- •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
12) The problems of social structure and modern society
Social structure is a term used in the social sciences to refer to patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of the individuals. The usage of the term "social structure" has changed over time and may reflect the various levels of analysis within differing sub-fields of sociology. On the macro scale, it can refer to the system of socioeconomic stratification (e.g., the class structure), social institutions, or, other patterned relations between large social groups. On the meso scale, it can refer to the structure of social network ties between individuals or organizations. On the micro scale, it can refer to the way norms shape the behavior of actors within the social system.
13) The problem of anomie in sociology
Аnomie, also spelled anomy , in societies or individuals, a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values or from a lack of purpose or ideals.
When a social system is in a state of anomie, common values and common meanings are no longer understood or accepted, and new values and meanings have not developed. According to Durkheim, such a society produces, in many of its members, psychological states characterized by a sense of futility, lack of purpose, and emotional emptiness and despair.
Durkheim argued that economic affluence, by stimulating human desires, carries with it dangers of anomic conditions because it "deceives us into believing that we depend on ourselves only," while "poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint in itself." Since the realization of human desires depends upon the resources at hand, the poor are restrained, and hence less prone to suffer from anomie by virtue of the fact that they possess but limited resources. "The less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs indefinitely."
By accounting for the different susceptibility to anomie in terms of the social process--that is, the relations between individuals rather than the biological propensities of individuals-- Durkheim in effect proposed a specifically sociological theory of deviant behavior even though he failed to point to the general implications of this crucial insight. In the words of Robert K. Merton, who was the first to ferret out in this respect the overall implications of Durkheim's thought and to develop them methodically, "Social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in the society to engage in nonconforming rather than conforming conduct."
14) Interactionist view to the social institutions
Symbolic interactionism, or interactionism for short, is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology.
Interactionists focus on the subjective aspects of social life, rather than on objective, macro-structural aspects of social systems. One reason for this focus is that interactionists base their theoretical perspective on their image of humans, rather than on their image of society (as the functionalists do). For interactionists, humans are pragmatic actors who continually must adjust their behavior to the actions of other actors.
For the interactionist, society consists of organized and patterned interactions among individuals. Thus, research by interactionists focuses on easily observable face-to-face interactions rather than on macro-level structural relationships involving social institutions. Furthermore, this focus on interaction and on the meaning of events to the participants in those events (the definition of the situation) shifts the attention of interactionists away from stable norms and values toward more changeable, continually readjusting social processes.