SOC 656 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: The Sociological Imagination, Nacirema, Sociological Perspectives
27 Dec 2019
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Document Summary
Looks at the ways people are limited by society. Social expectations, laws, and demands that society has for you: needed for order so we can co-exist. Sociology and science: sociology is a "soft" or human science, emergent in its procedures and criteria rather than fixed and measurable. Idiographic rather than nomothetic: nomothetic operates by law. Sociology is largely interpretive and looks for understanding. The sociological imagination or thinking like a sociologist: sociological imagination. Classical perspectives: functionalism or structural functionalism (durkheim) Society operates as a system of interconnected parts: how society works, positive denotation (stable) Structural inequality: people struggling to maintain their power and others trying to gain more. Involves abrupt change in dramatic sways: symbolic interactionism (george herbert mead, 1863-1931) Social life: made up of instructiveness, constantly changing due to process of interaction and understandings that are exchanged. Social objects: objects with socially determined meanings, nothing is neutral, mutual understanding of certain objects.
