Sociology first chapter summary

Sociology Quizz 1.

SOCIOLOGY:
Sociology is [the systematic study] of [human society and social interaction]. How [behavior is shaped by group life]. How [group life is affected by individuals].

WRIGHT MILLS - SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION:
The ability to see the relationship between [immediate social setting] and [public issues].

EMILE DURKHEIM - SUICIDE:
[High levels of social integration = low level of suicides]. Example: marriage, church, clubs.
[Low levels of social integration = egoistic]. Example: too much time to think about oneself.
[Low level of social order = anomic]. Example: during the War, people felt alienated and purposeless.
[High levels of social integration = altruistic]. Example: the mother that will jump in front of a bus to save her daughter.
[High levels of social order = fatalistic]. Example: too much social order in prison, people tend to want to die.
EMILE DURKHEIM - SOCIAL FACTS:
Believed the limits of human potential are socially based.
Social facts are patterned ways of acting, thinking and feeling that exist outside any one individual, but exert social control over each person. Example: Solidarity, what draws people together.

AUGUST COMTE - TWO DIMENSIONS OF POSITIVISM:
Positivism: a belief [the world can best be understand through scientific inquiry]. Methodological: The application of scientific knowledge. Social and Political: Spreading this knowledge, educating the population.

HARRIET MARTINEAU - TRANSLATED COMTE:
Believed society would improve when: Women and men were treated equally. Enlightened reform occurred (emphasizing reason and individualism rather t han tradition).
Cooperation existed among all social classes.

HERBERT SPENCER - SOCIAL DARWINISM:
The belief that the human beings best adapted to their environment survive and prosper, whereas those poorly adapted die out. Example: If we just let the strong survive, we would be a specie of "winners".

KARL MARX - SOCIAL CLASSES: Viewed history as a clash between conflicting ideas and forces. Believed class conflict produced social change and a better society.
Combined ideas from philosophy, history, and social science into a new theory.
Example: most of the people in Congress are millionaires, and they are supposed to represent us.

MAX WEBER - VALUE FREE:
["Value free": if you're going to study a group of people, you should set your own values aside.]
Believed sociological research should exclude personal value and economic interests. Provided insights on rationalism, bureaucracy and religion.

GEORGE SIMMEL - FORMAL SOCIOLOGY:
Simmel elaborated what he termed the geometry of human relations. Central to this project were distinctions between the basic modes of interaction that inform group situations, such as cooperation, competition, and conflict. Example: you and your best friend plus a third person.
Theorized about Society as a web of interactions among people.
Analyzed how social interactions vary depending on the size of the social group.

JANE ADDAMS - APPLIED SOCIOLOGY:
Applied Sociology. Example: she helped stating child labor laws, work environment protection laws. Founded Hull House, one of the most famous settlement houses in Chicago.
One of the authors of a methodology text used by sociologists for the next forty years. Awarded Nobel Prize for assistance to the underprivileged.

WEB DU BOIS - BLACK AND AMERICAN: One of the first to note the identity conflict of being both Black and American.
Pointed out that people in the US had values of democracy, freedom, equality, while they accept racism and group discrimination.

STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM: (Macro)
The Sociological approach that views Society as a stable, orderly system.
Functions that come out of it: Manifest Functions: intended, recognized.
Example: Festival, plan an environment where people can play and listen to live music. Latent Functions: unintended, unrecognized. Example: Festival, meet lifelong friends or significant other. Dysfunctions: disruptions that can be either Manifest or Latent.
Example: Festival, Manifest Dysfunction, intended, might include disruptions of transportation or excessive production of garbage. Latent Dysfunctions, unintended, would be represented by people missing work due to the traffic jam.

CONFLICT: (Macro)
The Sociological approach that views groups in Society as engaged in a continuous power struggle for control and scare resources (scarcity is the fundamental economic problem of having seemingly unlimited human wants in a world of limited resources).

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONS: (Micro)
The Sociological approach that views Society as the [sum of the interactions of individuals and groups].
Everyday life meanings and symbols.
Example: if everybody agrees that money has a value, and that it's not just paper or meta, then it does.
The meanings we give things come from the past ideas that we had of it, and it might change later on, building our future Society.
Example: Meaning of Marriage, the younger you get married, the more chances you have to get divorced + Meaning of Divorce, something had to be really wrong with one of the person. It's no longer true, the meaning has changed = Serial Monogamy.

Society is like a balance, it's how it adapts to stay balanced when it is necessary to that is important.

POSTMODERN PERSPECTIVES:
Feminism: to believe in the equality of sexes.
Modernism: reject the grand Narrative. There is no big story about how things happen. Example: student opinions about Sociology are just as valid as the professor's.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROCESS:
Research is the process of [systematically collecting information] for the purpose of [testing an existing theory or generating a new one].
Theory and Research Cycle: Theory, Hypothesis, Observations, Verification.
Quantitative and Qualitative Research: Quantitative research focuses on [data that can be measured numerically]. Example: comparing rates of suicides
Qualitative research focuses on [interpretive description] rather than statistics to analyze underlying meanings and pet terns of social relationships. Example: analyzing suicide letters.

HYPOTHESIZED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VARIABLES:
Hypothesis: a statement of the expected relationship between two or more variables. Example: Depression - Suicide rate = Depression causes Suicide. Variable: any concept measurable traits or characteristics that can change or vary from one person, time, situation, or society to another.
Independent variable: in an experiment, the variable assumed to be the cause of the relationship between the variables.
Dependent variable: in an experiment, the variable assumed to be caused by the independent variables. Example: Stress, independent. Spousal abuse, dependent.