CHAPTER 1
Sociology and the Real World
CONCEPT MAP
I. What Does Society Look Like?
II. How Does Sociology Work?
A. What Is Sociology?
i. Social Science
ii. Levels of Analysis
a) Microsociology
b) Macrosociology
iii. Methods of Study
a) Quantitative Methods
b) Qualitative Methods
B. The Sociological Perspective
i. The Sociological Imagination
ii. Culture Shock
iii. Beginner’s Mind
iv. Changing the World
III. Starting Your Sociological Journey
A. Sociology and Everyday Life
i. Reciped/Practical Knowledge
ii. Systematic/Comprehensive Knowledge
iii. Historical Perspective
iv. Global Perspective
B. Contemporary American Society
i. America as a Place and an Ideal
a) Baudrillard
C. The United States in Global Perspective
i. Cyber Communities
ii. The Mass Media and Popular Culture
TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS
1. Humans are essentially social beings.
ANS: T
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 9
OBJ: What Is Sociology? (II.A)
2. According to C. Wright Mills, most people think about their problems as issues of social
structure, rather than as matters of character, psychology, or chance.
ANS: F
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
3. C. Wright Mills described a process by which biography (individual lives) and history (larger
social forces) are related. He argued that this process works in two ways: individual lives
influence society while society also influences individuals.
ANS: T
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
4. It is the responsibility of a sociologist to question everything that the everyday person would
take for granted.
ANS: T
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 8
OBJ: Social Science (II.A.i)
5. Like many foreign observers, Alexis de Tocqueville was intrigued by the American way of
life and uncritically celebrated it for the way it practiced the ideals of freedom and democracy.
ANS: F
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 23
OBJ: America as a Place and an Ideal (III.B.i)
6. America is so powerful that it doesn’t need the support of other nations.
ANS: F
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 25
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective
(III.C)
7.Unlike other aspects of society, like the economy, the media have not become truly global in
nature.
ANS: F
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 25
OBJ: The Mass Media and Popular Culture
(III.C.ii)
8. Marshall McLuhan’s optimistic vision of a “global village,” where conflict would decrease as
we came to feel increasingly connected worldwide, has not been totally realized.
ANS: T
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 25
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective
(III.C)
9. Taking the sociological perspective means thinking sociologically about a problem.
ANS: T
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Perspective (II.B)
10. We cannot necessarily see society as a whole; we have to look at its component parts.
ANS: T
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 7
OBJ: What Does Society Look Like? (I)
11. We tend to think of ourselves as experts regarding life in our own society, but at best this is
only true on a small scale.
ANS: T
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 8
OBJ: Social Science (II.A.i)
12. The most widely accepted definitions of sociology as a discipline are those that are narrow
and focused.
ANS: F
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 10
OBJ: What Is Sociology? (II.A)
13. Sociologists who work with qualitative data usually reduce that data to numbers, which can be
analyzed and summarized succinctly.
ANS: F
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Quantitative Methods (II.A.iii.a)
14. Bernard McGrane explains how the “beginner’s mind,” a concept borrowed from the Zen
Buddhist tradition, is the opposite of the sociological perspective.
ANS: F
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 20
OBJ: Beginner’s Mind (II.B.iii)
15. When the French government provides special subsidies to the French film industry to help
make sure that indigenous films can compete with Hollywood pictures, it is an example of
what Marshall McLuhan called the “global village.”
ANS: F
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 25
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective
(III.C)
16. When Americans worry about the amount of lead in toys made in China, it is proof that
America is part of a global community.
ANS: T
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 25
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective
(III.C)
17. When terrorist groups use the internet to recruit new members and encourage violence, it
demonstrates that Marshal McLuhan may have been too optimistic when he assumed that
mass media would bring people together.
ANS: T
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 25
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective
(III.C)
18. One thing that can be learned from the work of the Swiss sociologist Norbert Elias is that even
the most mundane aspects of everyday life can be connected to larger social structures.
ANS: T
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 22–23
OBJ: Sociology and Everyday Life (III.A)
19. When we ask psychologists to help us understand the behavior of Eric Harris and Dylan
Klebold, who murdered 13 people and injured 24 more at Columbine High School in 1999,
we are using our sociological imaginations.
ANS: F
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 16–17
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
20. If a sociologist attempts to study whether men are really less emotional than women, she is
taking the role of the social analyst, rather than the everyday actor.
ANS: T
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 22
OBJ: Systematic/Comprehensive Knowledge
(III.A.ii)
MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. Sociologists observe society:
a. by studying the various parts of a society and the ways they interact and influence each
other
b. by studying the shape and boundaries of society as a whole
c. by studying society as if it were a concrete object, in the same way that a geologist studies
rocks
d. by utilizing the preconceptions, assumptions, and beliefs that come from living in a society
e. through the use of special scientific tools that allow unmediated access to the very heart of
society
ANS: A
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 7
OBJ: What Does Society Look Like? (I)
2. Even though a small number of people have been academically trained as sociologists, we all
can be described as “natural sociologists” because:
a. we are born with certain skills that naturally allow us to think sociologically
b. society is a part of nature, so everyone has to be a natural sociologist
c. our parents taught us to be sociologists even before they sent us to school
d. we are all members of society and so have a great deal of background knowledge about
how society works
e. sociologists are really just observers of conventional wisdom
ANS: D
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 8
OBJ: Social Science (II.A.i)
3. Unlike sociologists, most people base their knowledge of the world on:
a. expert knowledge based on surveys and interviews
b. journals and other publications that summarize the conclusions of professional researchers
c. conventional wisdom, background knowledge, and personal experience
d. the opinions of their parents and other family members
e. the opinions of political leaders and other influential public figures
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 8
OBJ: Social Science (II.A.i)
4. Why can doing sociology be described as a radical undertaking?
a. All sociologists are political radicals and activists.
b. Sociology comes with a built-in political bias toward radical political causes.
c. There is a large amount of material that must be mastered in order to be a sociologist.
d. Sociology requires people to suspend their preconceptions, assumptions, and beliefs about
the world.
e. Sociology is about change and creating new social structures.
ANS: D
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 8
OBJ: Social Science (II.A.i)
5. Sociology can be defined as the systematic and scientific study of human society and social
behavior. Given this definition, what level of social structure might sociologists examine?
a. only small groups
b. almost any level—from interactions between two people to large-scale institutions
c. mass culture and large institutions
d. relations between individuals
e. large-scale social structures that involve significant numbers of people
ANS: B
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 9
OBJ: What Is Sociology? (II.A)
6. Howard Becker said that sociology can be best understood as the study of people “doing
things together.” This definition reminds us that:
a. neither society nor the individual exists in isolation; each is dependent on the other
b. sociology is only interested in the way people act, not in the way they think
c. only large-scale interactions that involve many people can be understood by sociologists
d. people must have some knowledge of each other before they can really do anything
together
e. individuals exist independently of society and can be understood without considering
social influence
ANS: A
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 9
OBJ: What Is Sociology? (II.A)
7. The social sciences are all those disciplines that study:
a. the human, or social, world
b. the natural world
c. the physical universe
d. communication
e. the relationship of people to places
ANS: A
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Pages 10–11
OBJ: What Is Sociology? (II.A)
8. The primary difference between sociology and anthropology is that:
a. unlike sociology, anthropology is interested in the relationship of people to places
b. unlike anthropology, sociology is interested in primitive or traditional cultures
c. sociology is very narrowly focused, whereas anthropology is interested in a broad range of
social institutions
d. unlike anthropology, sociology is interested in societies at all levels of development
e. anthropology is interested in the relationship between individuals and the external forces
that shape them, while sociology tends to study internal states of mind
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 11
OBJ: What Is Sociology? (II.A)
9. Sociology can be approached from either a microsociological or a macrosociological
perspective. Which is more useful?
a. Macrosociological—it explains how large-scale social institutions influence individuals.
b. Microsociological—it explains how individuals shape and create large-scale social
institutions.
c. Macrosociological—it helps to understand how face-to-face interactions shape society.
d. Both are useful in different ways, because any study that uses only one or the other will be
unable to explain anything useful about society.
e. Both are useful in different ways, because they each provide different types of information
about the same object of study.
ANS: E
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 12
OBJ: Levels of Analysis (II.A.ii)
10. Which of the following best characterizes microsociology?
a. It is an approach that examines large-scale social structures in order to see how they affect
individual lives.
b. It is an approach that examines interactions between individuals and the ways those
interactions reflect larger patterns within a society.
c. It is an approach that examines interactions that occur over time.
d. It is an approach that quantifies data on the social world so that it can be analyzed
statistically.
e. It is an approach that exclusively focuses on gender and power as they are enacted socially.
ANS: B
NOT: Factual
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 12
OBJ: Microsociology (II.A.ii.a)
11. Pam Fishman studied conversations between heterosexual couples to determine how power is
created and maintained through face-to-face interactions on an everyday basis. Given this
information, how would you describe her approach?
a. macrosociological
b. historical
c. microsociological
d. comparative
e. global
ANS: C
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 12
OBJ: Microsociology (II.A.ii.a)
12. Sociologists assert that there is a close relationship between the individual and society. How
does Pam Fishman’s research on gender and power in heterosexual couples characterize this
relationship?
a. Fishman’s data shows how macro-level phenomena like gender and power manifest
themselves in everyday interactions.
b. It doesn’t—Fishman’s data only shows how individuals act.
c. It doesn’t—this research only shows macro-level phenomena.
d. Fishman’s data shows that micro-level phenomena have almost no relationship to macrolevel phenomena, and seem to be largely independent.
e. Fishman’s research shows that there is no relationship between the individual and society.
ANS: A
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 14
OBJ: Microsociology (II.A.ii.a)
13. Which of the following statements best describes the approach taken by macrosociologists?
a. Macrosociology concentrates on the way that large social institutions are created through
individual interactions.
b. Macrosociology directly examines large-scale social structures in order to see how they
affect individual lives.
c. Macrosociology focuses on nonnumerical data like texts, images, and recordings.
d. Macrosociology focuses on creating a “beginner’s mind,” in contrast to microsociology,
which uses an “expert’s mind.”
e. Unlike microsociology, macrosociology focuses on creating scientific knowledge of the
world rather than practical knowledge.
ANS: B
NOT: Factual
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 14
OBJ: Macrosociology (II.A.ii.b)
14. Christine Williams looked at patterns of occupational sex segregation, examining the ways
that large-scale social structures created the constraints within which individuals lived their
lives. Based on this information, her work would be characterized as what kind of sociology?
a. microsociology
b. transnational sociology
c. comparative-historical sociology
d. macrosociology
e. the sociology of popular culture
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 14
OBJ: Macrosociology (II.A.ii.b)
15. Macrosociology and microsociology seem to make very different assumptions about how
society works. How does sociology, as a discipline, deal with these two very different
perspectives?
a. Most sociologists are macrosociologists, making microsociologists a small minority.
b. Most sociologists think of these two perspectives as being on a continuum with each other,
adopting whatever perspective seems most useful for a particular problem.
c. Most sociologists are microsociologists, and only a small minority still find
macrosociology a satisfying approach.
d. Although the field is fairly evenly split between perspectives, almost all sociologists feel
strongly that their perspective is the correct one.
e. Microsociology used to dominate the field, but more recently macrosociology has become
the dominant perspective.
ANS: B
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 12
OBJ: Levels of Analysis (II.A.ii)
16. Most sociologists specialize in one particular method of study. The first distinction is usually
made between qualitative and quantitative methodologies. What do quantitative sociologists
do differently from qualitative sociologists?
a. Quantitative sociologists preserve the detail and diversity of their data so that each
individual piece of information can be analyzed to determine its meaning.
b. Quantitative sociologists look for signs of social conflict and tension in their data.
c. Quantitative sociologists translate their data into numbers so that it can be analyzed
mathematically or statistically.
d. Quantitative sociologists look for data exclusively in traditional cultures.
e. Quantitative sociologists only do interviews.
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Method of Study (II.A.iii)
17. What is the particular advantage of a quantitative approach?
a. It preserves the detail of the data so it can be interpreted.
b. It helps to explain how people create meaning through the use of symbols.
c. It helps to explain the role that the United States plays in global affairs.
d. It uses the sociological imagination much better than any other methodology.
e. It reduces large amounts of information into numbers that are much more easily
communicated to others.
ANS: E
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Quantitative Methods (II.A.iii.a)
18. Sociologists who do qualitative work are different from quantitative sociologists because:
a. rather than reducing the details of the cases they study to numbers, they preserve and
interpret details to determine their meaning
b. they reduce their data to numbers so it can be analyzed statistically
c. they only use data gathered from mass media, like television shows and advertising
d. they explain the connection between individuals and society, which is left unexplored in
quantitative sociology
e. they only use certain theories to support their work
ANS: A
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Qualitative Methods (II.A.iii.b)
19. Regardless of which methodology they use, what are all sociologists trying to do?
a. explain why social change happens
b. illuminate the connection between the individual and society
c. explain why poverty and inequality still exist
d. compare the present with the past
e. understand how our society is different from other cultures and other times
ANS: B
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Methods of Study (II.A.iii)
20. C. Wright Mills argued that the one quality of mind that all great sociologists possess is:
a. stoicism
b. sociological imagination
c. romanticism
d. biographical imagination
e. attention to detail
ANS: B
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
21. What is the sociological imagination?
a. a property of society that ensures that people remain ignorant of the connections between
their lives and social change
b. a particular way of understanding the criminal mind, such as that of a serial killer
c. the sociological approach that assumes that large-scale social institutions structure
individual interactions
d. the ability to understand the connections between biography and history, or the interplay of
the self and the world
e. the sociological approach that assumes that individual decisions and interactions create
larger social institutions
ANS: D
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
22. Why does C. Wright Mills think that it’s important for everyone, even people who will never
take a sociology class, to develop a sociological imagination?
a. It will help generate more jobs for sociologists.
b. It makes sociology classes more interesting.
c. Many people remain unaware of the intricate connections between the patterns of their
own lives and the larger course of history.
d. It’s innately understood by nearly everyone, but rarely acknowledged.
e. It will encourage growth in the field of microsociology.
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
23. In order to find links between the macro and the micro levels of analysis, a sociologist is most
in need of:
a. an immense amount of data
b. a sociological imagination
c. good funding
d. lots of research assistants
e. a strong understanding of human psychology
ANS: B
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
24. When we use the sociological perspective to examine events like the shooting at Virginia
Tech in 2007 by Seung-Hui Cho, what are we trying to do?
a. deny individual responsibility and explain everything in terms of larger social forces
b. assign blame to authority figures who could have prevented the crimes
c. understand the psychology of people who commit terrible crimes
d. gain a broader context for understanding people in terms of their situations
e. generate sympathy for the criminals
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 16–17
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
25. According to Peter Berger, in Invitation to Sociology, what sort of people should NOT study
sociology?
a. people with a passionate interest in the world
b. people who are daring in the pursuit of knowledge
c. people who are very curious
d. people who dislike shocking discoveries
e. people who care about the most mundane occurrences of everyday life
ANS: D
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 17
OBJ: Culture Shock (II.B.ii)
26. Why would culture shock be a useful state of mind for a sociologist?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
It makes us doubt our ability to function even in simple, everyday ways.
It requires us to travel, which helps us grow as human beings.
It scares us, and a sense of fear is a healthy thing for sociologists to have.
Shock is always good for thinking, as it sharpens the mind.
It makes us realize we lack an understanding of our surroundings, so we are able to truly
perceive what is right in front of us.
ANS: E
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 17
OBJ: Culture Shock (II.B.ii)
27. Bernard McGrane suggests we should practice using a beginner’s mind, the opposite of an
expert’s mind. Usually it’s good to be an expert. Why should we try to think like beginners
instead?
a. An expert’s mind is so full of facts and assumptions that it has difficulty learning anything
new.
b. To better understand the world, we need to defamiliarize ourselves with it.
c. We need to unlearn what we already know in order to become better sociologists.
d. A beginner’s mind allows us to approach the world without knowing in advance what we
will find.
e. The approach of a beginner’s mind is more readily accepted by whoever is being studied.
ANS: A
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 20
OBJ: Beginner’s Mind (II.B.iii)
28. What does Bernard McGrane, the “Zen sociologist” who recommends the beginner’s mind as
a way to develop a sociological perspective, say about discovery?
a. Discovery finds some new fact that no one has ever known before.
b. Discovery is limited to finding places where no one has ever gone.
c. Discovery is a new way of seeing things.
d. Discovery is no longer possible; all we can do is contrast different things and ideas that
other people discovered.
e. Discovery is not a part of the sociological agenda.
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 20
OBJ: Beginner’s Mind (II.B.iii)
29. The everyday actor approaches the social world with a “recipe,” or practical knowledge,
which allows him to do everyday things. What are the limitations of this sort of practical
knowledge?
a. It overemphasizes technical and scientific knowledge that may be interesting, but isn’t
particularly practical.
b. It leaves us unable to carry out simple everyday activities because they require us to know
more about technology.
c. It can’t help in the workplace or in other situations were there are a number of everyday
actors.
d. It is easily confused with other perspectives and so is as difficult to explain as it is to apply.
e. It is not necessarily as clear, coherent, or consistent as it could be.
ANS: E
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 22
OBJ: Reciped/Practical Knowledge (III.A.i)
30. In order to verify what the everyday actor might just accept or assume to be true, the social
analyst must take which perspective?
a. the social worker
b.
c.
d.
e.
the native
the stranger
the fly on the wall
the insider
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 22
OBJ: Systematic/Comprehensive Knowledge
(III.A.ii)
31. Which of the following is a weakness of the sociological approach to everyday life?
a. It accepts many things as true that it cannot verify or confirm.
b. It labors to grasp things that everyday actors understand implicitly.
c. It cannot achieve coherence or be systematic.
d. It is a practical, rather than a scientific, approach.
e. It requires that you act like a local even when you really feel like an outsider.
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 22
OBJ: Sociology and Everyday Life (III.A)
32. What are the weaknesses of the everyday actor when it comes to everyday life?
a. The everyday actor is forced to see everything from the perspective of a stranger.
b. The everyday actor must labor to grasp even simple, common occurrences.
c. The everyday actor is forced to learn how things work in a technical or scientific way.
d. The everyday actor can only see things from a historical perspective.
e. The everyday actor makes assumptions and glosses over many things that the social
analyst strives to understand systematically.
ANS: E
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 22
OBJ: Reciped/Practical Knowledge (III.A.i)
33. The Swiss sociologist Norbert Elias studied everyday life from a historical perspective, noting
how etiquette and manners had changed over time. Why do sociologists care about something
as minor as table manners in the distant past?
a. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
b. The past is inherently interesting and always worth study for the intellectual development
that comes with understanding other people and other times.
c. Very little has changed in terms of manners and etiquette since the Middle Ages, so what
was important then remains important now.
d. Many people would like contemporary society to be more like the past, so it’s important to
remember what things were really like.
e. By linking changes in everyday life with changes in larger social structures, we can
understand better how our own lives are influenced by larger social processes.
ANS: E
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 21–23
OBJ: Historical Perspective (III.A.iii)
34. What does it mean to say that America is both a nation and an ideal?
a. All Americans have strong beliefs and ideals that are important to them.
b. America is both a geographic location and also an ideal concept that situates its citizens
within a meaningful context.
c. America has standards, but it doesn’t always live up to them.
d. As a geographic place, America has certain principles of law that govern how government
is organized.
e. Everyone in the United States has a different understanding of what it means to be
American.
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 23
OBJ: America as a Place and an Ideal (III.B.i)
35. Which of the following is NOT a reason that the United States continues to be studied by
sociologists from all over the world?
a. It has a higher standard of living than anywhere else in the world.
b. It’s a world power, and many other nations seek guidance from its example.
c. It has created social problems that have never existed before.
d. It is astonishingly multicultural.
e. It is a place where old ideas and ways are discarded and innovation takes hold particularly
quickly.
ANS: A
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 23–24
OBJ: America as a Place and an Ideal (III.B.i)
36. How is the United States connected to the rest of the world?
a. international diplomacy
b. transnational corporations
c. increasing exposure to other cultures
d. shared reliance on natural resources
e. all of the above
ANS: E
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 25
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective
(III.C)
37. Marshall McLuhan coined the term “global village” because he felt that people around the
world were increasingly coming together as if they belonged
to the same tribe. Why did he think this was happening?
a. Information and communication technologies were connecting the far reaches of the globe
in unprecedented ways.
b. The global economy was connecting workers
and consumers in very different parts of the world.
c. A desire for exotic goods and experiences was expanding tourism to the far corners of the
earth.
d. International diplomacy and the United Nations were creating pressures to learn more
about other cultures and to be more tolerant.
e. War and international conflict were forcing us to be more aware of the global ramifications
of our behavior.
ANS: A
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 25
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective
(III.C)
38. In the past, it was assumed that people could share a sense of togetherness only when they
shared a common geography. Why do we have to reconsider this assumption today?
a. The global war on terror has united people in many different countries through a common
sense of danger.
b. Capital and labor are now global, as people and goods migrate great distances to
participate in the global economy.
c. An increasing sense of the sociological imagination helps reveal otherwise hidden
connections.
d. New media and computer networks can let us stay in constant and instantaneous contact
with people regardless of their physical location.
e. Environmental catastrophes are bringing people together through a shared sense that the
earth is small and that we all belong to the same “place” regardless of where we live.
ANS: D
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 25
OBJ: Cyber Communities (III.C.i)
39. How are new forms of technology blurring the lines between mass media and personal
communication?
a. Many new forms of media are interactive, like the Internet.
b. Media are now narrowly aimed at a tiny niche of consumers.
c. New technologies are more dangerous than older ones, so we learn more about how they
work on a technical level.
d. We’re constantly surrounded by mass media.
e. Most of us are now regular users of media technology, like e-mail.
ANS: A
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 28
OBJ: The Mass Media and Popular Culture (II.C.ii)
40. The information revolution has made it much easier to access all kinds of data and
information, no matter where you are. What effect has this had on mass media overall?
a. It has made mass media less important, as now we can all create our own entertainment.
b. It may make media the central feature of postmodern society.
c. It will make mass media more important in those parts of the world that have less
technology, but less important in the United States.
d. It will make mass media more important, but only to society’s elites.
e. It will make mass media the most important feature of a society, but it will only affect the
lower classes.
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 28
OBJ: The Mass Media and Popular Culture (II.C.ii)
41. Most people are interested in the lives of others, but usually we express this only through
daytime talk shows and tabloid media. Although this sort of interest is completely
understandable, sociologists would say that it is sensationalistic and very selective. How does
a sociological perspective help to solve this problem?
a. It decreases our interest in daytime talk shows.
b. It helps us understand the people who appear on such shows in terms of individual
pathology.
c. It allows us to see connections between individual experience and larger social patterns.
d. It increases the prurient value of such programs and makes them more appealing.
e. all of the above
ANS: C
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 28–29
OBJ: The Sociological Perspective (II.B)
42. Although everyday cultural practices, such as greeting a friend, giving flowers, or using the
thumbs-up sign, seem like natural ways of acting, an awareness of how they vary across
cultures demonstrates a healthy sociological imagination because:
a. it ensures that we don’t accidentally make a
faux pas
b.
c.
d.
e.
it reminds us that everyday interactions are connected to larger social structures
it helps us economically when we do business in different countries
it lets us understand how immigrants perceive America when they move here
all of the above
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Perspective (II.B)
43. If we cannot see the whole of society, what can
we see?
a. people interacting
b. different cultures
c. racial groups
d. the economy
e. socioeconomic classes
ANS: A
NOT: Factual
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 7
OBJ: What Does Society Look Like? (I)
44. Together and in groups people organize their lives and their social interactions to produce a
real and meaningful world. Sociologists can study this because:
a. they are interested in all aspects of human psychology
b. doing sociology is a radical undertaking
c. such organization is done in patterned ways
d. sociology understands the importance of human psychology
e. we often assign characteristics to an entire group of people based on experience with a
single member of that group
ANS: C
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 7
OBJ: What Is Sociology? (II.A)
45. Why are there disagreements within sociology about how to define the discipline?
a. Society is always changing.
b. Sociologists are trained to be contentious.
c. There is actually very little disagreement about how to define the discipline.
d. Sociology encompasses a wide range of potential subject matters.
e. There are so many different societies to study.
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 10
OBJ: What Is Sociology? (II.A)
46. Metaphorically, what part of sociology would a zoom lens on a camera be most like?
a. qualitative research
b. microsociology
c. quantitative research
d. macrosociology
e. globalization
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 12
OBJ: Microsociology (II.A.ii.a)
47. Pam Fishman noticed that, within couples, women are more likely than men to use questions
in conversation. Why is this sociologically important?
a. Questions are more likely to be used by the partner with less power, so Fishman’s research
demonstrates connections between general social trends and individual behaviors.
b. Conversational styles are inherent, so Fishman’s research shows a biological basis for
larger social structures.
c. It proves that there really are gender differences, something many people don’t believe.
d. It demonstrates the importance of conversation to maintaining a healthy relationship.
e. It shows that individuals have no real free will or agency and are controlled by the dictates
of social structure.
ANS: A
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 14
OBJ: Microsociology (II.A.ii.a)
48. Most of the time people use psychological rather than sociological arguments to explain why
the world is the way it is and why things happen to us. Why?
a. We don’t have enough information or data for complete sociological explanations.
b. We can benefit materially from a psychological approach.
c. We have insufficiently developed our sociological imagination.
d. We only ever examine problems from a macro perspective.
e. We don’t use enough quantitative research in sociology.
ANS: C
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Perspective (II.B)
49. Anthropologists often develop culture shock when visiting a new culture that is very different
from what they are used to. They temporarily find themselves unable to understand their
surroundings, and everything seems strange. Sociologists attempt to create this same feeling,
but with one key difference. What is it?
a. Sociologists never let everything seem strange, only the things they want to study.
b. Sociologists never attempt to create this feeling; it’s useless in their research.
c. Sociologists try to create this effect without necessarily moving to a new place or
geographic location.
d. Sociologists can profit from this feeling much more than anthropologists.
e. Sociologists do this all the time without even thinking about it.
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 17–18
OBJ: Culture Shock (II.B.ii)
50. It is expected that you will forget many or even most of the facts that you learn in an
introductory sociology class. What is the most important element of the course to not forget?
a. a new way of looking at and thinking about the social world
b. those facts that apply to you personally
c. all the facts and figures that are truly shocking
d. information about race and class
e. those things that really interest you
ANS: A
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 21
OBJ: The Sociological Perspective (II.B)
51. Which of the following is NOT a feature of scientific knowledge?
a. It is completely coherent.
b. It is excruciatingly clear.
c. It is consistent.
d. It is complete.
e. It is nontechnical and recipelike.
ANS: E
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 22
OBJ: Systematic/Comprehensive Knowledge
(III.A.ii)
52. The work of the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard, which inspired the movie The Matrix, is
fairly pessimistic about contemporary society. What is Baudrillard especially worried about?
a. that there are rising levels of inequality between the industrialized world and more
traditional societies
b. that we’ve lost the ability to distinguish between reality and illusion
c. that racial hostility will ruin any chances for a meaningful democracy
d. that globalization will dilute the unique French identity as McDonald’s and Disney World
take over everywhere
e. that rising levels of crime will make fear and apprehension the most common experiences
of life in cities in the twenty-first century
ANS: B
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 23–24
OBJ: America as a Place and an Ideal (III.B.i)
53. Which of the following is a reason that studies of American cities may serve as a model for
the study of almost every conceivable realm of social life?
a. In even the smallest towns, diverse cultural influences are coming together.
b. American towns are very similar to towns in other countries.
c. American urban areas are more important than urban areas in other parts of the world.
d. American cities are very easy to access.
e. Every town in America follows a very similar model, making it easy to generalize from a
small sample.
ANS: A
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 24
OBJ: America as a Place and an Ideal (III.B.i)
54. There are online groups organized around activities like making wine or beer at home, but
there are also cyber communities organized around beverages that really don’t take much
work to make, like Kool-Aid. Why is this sociologically interesting?
a. It shows that people are obsessive.
b. It shows how communities can form through technology without being geographically
connected.
c. It shows that people spend too much time on the Internet.
d. It shows that we all share the same interests now.
e. It indicates that conflict will decrease as the Internet creates a “global village.”
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 25
OBJ: Cyber Communities (III.C.i)
55. Why might the average person not pay much attention to the rapidly growing influence of
mass media?
a. Mass media have very little effect on most people.
b. Most mass media today are driven by ads, and so are not worth noticing.
c. We have more important forms of technology, like e-mail, that need our attention.
d. If you organize your life correctly, you aren’t exposed to a lot of media on a daily basis.
e. Like fish in water, we don’t notice mass media because of its ubiquity.
ANS: E
DIF: Medium
NOT: Conceptual
REF: Page 28
OBJ: The Mass Media and Popular Culture
(III.C.ii)
56. What levels of society do mass media intersect with?
a. only the personal and small-group levels
b. only the level of large institutions
c. every level
d. every level except those that involve race and class
e. only the global level
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 28
OBJ: The Mass Media and Popular Culture
(III.C.ii)
57. Sociology allows you to see the world in a new light. Does this mean you have to reevaluate
old opinions?
a. no
b. only on certain subjects
c. sometimes, but only if you got most of your information from mass media
d. only those opinions about your place in the world, but not about other people
e. yes
ANS: E
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 29
OBJ: The Sociological Perspective (II.B)
58. What aspect of food and eating is NOT socially constructed?
a. the ingredients we desire
b. who we eat with
c. the need to eat
d. how we prepare our food
e. which foods we use to celebrate holidays
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 8
OBJ: The Sociological Perspective (II.B)
59. If you think of the producers of a reality television show as sociologists, how would you
describe their research methods?
a. macrosociological
b. historical
c. qualitative
d. quantitative
e. reciped
ANS: C
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Method of Study (II.A.iii)
60. How is the Grameen Bank, founded by Muhammad Yunus in 1983, different from traditional
banks?
a. It’s designed specifically to lend money to the poor.
b. It has offices only in rural areas.
c. It’s a bank designed exclusively for farmers.
d. It charges higher interest rates and uses more coercive methods to ensure repayment.
e. It’s much more exclusive, reserving loans for those who have large amounts of capital to
guarantee repayment.
ANS: A
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 18
OBJ: Changing the World (II.B.iv)
61. What distinguishes Kiva, the microlending organization founded by Matthew and Jessica
Flannery, from the many other institutions and charities designed to allow Americans to help
people in the developing world?
a. Kiva lenders are rarely paid back the money they invest.
b. Kiva borrows from local banks in order to generate the capital it needs to loan money.
c. Kiva has a long waiting list of qualified borrowers who cannot find anyone to loan them
money.
d. Kiva mostly benefits people who live in inner-city areas within the United States.
e. Kiva is a person-to-person microlending website, allowing donors to select a particular
project to invest in and to follow its progress online.
ANS: E
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 18
OBJ: Changing the World (II.B.iv)
62. The microlending organization Kiva, a striking success since it was founded in 2005, has
helped to create large-scale social change. What feature of contemporary society has helped
make Kiva’s unique approach possible and encouraged its success?
a. multinational corporations, which have made the people in developing nations much more
prosperous and therefore able to take out loans
b. the way that modern media have increasingly focused on local issues and concerns,
making such loans more important
c. increasing levels of wealth, which have made it easy for people to give large sums of
money
d. the internet, which has allowed Kiva to organize its microlending like a social networking
website or a cyber community
e. the mass media’s creation of dangerous illusions about the nature of contemporary society
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 18
OBJ: Changing the World (II.B.iv)
63. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a French lawyer, gourmet, and food writer, famously said,
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” This is literally true of course; the
human body is built out of the raw materials we take in from food. But Savarin was making a
much more sociological point as well, arguing that, although our food preferences seem
idiosyncratic and personal, all food has a socially constructed meaning that is not personal.
Which basic principle helps explain why Savarin says that we are what we eat?
a. the social sciences, which use the scientific method to examine the social world
b. the sociological imagination, which says that even the most personal of things need to be
understood in a larger social context
c. the mass media and popular culture, which control most Americans like helpless puppets
d. the beginner’s mind, which argues that we need to approach the world without
preconceptions
e. the everyday actor, which explains how we gain and use practical knowledge
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
64. Anorexia and bulimia became much more common in the twentieth century. How can the
sociological imagination help to explain the increase of these diseases?
a. by helping us understand how food is produced and distributed
b. by allowing us to connect personal issues with changes in larger social structures
c. because any imagination can help you to better understand how disease works inside the
body
d. the sociological imagination can only help understand social issues, not disease
e. by giving us greater insight into how the human body processes nutrients
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
65. The reality television show Wife Swap exchanges the matriarchs from two very different
families and films the result, as the participants are exposed to radically different ways of life.
Although the television network is simply trying to be entertaining, which principle is being
demonstrated?
a. the sociological imagination
b. globalization
c. macrosociology
d. quantitative methods
e. culture shock
ANS: E
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 17
OBJ: Culture Shock (II.B.ii)
66. Karl Marx said that “Men make their own history” but only “under circumstances existing
already, given and transmitted from the past.” How is this similar to the definition of
sociology given by Howard Becker?
a. Both feel that economics and productive forces are the ultimate cause of all social events.
b. Neither is interested in the individual, only in larger social structures.
c. Neither is interested in larger social structures, only in individual human agency.
d. Both emphasize that neither society nor the individual exists in isolation, but that each is
dependent on the other.
e. Both focus exclusively on history and the past.
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 9
OBJ: What Is Sociology (II.A)
67. In Sidewalk, the sociologist Mitch Duneier spent a great deal of time interviewing and
hanging out with street vendors in New York City. He was especially interested in how power
associated with race and class was produced and reproduced in this setting. What sort of
sociology was Duneier doing?
a. quantitative sociology
b. cyber sociology
c. mass sociology
d. microsociology
e. macrosociology
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 12
OBJ: Microsociology (II.A.ii.a)
68. Some sociologists use a macrosociological approach, while others take a micro approach.
How does this affect the ultimate goal of their research?
a. Microsociologists care about only local concerns.
b. Macrosociologists are much more likely to be worried about globalization.
c. No matter what approach is taken, all sociologists attempt to illuminate the connection
between the individual and society.
d. Regardless of their method, all sociologists tend to believe that individuals are ultimately
in control of their own destiny.
e. Most sociologists do not actually have an ultimate goal.
ANS: C
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Levels of Analysis (II.A.ii)
69. Many Marxist sociologists assume that large-scale economic structures are the most important
factors in people’s lives. Given this, what sort of sociology would these sociologists tend to
prefer?
a. sociology of gender
b. microsociology
c. macrosociology
d. qualitative sociology
e. conservative sociology
ANS: C
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 12
OBJ: Levels of Analysis (II.A.ii)
70. When the federal government researches the risks of driving while talking on a cell phone, its
main goal is to convince people to stop talking on the phone when they’re behind the wheel.
As such, the government wants to express its results in terms that are simple and easily
communicated. Given this, what sort of research should it do?
a. economic research
b. research utilizing a beginner’s mind
c. qualitative research
d. quantitative research
e. microsociological research
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Quantitative Methods (II.A.iii.a)
71. Sociologists who study gender report that the “women’s wage,” the amount that women make
compared to men doing the same job, is around
78 cents on the dollar. Finding this figure required researchers to gather data from a large
number of men and women and compare average salaries. What sort of research is this?
a. everyday
b. quantitative
c. comparative historical
d. qualitative
e. journalistic
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Quantitative Methods (II.A.iii.a)
72. Some sociologists include lengthy direct quotes from their research subjects. They often do
this in order to better present the complex detail and nuance of the social worlds they have
studied. If you know that a research project uses such quotes, what sort of research can you be
sure is being done?
a. psychological
b. qualitative
c. macrosociological
d. quantitative
e. zen
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 15
OBJ: Qualitative Methods (II.A.iii.b)
73. If you possess a sociological imagination and someone asks you to study unemployment rates
in a city of 50 million people where 15 million are unemployed, what would you conclude?
a. that we should consider the economic and political structures of the society
b. that we should consider the work ethic of the average citizen
c. that we should worry about the intelligence level of the workers who have lost their jobs
d. that we should ask those who are unemployed how much they want to work
e. that we should teach people how to take better advantage of their opportunities
ANS: A
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 16–17
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
74. C. Wright Mills argued that not only do “people often feel that their private lives are a series
of traps” but also “they are often quite correct” in this feeling. However, he does not feel that
we are ultimately helpless. Why not?
a. Religion offers solace and comfort even when we feel trapped.
b. He wrote this during the Great Depression, and since then the fundamental nature of our
society has changed.
c. While larger social forces influence individual lives, there are many ways in which we can
affect society as well.
d. If you have enough money, you can buy your way out of the traps that Mills describes.
e. Since Mills wrote, credit cards have become more widely available, giving people options
in an emergency.
ANS: C
NOT: Factual
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 16
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
75. Galileo was responsible for one of the most extreme paradigm shifts in history, when his
empirical observations of the sky led him to conclude that the earth revolved around the sun,
rather than vice versa. Galileo did not simply use a new technology, the telescope, to see new
things; he saw them differently than anyone else. Which concept describes this process of
“seeing differently”?
a. quantification
b. beginner’s mind
c. popular culture
d. global perspective
e. the sociological imagination
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 20
OBJ: Beginner’s Mind (II.B.iii)
76. A graduate student in a sociology department is taking a course on the sociology of the
economy. In this class, she learns that, even though she always thought of her family as
middle class, her parents’ income compared to that of the rest of the country actually qualifies
them as upper class. What just happened?
a. The student discovered the importance of microsociology.
b. The student gained a beginner’s mind.
c. The student moved from being an everyday actor to being a social analyst.
d. The student became a professional sociologist.
e. The student spent some time “doing nothing,” as Bernard McGrane suggested.
ANS: C
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Page 22
OBJ: Reciped/Practical Knowledge (III.A.i)
77. According to William J. Mitchell, in The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the PostPhotographic Era, TV Guide once took a picture of Oprah and grafted her head onto the body
of Ann-Margret. Although this is an extreme example, Mitchell’s larger point is that almost
every photo Americans now look at in the media has been digitally altered, leading many to
worry that:
a. we have lost the ability to distinguish between reality and special effects
b. Americans are spending too much time watching television
c. we are becoming a global village, all consuming the same media and becoming like one
tribe
d. urban centers are becoming increasingly diverse, and some are important to a postmodern
world
e. the United States is becoming part of a global community
ANS: A
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Hard
REF: Pages 23–24
OBJ: Contemporary American Society (III.B)
78. If a sociologist wanted to study the social meaning of pizza, he would be hampered by a
lifetime of preconceptions and assumptions about pizza. It would be hard for him to think
about it objectively because it is so familiar. Which concept describes a process that might
help?
a. quantitative methods
b. popular culture
c. culture shock
d. qualitative methods
e. microsociology
ANS: C
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 17
OBJ: Culture Shock (II.B.ii)
79. One of the key challenges sociologists face is studying something they are intimately familiar
with. Like fish in water, sociologists often find it hard to see what is right in front of their
faces. To overcome this, you might try:
a. moving to another country
b. asking people from other societies to help you
c. studying an unfamiliar religion
d. doing nothing
e. using quantitative methods
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Hard
REF: Pages 20–21
OBJ: Beginner’s Mind (II.B.iii)
80. For many years, poor people, especially in the developing world, had a very hard time getting
credit. Large-scale social structures and economic institutions were unwilling or unable to
loan money on a small scale, which greatly impoverished the lives of those without access to
credit. Kiva was founded to help solve this problem, by connecting individuals who wanted to
loan small amounts of money to those who needed to borrow small amounts. What basic
sociological principle can be deduced from the founding of Kiva?
a. Sociological methods are more usefully thought of as a continuum than as polarized
options.
b. Macrosociology understands society in terms of the ways in which large-scale intuitions
affect the lives of individuals.
c. Macro-level phenomena are manifested in everyday interactions.
d. Microsociology is more effective in addressing the problems of communities.
e. While social structures influence individual lives, there are many ways in which our
individual actions can change the world.
ANS: E
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Pages 18–19
OBJ: Changing the World (II.B.iv)
81. The divorce rate has steadily increased over time, and now more than a quarter of all
marriages end within the first four years. What sort of factors would C. Wright Mills suggest
investigating to explain this increase?
a. religious issues
b. C. Wright Mills wouldn’t be concerned with marriage because he’s a sociologist.
c. personal issues
d. structural issues
e. psychological issues
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Pages 16–17
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
82. You are looking over the courses being offered at your school and you see a class called “The
Sociology of Media and Popular Culture.” You don’t think you need this course because you
listen to lots of music, watch a wide variety of television, and often go to the movies. A
sociologist would tell you that:
a. you are a specialist in mass media
b. you should try to watch media from other cultures if you really want to understand popular
culture
c. you should take classes in Film Studies instead
d. you only have reciped knowledge
e. you are correct, you don’t need to take the
course
ANS: D
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 22
OBJ: Reciped/Practical Knowledge (III.A.i)
83. In recent years there have been many websites, and several books, devoted to e-mail etiquette.
Older style manuals, written before e-mail, tend to discourage the overuse of exclamation
marks. New guides, written with e-mail in mind, encourage their use. Why might a sociologist
be interested in studying this?
a. Sociologists have to write large numbers of e-mails.
b. It proves that society is learning to communicate better.
c. Changes in etiquette can be linked to larger changes in society.
d. Sociologists are also writers, and expressing themselves properly is very important.
e. E-mail is far and away the most important form of writing today.
ANS: C
NOT: Conceptual
DIF: Hard
REF: Pages 22–23
OBJ: Historical Perspective (III.A.iii)
84. Figure 1.1 shows the close relationship between sociology and the other social sciences.
Given how much overlap there is, why does sociology still exist as a discipline?
a. All the other departments specialize in something, but sociology is a general field, bringing
together the theories and findings from those other disciplines to produce a broad
synthesis.
b. Only sociology worries about what will happen in the future.
c. Despite significant overlap, there is still a good deal of unique territory that only
sociologists study.
d. Sociology departments exist as an academic tradition and would be difficult to disband.
e. Political science and economics departments are much more politically conservative, so
sociology remains to provide a liberal counterbalance.
ANS: C
NOT: Applied
DIF: Easy
REF: Page 7
OBJ: How Does Sociology Work? (II)
Figure 1.1
85. If you didn’t know anything about Pam Fishman but that Figure 1.2 features data from her
research, what could you logically determine about her?
a. that she is a conflict theorist
b. that she is a macrosociologist
c. that she is a structural functionalist
d. that she is very interested in inequality
e. that she is a microsociologist
ANS: E
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Pages 12–13
OBJ: Microsociology (II.A.ii.a)
Figure 1.2
source: Fishman 1978
Figure 1.3
The Macro-Micro Continuum
86. In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Pierre Bourdieu explored the ways
in which individual tastes or aesthetic preferences are determined by class status. Given this
fact alone, in which step of the macro-micro continuum (figure 1.3) would you put Bourdieu?
a. socialization
b. social institutions
c. self
d. groups
e. roles
ANS: B
NOT: Applied
DIF: Medium
REF: Page 14
OBJ: Levels of Analysis (II.A.ii)
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. The need for food is biological, not social, but society still shapes the way we eat and the
meaning we give to food. Using your sociological imagination, pick out a particular food that
you enjoy, and analyze it in terms of its social meaning. How are the ingredients and the
preparation style connected to larger social structures?
ANS:
Any answer would have to be specific in identifying features of a food that can be related to a
larger social issue, like the speed with which microwave burritos can be made and how that
relates to our economic need for speed.
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
2. The sociological perspective, as a way of thinking about the world, includes the sociological
imagination from C. Wright Mills, the beginner’s mind from Bernard McGrane, and the idea
of culture shock from anthropology. What do all three of these concepts have in common?
ANS:
They all advocate ways of thinking that help us clear away preconceptions that may be
blocking us from seeing and understanding things that are directly in front of us. Mills tells us
to look for connections between the personal and the social; McGrane tells us to try and
ignore old knowledge in order to find new ways of seeing things; and culture shock is a way
of seeing things as if we had never seen them before. All help to achieve a sociological
perspective.
OBJ: The Sociological Perspective (II.B)
3. Chapter 1 focuses on contemporary American society, saying that America is both a place and
an ideal. What does the text mean by this?
ANS:
America is not merely a geographic location or a demographic category. America is both a
real place and an ideal concept that serves to situate us within a meaningful cultural and
historical context and can evoke a kind of mythical quality that represents our deepest hopes,
fears, and dreams. As a nation and an ideal, America has long occupied our collective
imaginations. Sociologists and social thinkers of all types—from here and abroad, from the
past to the present—have looked at America and the American way of life with great
fascination.
OBJ: America as a Place and an Ideal (III.B.i)
4. Marshall McLuhan believed that radio and television would act like a campfire that everyone
on earth could huddle around, creating a “global village,” or a sense of community across
great distances. More recently the Internet has greatly accelerated this phenomenon. Do you
believe that online communities are really the same as those that share a common geographic
location?
ANS:
Any answer would have to identify features of old, geographically centered communities that
do not arise in online communities (material support, physical contact) and contrast them with
new features of online communities (increased diversity, freedom to be whoever you want,
and perhaps even increased danger, as you never know who you are dealing with).
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective (III.C)
5. Chapter 1 contrasts practical knowledge with scientific knowledge. Describe some activity of
which you have practical knowledge, and list the steps that you would have to take to develop
scientific knowledge of it. Describe how your knowledge would change as you developed
scientific knowledge of the subject and demonstrate that you understand the difference
between the two types of knowledge.
ANS:
Any answer should demonstrate knowledge of some everyday activity that the student can use
in a functional way, but about which she does not have completely coherent, excruciatingly
clear, consistent, or complete knowledge. Suggestions for how to develop scientific
knowledge probably involve either schools, bookstores, libraries, or some other source of
learning.
OBJ: Sociology and Everyday Life (III.A)
6. The French sociologist Jean Baudrillard argues that our current social arrangements are built
on dangerous illusions. He believes that we are losing the ability to distinguish between reality
and fantasy, as represented in the movie The Matrix. Describe and analyze some feature of
contemporary society where you think this is true.
ANS:
Answers should focus on parts of society like advertising and media that “keep us spinning in
an endless cycle of material consumption and media hysteria” (people injuring themselves
imitating cartoon characters, urban myths, etc.).
OBJ: America as a Place and an Ideal (III.B.i)
7. America’s geographic boundaries are not walls that keep the rest of the world out. Instead, we
live in an increasingly globalized world, where our actions affect and are affected by people
all over the world. Describe how America is linked to people in different cultures and societies
around the world.
ANS:
Answers should mention some combination of diplomacy, transnational corporations, natural
resources, tourism, exposure to cultural elements, and especially the increasingly globalized
mass media.
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective (III.C)
8. Sociologists often have to decide if they are going to adopt a microsociological or a
macrosociological approach in any given project. Explain how these perspectives differ,
paying special attention to the different assumptions about how society works that are
contained within each perspective.
ANS:
Microsociology focuses on the interactions between individuals, while macrosociology
approaches large-scale social structure. Microsociology tends to see individual-level
interactions as constitutive of the larger patterns, processes, and institutions of society, while
macrosociologists tend to assume that large social structures create the context and conditions
within which individuals act.
OBJ: Levels of Analysis (II.A.ii)
9. Sociology as a discipline is commonly divided between those who use qualitative methods
and those who use quantitative ones. Describe the differences between the two approaches and
explain the one goal they always have in common.
ANS:
Quantitative methods condense data into numbers, which allows it to be analyzed statistically
and summarized concisely. Qualitative methods work with nonnumerical data such as texts,
written field notes, interview transcripts, photographs, and tape recordings. Rather than
condensing lived experience into a number, chart, or graph, qualitative researchers use
methods that preserve the details of the cases they study so they can be interpreted. Regardless
of method, all sociologists seek to illuminate the connection between the individual and
society.
OBJ: Methods of Study (II.A.iii)
10. Chapter 1 attempts to use a sociological perspective to better understand school shootings, like
the one carried out at Virginia Tech by 23-year-old English major Seung-Hui Cho or the more
recent shooting at Northern Illinois University committed by Steven Kazmierczak.
The sociological perspective suggests that we think about the perpetrators of such crimes
both as individuals who made horribly wrong personal decisions and as individuals who were
shaped by their social circumstances. How were they shaped by and their actions made
possible by the social context they lived in?
ANS:
Although school shootings are always followed by a desperate search for answers, most of the
time we focus on psychological explanations. However, both school shooters were living in a
specific cultural and historical context, which helped to create an environment in which they
carried out their crimes. They were products of common family structures and child-rearing
practices. They had trouble during adolescence, felt shy and awkward, were alienated and
ostracized, and were bullied at school. They were exposed to a great deal of violence in the
media, and guns were readily available to them, as were manuals for making explosives.
Regardless of the psychological issues present, the particular way in which these individuals
became violent is culturally and historically specific.
OBJ: The Sociological Imagination (II.B.i)
11. Marshall McLuhan believed that new media technologies would create a “global village,”
where people from all over the world would be brought together by a shared interest in the
same media. Many new media technologies have been introduced since the 1960s, when
McLuhan was writing. Cite specific examples to show both the places where the media have
made a global village and those places where they have not.
ANS:
While good answers should point out the ways that television and movies have indeed become
global, they should also point out the ways that other media technologies, like the internet,
have allowed people to splinter into smaller and smaller groups, the opposite of what
McLuhan predicted.
OBJ: The United States in Global Perspective
(III.C)