Sociology Final Study Guide

Sociology is based on group patterns not individuals.

Auguste comte is the father of sociology: HE wanted to improve
society: Positivism, social statics, social dynamics and sociology.
Positivism was used by Comte and it means using scientific means to
study social behavior.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: Translated Conte's book and saw a link between
slavery and the oppression of women.
Herbert Spencer: Compared social stability to the human body, and
introduced social Darwinism.
Karl Marx: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, Associated with conflict for
social change.
Emile Durkheim: Functionalism: Mechanical solidarity, organic
solidarity, STRAIN THEORY, RELIGION
Max weber: Verstehen, Rationalization. bureaucracy
Jane Addams, women social reformer.
W.E.B. Dubois: African American who wanted to stop the Negro
Problem.
Culture consists of the knowledge, language, values, customs, and
physical objects that are passed from generation to generation.
Reflex: biologically inherited automatic reaction to a stimuli
Drive: impulse to reduce uncomfort: EX/ we want to eat, sleep, drink
Sociobiology: biological basis of human behavior
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: hypothesis of linguistic relativity
Folkways: Rules that cover customary ways of thinking, feeling, and
behaving but lack moral overtones.
Mores: Based on MORAL, deals with conduct related to right and
wrong.
Taboo: A norm that if broken, requires punishment by the group.
Law: formally defined and enforced by officials. Consciously created
and enforced.
Formal and Informal sanctions
Values: broad ideas about what people consider to be desirable.
ETHNOCENTRISM: Strongly committed to ones on culture or
ethnicityCultural particulars and universals
Socialization: Symbolic part associated with Charles Horton Cooley
Self-concept: your image of yourself
Looking-glass self: self-concept based on our idea of other's judgments
of us.
Significant other: people whose judgment are important to our selfconcept.
Role taking: seeing ourselves through the eyes of others.
o
Has imitation stage, Child imitates physical and verbal behavior
without understanding

Play stage: Child takes role of another EX/ playing doctor or

police or nurse
o
Game stage: Sophisticated role taking
"ME": part of self-created through socialization:
"I" is just yourself
Hidden Curriculum
Total institutions: residents are separated from society
Desocialization: people give up old norms, values, attitudes and
behaviors.
Resocialization: people adopt new norms values attitudes and
behaviors
Anticipatory socialization: the process of preparing for new norms
values attitudes and behaviors, requires voluntary change.
Group composes of people who share features.
Social Category: people who share a social characteristic EX/ All seniors
at a high school
Social Aggregate: People who are at the same place at the same time:
Ex/ waiting in line
Know primary group and primary relationship
Know secondary group: impersonal and goal orientated Ex/ Work
Groups, volunteers,
Know secondary relationships.
In-group is based on extreme loyalty.
Out-group: based on opposition, and competition.
Know the five types of group social interaction:
o
Cooperation:
o
Conflict: groups that work against each other for a larger share of
rewards.
o
Social Exchange: one person does something voluntarily for the
other expecting a reward.
o
Coercion: groups or individuals are forced to give in to the will of
another.
o
Conformity: matches group expectations.
Group Think: based on group pressure and conformity, individual
thoughts are bad.
Formal organization is created to accomplish one or more goals. EX/
Schools, colleges, hospitals.
o
Bureaucracies: Form of a Formal Organization based on
rationality and efficiency.
Power: Ability to control others
Authority: exercise of legitimate power.
Rationalization: emphasizes knowledge and reason rather than
tradition.
KNOW THE IRON LAW OF OLIGARCHY.
Deviance: behavior different from the norm;
Strain Theory
o

Innovation: use illegal means to achieve the goal

Ritualism: rejects goal but continues to use legitimate means,
"Going through the motions"
o
retreatism: Deviant response: They dropout
o
Rebellion: Reject success and violate rules and laws.
Differential association theory: role of primary groups in transmitting
deviance.
White-Collar crime: crime committed by high status people: Ex. Price
fixing, fraud, pollution, and tax evasion.
Deterrence: use of threat or punishments to discourage criminal
actions.
Retribution: punishment intended to make criminals pay for their acts.
Incarceration: keeping criminals in prisons.
Rehabilitation: Resocialize criminals
Recidivism: return to criminal behaviors.
Social Strafication: Creation of layers of people (Classes)
Income: amount of money received within a given time period.
Wealth refers to all economic resources possessed by and individual or
group.
Prestige: recognition, respect, and admiration attached to social
positions.
False consciousness: working-class acceptance of capitalist ideas and
values.
The classes
o
The upper class
o
The Middle Classes

Upper-middle: people who are successful in business

Middle-middle: mixed with small business owners to

farmers.
o
Working class: roofers, sales people.
o
Working Poor: employed in low skill jobs with lowest pay
o
The underclass: unemployed.
Absolute poverty: absence of enough money for necessities.
Relative poverty: comparing the economic condition of those at the
bottom of society with other members of society.
Know the social mobility
o
Horizontal mobility
o
Vertical mobility
o
Intergenerational mobility
Economic institution: set of functions that concern production of goods
and services
Political institution: institution in which power is exercised and
obtained.
Types of Authority
o
Charismatic: leader's personal personality
o
o

Traditional: rooted to custom, rule by god or right

Rational-legal power is in offices rather than officials.
Pluralism: decisions are a result of bargaining and compromise.
Elitism: A higher "elite" group makes decisions.
Monopolies: companies that control a particular market
Oligopolies: combination of companies to control a market.
Corporation: organization owned by shareholders.
Interlocking directorates: when a head of a corporation sit on another's
board.
Conglomerates.: networks of unrelated business operation under a
single corporate umbrella.
3 sectors of work.
Assimilation: blending of minority groups into the dominant society.
Cultural pluralism: cultures live side by side.
Subjugation: denying equal access to culture and lifestyles of the
larger society.
Prejudice: preconceptions of a group.
Racism: extreme form of prejudice.
Discrimination: acting upon opinions of prejudice.
Hate Crime: criminal act motivated by prejudice or Racism.
Stereotype: set of ideas that is applied to all members of a group.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: an expectation that leads to behavior that then
causes the expectation to become a reality.
Institutionalized discrimination: unfair practices that have grown out of
traditional accepted behaviors.
Sex: Biological difference between male and female
Gender: mental part of knowing your gender/sex
Biological determinism: belief that behavioral differences are the result
of inherited physical characteristics.
Know the -isms.
Nuclear Family- Live in one house, usually parents and their children.
Extended Family: two or more adult generations.
Patrilineal: inheritance is passed from father to male descendants.
Matrilineal is the opposite.
Bilateral: passed equally
Patriarchy: oldest man has authority
Matriarchy: oldest man has authority
Equalitarian: authority is split between husband and wife.
Patrilocal: couple lives near husband's parents
Matrilocal: couple lives near wife's parents
Neolocal: couple establishes of their own.
Monogamy: Man to woman
Polygamy: male or female to more than one person
Polygyny: one man to multiple women
Polyandry: one woman to multiple men.
o
o

Exogamy: individuals marry outside their group.

Endogamy: individuals marry within their own kind.
Homogamy is people marry people with similar social characteristics to
their own.
Heterogamy: partners are dissimilar in important characteristics.
Types of families
o
Blended Families: when one paresidence rtner has been in a
marriage before,
o
Single Parent
o
Childless
o
Dual employed
o
Cohabitation: living with someone in a marriage like arrangement
without a formal marriage.
o
Same-sex partners
o
Single
o
Boomerang kids: kids that come back to live with their parents.
Open Classroom: no bureaucratic approach to education based on
relationships, flexibility, and no competitiveness.
Cooperative learning: students study in groups with the teacher as a
guide.
Integrative Curriculum: students have a say in what it is
Back-to-Basics Movement: because of A Nation at risk, lengthened
school and made more requirements.
Voucher system: government should give the amount of money spent
on each child in public schools to parents to let them use on the child's
education.
Charter Schools: publicly funded schools that operate like private
schools.
o
Can create their own curriculum
Magnet Schools: public schools with high standards in a certain area.
Enhance school quality and promote desegregation.
For-profit schools: government funded but are run by private schools.
Meritocracy: social status is based on ability rather than social
background.
Religion: system of beliefs and practices concerned with sacred things.
Sacred: things that go beyond their literal meaning.
Profane: non sacred aspects of life
Church: life encompassing religious organization to which all members
of a society belong.
Denomination: a religious organization that most members of a society
accept as legitimate.
Sect: religious organization formed when members of an existing
religious break away in an attempt to reform the parent group.
Cult: religious organization whose characteristics are not drown from
existing religious traditions within a society.

Religiosity: types of religious attitudes and behavior people display in

their everyday lives.
Secularization: sacred loses influence over society
Fundamentalism: the desire to resist secularization and to adhere
closely to traditional religious beliefs, rituals, and doctrines.
Sport: competitive activity in which winners and losers are determined
by physical performance.
Sport Subculture: group within the larger context of sport that has its
own distinct roles, values, and norms. EX/ Jockeys are cool
Population: group of people living in a particular place at a specified
time.
Demography; study of populations.
Fertility: actual number of children born to a woman
Fecundity: Potential number of children women can produce from a
biological standpoint
Crude Birthrate: Annual number of live births per one thousand
members of a population.
Fertility Rate: the annual number of live births per one thousand aged
fifteen to forty-four
Total fertility rate: the average number of children born to a woman
during her lifetime.
Mortality: Death
Life span: the most advanced age a human can survive.
Life expectancy: average number of years that a person in a given
population can expect to live
Crude death rate: dividing the annual number of deaths by the total
population and multiplying by 1000
Infant Mortality Rate: the number of deaths among infants under one
year of age per one thousand live births.
Migration: movement of people from one geographic are to another.
Gross migration rate: number of persons per one thousand members
who enter a geographic are in given year.
Doubling Time: time it takes for the population to double.
Demographic transition theory: looks at the stages of economic
development in a country to make predictions about population growth
Replacement Level: rate at which people replace themselves without
adding to the population.
Population Pyramids: see the composition of a population.
Urbanization: process by which an increasingly larger portion of the
world's population lives in or very near to cities.
Central-city dilemma- the concentration of a large population in need
of public services without the tax base to provide them.
Gentrification: The development of lower income areas by middle-class
home buyers.
Edge City: smaller, more focused, version of an urban downtown.

Urban ecology: study of the relationships between humans and their

city environments.
THEORIES OF CITY GROWTH
o
Concentric zone theory: zones develop from the central city
outward in a circular pattern.
o
Sector Theory: Growth is focused on transportation areas. Tend to
be pie shaped.
o
Multiple nuclei theory: city may have several separate centers,
for different uses, EX/ Boston.
o
Peripheral theory: Growth of suburbs around and away from
cities.
Functionalism

Symbolic

Social
change

A change in one part See the ways

of society leads to
people interact
changes in others.

Socializatio
n

Groups work
together to create a
stable society

Conflict
The conflicts within
a society

Self-concept
A way of
Looking glass self perpetuating the
Significant other
status quo.
Role taking
Generalize other

Stratificatio Most qualified

n
people fill
appropriate jobs.

How people are

socialized to
accept their
position.

Inequality exists
because people are
willing to exploit
others.

Prejudice
Focus on
and
dysfunctions caused
discriminati by these practices.
on

Focus on how
people learn to
be prejudice

Focus on how
majorities use
power to control a
minority.

Gender

Focus on the division Focus on gender

of responsibilities
socialization.
based on sex.

Male vs female

Family

Socializing the
young, emotional
support, sexual
activity, and social
status

Ways family
members compete
and cooperate.

Education

Look at manifest and Focus on the

Look at meritocracy
latent functions
hidden curriculum and competition.

Religion

Sense of

Interactions
between family
members

Sacred vs profane Look at how

unity

Sport

religion affects
social change

Sense of
understanding
Sense of
belonging
Teaches
basic beliefs,
norms, and values
Promote
s social
identification
Offers a
safe release of
aggression
Encoura
ges the
development of
character

Focus on social
interactions and
the self-identity
process that sport
helps with.

Interested in who
has the power and
how they are using
it.