AHSS*1130 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Conflict Theories, Erving Goffman, Structural Functionalism
AHSS*1130
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Sociology Week 1
Origins
Revolutions (3)
1. Scientific: encouraged evidence based conclusions about society
Geocentric vs heliocentric … church/religion to self/human control
2. Democratic: suggested people were responsible for creating society; thus human intervention
was capable of solving social problems
3. Industrial
Traditions (4)
1. FUNCTIONALISM (=order)
- Organic analogy
- Human behaviour is governed by stable patterns of social relations (“social structures”)
oEither maintain or undermine social stability
oBased mainly on shared values or preferences
oArgues that re-establishing equilibrium is the best way to solve most social problems
oMarx, Durkheim, Hobbs
- Suicide: Durkheim
oSocial fact: prior to you, influence, common to group
oEgoistic and anomic suicide vs altruistic suicide (too low or too high amount of social
solidarity)
- Merton proposed that social structures may have different consequences for different
groups of people
oManifest (obvious/intended)
oLatent (not so obvious/intended/secondary)
oLatent dysfunction (unintended & negative)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
2. CONFLICT THEORY
- Focuses on large, macrolevel structures
- Shows how major patterns of inequality produce social stability in some circumstances and
social change in others
- Stresses how members of priviledged groups seek to maintain advantages, while members
of subordinate groups struggle to increase theirs
- Suggests elimination of privilege will lower the level of conflict and increase human welfare
-Marx
oClass conflict (struggle between the classes)
oWorker exploitation/false consciousness (alienation)
oThrough struggle over wages, working conditions, technology workers, would
develop ‘class consciousness’ (“Do you own or work for who does?”)
-Gramsci
oHegemony: doing something you believe is in your best interest but really is not
oCultural hegemony: when the values of the upper class dominance become so
deeply entrenched that the great majority of people accept them as common sense
-Weber
oNoted growth of the service sector of economy where workers enjoyed higher
status and income than workers in the manufacturing sector
oShowed class conflict is not the only driving force of history
oArgued that politics and religion also are important sources of historical change
-Wright Mills
oConflict theory classes, nations, races and generations was the very essence of
society
oSociological imagination: the ability to see the connection between personal
troubles and social structures
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com