Social Issues in Contemporary Society Unit 1
In what year did women in the US gain the right to vote?
1920
The armed forces of the US were legally segregated by race until ___________
1948
When did the US military announce its intention to open every military assignment to women?
2015
Of the entire US population of 319 million in 2015, about how many people were born in another country?
45 Million
Social Problems
A condition that undermines the well-being of some or all members of society and is usually a matter of public controversy. They are rarely harmful to anyone
Political Specturm
A continuum representing a range of political attitudes from "left" to "right"
Analysts predict that by the year 2043, _________-
A majority of the US population will be racial and ethnic minorities
Women, even relatively privileged women, have less income, wealth, and power than men. Consequently, it seems reasonable to conclude that women should be considered to be_____________
A minority
Which of the following situations is a clear example of institutional racism?
A pattern of racial profiling by police
Feminism
A political movement that seeks the social equality of women and men
Experiment
A research method for investigating a cause and effect relationship under tightly controlled conditions
Field Research
A research method for observing people while joining them in their everyday activities
Survey
A research method in which subjects respond to items on a questionnaires or in an interview
Secondary analysis
A research method that makes use of data originally collected by others
Which theoretical approach analyzes society as a complex system of many interrelated parts?
Structural-functional
Which of the following nations is probably the least patriarchal?
Sweden
If you wanted to study how people socially construct reality, which of the following theoretical approaches would you use?
Symbolic-Interaction
Which form of theoretical analysis focuses on how gender shapes personal behavior in everyday life?
Symbolic-Interaction
Sociology
Systematic study of human societies
In the 1857 Dred Scott case, the US Supreme Court stated that ________
People of color were not citizens entitled to the rights and protections of US law
Social Imagination
Point of view that highlights how society affects the experiences we have and the choices we make
Social Issues
Political debates involving moral judgments about how people should live
Social scientist measure people's opinions using a model called the _______________
Political spectrum
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) claimed what?
Problem with poverty was resulting from people lacking the ability & personal discipline to work
Social Disorganization Theory
Problems arise when society breaks down due to social change that occurs too rapidly
After the Civil War, the social diversity of the US population greatly increased as a result of which of the following?
The Great Immigration
Claims Making
Process of convincing public & important public officials that a particular issue or situation should be defined as a social problem. They often made by ordinary people via activism & with support of mass media
Suppose that a college professor solicits sexual favors from a student and threatens a poor grade if the student refuses. This scenario describes a form of discrimination referred to as _____________ sexual harassment
Quid Pro Quo
Which of the following concepts refers to a category of people who share some biological traits that members of a society define as important?
Race
From what position on the political spectrum does a person claim that in effort to advance social equality, changes need to go far beyond adopting a government policy that assists and gives preference to minorities?
Radical left
People who take a _______ political position on the issue of gender inequality claim that fundamental changes must be made to the economic, political, and family structures within the US, in pursuit of social equality
Radical-left
Social Problems: 8 Assertions
Results from the way society operates They are not caused by bad people They are socially constructed as people define a condition as harmful and in need of change People see problems differently Definitions of problems change over time They will involve subjective values as well as objective facts Most of them can be solved Various problems are related
Decline
Run out of money, claims fail to catch on with the public, or strong opposition
A _________ is an organized effort at claims making that tries to shape the way people think about an issue in order to encourage or discourage social change
Social Movement
Created by a government or some other organization, a formal strategy that affects how society operates is called
Social policy
Which of the following statements best represents the sociological understanding of social problems?
Social problems are rooted in the way society operates
Social-Constructionist Approach
Social problems arise as people define conditions. Social problems have subjective foundation thus it is important to consider objective facts & the subjective perceptions
Which of the following statements best states the sociological view of social problems?
Social problems result from the ways in which society operates
Which of the following terms refer to a point of view that focuses on how society affects the experiences and choices of individuals?
Sociological imagination
A global perspective is important to the study of social problems because______________
many of the social problems we face in the U.S are far more serious in low-income countries
If you think sociologically about a problem such as crime, you would conclude that this problems is _____________
not just a matter of how people act but also how society is organized
The social-constructionist approach is based on the argument that______________
problems are created as people come to define them as problems
The social-constructionist approach to understanding social problems is based on the idea that ____________
problems come into being as people define conditions as unacceptable
Economic conservatives claim that wage levels should be
set by the market
Statistics, or the numerical data that researchers often use to support their findings, are _________________
subject to "spin" meaning they can be manipulated to support various claims
Which of sociology's theoretical approaches studies social problems in terms of everyday experiences and interaction of individuals?
symbolic-interaction
Karl Marx devoted his life to analyzing
the capitalist economic system
In general, economic liberals support a society in which__________
the government has a significant role in regulating the economy
An issue is considered to be a social problem if_____________
the issue hurts people and is controversial
Sociology's key insight is that troubles many people face are rooted in ____________
the operation of society
In general, social liberals
think that people should be free to shape their own lifestyles
According to C. Wright Mills, sociology ____________
turns personal troubles into social issues
Structural-Functional approach
A theoretical framework that sees society as a system of many related interrelated parts
Social-conflict theory
A theoretical framework that sees society as divided by inequality and conflict
Symbolic-interaction approach
A theoretical framework that sees society as the product of individuals interacting with one another
Culture
A way of life including widespread values (about what is good & bad), beliefs (about what is true), and behavior(what people do every day)
The "Great Migration" drew ten of thousands of people from the rural south to the cities of the north after WW1. This migration involved which category of the US population?
African Americans
Which of the following terms refer to the process of minorities who enter a new country gradually adopting the cultural patterns of the majority population?
Assimilation
Critical Reader Tips
Check how researchers define their terms, Remember that research is never perfect, Researchers may "spin" their statistics
At what state of its development does a social movement begin to have rallies, protests, or demonstrations?
Coalescence
Samuel claims that culture and effort are mostly responsible for setting people's social positions. In making this claim Samuel supports which position on the political spectrum?
Conservative
Which political point of view puts forward a "family values" agenda that, while supporting a larger social rule for women, includes a concern that increasing gender equality may weaken families?
Conservative
Another name for "field research" is
Participant observation
Which of the following issues topped the list of social problems identified by U.S. adults in 2016?
Dissatisfaction with government
What type of political issue involves how a society distribute material resources?
Economic
Stages in Social Movements
Emergence, Coalescence, Formalization, Decline
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that ________
Employers cannot discriminate between men and women in hiring or in pay
Formalization
Established players on political scene emerge
________ is a political movement that seeks the social equality of women and men
Feminism
Which theoretical approach explains social problems in terms of society giving men social dominance over women?
Feminist
Sabrina was studying the Millersport community, a low-income neighborhood in a large city. For more than a year, she spent full days in this neighborhood, talking with people. Sabrina's research method was ________________
Field Research
Social Policy
Formal strategies that affect how society operates
At what stage in life of a social movement does the movement begin to have a trained, formal staff?
Formalization
Which of the following categories of the US population had the lowest average income in 2014?
Hispanic women
In general, an effective policy is likely to be one that
Involves an early intervention
Which of the following terms directly refers to laws that permitted racially segregated places after the Civil War?
Jim Crow
Nanette Davis found that people learn roles a little at a time, eventually reaching the point where their roles become their livelihoods as well as part of their social identities. Within the symbolic-interaction approach, this research highlights the basis of______________
Learning theory
From which position on the political spectrum do people typically claim that government action against discrimination is one of the best ways to advance the social standing of minorities?
Liberal
Which type of feminism might best be called "Equal Rights Amendment" feminism?
Liberal
In general,__________ think people should be free from the ways of the past and able to decide for themselves about how to live
Liberals
Social institution
Major spheres of social life, or societal subsystems, organized to meet a basic human need
Which theory empathizes the harmful consequences of cultural bias, such as the tendency to apply the term "ethnic" to anything other than English cultural patterns?
Multicultural
Coalscence
Organizations begin holding rallies and demonstration
Social Movement
Organized effort at claims making that tries to shape the way people think about an issue in order to encourage or discourage social change
Rosa Parks is remembered for her role in______________
The modern civil rights movement
The method most widely used by sociological researchers is _____________
The survey
A _____________ is a statement of how and why specific facts are related
Theory
One problem that researchers using secondary analysis may face is that
They may be unaware of any bias or errors in the data, which they did not personally collect
Global Perspective
This perspective shows us that some social problems cross national boundaries. Many dimension of life may be quite different elsewhere
One reason that some 46 million people are poor in the United States is that ___________________
U.S culture stresses self-reliance, which means we tend to think people should take care of themselves.
The German sociologist Max Weber urged his colleagues to avoid direct political engagement in an attempting to make sociological research _______
Value-free
Social problems over time
What problems U.S adults consider to be most serious have changed over time
Emergence
When people share concern about the status quo
Which of the following statements is correct?
Whether people think a policy "works" or not is affected by both politics and culture
In his study of Chicago's inner-city neighborhoods, William Julius Wilson found that unemployment, unstable family patterns, and a loss of hope were all caused by____________
a lack of good jobs
The social conflict theory approach is correctly described as
activist
The sociological perspective gives us power to change society, _________________________
and it can also help us to see that sometimes people suffer through no fault of their own
When researchers ask people to identify their position on the political spectrum, the largest share place themselves
as "middle of the road"
Sociologist caution that evaluating the effectiveness of any social policy or program
depends on precisely how one defines the "success" pf the policy or program
Economic issues are political debates about
how a society should distribute material resources