations

Front 94

aggregate

Back 94

a collection of people who happen to be in the same place at the same time but have little to nothing in common

Front 95

category

Back 95

a number of people who may have never met one another before but share a similar characteristic

Front 96

Ingroup

Back 96

a group to which a person belongs and with which the person feels a sense of identity

Front 97

Outgroup

Back 97

a group to which a person does not belong and toward which the person may feel a sense of competitiveness or hostility

Front 98

Groupthink

Back 98

the process by which members of a cohesive group arrive at a decision that many individual members privately believe is unwise

Front 99

Bureaucracy

Back 99

an organization model characterized by a hierarchy of authority, a clear division of labour, explicit rules and procedures, and impersonality in personnel matter

Front 100

McDonaldization

Back 100

the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society

Front 101

rationality

Back 101

the process by which the traditional methods of social organization, characterized by informality and spontaneity, are gradually replaced by efficiently administered formal rules and procedures

Front 102

network enterprise

Back 102

separate businesses, which may be companies or parts of companies, join together for specific projects that become the focus of the work

Front 103

homophily

Back 103

choosing those like us

Front 104

transivity

Back 104

how interconnected out relationship are

Front 105

contagion

Back 105

the flow of influence across ties and potency of influence up to three connections

Front 106

utilitarian vs. normative organization

Back 106

utilitarian - for paycheck
normative - not for paycheck but to pursue a goal one thinks is morally worthwhile

Front 107

lobby groups

Back 107

defined by their activity (lobbying), much closer to the political process, and more utilitarian in nature

Front 108

coercive organizations

Back 108

have involuntary memberships. People are forced to join these as a form of punishment or treatment

Front 109

Social stratification

Back 109

persistent patterns of social inequality

Front 110

Open stratification

Back 110

societies in which merit, rather than inheritance, determines social rank in which social change is therefore possible

Front 111

mode of production

Back 111

means of production (technology, capital investments, and raw materials) and the social relations of production (the relationships between the main classes involved in production)

Front 112

bourgeoisie

Back 112

the capitalist class who owned the means of production

Front 113

proletariat

Back 113

working class which exchanged its labour for wages

Front 114

class consciousness

Back 114

the awareness of one's place in a system of social classes

Front 115

social closure

Back 115

the process by which social collectivities seek to maximize rewards by restricting access to resources and opportunities a limited circle of eligibles

Front 116

ursuption

Back 116

the efforts of the excluded groups in a stratification system to gain advantages and power

Front 117

intragenerational occupational mobility

Back 117

the mobility within an individual’s lifetime

Front 118

intragenerational occupational mobility

Back 118

the mobility between generations

Front 119

absolute poverty

Back 119

the poor who have barely enough to stay alive

Front 120

income

Back 120

the economic gain derived from wages, salaries, income transfers and ownership of property

Front 121

wealth

Back 121

property, such as buildings, land, farms, houses, factories, and cars, as well as other assets such as money in band accounts, corporate stocks, bonds, and insurance policies.

Front 122

Low Income Cutoff

Back 122

if more than 63% of gross income is spent on food, shelter, and clothing