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122 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Agency vs. Structure |
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 |
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The Neoliberal Subject |
Our lives are the result of the decisions of the individual. The idea that every subject has the same political, social, and economic opportunities |
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Ontology |
What is real? |
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Epistemology |
How do we know what we know? |
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Sociological Perspective |
Seeing the general in the particular, identifying patterns |
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Sociological imagination |
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 |
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Functionalism |
Durkheim Reestablishing equilibrium best solves most social problems |
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Conflict Theory |
Karl Marx |
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Symbolic Interactionism |
Weber |
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Epistemology |
The science of knowing |
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Methodology |
A subfield of epistemology The science of finding out |
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Agreement Reality |
What we "know" as part and parcel of the culture we share with those around us |
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Experiential Reality |
What we know from personal experience and discovery |
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The Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern view |
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 |
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Theory |
The systematic explanation for observations |
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Attributes |
Characteristics of people or things |
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Variables |
Logical groupings of attributes |
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Induction |
Particular -> general |
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Deduction |
General -> particular |
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Distanciation |
Gaining social insight through increased social distance |
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Hermeneutics |
The science of interpretations |
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Social Structure and its three levels |
Relatively stable patterns of social relations that affect our thoughts, feelings, actions, and identity Micro, macro, global |
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Microstructures |
Patterns of intimate social relations formed during face to face interaction |
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Macrostructure |
Patterns of social relations outside and above one's circle if intimated and acquaintances |
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Global structures |
Patterns of social relations outside and above the national level |
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Verstehen |
empathetically understanding people's motives and meanings they attach to things to gain a better understanding of the significance of their actions |
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Poststructuralism |
rejects essentialism and universalism by challenging the idea of fixed structures and meanings |
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observer bias |
making unconscious mistakes in classifying or selecting observations |
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spurious relationship |
a relationship in which two variables are not causally related to each other |
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external validity |
the degree to which experimental findings remain valid in different contexts |
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Hawthorne effect |
changes in people's behaviour caused by their awareness of being studied |
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ethnography |
the researcher becomes immersed in the culture of the group being studied |
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affinity |
a spontaneous or natural liking or sympathy for someone or something |
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dogmatism |
the tendency to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true, without consideration of evidence or the opinions of others. |
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idiographic |
explaining one case in great detail |
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nomothetic |
explaining a set of cases using a handful of factors |
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Operationalization |
Procedure by which researchers establish criteria for assigning values to variables |
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Content analysis |
Study of recorded human communication |
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Instinct |
an unlearned, biologically determined behaviour pattern common to all members of a species that occur whenever those environmental conditions exist |
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Reflex |
unlearned, biologically determined involuntary responses to physical stimuli (example: sneezing) |
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Drives |
unlearned, biologically determined impulses common to all members of a species that satisfy needs
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Material culture |
the physical or tangible creations which humans make and use |
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Nonmaterial culture |
the abstract or intangible human creations. i.e. beliefs, political systems, family patterns |
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Symbol |
anything that meaningfully represents something else |
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Sapir-Whorf hypothesis |
The proposition that language shapes its speakers’ view of reality |
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Values |
collective ideas in na particular culture about what is right and wrong |
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Prescriptive norms |
what behaviour is appropriate or acceptable |
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Proscriptive norms |
what behaviour is inappropriate or unacceptable |
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Mores |
strongly held norms with moral and ethical connotations that may not be violated without serious consequences in a particular culture |
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Taboos |
mores so strong that their violation is considered extremely offensive and even unmentionable |
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Sanctions |
rewards for appropriate behaviour or punishment for inappropriate |
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Folkways |
informal norms or everyday customs that may be violated without serious consequences; these are culture-specific |
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Cultural lag |
a gap between technical development of a society (material and culture) and its moral and legal institutions (nonmaterial culture) |
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Diffusion |
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 |
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Counterculture |
a group that strongly rejects dominant societal values and norms and seeks alternative lifestyles |
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Ethnocentrism |
the tendency to regard one’s own culture as the standard - and thus superior - whereas all other groups are seen as inferior |
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Cultural relativism |
the belief that the behaviours and customs of any culture must be viewed and analyzed by the culture’s own standards |
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fad |
temporary but widely copied activity followed enthusiastically by large numbers of people |
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Cultural Capital theory |
argues that the dominant class uses high culture to exclude subordinate groups |
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fashion |
a currently valued style of behaviour, thinking, or appearance that is longer lasting and more widespread than a fad |
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Cultural Imperialism |
the extensive infusion of one’s culture into other nations |
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ethnic fractionalization index |
the probability that two randomly selected people from the same country and not of the same ethnic, linguistic, or cultural group. |
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The Canadian Multiculturalism Act |
affirms the policy of the government to ensure that every Canadian receives equal treatment by the government |
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macro social structure |
societal systems of stratification |
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Meso social structure |
(intermediate groupings like organizations, networks, and subcultures) |
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Dynamic nomillation |
only intervention once language to describe those phenomenon crystallized |
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media literacy |
the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in a variety of forms |
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4 functions of mass media |
surveillance, interpretation, socialization, entertainment |
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status conferral function |
the process of giving prominence to particular individuals by focusing media attention on them |
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nacrotization |
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 |
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Media concentration |
media employ the working class by promoting the cultural values of the rich and powerful |
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Gender Socialization |
the process through which individuals learn to become feminine and masculine according to expectations current in their society |
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Anticipatory socialization |
the process by which aspirants to a certain social role begin to discern what it will be like to function in that role |
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Resocialization |
powerful socializing agents deliberately cause rapid change in people’s values, roles, and self-conception, sometimes against their will |
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Total institutions |
institutions where people are isolated from society |
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Social structure |
the stable pattern of social relationships that exist within a particular group/society |
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Social marginality |
the state of being part insider part outsider in the social structure |
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stigmatization |
any physical or social attribute or sign that so devalues a person’s social identity that it disqualifies that person full social acceptance |
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master status |
a term used to describe the most important status a person occupies |
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role conflict |
a situation in which incompatible role demands are placed on a person by two or more statuses at the same time |
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role distancing |
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 |
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formal organization |
a highly structured group formed for the purpose of completing certain tasks or achieving specific goals |
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mechanical solidarity |
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 |
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organic solidarity |
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 |
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Gemeinschaft |
a traditional society in which social relationships are based on personal bonds of friendship and kinship and on intergeneration stability: ASCRIBED STATUS |
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Gesellschaft |
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 |
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social construction of reality |
the process by which our perception of reality is shaped largely by the subjective meaning that we give to an experience |
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self-fulfilling prophecy |
a situation in which a false belief or perfection produces behaviour that makes the originally false belief come true |
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ethnomethodology |
the study of the common sense knowledge that people use in order to understand the situations they find themselves in |
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Dramaturgical analysis |
the study of social interaction that compares everyday life to a theatrical presentation |
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Impression management |
people’s efforts to present themselves to others in ways that are most favourable to their own interests or image |
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self-socialization |
choosing socialization influences from a wide variety of mass media offerings |
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background expectancies |
how each social context comes with an associated set of common expectations |
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aggregate |
a collection of people who happen to be in the same place at the same time but have little to nothing in common |
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category |
a number of people who may have never met one another before but share a similar characteristic |
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Ingroup |
a group to which a person belongs and with which the person feels a sense of identity |
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Outgroup |
a group to which a person does not belong and toward which the person may feel a sense of competitiveness or hostility |
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Groupthink |
the process by which members of a cohesive group arrive at a decision that many individual members privately believe is unwise |
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Bureaucracy |
an organization model characterized by a hierarchy of authority, a clear division of labour, explicit rules and procedures, and impersonality in personnel matter |
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McDonaldization |
the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society |
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rationality |
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 |
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network enterprise |
separate businesses, which may be companies or parts of companies, join together for specific projects that become the focus of the work |
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homophily |
choosing those like us |
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transivity |
how interconnected out relationship are |
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contagion |
the flow of influence across ties and potency of influence up to three connections |
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utilitarian vs. normative organization |
utilitarian - for paycheck |
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lobby groups |
defined by their activity (lobbying), much closer to the political process, and more utilitarian in nature |
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coercive organizations |
have involuntary memberships. People are forced to join these as a form of punishment or treatment |
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Social stratification |
persistent patterns of social inequality |
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Open stratification |
societies in which merit, rather than inheritance, determines social rank in which social change is therefore possible |
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mode of production |
means of production (technology, capital investments, and raw materials) and the social relations of production (the relationships between the main classes involved in production) |
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bourgeoisie |
the capitalist class who owned the means of production |
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proletariat |
working class which exchanged its labour for wages |
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class consciousness |
the awareness of one's place in a system of social classes |
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social closure |
the process by which social collectivities seek to maximize rewards by restricting access to resources and opportunities a limited circle of eligibles |
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ursuption |
the efforts of the excluded groups in a stratification system to gain advantages and power |
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intragenerational occupational mobility |
the mobility within an individual’s lifetime |
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intragenerational occupational mobility |
the mobility between generations |
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absolute poverty |
the poor who have barely enough to stay alive |
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income |
the economic gain derived from wages, salaries, income transfers and ownership of property |
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wealth |
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. |
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Low Income Cutoff |
if more than 63% of gross income is spent on food, shelter, and clothing |