General Sociology Terms
The study of how people live together in groups and how society works.
What is Sociology?
A step-by-step process for establishing facts through observation, experimentation, and testing.
What is the Scientific Method?
A research method where sociologists watch and record what people do in real-life situations.
What is a Observation?
The ability to control or influence what others do.
What is Power?
This sociologist believed that society is shaped by class conflict, especially between the rich (who have power) and the poor (who don’t).
Who was Karl Marx?
A group of people who interact with each other and share similar characteristics or a sense of unity.
What is a Social Group?
An educated guess or prediction that can be tested.
Example: "People who live in cities will have more friends than people who live in rural areas" is a hypothesis a sociologist could test by gathering data.
What is a Hypothesis?
A research method where sociologists change one part of a situation to see how it affects another part.
What is an Experiment?
The feeling of being united with other people.
What is Solidarity?
Known as the "Father of Sociology", this sociologist developed the idea of sociology as a science that studies how people live together in society.
Who was Auguste Comte?
A group of people who live in the same area and share common values, traditions, and institutions.
A preference or prejudice for or against something.
What is a Bias?
A method of collecting data by asking people questions.
What is a Survey?
The conflict between different classes, like the rich and the poor, over power and money.
What is Class Struggle?
This sociologist studied how the different ways that power is used in society: mainly traditional power, legal-rational power, and charismatic power.
Who was Max Weber?
A group of people in society who have the same amount of money or social status.
What is Social Class?
Information that can be counted or measured and is given in numbers.
What is Quantitative Data?
A method that focuses on understanding the meaning of people's actions and beliefs.
What is an Interpretive Framework?
A theory that looks at society as a competition for limited resources.
What is Conflict Theory?
This sociologist studied what holds society together and what makes people feel connected, including what he called "social facts."
Who was Emile Durkheim?
Things like norms, values, and laws that exist in society and affect how people behave.
What are Social Facts?
Information that is descriptive and not in numbers, such as feelings or opinions.
What is Qualitative Data?
The idea that we can understand society by studying facts and evidence, like in science.
What is Positivism?
The study of society and sociology itself that focuses on institutional power, inequality, and unfairness.
What is Critical Sociology?
This extremely influential African-American sociologist dedicated his life to studying and analyzing "the race problem" in America.
Who was W.E.B. Du Bois?