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Sociology
Chapter One
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Sociology | systematic study of human society and social interaction. |
| society | large social grouping that shares the same geographical territory and is subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations |
| sociological imagination | the ability to see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society |
| personal trouble | private problems that affect individuals and the networks of people with whom they regularly associate. |
| public issues | problems that affect large numbers of people and often require solutions at the societal level |
| high-income countries | nations with highly industrialized economies; technologically advanced industrial, administrative, and service occupations; and relatively high levels of national and personal income |
| middle-income countries | nations with industrializing economies, particularly in urban areas, and moderate levels of national and personal income |
| low-income countries | primarily agrarian nations with little industrialization and low levels of national and personal income |
| industrialization | the process by which societies are transformed from dependence on agriculture and handmade products to an emphasis on manufacturing and related industries |
| urbanization | the process by which an increasing proportion of a population lives in cities rather than in rural areas |
| positivism | a belief that the world can best be understood through scientific inquiry |
| social darwinism | the belief that those species of animals, including human beings, best adapted to their environment survive and prosper, whereas those poorly adapted die out |
| social facts | Durkheim's term for patterned ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that exist outside any one individual but that exert social control over each person |
| anomie | a condition in which social control becomes ineffective as a result of the loss of shared values and of a sense of purpose in society |
| functionalist perspectives | based on the assumption that society is a stable, orderly system |
| theory | a set of logically interrelated statements that attempts to describe, explain, and (occasionally) predict social events |
| manifest functions | functions that are intended and/or overtly recognized by the participants in a social unit |
| latent functions | unintended functions that are hidden and remain unacknowledged by participants |
| conflict perspectives | groups in society are engaged in a continuous power struggle for control of scarce resources |
| symbolic interactionist perspectives | refers to the fact that society is the sum of the interactions of individuals and groups |
| postmodern perspectives | refers to the fact that existing theories have been unsuccessful in explaining social life in contemporary societies that are characterized by post industrialization, consumerism, and global communications |
| quantitative research | sociological research methods that are based on the goal of scientific objectivity and that focus on data that can be measured numerically |
| qualitative research | interpretive descriptions (words) rather than statistics (numbers) are used to analyze underlying meanings and patterns of social relationships |
| hypothesis | a statement of the expected relationship between two or more variables |
| variable | any concept with measurable traits or characteristics that can change or vary from one person, time, situation, or society to another |
| independent variable | in an experiment, the variable assumed to be the cause of the relationship between variables |
| dependent variable | in an experiment, the variable assumed to be caused by the independent variable(s) |
| validity | the extent to which a study or research instrument accurately measures what it is supposed to measure |
| reliability | the extent to which a study or research instrument yields consistent results when applied to different individuals at one time or to the same individuals over time |
| research methods | specific strategies or techniques for systematically conducting research |
| survey | a poll in which the researcher gathers facts or attempts to determine the relationships among facts |
| questionnaire | a printed research instrument containing a series of items to which subjects respond |
| interview | a date-collection encounter in which an interviewer asks the respondent questions and records the answers |
| secondary analysis | a research method in which researchers use existing material and analyze data that were originally collected by others |
| content analysis | the systematic examination of cultural artifacts or various forms of communication to extract thematic data and draw conclusions about social life |
| participant observation | a research method in which researchers collect systematic observations while being part of the activities of the group being studied |
| ethnography | a detailed study of the life and activities of a group of people by researchers who may life with that group over a period of years |
| experiment | a carefully designed situation in which the researcher studies the impact of certain variables on subjects' attitudes or behavior |
| experimental group | the group that contains the subjects who are exposed to an independent variable (the experimental condition) to study its effect on them |
| control group | the group that contains the subjects who are not exposed to the independent variable |
| correlation | a relationship that exists when two variables are associated more frequently than could be expected by chance |
Created by:
ehubbard21
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