Introduction to Sociology

Review for Exam Two

The exam is multiple choice, maybe some matching.

The exam is worth 50 points.

This exam is comprehensive. Incorporate into this review the Review for Exam One. 

What is Engels’ theory concerning the state, class, and patriarchy?

What is race? It is a meaningful biological construct? Is it a meaningful social construct and historical reality? What is hyperdescent and hypodescent? What is a racial group? What is ethnicity? How does it differ from race? What is an ethnic group? Is this the same as a minority group?

What is prejudice? What is discrimination? How does prejudice differ from discrimination? Can you have one without the other? What are the major competing definitions of racism? What is ideological racism? What is institutional racism? What is structural racism? What is the new racism?

There are two contrasting bodies of theory used in the study of race and ethnic relations. What are they? What aspects of group interactions does each emphasize? Know which body of theory that specific theories are associated with, such as assimilation. What are the competing images of assimilation? What are the stages of Robert E. Park’s race relations cycle theory? What arguments did Horace Kallen make in favor of multiculturalism?

What was WEB Du Bois’ argument? What was his solution? What is American exceptionalism? What is the Caste School of Race Relations? What is caste? What is colonialism? Be able to differentiate between external and internal colonialism. What is neo-colonialism? Who is Georges Balandier and what did he argue? Who is Robert Blauner and what did he argue?

Who is Edward Said? What are the two basic interests in critical race theory? What is the relationship between social structure and ideals such as rule of law and equal protection? What is a counter-account of social reality? What is the problem with neutrality? Why is scholarship inevitably political?

What is a bureaucracy? What is a hierarchy of authority? What is the division of labor? What is impersonality? Know the four principles of rationalization. What is scientific management or Taylorism? What is Fordism?

What is the tragedy of the commons? What is a social dilemma? What is the free-rider problem? What are externalities?  What is planned obsolescence? What is the connection between corporate bureaucracy and fascism? 

According to Weber's rationalization thesis, what is distinctive to Western society and increasingly dominating the world? Why, according to Max Weber, is capitalism different from previous societal systems? What is the name Weber gives to his claim that people in Western societies have become imprisoned by rational systems of their own creation?

What is the phrase Weber’s use to argue that with rationalization there is a tendency for rational systems to behave unreasonably? What are some examples? How are depersonalization and disenchantment related to rationalization? What role does the Protestant Ethic play in all this? In his McDonaldization of Society argument, George Ritzer acknowledges that efficiency may increase convenience for customers. What are some of the other consequences?

What is the standard legal definition of crime? What are the sociological definitions of crime covered in class? How do sociological definitions differ from the legal one? How do sociologists justify defining crime independently of the criminal law? 

What does the classical or utilitarian school of crime and punishment say about the causes of crime? Who was Cesare Beccaria? Jeremy Bentham? What was the effect of this work? What did they recommend to control crime? What is deterrence? What is the legacy of the classical school of crime and punishment?

Durkheim theorizes that changes in punishment reflect changes in the relationship of the moral order and moral sentiments to the social totality and the division of labor. What were the main points of his argument? What is mechanical and organic solidarity? What is mala in se and mala prohibita? What are the elements and propositions in Shaw and McKay’s theory? What is social disorganization? What is concentric zone theory? What is the main conclusion?

What are the assumptions of strain (anomie) theory? What are the features of Merton’s anomie theory? Know the typology and be prepared to explain it. What role does the American Dream play in causing crime?  What are the basic assumptions of Hirschi’s control theory? What are the elements of a strong social bond?  What does Sutherland argue about the sources of crime? What does learning crime include?

What is labeling theory? Who are chief proponents of this view? What are they concerned to show? What are key concepts and core assumptions? Who are Tannenbaum, Lemert, and Becker? What did they argue? What is a moral entrepreneur? What is a moral panic? What is the medicalization of deviance? What is the problem with medicalization? What does Gabor Maté arguing about the destruction of childhood?

What do we mean when we say something is socially constructed? How is the social construction of reality created, changed, and maintained? What is an incorrigible proposition? Are perceptions of truth and reality static? What is identity? What is socialization? What are the agents of socialization? What is anticipatory socialization? What is culture? What us a subculture? What is ethnocentrism? Cultural relativism? What are norms? What is a more? A folkway? What are sanctions?

In his early work, what does Adam Smith theorize was the force that gave us our moral sensibility?  How important was this force for reproducing human society? What is William James’ perspective on the self? What are the different selves? What is Charles Horton Cooley’s metaphor for the social process? What are the three points in his understanding of self. Who is John Dewey and how did he conceptualize pragmatism? What are other ideas of Dewey’s? What is “deliberation”? Who is Erving Goffman? What is a total institution? What is impression management? What is stigma? What are the types? What is a spoiled identity?

What is social psychology from Mead’s perspective? Does Mead put individual self prior to social process? What does Mead mean when he says that the self “is an object to itself”? What is self consciousness? How central is interaction to this process? What are the stages in the development of the self and what are their characteristics. What is the “I”? What is the “me”? What is “society”? Is communication exclusively a human thing? If not, what is the basic difference between human communication and most non-human communication? How do we understand the mind?

What does Sam Richards’ argue about the importance of empathy and the sociological imagination? What is Rifkin’s argument concerning the empathic civilization?