...political science. C. anthropology. D. sociology. Answer: D Type: D 3. Sociology A. is the scientific study of social behavior and human groups. B. focuses primarily on how social relationships influence people’s behavior. C. focuses on how societies develop and change. D. all of these Answer: D Type: D 4. The awareness that allows people to comprehend the link between their immediate, personal social settings and the remote, impersonal social world is called A. the sociological imagination. B. anthropology. C. a theory. D. verstehen. Answer: A Type: D 5. ____________ is most closely associated with the concept of the sociological imagination. A. Émile Durkheim B. Max Weber C. Karl Marx D. C. Wright Mills Answer: D Type: S 6. A key element in the sociological imagination is the ability to view one’s own society A. from the perspective of personal experience. B. from the perspective of cultural biases. C. as an outsider. D. as an insider. Answer: C Type: I 7. A sociologist observing behavior at a college football game would probably focus on A. what books the coach of the team has read during the past year. B. a “fan” who has fallen asleep during...
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...This essay will discuss the sociological imagination (Mills 1959) as a tool to understand that personal troubles can often be caused or influenced by broader issues within society, rather than as a result of the individual. Fundamental to this theory is the difference between personal troubles and public issues in society, as often a distinction is not made between the two. If this contrast cannot be recognised then a sense of entrapment can be felt by the individual. An example of this is the institution of marriage and divorce. If the connection to the societal issues can be seen and perspective on personal troubles changed, this sense of entrapment or guilt can be relieved. Mills stated that the key to the sociological imagination was being able to see the relationship between the personal life of the individual and the wider public issues of society. An individual’s private troubles may occur due to their character, skills and immediate opportunities. Public issues are the result of broad societal flaws, affecting the individual but not caused by them directly (Mills 1959: 8). The distinction between the two is not always seen clearly, and often those that are unable to distinguish this difference are plagued by a feeling of entrapment and feel they are to blame for their situation and are thus falsely conscious of their social position (Mills 1959: 6). The sociological imagination can relieve this feeling as it allows the individual to understand that personal problems...
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...Compare and contrast the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist theoretical approaches to the study of society. How does each approach view society, the individual, social order, and social change? Your textbook analyzes sports in terms of various perspectives. Using the analysis of sports as a model, analyze the role of television from the functional, conflict, and interactionist approaches. Sociologists analyze social phenomena at different levels and from different perspectives. From interpretations to sweeping generalizations of society and social behavior, sociologists study everything from specific events; the micro level of analysis of small social patterns, to the big picture; the macro level of analysis of large social patterns. Sociologists today use three theoretical perspectives: the interactionist perspective, the functionalist perspective, and the conflict perspective. These perspectives offer sociologists theoretical examples for explaining how society influences people, and vice versa. “While the functionalist and conflict approaches were initiated in Europe, interactionism developed first in the United States (p. 15).” Herbert Mead is credited as the founder of the interactionist perspective. The interactionist perspective, directs sociologists to consider the symbols and details of everyday life, what these symbols mean, and how people interact with each other. According to the interactionist perspective, people attach meanings to symbols, and...
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...1. 1.The Sociological perspective What is Sociology? Sociology is the scientific study of human society & social behavior. 2. What is Sociology? * It focuses primarily on the influence of social relationships upon people’s attitudes and behavior and on how societies are established and change. * The ultimate aim of sociology as summed up by Samuel Koenig is “ to improve man’s adjustment to life by developing objective knowledge concerning social phenomena which can be used to deal effectively with social problems.” 3. The Sociological Perspective * 1. The sociological perspective is important because it provides a different way of looking at familiar worlds. It allows us to gain a new vision of social life. * 2. This perspective stresses the broader social context of behavior by looking at individuals’ social location, employment, income, education, gender, age, and race –and by considering external influences –people’s experiences –which are internalized and become part of a person’s thinking and motivations. (cont…) 4. * We are able to see the links between what people do and the social settings that shape their behavior. * 3. The sociological perspective enables us to analyze and understand both the forces that contribute to the emergence and growth of the global village and our unique experiences in our own smaller corners of this village. 5. Subject Matter of Sociology * Sociological analysis:...
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...examiners’ advice to create essay plans of the questions. * You may not have heard of all of the concepts in the mark scheme but there should be at least some that are familiar to you. * The examiner’s advice usually outlines bad, moderate and good answers to the question so pick out the ways in which you can achieve top band and incorporate this into your plan. June 2015 Examine the impact of government policies and laws on family life. [24 marks] From the mark scheme: Concepts and issues such as the following may appear: patriarchy; familism; surveillance; ideological control; gender regimes; marital breakdown; family structure; family diversity; welfare dependency; underclass; reserve army of labour Policies/laws on abortion; divorce; contraception; reproductive technology; marriage; adoption; pensions; benefits; taxes; education; childcare; child protection; sexuality; immigration may be discussed Analysis and evaluation may be developed, for instance by comparing the impact of different policies/laws or by discussing perspectives on social policy and the family (eg New Right, feminist, functionalist etc) From the examiner’s report: The most successful answers were able to identify relevant policies...
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...The Effects of Divorce Divorce is extremely common today. No fault divorce took away a marriage’s legal power to bind a husband and wife, allowing one spouse to dissolve a marriage for any reason or for no reason at all. This is causing numerous children to be raised in single family homes. Children then have to adjust to new situations and feelings. The traditional family consisting of a man, his wife, and their children seems to be history. Today divorce is considered normal, almost expected for most couples getting married. But there is much more to divorce than just family matters. Divorce has an effect on society, children, and finances. Divorce can hinder society by dissolving families and weakening belief in the family as a social unit. A family does more than unite people by marriage and blood. It provides the education, financial and emotional support its members need to survive socially. Without this the adults and children become less productive socially. According to The Evolution of Divorce: Marriage provides benefits both to children and to society. Although it was once possible to believe that the nations high rates of divorce, cohabitation, and nonmarital childbearing represented little more than lifestyle alternatives brought about by the freedom to pursue individual self-fulfillment, many analysts now believe that these individual choices can be damaging to the children who have no say in them and to the society that enables them. (Wilcox, 2009...
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...Sociological Perspective and conflict approach Sociological perspective can be defined as seeing the general in the particular. It can be also described as a frame that shapes how people behave in society or interacting with diversity people, and how we are categorized in various ways, such as children and adults, women and men, the rich and poor. Each of people is supposed to do different affairs in their lives as it matches them. And one of the sociological theories is called conflict approach, meaning that explains about inequality between such as women and men and black and white, so on. For instance, in the past of South Korea or other many of countries as well, there was intense inequality of between women and men in getting a job. Women used to be only in charge of doing house work, and they were not able to do anything else without permit from a head of family, which is why many of people still regard women to do more house work than men do. This representative example can be conflict approach in social perspective of how we look at women in our society. And although it seems to be non-changeable the society perspective, there are a lot of factors that changes the sociological perspective of how people behave in our society. Particularly, when it comes to recession, it seem to be more remarkable changes in the behavior of people life, For example, if it happened to come recession into country, it can also change of the social perspective that people become more pessimistic...
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...Assess sociological views of the impact of government policies and laws on family life. There are many different views of how government policies and laws affect family life among different sociological theorists. Some view government policies as positive whereas some see the impact as positive. Feminists argue that many government policies promote the patriarchal family and reinforces the women’s economic dependence on a man. Policies such as tax benefits and maternity leave are seen as negative policies as they promote the ideology of women being the main childcares in a relationship. Women are entitled to 9 months maternity leave whereas men are only able to receive 2 weeks paid paternity. Consequently, this means women are forced to be the parent that stays at home to look after the child as a couple would not be able to have financial stability if the man stayed at home for 9 months without pay. The new right also do not support these policies however for different reasoning. Feminists have a negative view on policies that insinuate that they have to care for their elders, as they believe the role of a caregiver to the sick and elderly should be shared between men and women equally and should be a women’s obligation. Although feminists are against laws that enforce the inequality between men and women they support policies that allow women to be independent from a patriarchal relationship, for example the divorce reform act and working tax credits. The divorce reform...
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...For my final assignment I have decided to discuss the Social Institutions of the Family. The family has three main purposes: to provide for the rearing of children, to provide a sense of identity or belonging among its members, and to transmit culture between generations. With these basic principals I will discuss how Functionalism, Conflict, and Interactionism apply in this sociological institution and how they are similar and differ from one another. Next I will talk about how the three theories affect the views of the individual who is part of the institution. I will also converse about how each theory affects the approach to social change within the selected institution. Lastly I will talk about how each theory affects the views of society within the Sociological institution. Without this institution, there would be no other institutions and our society would be none. To begin lets understand what a family is; there are two types of families: a nuclear family and an extended family. Nuclear families consist of a mother, father and their children, which is referred to as the immediate family. An extended family consists of close connections of two or three generations such as husbands of sisters and wives of brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, nephews and nieces. Within the nuclear family there can be several different varieties of the family. They may have a family where only one parent lives with the children or a couple that have no children (Crittenden, 2002). Parents...
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...In The Sociological Imagination, by Kenneth A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis, it discusses the aspects of the Sociological Imagination. This writing is hoping to prepare the reader to view the world in a different way, and to initiate the use of their sociological imagination more than they had before. This chapter explains how individuals are influenced by, and how they impact the society that they belong to, “A key theme of an introduction to sociology course is that individuals affect and are affected by society” (Gould, Lewis 4). The authors use Mills writings to explain how there is a difference between personal problems and public issues. Personal problems are problems affecting a person who is also the source of the problem, while public...
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...C. Wright Mills' Sociological Imagination Works Cited Not Included In 1959, C. Wright Mills released a book entitled ‘The sociological Imagination’. It was in this book that he laid out a set of guidelines of how to carry out social analysis. But for a layman, what does the term ‘sociological imagination’ actually mean? In his own words, Mills claimed “it is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another…the capacity to range from the most impersonal and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self – and to see the relations between the two of them.” . Mills believed that being able to see the relationship between the ordinary lives of people and the wider social forces was the key to the sociological imagination. Fundamental to Mills’ theory is the idea of ‘public issues’ and ‘private troubles’. An individual’s troubles are personal when they occur because of the person’s character. Public issues, however, are a direct result of the problems within society, they affect people hugely but often the individual will assign the problem as their own personal downfall rather than as a societal problem. An ordinary man may get depressed about being unemployed and automatically accept it as his own personal trouble. He will be condemned as being ‘lazy’ or ‘work-shy’ and labelled simply as a ‘scrounger’. However, if there are thousands of other individuals also unemployed, Mills argues...
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...Examine the reasons for the changes in the patterns of marriage In the last 30 years, the British society has experienced many changes affecting the family. There have been changes in attitudes to and expectations of family life, as well as official changes such as government legislation. Society has been affected by feminism, which has led to increased awareness of women’s rights and freedoms, as well as postmodernism and secularisation. The changes resulting have affected marriage rates, which are decreasing, and more people are now marrying later in life and more than once. More people are choosing to cohabit, either before or instead of marrying, and this is becoming increasingly common in young couples. Divorce rates have also increased in the last 30 years, following changes in legislation and attitudes. As society’s view of a ‘conventional family’ has changed over the last 30 years, the acceptable norms have widened. In the past, an unmarried woman would be looked down on, as it was expected that women would marry and invest their time in raising a family. If they didn’t, it could be presumed that could they couldn’t find a willing partner, or that there was something wrong with them. Although 95.1% of British women still marry before they are 49, it has become more acceptable to choose not to get married, and rather than being looked down on, single women are more likely to be viewed as strong, focussed, and independent. This means there is less pressure on...
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...Assess sociological explanations of the nature and extent of family diversity today. Family diversity is the theory that there are many different family types, rather than the nuclear family being the dominant type. However there are many different sociological explanations and two different conflicting views. The modernist view, and the postmodernist view. For example New Right sociologists believe that the nuclear family is the bedrock of society, and is the natural family, unlike lone-parent families which are consider unnatural and harmful as they believe that mothers cannot discipline children. This leads on to the theory that marriage is essential in the socialisation of children. They also believe that traditional roles have been undermined by divorce legislation and welfare benefits. New Right sociologist think that many social problems, such as high crime rates, are caused by the decline in nuclear families. However there are many criticisms of this, such as Oakley who believes that this view is a negative view against the feminist campaign for women's equality. New Right sociologists also fail to recognise unequal relationships in families. Another modernist view is that of Chester and his neo-conventional theory. Chester sees a shift from the conventional nuclear family to the neo-conventional family where both spouses play a bread winner role. A neo-conventional family is a dual-earner family. Chester also recognises that there has been an increase of family...
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...Lecture #1: Defining Sociology and Using our Sociological Tools; Please read Ch. 1 Hello everyone and welcome to the start of what will hopefully be a wonderful semester. This semester we will be examining and analyzing science and technology using a sociological discipline. In the beginning of every lecture I will introduce the vocabulary. These words will be significant for the lecture, so put them to memory because you just might see them later, wink, wink, and wink. Vocabulary: Sociology: The systematic study of human societies. It is the scientific study of human social life, behavior, groups, culture and societies. Culture: A way of life including widespread values (about what is good and bad), beliefs (about what is true), and behavior (what people do every day). Social Problems: A condition that undermines the well-being of some or all members of a society and that are usually a matter of public controversy. Sociological Imagination: Is the quality of mind that enables one to see the connection between personal troubles and social structures. Theory: A statement of how and why specific facts are related. Structural-Functional: A theoretical framework that sees society as a system of many interrelated parts. Social-Conflict: A theoretical framework that sees society as divided by inequality and conflict. Symbolic-Interaction: A theoretical framework that sees society as the product of individuals interacting with one another. Technology: the practical use...
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...Applying material from item B and from your knowledge, evaluate the sociological explanations for changes in the divorce rate. There were a total of 118,140 divorces in 2012, a slight increase on 2011, when there were 117,558. Of the 2012 total, almost half of these divorces occurred in the first 10 years of marriage. There were 13 divorces an hour in England and Wales in 2012, Women were granted 65% of all divorces. One in seven divorces was granted as a result of adultery. These are just a few of many trends when it comes to divorce rates. But why is divorce increasing? Well again there are a lot of reason as to why this may be like changing social attitudes causing less stigma to divorce or generally just being unmarried, The attitudes and roles of women are changing and women are becoming more financially independent so they don’t need to marry to have a man to be dependent on financially. Secularisation would be another reason as religion has lost its importance to most in today’s society so there is less importance and rush when it comes to marriage. In the past because of the stigma attached to being unmarried people would just stay in their marriages even though there was no love or properties of what marriage should have, but now that there is less stigma a lot more lone parents have popped up, the government has realised this and has given help to such and this could be another reason why divorce is increasing. Finally, there has always been an importance of sex to...
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