Statuses and Roles
A person is a student, a daughter, and a team captain. What sociological term describes each of these positions?
Status
Students divide responsibilities and work together to organize a fundraiser. What type of interaction is this?
Copperation
Which type of society obtains most of its food by hunting animals and gathering wild plants?
Hunting and Gathering
What type of group is usually small and based on close, personal relationships?
Primaray Group
What is a group deliberately structured to achieve specific goals called?
Formal orgnization
A person is born into the position of younger sibling. Is this an ascribed or achieved status?
Ascribed Status
One student tutors a classmate in math, and the classmate helps them study for sociology. What type of interaction is this?
Exchange
Which type of society grows crops primarily using simple hand tools?
Horicultural society
A committee is formed to plan a school event. Its members mainly work together to complete the task. What type of group is it?
Secondary Group
A community center has a director, supervisors, and employees who report to them. What bureaucratic feature does this illustrate?
Hierarchy
Jordan is elected president of the student council. What type of status is a student council president, and why?
Achieved Status
Two clubs try to win the same award. What type of interaction is this?
Competition on Conflict
Factories, machinery, and mass production are major features of which type of society?
Industrial Society
Club members call themselves “the insiders” and exclude nonmembers from their private group chat. Identify the in-group and the out-group.
In and Out group
At a school office, one employee handles attendance, another handles records, and another manages scheduling. What bureaucratic feature is shown?
Division of labor
A student must attend a required team practice and a family celebration at the same time. Identify the concept and explain your answer.
Role Conflict or Strain
Two clubs disagree about who should use a classroom. They agree to alternate days, although they still disagree. What type of interaction is this?
Accommodation
A community has many workers in health care, education, software, and other services. Which type of society does this most closely represent?
Postindustrial Society
Nia admires a debate team she has not joined and begins copying its preparation habits. What type of group is the debate team for Nia?
Reference Group
An organization applies the same eligibility criteria to every applicant, including employees’ relatives. Which bureaucratic feature is shown?
Impersonal relationships
People introduce Maya as “the captain” even when she is away from her team. What status might captain be for Maya? Explain.
Master Status
Two candidates want the same student government position. One candidate tears down the other’s posters to prevent them from campaigning. Identify two types of interaction shown and explain each.
Interaction Challenge:Competition: both candidates seek the same position. Conflict: one directly interferes with the other’s campaign.
What do sociologists look at to distinguish one type of society from another? Give two factors and explain how one differs between an industrial and a postindustrial society.
Sociologists consider factors such as how people obtain or produce goods, the technology they use, the kinds of work people do, and how society is organized. For example, industrial societies rely heavily on factories and manufacturing, while postindustrial societies have a greater emphasis on services and information.
A student council works together to plan school events. Two council members have also been close friends for years and rely on each other for emotional support. Explain how the same two students can be part of both a primary group and a secondary group.
The student council is a secondary group because it is organized around tasks and goals. The students’ friendship is a primary group relationship because it is close and provides personal support. People can have different types of relationships with the same individuals.
An employee performs the same small task every day and rarely sees how their work contributes to the organization’s overall purpose. They begin to feel disconnected from their work. What sociological concept does this illustrate? Explain one way the organization’s structure contributes to it.
The employee feels disconnected from their work. Specialization can contribute when workers repeat a narrow task and have little connection to the larger product or purpose.