1: Intro to Sociology
The level of analysis that studies face-to-face and small-group interactions in order to understand how they affect the larger patterns and structures of society.
Microsociology
Research that translates the social world into numbers that can be treated mathematically; this type of research often tries to find cause-and-effect relationships.
Quantitative Research
The formal and informal mechanisms used to elicit conformity to values and norms and thus promote social cohesion.
Social Control
The process of evoking, suppressing, or otherwise managing feelings to create a publicly observable display of emotion.
Connections between individuals.
Social Ties
Howard Becker’s idea that deviance is a consequence of external judgments, or labels, that modify the individual’s self-concept and change the way others respond to the labeled person.
Labeling Theory
The social honor people are given because of their membership in well-regarded social groups.
Prestige
A paradigm based on the assumption that society is a unified whole that functions because of the contributions of its separate structures.
Structural Functionalism
A relationship between variables in which they change together and may or may not be causal.
Correlation
Positive or negative reactions to the ways that people follow or disobey norms, including rewards for conformity and punishments for violations.
Sanctions
Institutions in which individuals are cut off from the rest of society so that they can be controlled and regulated for the purpose of systematically stripping away previous roles and identities in order to create new ones.
Total Institutions
Authority based in laws, rules, and procedures.
Legal-Rational Authority
In labeling theory, the subsequent deviant identity or career that develops as a result of being labeled deviant.
Secondary Deviance
The tastes, habits, expectations, skills, knowledge, and other cultural assets that help us gain advantages in society.
Cultural Capital
A denial of the truth on the part of the oppressed when they fail to recognize that the interests of the ruling class are embedded in the dominant ideology.
False Consciousness
Impartiality; the ability to allow the facts to speak for themselves.
Objectivity
A norm ingrained so deeply that even thinking about violating it evokes strong feelings of disgust, horror, or revulsion.
Taboo
Experienced when there are contradictory expectations within one role.
Role Strain
In very cohesive groups, the tendency to enforce a high degree of conformity among members, creating a demand for unanimous agreement.
Groupthink
Process by which an individual self-identifies as deviant and initiates their own labeling process.
Deviance Avowal
The movement of individuals or groups within a particular social class, most often as a result of changing occupations.
Horizontal Social Mobility
A quality of the mind that allows us to understand the relationship between our individual circumstances and larger social forces
Sociological Imagination
An approach whereby the researcher gathers data first, then formulates a theory to fit the data.
Inductive Approach
A group within society that openly rejects or actively opposes society’s values and norms.
Counterculture
Values or behaviors that students learn indirectly over the course of their schooling.
Hidden Curriculum
A group toward which an individual feels opposition, rivalry, or hostility.
Out-Group
Individuals who have given up hope of achieving society’s approved goals but still operate according to society’s approved means.
The tendency to choose romantic partners who are similar to us in terms of class, race, education, religion, and other social group membership.
Homogamy