Sociology Chapter 1
Verstehen
German for "understanding." The concept of Verstehen comes from Max Weber and is the basis of interpretive sociology in which researchers imagine themselves experiencing the life positions of the social actors they want to understand rather than treating those people as objects to be examined. (page 26)
Macrosociology
a branch of sociology generally concerned with social dynamics at a higher level of analysis—that is, across the breadth of a society. (page 41)
Microsociology
a branch of sociology that seeks to understand local interactional contexts; its methods of choice are ethnographic, generally including participant observation and in-depth interviews. (page 41
Social institution
a complex group of interdependent positions that, together, perform a social role and reproduce themselves over time; also defined in a narrow sense as any institution in a society that works to shape the behavior of the groups or people within it. (page 15)
Double consciousness
a concept conceived by W. E. B. Du Bois to describe the two behavioral scripts, one for moving through the world and the other incorporating the external opinions of prejudiced onlookers, which are constantly maintained by African Americans. (page 30)
Postmodernism
a condition characterized by a questioning of the notion of progress and history, the replacement of narrative within pastiche, and multiple, perhaps even conflicting, identities resulting from disjointed affiliations. (page 34)
Symbolic interactionism
a micro-level theory in which shared meanings, orientations, and assumptions form the basic motivations behind people's actions. (page 33)
Anomie
a sense of aimlessness or despair that arises when we can no longer reasonably expect life to be predictable; too little social regulation; normlessness. (page 27)
Positivist sociology
a strain within sociology that believes the social world can be described and predicted by certain observable relationships (akin to a social physics). (page 27)
Midrange theory
a theory that attempts to predict how certain social institutions tend to function. (page 34)
Social construction
an entity that exists because people behave as if it exists and whose existence is perpetuated as people and social institutions act in accordance with the widely agreed-upon formal rules or informal norms of behavior associated with that entity. (page 34)
Sociological imagination
the ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual's life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces. (page 4)
Conflict theory
the idea that conflict between competing interests is the basic, animating force of social change and society in general. (page 32)
Sociology
the study of human society. (page 4)
Functionalism
the theory that various social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some important (or necessary) function to keep society running. (page 31)
