CHAPTER 1 SUMMARYCHAPTER 1 SUMMARYCHAPTER 2 SUMMARYCHAPTER 3 SUMMARYCHAPTER 4 SUMMARYCHAPTER 5 SUMMARYCHAPTER 5 SUMMARYCHAPTER 6 SUMMARYCHAPTER 7 SUMMARYCHAPTER 8 SUMMARYCHAPTER 9 SUMMARYCHAPTER 10 SUMMARYCHAPTER 11 SUMMARYCHAPTER 12 SUMMARYCHAPTER 13 SUMMARYCHAPTER 14 SUMMARYCHAPTER 15 SUMMARYCHAPTER 16 SUMMARY1 CHAPTER 1 SUMMARY • Sociology is the systematic study of human social interaction. Sociology enables us to see how the groups to which we belong and the society in which we live largely form behavior. • A society is a large social grouping that shares the same geographical territory and is subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. • The sociological imagination helps us see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society. It allows us to understand how seemingly personal troubles may be related to the larger social context of public issues. • Sociological thinking emerged in the context of major social changes produced by industrialization and urbanization in the mid to the late eighteenth century Europe. Early social thinkers - including Auguste Comte, Harriet Martineau, Herbert Spencer, and Emile Durkheim - emphasized the idea of social order, social functions and stability; others - including Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel - emphasized conflict and social change. • The development of sociology in the United States dates back to late 1890's and early twentieth century. Early American social thinkers include Robert Park, George Herbert Mead, Jane Adams, and W.E.B. Du Bois. • Sociologists use theoretical perspectives to explain social life. Theory is a set of logically interrelated statements that attempts to describe, explain, and (occasionally) predict social events. • Three theoretical perspectives which have influenced sociology until recently are: (1) functionalist perspectives which assume that society is a stable, orderly system; (2) conflict perspectives which assume that society is a continuous power struggle among competing groups, often based on class, race, ethnicity, or gender; and (3) symbolic interactionist perspectives which focus on how people make sense of their everyday social interactions. • A fourth perspective, postmodernism, which emerged in the late twentieth century questions grand narratives that characterize modern thinking in societies that are postindustrial, consumer oriented and engage in global communication. • Sociologists engage in research to systematically collect information for the purposes of testing existing theory or generating new ones. • Many sociologists are involved with quantitative research, which focuses on data that can be measured numerically. Others engage in qualitative research to analyze underlying meanings of social relationships based on interpretive description rather than statistics. • Research methods - systematic techniques for conducting research - include surveys, analyses of existing data, field studies and experiments. Analysis of human behavior and action raises important ethical issues for sociologists. • The American Sociological Association (ASA) has set forth certain basic standards that sociologists much follow in conducting research. These standards address concerns such as;2 objectivity and integrity, participants right to privacy, protection and confidentiality, and full disclosure of research assistance. KEY TERMS - defined at page number shown and in glossary Anomie 12 Conflict Perspectives 19 Content Analysis 34 Control Group 34 Correlation 36 Dependent Variable 28 Ethnography 34 Experiment 34 Experimental Group 34 Functionalist Perspectives 17 High Income Countries 6 Hypothesis 28 Independent Variable 28 Industrialization 8 Interview 32 Latent Functions 18 Low Income Countries 7 Macrolevel Analysis 20 Manifest Functions 18 Microlevel Analysis 21 Middle-Income Countries 6 Participant Observation 34 Positivism 10 Postmodern Perspectives 22 Qualitative Research 27 Quantitative Research 25 Reliability 29 Research Methods 31 Secondary Analysis 33 Social Darwinism 11 Social Facts 12 Society 4 Sociological Imagination 5 Sociology 4 Survey 31 Symbolic Interactionist Perspectives 21 Theory 17 Urbanization 9 Validity 29 Variable 28Chapter 2 CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY • Culture is the knowledge, language, values, customs, as well as material objects that are passed from person to person and from one generation to the next. At the macrolevel, culture can be a stabilizing force or a source of discord, conflict, and even violence. At the microlevel, culture is essential for individual survival. • Sociologists distinguish between material culture - the physical creations of people in society - and nonmaterial culture - the abstract or intangible human ideal creations of society (such as symbols, language, values, and norms). • According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, language shapes our understanding of reality. For example, language may create and reinforce inaccurate perceptions based on gender, race, ethnicity, or other human attributes. • While it is assumed that high culture appeals primarily to elite audiences, popular culture is believed to appeal to members of the middle and working classes. • Cultural change and diversity are intertwined. In the United States, diversity is reflected through race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, religion, occupation, and so forth. • Culture shock refers to the anxiety people experience when they encounter cultures radically different from their own. • Ethnocentrism - a belief based on the assumption that one's own culture is superior to others - is counterbalanced by cultural relativism - the belief that the behaviors and customs of a society must be examined within the context of its own culture. • As we look toward even more diverse and global cultural patterns in the twenty-first century, it is important to keep our sociological imaginations actively engaged. KEY TERMS defined at page number shown and in glossary Beliefs 44 Counterculture 61 Cultural Imperialism 64 Cultural Lag 55 Cultural Relativism 62 Cultural Universals 44 Culture 41 Culture Shock 61 Ethnocentrism 62 Folkways 54 High Culture 62 Language 48 Laws 55 Material Culture 44 Mores 54 Nonmaterial Culture 44 Norms 54 Popular Culture 62 Sanctions 54 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis 48 Subculture 58 Symbol 46
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