Sociology Study Guide
Chapter 1:
What is the Sociological perspective?
Auguste Comte
Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism, Marx, Durkheim, Weber
Functionalist, Conflict and Interactionist perspectives
Chapter 2:
Material and nonmaterial culture
Components of Culture: technology, Symbols, Language, Values, Norms (folkways,
mores, laws)
Levels of culture: patterns, complex, traits
Cultural universals
Cultural variation
Ethnocentrism
Cultural relativism
Subculture
Counterculture
Chapter 3:
Traditional American values
Self-fulfillment and narcissism
Social control: internalization of norms, sanctions
Social Change: ideology and social movements, technology, population, diffusion, the
environment, war.
Resistance to change: ethnocentrism, cultural lag, vested interests.
Chapter 4:
Social structure: status, roles expectations, performance and conflict
Social institutions determine social structure
Types of social interaction: exchange, competition, conflict, cooperation,
accommodation
Types of Societies: preindustrial: hunting and gathering, pastoral; horticultural,
agricultural; Industrial and urbanization, Postindustrial and information and services
Division of labor and specialization
Groups: divided according to size, time, and formal and informal organization.
Types of groups: primary and secondary
Reference groups, in and out groups, internet communities, social networks.
Group functions and goals
Types of leaders
Formal organizations: bureaucracy model, relationships and effectiveness
Chapter 5:
Nature vs. nurture: heredity, birth order, characteristics of parents, the cultural
environment.
Locke, Cooley, and Meade (tabula rasa, looking glass self, role taking)
Agents of socialization: family, peers, school, media
Resocialization and total institution
Chapter 6:
Adolescence as new concept
Characteristics: biological, undefined status, increased decision making and pressure and
search for self
Dating: old and new patterns
Challenges: sex, drugs, suicide
Chapter 7:
Stages of adulthood, differences between the sexes
Work and unemployment, types of occupations and how they have changed
Job satisfaction
Changes in old age, retirement, physical and mental and social problems, new
opportunities
Chapter 8:
Deviance and stigma
Social functions of deviance: clarifying, unifying groups, diffusing tension, promoting
social change, providing jobs.
Explaining deviance: functionalist: strain theory and anomie; conflict theory;
interactionism.
Crime and types of crime and the criminal and juvenile justice systems
Chapter 9:
Types of stratification and inequality: caste, exogamy, endogamy, class systems
Levels of class: wealth, power, prestige, SES
Functionalist, conflict and interactionist theories
American class system
Social mobility: upward and downward
Poverty: by age, sex and race
Effects of poverty, patterns of behavior by class
Government response to poverty
Chapter 10:
Def: race and ethnicity
Discrimation and prejudice, and their types. Their sources: sociological, psychological,
economic
Patterns of treating minorities: pluralism, assimilation, legal protection, segregation,
subjugation, pop transfer, extermination
Minority and white ethnic groups in the USA
Chapter 11:
Gender roles and identity between cultures, socialization, and inequality
Ageism, graying of America, age inequality,
Disability and discrimination and prejudice
Health care, cost quality, access, inequality, insurance, alternative med.
Chapter 12
Cross cultural family systems, marriage and kinship patterns, residential, and descent
patterns, authority pattern
Family function: regulation of sex, reproduction, socialization, economic and emotional
security, homogamy, heterogamy, family disruption: violence, divorce, delayed marriage,
and delayed childbearing, childlessness, dual earner marriages, one parent families,
remarriage.
Chapter 13
Economic institution, factors of production, the 3 sectors,
Economic systems: preindustrial, industrial, and postindustrial
Econ. Models: capitalism (supply and demand, laissez faire, free enterprise) and
socialism, communism, totalitarianism.
Corporations, oligopoly, protectionism, free trade, globalization, multinational, ecommerce
State political institution, Legitimacy, types of authority, coercion
Types of government: democracy, constitutional monarchy, monarchy, absolute
monarchy, dictatorship, junta.
Political parties, proportional representation, interest groups, power elite, pluralist.
Chapter 14
Education: functionalist (knowledge and skills, transmission of culture, social integration,
job placement), conflict social control, hidden curriculum, tracking,SES), interactionist.
(self-fulfilling prophecy).
Ed. Reforms and alternative schools; violence in schools, ESL
Religion: sacred vs. profane.
Functionalist: social cohesion, control, emotional support
Nature of religion: ritual, rites and symbols; belief systems: animism, shamanism,
totemism, theism, monotheism, polytheism, ethicalism.
Organization: ecclesia, denomination, sect, cult,
Religious affiliation vs. belief in God, secular attitude, fundamentalism
Chapter 15
Science birth and rebirth, scientific method
Norms: universalism, organized skepticism, communalism, disinterestedness,
particularism
Fraud, competition, Matthew effect, conflicting views of reality, paradigm
Mass media, paper and writing, printing press, industrial age, information society.
Types of mass media, convergence of types
Functionalist and conflict perspectives of mass media
Issues in mass media: effect on children, civic and social life.
Power of the media: spiral of silence, agenda setting, gatekeepers vs. too many news
sources
Chapter 16:
Demography, Population change: birthrate, death rate, infant mortality rate, life
expectancy, migration rate, growth rate, doubling time of population, population
pyramid.
Malthusian theory: exponential pop growth vs arithmetic; 3 stage demographic transition,
zero pop growth,
Controlling pop growth and family planning vs. economic improvements as prerequisite
to voluntary family planning
Cities: preindustrial, industrial, overurbanization, urban ecology effect on human
behavior: concentric, sector, multiple nuclei
Urban sprawl, anomie, compositional and subculture theory
Chapter 17:
Types of collective behavior: crowds, mobs, riots, panics, mass hysteria, fashions and
fads, rumors, urban legends,
Public opinion and propaganda (attempt to shape public opinion)
Contagion theory, emergent norm, value added,
Social movements: reactionary, revisionary, conservative, revolutionary,
Life cycle: agitation, legitimation, bureaucratization, institutionalization
Relative deprivation theory, resource mobilization theory
Chapter 18:
Social change: Cyclical vs. evolutionary theories
Spengler, Sorokin vs. Comte, spencer, Lenski
Equilibrium theory: Talcott-Parsons
Conflict theory: Marx and Dahrendorf
Modernization theory: industrialization and dependence
Modernized vs. non modernized societies
World systems: core, semi periphery, periphery
Consequences of modernization
Additional:
Explain the basic premise of Guns, Germs and Steel. What perspective influenced the
theory?