- •4. What factors influence the rate of change experienced by a society?
- •5.Discuss the pros and cons of considering the economy as part of the infrastructure of sociocultural systems
- •6 Who are the power elite? What is the source of their power?
- •7.What social forces have made the masses (and even the middle level) powerless?
- •8.Population, Urbanization, & Environoment
- •9. Government & Politics
- •10. Role of religion in society
- •11) Role of education in society
- •12) The role of family in socialization
- •13) The problem of stratification in Sociology
- •14) Hawthorne experiment
- •16) Scope of the subject of sociology and comparison with other social sciences.
- •17) Sociology and common sense.
- •18) Sociology as Science
- •19) Positivism and its critique
- •20) Research Methods and Analysis
- •21) Techniques of data collection
- •22) Variables, sampling, hypothesis, reliability and validity.
- •23) Sociological Thinkers
- •24) Karl Marx - Historical materialism, mode of production, alienation, class struggle.
- •25) Emile Durkheim- Division of labour, social fact, suicide, religion and society
- •26) Robert k. Merton- Latent and manifest functions, conformity and deviance, reference groups
- •27) Mead - Self and identity
- •28) Stratification and Mobility
- •29. Dimensions – Social stratification of class, status groups, gender, ethnicity and race
- •31. Social organization of work in different types of society- slave society, feudal society, industrial /capitalist society
- •32. Labour and society
- •34 Power elite, bureaucracy, pressure groups, and political parties
- •35 Protest, agitation, social movements, collective action, revolution
- •36 Religion and Society
- •37. Sociological theories of religion
- •38 Types of religious practices: animism, monism, pluralism, sects, cults
- •39. Religion in modern society: religion and science, secularization, religious revivalism, fundamentalism
- •40. The object and the subject of Sociology
- •41. The main categories (terms) of Sociology
- •42. Specializations of Sociology
- •43. The main techniques (methods) of Sociology
- •1 Please explain how Durkheim’s study of suicide and d. Snow’s study of homelessness reflected both a sociological and a scientific approach to their topics
- •2 What is the difference between micro-sociology and macro-sociology
- •3.Why does this course focus exclusively on macro-sociology
- •4. What is a paradigm?
- •5.Of what use is social theory?
- •6. How is this different than earlier industrial societies?
- •7. How does the capitalist world-system maintain political stability?
- •8. Describe the social condition Durkheim calls "anomie.
- •10) What is the role of religion in society?
- •11) What are manifest and latent functions? What is a dysfunction?
- •12) What is Durkheim's anomie theory of deviance?
- •13) Conflict Theory
- •14) Social Classes
- •15 Social mobility
- •16) Race and Ethnicity
- •17) Minority Groups
- •18 Money, economy and social relevance
- •19 The role of mass media in our life
- •20 Censorship and freedom of speech
- •21 Environmental health
- •23) How has television affected social and political discourse in modern society?
- •24) In what sense is technological change "ecological" in nature?
- •25) In what ways has our production system become hostile to the environment?
- •26) Why did America go into Iraq?
- •27) Why did nato help to drive out Muamar Kaddafi in Libya?
- •28) Please explain the significance of the Hawthorne experiment to the development of applied Sociology.
- •29 Is it possible to replicate Hawthorne experiment in nowadays (you can try and remember the case from the text “Replication as a research tool
- •30 How to avoid the Hawthorne Effect?
- •31. How do sociologists use scientific method?
- •32. How can researchers develop a sample of homeless persons in order to study the issue of homelessness?
- •33. Why does the conclusion of a sociological study invariably point the way to new research?
- •36, Why is it valuable for sociologists to have a code of professional ethics?
- •38. Please explain and describe the difficulties that you can encounter in defining a problem when you are conducting a sociological research
- •39. Please explain how sociologists define operational definitions in their sociological project
- •40. Please explain and give reasons why sociologists review special literature on their social problem
- •41. Please explain and define how sociologists give variables in their sociological research
- •42. Explain how sociologists use definite method(s) for gathering data
- •6) Social ideas of Herbert Spencer
- •8) The problems of social interaction and reality in sociology
- •10) The meaning of ascribed and achieved status. Master status.
- •11) Conflict view to the social institutions
- •12) The problems of social structure and modern society
- •13) The problem of anomie in sociology
- •14) Interactionist view to the social institutions
- •15)Functionalist view to the social institutions.
- •16) How has the socialization process changed in the 20th century? How have these changes affected childhood?
- •17) Patriarchy and sexual division of labour
- •18) Agents of social change
- •19) Education and social change
- •20) Science, technology and social change
- •21) Society, community, association, institution
- •22) Social Groups - primary, secondary and reference groups.
- •23) Social structure, social system, social action
- •24) Status and role
- •25) Norms and values-conformity and deviance.
- •26) Social stratification: forms and functions
- •27) Types of society: tribal, agrarian, industrial and post-industrial
- •28) Marriage : types and norms, marriage as contract, and as a sacrament.
- •29. Family : types, functions and changes.
- •30 Kinships : terms and usages, rules of residence, descent, inheritance.
- •31. What is the difference between micro-sociology and macro-sociology?
- •32 Why does this course focus exclusively on macro-sociology?
- •33 What is a paradigm in Sociology?
- •34 Of what use is social theory?
- •35 What is positivism?
- •36, What was Comte’s favored (principal) method of inquiry?
- •37, The role of social institutions in a modern society.
- •38. The problem of suicide in sociology.
- •39. Society as a category of Sociology.
- •40. Durkheim’s Study of Suicide.
- •41. Comte believed all human life had passed through the same 3 distinct historical stages – theology, … , … .Please complete the sentence and explain what Comte meant.
- •42. Sociologists often conduct research using the scientific method. Please, explain how they do it. Give definite example from your hand-outs.
- •43 Max Weber suggested that the best way to understand human behavior is by a direct ″sympathetic understanding″. Please, explain what Weber meant.
- •44 It is sometimes charged by nonsociologists that sociology is a science of the obvious. Please, give your own opinion about this problem.
- •45 There is a traditional commonsense explanation (statement) that more young people than old people commit suicide. How to prove or reject this statement using the method of natural science.
- •49 Please, examine sociological and psychological approaches to the issue of gambling.
- •50 Please, explain why Herbert Spencer did not feel compelled to correct or improve society.
- •52 Durkheim insisted that the growing division of labor found in industrial societies led to what he called anomie. Please, explain what Durkheim meant and what sociologists call anomie.
- •II Durkheim's Theory on Anomie
10) The meaning of ascribed and achieved status. Master status.
Achieved status is a concept developed by the anthropologist Ralph Linton denoting a social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit; it is a position that is earned or chosen. It is the opposite of ascribed status. It reflects personal skills, abilities, and efforts. Examples of achieved status are being an Olympic athlete, being a criminal, or being a college professor.
Status is important sociologically because it comes with a set of rights, obligations, behaviors, and duties that people occupying a certain position are expected or encouraged to perform. These expectations are referred to as roles. For instance, the role of a "professor" includes teaching students, answering their questions, being impartial, and dressing appropriately.
Ascribed status is the social status a person is assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life. It is a position that is neither earned nor chosen but assigned. These rigid social designators remain fixed throughout an individual's life and are inseparable from the positive or negative stereotypes that are linked with one's ascribed statuses.
In Sociology, master status is the social position which is the primary identifying characteristic of an individual. It is defined as "a status that has exceptional importance for social identity, often shaping a person's entire life". The master status, whether ascribed or achieved, overshadows or dominates all other social positions of the status set in most or all situations. The term was suggested in an article of 1945 by Everett Hughes who cited sex and race as illustrations of dominating statuses. The other social positions form the "status set": an individual's entire collection of statuses, at a specific period of time. Over a lifetime, a person regularly exchange, relinquish, and take on many different statuses.
11) Conflict view to the social institutions
Social conflict theory is a Marxist-based social theory which argues that individuals and groups (social classes) within society have differing amounts of material and non-material resources (the wealthy vs. the poor) and that the more powerful groups use their power in order to exploit groups with less power.[citation needed]
The two methods by which this exploitation is done are through brute force usually done by police and the army and economics. Earlier social conflict theorists argue that money is the mechanism which creates social disorder. The theory further states that society is created from ongoing social conflict between various groups. There are other theories of deviance, the functionalist theory, the control theory and the strain theory. It also refers to various types of positive social interaction that may occur within social relationships.
Social institutions are established or standardized patterns of rule-governed behavior. They include the family, education, religion, and economic and political institutions.