Exam 1: A Sociological Compass

According to Durkheim, what decreases the probability that a person will commit suicide when adversity strikes?

Which of the following is a tentative explanation of some aspect of social life that states how and why certain facts are related?

According to functionalists, fashion performs a useful social function of making class differences obvious.

Gramsci wrote that in pre-industrial societies the powerful controlled populations mostly by force. According to Gramsci, what mechanism of control has largely replaced force after the Industrial Revolution?

What are microstructures? Illustrate with an example from your own life.

Explain the ways that Max Weber disagreed with Karl Marx. Why is that disagreement important?

Which theorist made important contributions to both conflict theory and symbolic interactionism?

International organizations, as well as patterns of worldwide travel and communication, comprise the widest-reaching level of social structure, referred to as macrostructures.

What do the authors of the textbook mean by a sociological compass? Discuss your own location in society on the axes of the sociological compass.

Maya believes that although people's food preferences seem natural and innate, they are really prescribed by cultural norms. Which theory is her belief most consistent with?

Which of the following theories enjoyed great popularity in North American sociology for approximately 30 years, beginning around the time of the Great Depression?

What did Durkheim's nineteenth-century study of suicide in France demonstrate?

Raj would like a job where he can work with people and create positive social change. According to the textbook, which of the following fields should he get a degree in?

Beginning in the 1960s, decisions about fashion trends became less democratic.

Aaron and Roberta dated for several years and fell in love. Their social interaction is an example of microstructures.

The fact that many people meet their future mate in university would be seen by functionalists as an example of which of the following?

In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber demonstrated that religious ideas could support the development of capitalism.

According to the textbook, which of the following theorists has been one of the most prominent supporters of conflict theory in North America?

Identify and briefly discuss the most important characteristics of university education today, as understood by proponents of each of the four main theoretical traditions in sociology.

Which of the following theories is characterized by social activism, and a focus on patriarchy and on structures of social, political, and economic power?