Basketball Review
• Groups have an opportunity to answer a
question. If answered correctly, they get to
shoot the ball for points.
• If they miss the shot or answer is incorrect, it’s
the next group’s turn to answer a question.
• If they make the shot, the group can answer
one more question.
Study Guide due test day
Covers:
• Social Science & Sociology’s Development
• Important Sociologists
• Perspectives/Theories
• Society & Culture
• Diversity
• Subculture
• Deviance
• Stratification
All these concepts will be on the test.
The questions asked and the vocabulary that
appears will be on the test in some similar
format.
Social Sciences
• Social Sciences are disciplines that study human
social behavior, whereas natural science study the
natural world (chemistry, biology)
• Sociology: studies human society and social
behavior
• Psych.: deals with individuals’ behavior and thinking
• History: past events
• Political Science: government & politics
• Economics: study of choice people make to satisfy
need & wants (financial decisions)
• Anthropology: comparative study of past &
present cultures.
DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS
• Industrial Revolution
• Housing Shortage
• Shortage of jobs
• Movement to cities
• Increased crime
• Increased pollution
• Political changes
• Social phenomena: observable facts & events
• Sociological Imagination: making a personal
connection between you and society/the larger
world
SOCIOLOGISTS
• Comte: “Founder” of sociology
• Spencer: society is a set of interdependent parts
that work together to maintain the system
• Durkheim: Developed the functionalist perspective
• Marx: his ideas/writings are the basis for conflict
perspective
• Weber: Interested in how individuals used symbols
to interact/communicate (interactionist
perspective)
• Mead: In Papua New Guinea, studied the Arapesh
and Mundugomor. Nature vs. Nurture – Are we
born with a set of characteristics or do we learn
them?
PERSPECTIVES
• Theory: an explanation of the relationship among
phenomena
• Theoretical Perspective: Set of assumptions; a way
of looking at the world
Manifest function: intended consequence/purpose
Latent function: unintended consequence
Dysfunction: negative consequence
Macrosociology: looks at the big picture
(Functionalism, Conflict)
Microsociology: Looks at individual or small group
interactions (Interactionism)
Sociologist Dating Profiles
• Choose 4 sociologists and create a dating profile for
each of them. Be creative:
• Treat them as if they were alive today and as if they
have online dating profiles.
• What are their interests?
• What do they do?
• What are their beliefs?
• What do you think they’d do/be like in the 21st
Century?
Create Your Own Society
(What’s your ideal society?)
• Culminating Activity: If you created/lived in your
ideal society, what would it be like?
• Explain important values and norms (include
folkways, mores, and laws)
• What would socialization look like (what are the most
important agents, where would most of it take place, etc.)?
• How would society be stratified/divided? Would it
be diverse (race, ethnicity, religion, etc)? What’s the
class/caste system like?
• What’s deviant in your society? Why would people
commit deviant acts?
Society and Culture
• Society: group of people with territory, interaction
& culture
• Culture: all shared products of human groups
• Material Culture: physical objects created by human
groups
• Nonmaterial Culture: abstract/intangible human
creations
• Cultural Variations: differences among cultures
• Cultural universals: common features found in all
cultures
Race & ethnicity?
Bias: tendency to favor one group over another
Ethnocentrism: belief that one’s own culture/group is
superior
Cultural relativism: belief that cultures should be
judged by their own standards
Subculture: group with its own unique values, norms,
behaviors, existing with larger mainstream culture
Counterculture: group that rejects values, norms,
behaviors of larger society, replacing them with
their own
• Explain the 6 characteristics of adolescence:
1.Biological Growth & Development
2. Undefined status
3. Increased decision making
4. Increased Pressure
5. Search for self
• Why do teens date? List at least 3 reasons.
Social Status, entertainment, socialization
• What are 3 factors that influence teen sexual
activity?
1. Family income level
3. parents’ marital
status
2. Religious participation
• Consequences of early sexual activity:
Pregnancy, STDs
• What is a drug? Substance that changes mood,
behavior, or consciousness
• What is the most popular legal drug among teens?
Alcohol
• What is the most popular illegal drug?
Marijuana
• List 3 factors that influence teen drug use:
1. Friends who use 3. Living in hostile environment
2.Social/academic problems
Identify 4 predictors of teen suicide:
1.Alcohol/drug use
3. Age
2.Triggering Events
4. Gender
Population density, family relations, clustering effect
What is social integration?
Degree of attachment people have to social groups or
to society as a whole
Stratification:
• The division of society into categories, ranks,
classes, etc.
• Caste system is based on ascribed statuses (a
person’s status is determined by their
parents/they’re born into it).
• Resources, rewards, opportunities distributed on
the basis of ascribed statuses
• Class system is based on achieved status. There’s
mobility: people can move up/down
• Achieved Status: status acquired by someone
on the basis of some special skill, knowledge
or ability
• Ascribed Status: status assigned according to
standards beyond a person’s control (sex,
heritage, race, age)
Wealth, power, prestige
• Wealth: the combined assets someone
possesses (income, property, resources, etc)
• Power: the ability to control the behavior of
others, with or without their consent
• Prestige: the respect/honor/recognition one
receives from other members of society
• Institutional Discrimination: discrimination that is
an outgrowth of if the structure of society
– Meaning: it happens as a result of the normal day-to-day
operations of society
– Redlining, blockbusting, “driving while black,” sexism in
the workplace, not being called back for an interview
because of one’s perceived race
• Legal Discrimination: discrimination upheld by the
law
– Segregated schools and transportation system, AfricanAmericans & women not being able to vote, restricting
women’s job opportunities in the military, denying
education opportunities to undocumented immigrants
Conflict Theory on stratification
• Competition over scarce resources causes
social inequality (and thus stratification)
• The elite exploit (use) the working class to
make profits and preserve their power
Functionalism on stratification
Why is society stratified?
• Society is stratified to guarantee that certain roles
(jobs) in society are performed.
• Ex: A doctor receives more wealth, power, prestige
compared to a McDonald’s cashier because society
wants to guarantee that there are people who want
to and will be doctors
• If a doctor & cashier received an equal amount of
wealth, power & prestige, there’s little incentive to
become a doctor
Deviance is behavior that violates
significant social norms.
To be considered deviant by society:
1. A person’s deviant behavior has to be
known to other people.
2. Individual must be stigmatized
Stigma – mark of social disgrace that
sets deviant apart from rest of
society
functionalism
• View deviance as natural
part of society.
• Functionalist explanation
known as Strain Theory
• ST: deviance is a natural
outgrowth of the values,
norms, & structure of
society
• Anomie: situation where
societal norms are
unclear or no longer
applicable
• Example: US society
values economic success,
but not everyone has
legitimate means to
achieve that goal
• Such an individual
experiences anomie.
Tries to achieve
economic success
through illegitimate
means (deviance: crime,
cheating)
• Strain Theory: people react to pressure in society
(especially regarding the expectations to achieve certain
goals) in different ways
• Conformity
• Innovation
• Ritualism
• Retreatism
• Rebellion
Strain Theory
Conformity
Rebellion
Innovation
Deviance is a natural product of society.
People respond in 5 ways to goals + norms
Ritualism
Retreatism
Conflict
• Competition and social
inequality lead to
deviance
• People with power
commit deviant acts to
maintain their position.
• Those without power
commit deviant acts to:
1. Obtain economic
rewards.
2. Because they feel
powerless.
• Ruling classes label
threatening behavior as
deviant
• Lower classes commit
acts defined as deviant
due to limited
opportunities
• Deviance perceived to be
lower class problem;
targeted by law
enforcement
Conflict Theory
Inequality + competition + maintaining/gaining
position = deviance
Competition for scarce resources and the desire
to maintain or gain power leads to deviance
Control Theory – deviance is a natural
occurrence.
Social ties between people determines conformity:
individuals who are well integrated into a
community are likely to conform.
Weak ties=likely to commit deviant acts.
Strong ties=less likely to commit deviant acts
Control Theory
Very weak bonds/
relationships
More likely to commit
deviant behavior
Very strong bonds/relationships
less likely to
commit deviant
behavior
Cultural Transmission Theory – deviance is a
learned behavior (as is non-deviant behavior).
Learned through interaction with others.
Interaction with people engaged in deviant acts
means that deviant norms/values are
transmitted and the individual is socialized into
deviant behavior.
Labeling Theory–focuses on how individuals come to be
identified as deviant. Everyone commits deviant acts, but
not everyone is labeled as deviant. There’s 2 types of
deviance:
•Primary Deviance–nonconformity that goes undetected
by those in authority. Society & individuals don’t consider
themselves to be deviant
•Secondary Deviance –individual is labeled as deviant &
accepts the label as true.
– With a degradation ceremony: individual denounced
in a public setting and given new identity as deviant
Labeling Theory
Primary deviance
undetected
Society’s Reaction
Individual labelled as
deviant
Secondary deviance