Exam 1: Sociology and the Real World

You are looking over the courses that are offered at your school, and you see a class called "The Sociology of Media and Popular Culture." You don't think you need this course because you listen to lots of music, watch a wide variety of television shows, and often go to the movies. What would a sociologist tell you?

The ________ of white supremacy in the United States was a system of beliefs and attitudes that maintained the status quo of slavery and segregation.

Researcher Christine Williams looked at patterns of occupational sex segregation by examining the ways large-scale social structures create the constraints within which individuals live their lives. Her work would be characterized as what kind of sociology?

Macrosociology and microsociology approach the study of society from different perspectives. How does the discipline of sociology deal with these two very different approaches?

According to Karl Marx, class consciousness is developed

Why did C. Wright Mills think that it is important for everyone, even people who will never take a sociology class, to develop a sociological imagination?

Max Weber believed that modern industrialized societies were characterized by which of the following institutions?

The divorce rate has steadily increased over time, and now more than a quarter of all marriages end within the first four years. What sort of factors would C. Wright Mills suggest investigating to explain this increase?

According to Robert Merton, manifest functions

Sarah believes the ability of science and technology to create progress will solve problems and improve everyone's life. Sarah would best be described as a

A reality television show called Wife Swap exchanged the mothers from two very different families and filmed the result as the participants were exposed to radically different ways of life. Although the television network was simply trying to be entertaining, the show also demonstrates the sociological principle of

Compare and contrast conflict theory with structural functionalism. Pay special attention to the way each theoretical perspective treats the origin of social change.

Which of the following theories views society as a whole unit made up of interrelated parts that work together?

What practice did Bernard McGrane suggest that individuals adopt to better understand the world around them?

What makes sociology exceptional among the social sciences?

The phrase "the survival of the fittest" is credited to whom?

Consider the contrast between practical knowledge and scientific knowledge. Describe an activity or social phenomenon of which you have practical knowledge, and then list the steps you might take to develop scientific knowledge of it. Describe how your knowledge might change as you develop this scientific approach to the subject and demonstrate that you understand the difference between the two types of knowledge.

What did Max Weber mean when he said that modern people are trapped in an "iron cage"?

A paradigm is

Who must the social analyst take the perspective of in order to verify that which the everyday actor might just accept or assume to be true?