Flashcards
Sociology semester 1
Cards in this deck (25)
- 1what is sociology?-study of human institutions
-study of patterns of collective human life
-study of relations between and interactions among humans
-the study of the ways humans are shaped by collective
-the study of human society - 2secularisationthe transformation of a society from close identification and affiliation with religious values and institutions toward nonreligious values and secular institutions. The secularization thesis refers to the belief that as societies progress, particularly through modernization and rationalization, religion loses its authority in all aspects of social life and governance
- 3Zygmunt Bauman's definition of psychology-Responsible speech (what you say holds responsibility and must be backed by logic and support/data)
-Size of field (think outside of our individual world, avoid stereotypes)
-Desire to 'make sense' (about deep understanding not solving problems) - 4Who is Zygmunt Bauman?Polish-born sociologist, examined broad changes in the nature of contemporary society and their effects on communities.
Liquid modernity- examined the effects of consumption-based economies, the disappearance of social institutions and rise of globalisation. - 5No one is in control. That is the major source of contemporary fear. it is poorly locatedZygmunt Bauman
- 6Richard Jenkin's definition of sociology-systematic enquiry (how you do studies is different to how others make sense)
-Objectivity (reducing biases, values and stereotypes, take a step back)
-Theory (being able to generalise and compare your theory in a systematic manner) - 7Defamiliarisng the familiar-Seeing things in a different light
-Less individualistic
-Don't accept things at face value
-Try to see connections between things, even if they are obscure
-Understand and explore the connections. - 8Sociology should not be...-about 'grand theory' (theories about everything, cultures/societies all different)
-about 'abstracted empiricism' (driven by method-needs theoretical framework)
-hung up about philosophy of science (questions on the nature of knowledge and reality)
-driven by practical concerns (improving the world or justice, don't focus on the marginalised.)
-bureaucratically driven (unis & governments, sociology doesn't provide a service) - 9Sociology should be...-exploration of full human diversity (nothing is out of bounds)
-recognition that society is historically situated (treat each group like it's the first time you've seen them
-driven by spirit of reason (argument, rationale, evidence, conclusions)
-recognising it's necessarily political (people always think you are taking a side)
-careful, detailed, rigorous
-honest (findings will not always support hypothesis)
-written as clearly as possible (don't be complex) - 10A series of traps....public issues and private troubles (they are not separate, public issues only make sense when you think about related personal problems)
history and biography- friends you choose are affected by your past, family, social background
we naturally cluster with people similar to ourselves
-not deterministic or abstract nor individual or personality- mixture of the two. - 11Sociology's contemporary concerns-mobile communications
-death by internal combustion
-security and terror
-runaway consumerism
-the virtual digital realm, globalisation and environmental collapse - 12Three approaches of Everyday life-'micro-social' processes and social interaction
-radical critique of everyday life
-socio-historical record (people leave tracers) - 13features of everyday life-the mundane & ordinary (we do not have to look at phenomena)
-interest in diversity and heterogeneity (the person & their individual world)
-C Wright Mills- the lives of real people are where this stuff happens, we can't look at society without looking at real lives
-civic society and public sphere
-permeation- power, law, rules, norms - 14heterogeneitythe quality or state of being diverse in character or content.
- 15Habits and routinessaving effort- we do things habitually to save effort, tasks are practical.
known and familiar are taken for granted, rather than starting fresh each day, things are stable and days are the same
seeing 'at a glance' recognising without thinking, we don't question everything. - 16Two philosophical concernsOntology- what is real? There are things we would not question. We believe what we see..
Epistemology- How do we know? what is the difference between ideology and knowledge? How do we know what is real - 17Is reality real?You can defend your way of seeing things
you can doubt virtually anything
We can only believe what we experience with our senses.
Sometimes what we believe may be wrong, everyone's experience is partly real and partly ideological - 18C Wright MillsHe believed it is the job of all social scientists to connect individual problems with greater social issues in order to create changes that would solve the problems. Mills coined the term sociological imagination, which means awareness between one's self and the broader social world around them
- 19GoffmanHis best-known contribution to social theory is his study of symbolic interaction. This took the form of dramaturgical (the idea that people's day-to-day lives can be understood as resembling performers in action on a theater) stage analysis, beginning with his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.
- 20Goffman- cooling the mark outGoffman thought that the social fabric is very fragile, like a soap bubble, and that all of us put an enormous amount of effort into keeping the bubble intact.Power and status differentials are implicit in virtually every interaction, but we go to elaborate lengths to conceal them from one another. We don’t like it to be obvious that there are winners and losers, people with status and people without it.
When people in power give bad news, they twist it so that you leave feeling positive/ that you have benefited. When we are about to give people bad news we cool the situation by sucking up to them. - 21goffman key assumptions-people know (some of) what they are doing
-life requires co-ordination and co-operation
-people like to be thought well of
-place and time are important
-activities take place in local orders
-rules are drawn on and used- they don't 'determine action'
-emphasis on 'how' things are done not 'what' or 'why' - 22goffman's critics-too descriptive and not theoretical enough
-ignores social structure
-pictures people as cynical and immoral
-ethnocentric - 23Mobile Phonesexisted for 20 yrs before becoming popular/usable
first call made in 1973
108,000,000 sold in 1997
more mobile phones that people
two SIMs per person China & India
More mobiles than landlines
Data, rather than calls now most important - 24Portable music devicesSony Walkman 1979
first time to be able to portably listen to music wirelessly
Napster 1999-2001- able to get any music at any time. led to a massive increase in the amount of bought music .
ipod 2001
2006- 20% over 12s had MP3 in US
spotify launch 2008 - 25Social changes for mobile phonesshift from household appliance to personal gadget
location irrelevant to communication
different forms or message depending on type of message (e.g urgency)
Generational differences in use
objects on desire
social networks and social capital
having phone removed can cause anxiety- emotional attachment
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- Sociology Flashcards on Sociology semester 1, created by Laura Louise on 20/01/2019.
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- Laura Louise
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