Chapter 1 Sociology a science guided by the basic understanding that the social matters our lives are affected not only by our individual characteristics but also by our place in the social world Sociological Imagination the ability to look beyond the individual as the cause for success and failure and see how ones society influences the out comes Functionalist Auguste Comte Herbert Spencer ideas furthered the development of functionalism Emile Durkheim proposed that two social forces solidarity and social control influence the chance of a person taking his or her own life One of the first true sociologist Talcott Parsons society was much like a bicycle wheel made up of independent yet interdependent parts Robert Merton broke society down into to different parts such as gender race crime inequality population Manifest and Latent Functions Conflict Theorist Karl Max analyzed the affects of capitalism bourgeoisie Harriet Martineau focused on inequality between sexes W E B Du Bois African American conflict theorist developed double consciousness Jane Adams wrote articles about rights for the women and the poor John Bellamy Foster negative affects of capitalism on society and the planet as a whole Symbolic Interactionism George Herbert Mead symbolic interactionism Herbert Blumer Erving Goffman dramaturgy Howard Becker Max Weber theorist who transcends categorization Sociological Imagination the ability to look beyond the individual as the cause for success and failure and see how ones society influences the outcome Symbolic Interactionism focuses on how people interact in their everyday lives with their society s symbols is a micro orientation on the individual and how he or she interacts with the social environment Individual Choice vs Social Forces Solidarity the level of connectedness a person feels to others in the environment Social Control the social mechanisms that regulate a persons actions Views society as a system of interrelated parts Is a micro orientation because it studies how social structures affect how a society works Studies issues such as race gender social class criminal justice and international relations Functionalism Conflict Theory Is a macro orientation because it studies how the struggle for resources holds a society together Paradigm a theoretical framework through which scientist study the world Emerging Paradigms Feminist Theory is an interdisciplinary approach that seeks to answer how the social world is ordered around gender Exchange Theory suggest our social experiences consist of a series of rewards and cost Environmental Theory seeks to blend social thought and ecological principles to discover how environmental attitudes have changed Mechanical Solidarity the state of the community bonding in traditional societies in which people share beliefs and values and perform common activates Organic Solidarity occurs when people live in a society with a diverse vision of labor Manifest Functions factors that lead to an expected consequence or outcome Latent Functions factors that lead to an unforeseen or unexpected consequence The Conflict Theorists Worldview Bourgeoisie members of the capitalist class own most of the wealth because they control the businesses Proletariat the poor working class of society False Consciousness lack of understanding of their position in society Class Consciousness understanding of ones position in society Double Consciousness acting one way around white people and another way around your own kind The symbolic Interactionist World View Self refers to a person identity and what makes that person different from others Contagion is a rapid irrational mode in which people do not think rationally or Cleary Dramaturgy is a theory of interaction in which all life is like acting The Three Paradigms Functionalism Conflict Theory Symbolic Interactionism Chapter 7 Social Stratification the orderly ranking of individuals based on some objective criteria usually wealth power and or prestige Income refers to the money received through work or through investments Wealth includes your income but also adds the value of the things you have Welfare a program created to assist people in need Minimum Wage a wage meant to insure a full time worker could live off the income he or she earned Structural Mobility refers to the ability of a person to change social classes Symbolic Interactions how people perceive poverty and wealth Poverty Transitional a temporary state of poverty that occurs when someone loses a job offer a short period of time Marginal when a person lacks stable employment Residual chronic and multigenerational poverty absolute so severe that one lacks resources to survive relative when we compare ourselves to those around us Class structure upper very small in numbers but hold significant wealth upper middle high income members of society who are well educated but do not belong to the elite membership of the super wealthy middle those who have moderate incomes Urban Underclass living in disadvantaged neighborhoods that re working lower high school diploma and lower levels of education Lower class living in poverty characterized by four components poverty family distribution male unemployment and lack of individuals in high status occupations Power the ability to carry out your will Prestige level of esteem Delegated means given or assigned Power elite small group of people who hold immense power Social Mobility the ability to change social class Horizontal Mobility moving with in the same status category Vertical Mobility moving from one social status to another Intergenerational Mobility an individual changes social standing especially in the workforce Intergenerational Mobility refers to the change that family members make from one social class to the next through generations Structural Mobility occurs when social changes affect large numbers of people Exchange Mobility is a concept suggesting that within the United states each social class contains a relatively fixed number of people Meritocracy Argument states that those who get ahead do so based on their own merit