Chapter 1 Review- Sociology
What is symbolic thought?
A theoretical approach in sociology developed by George Mead that emphasizes the role of symbols and language as core elements of all human interaction.
The year 2011 marked the beginning of large, popular protests in a number of African and Middle Eastern nations, collectively referred to as the Arab Spring. The protests were spurred by economic, political, and social issues. Many of the protests were at least partially incited and organized through social media, including Twitter. In what way might the Arab Spring challenge some of the conclusions of postmodernism?
It showed how the Internet can be used to unite people over problems stemming from their particular social, political, and economic histories.
What is one of the main tensions between Durkheim's view of society and Marx's view of society?
Marx believed that social change happened through changes in material circumstances, while Durkheim believed that people's ideas and values created change.
According to C. Wright Mills, why might using the sociological imagination be necessary to understanding life experiences?
Most people have a limited point of view, caused by the small circles in which they travel on a daily basis.
In many professional jobs, employees are expected to work long hours, often take work home on nights and weekends, and are sometimes expected to travel away from home. In what ways might these sorts of expectations contribute to gender inequality in many professional jobs?
Since even in dual-earner households gendered expectations assign women the majority of domestic work (childcare and housework), it can be much more difficult for women to balance family life and a professional job.
Many of the things we experience in life that seem to be completely natural, like differences in behavior between men and women, are seen by sociologists to be examples of _____.
Social Constructions
In sociology, studying the effects of the economic recession on a student's ability to secure a job after graduation is a way of studying how ______ affects our lives.
Social Structure
What is macrosociology?
The study of large-scale groups, organizations, or social systems.
What is social structure?
The underlying patterns in how people behave and in their relationships with one another.
An economic class system based on the private ownership of wealth that is continually reinvested in order to make profit is called ______.
capitalism
A bureaucracy is a type of organization that depends on which of the following?
division of labor
A study of university admissions that compares the impact of gender and social class on probability of admission before World War II and after World War II is an example of ______.
macrosociology
Some sociologists argue that the current problems in America's inner cities (such as drugs, violence, and fatherless households) are a result of the disappearance of blue-collar jobs in the United States. This argument reflects what idea from the text?
materialist conception of history
The ability of individuals or members of a group to achieve aims or further their interests, even in the face of the resistance of others, is called ______.
power
E-Harmony is an online dating company that claims to be able to find the perfect match for its customers by collecting a wide variety of information from each person and using that information to assess compatibility. This new form of dating can be understood as the _____ of love.
rationalization
Fairy tales are not just good stories. Many of the fairy tales that parents read to their children include morals about proper or improper ways to behave and as such can be seen as one among many sources of _____.
socialization
According to George Herbert Mead, what is it that allows humans to develop self-consciousness?
the capacity for symbolic thought
Social constraint refers to ______.
the influence of social structure on individual behavior