SOC 100 Exam 4 Topics Diseases of affluence Associated with lifestyle choices that accompany economic development Their underlying causes can be traced to things like decreases in physical exertion or exercise and the increased availability of foods high in sugars and salts Urbanization what it is the general of people in the world who live in urban areas effects of urban sprawl o Definition A transformative process whereby people move away from sparsely populated rural environments to densely populated urban ones o Development of towns and cities o USA urbanized slowly whereas China urbanized quickly o Concentration of ppl in towns mega cities etc How sociologists study religion o When sociologists study religion they are guided by the scientific method and by the assumption that no religions are false o Sociologists studying religion adhere to the scientific method which requires them to study only observable and verifiable phenomena o When studying religions sociologists must rid themselves of all preconceived notions of what religion should be Sacred and profane including examples o Sacred A domain of experience that includes everything regarded as extraordinary and that inspires in believers deep and absorbing sentiments of awe respect mystery and reverence o Profane A term describing everything that is not sacred including things opposed to the sacred and things that stand apart from the sacred albeit not in opposition to it Credentialing society A situation in which employers use educational credentials as screening devices for sorting through a pool of largely anonymous applicants Knowledge economy An economy driven by information and data intensive activities that have the dual effect of accelerating the pace of obsolescence and innovation Cultural capital Nonmaterial resources including the kinds of knowledge social skills and aesthetic tastes acquired through daily experiences and activities How Symbolic Interactionism views education o focus on meaning conveyed and embedded in the way the school day and relationships are structured Total Fertility rate The average number of children that a woman bears in her lifetime epidemics Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths in general or due to a specific cause in a particular population scaled to the size of that population per unit of time Mortality crisis Violent fluctuations in the death rate caused by war famine or McDonaldization he way in which the principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world Planned obsolescence The rationalization driving the profit making strategy known as planned obsolescence depends on fossil fuels to manufacture products to deliver them to retailers or to buyers houses to make them operate and to haul them away when owners decide to discard them Brown v Board of Education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional Modernization A process of economic social and cultural transformation in which a country evolves from preindustrial or underdeveloped status to a modern society in the image of the most developed countries Modernization Theory holds that poor countries are poor because they have yet to establish modern economies and their failure to do so is largely the result of a country s resistance to free market principles and to the absence of cultural values that drive material success Development Theory for the most part poor countries are poor because they are products of a colonial past Medicalization The social processes by which the challenges of being human are classified as medical conditions Among other things those challenges include to giving birth aging and dying o Example giving birth in hospital is common medical procedure Causes of Arab Spring o the Arab Spring represents the latest response to the corrupt government and inequalities It encompasses protests riots and civil wars in at least considered part of the Arab world o Arabs were forced to question the political and moral structure of their societies o Questions of social justice also arose o Western capitalism Population pyramids A series of horizontal bar graphs each representing a different five year age cohort that allows us to compare the sizes of the cohorts o constrictive pyramid A population pyramid that is narrower at the base than in the middle It shows that the population consists disproportionately of middle aged and older people o expansive pyramid A triangular population pyramid that is broadest at the base with each successive bar smaller than the one below it The pyramid shows that the population consists disproportionately of young people o stationary pyramid A population pyramid in which all cohorts except the oldest are roughly the same size Cohort A group of people born around the same time such as a specified five year period who share common experiences and perspectives by virtue of the time they were born Functionalism and Conflict theory perspectives on education o Functionalism emphasize that schools perform a number of important social functions that ideally contribute to the smooth operation of society These functions include transmitting skills facilitating personal growth contributing basic and applied research integrating diverse populations and screening and selecting the most qualified students for what are considered the most socially important careers Transmitting Skills Facilitating Personal Growth Contributing to Basic and Applied Research Screening and Selecting Solving Social Problems Dating pool babysitters etc Integrating Diverse Populations o Conflict theory emphasize how schools cultivate and perpetuate existing inequalities any analysis of school systems must focus on the ways the educational experience is structured to create and perpetuate advantage and privilege Who writes the curriculum Who has access to the most up to date computer or athletic facilities Which groups are most likely to drop out of high school and which to attend college How do schools simply perpetuate the inequalities of the larger society Functionalism and Conflict theory perspectives on religion o Functionalism o Conflict Theory The functionalist perspective maintains that religion serves vital social functions for individuals and for the group On the individual level