5 characteristics of culture:

• Religion.

• Entertainment.

• Geography.

• Technology.

• Government.

W.E.B. DuBois:

thought sociology was the key to solving society's problems, including facial discrimination.

Industrialization:

a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of the times.

Sociological Perspective:

systematic study of human society.

Emile Durkheim:

sociological pioneer, studied suicide.

Marginality:

Global perspective:

the study of the larger world and our society's place in it.

Karl Marx:

Father of communism, sociological pioneer.

Positivism:

Comte's approach, a way of understanding based on Science.

Macro-level Orientation:

A brand focus on social structures that shape society as a whole.

Micro-level Orientation:

A close up focus on social interaction in specific situations.

Stereotype:

A simplified description applies to every person in the same category.

August Comte:

1838, coined the term 'sociology.'

Sociology:

The systematic study of social behavior and human groups.

3 Major changes taking place in the 18^th and 19^th centuries that led to the development of sociology:

• Industrialization.

• City Growth.

• Political Change.

Structural functional theory:

framework that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability.

Social Conflict Theory:

sees society as an arena of inequality, generates conflict and change.

Symbolic Interaction Theory:

Human beings live in world of symbols, attaching meaning to everything.

Durkheim's 4 different types of suicide:

1. Egotistic.

• reflects a prolonged sense of not belonging, of not being integrated in a community, an experience, of not having a tether, an absence that can give rise to meaninglessness, apathy, melancholy, and depression.

1.  

   1. Anomic.

• reflects an individual's moral confusion and lack of social direction, which is related to dramatic social and economic upheaval.

1.  
   1.  

      1. Altruistic.

• is characterized by a sense of being overwhelmed by a group's goals and beliefs.

1.  
   1.  
      1.  
         1.  

            1. Fatalistic.

•  
  •  
    •  

      • the opposite of anomic suicide, when a person is excessively regulated, when their futures are pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by oppressive discipline.

Different Social Sciences:

• History.

• Psychology.

• Anthropology.

• Political Science.

• Economics.

• Geography.

Social Research:

• Natural Observation.

• Experimental Method.

• Participant Observation.

Culture:

• Material.

• Non-material.

• Values.

• Beliefs.

• Norms.

Mores:

folkways of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fundamental moral views of a group. Violation of mores will evoke severe punishment.

Folkways:

relatively weak norms which are only mildly enforced in a society.

Ex. Shaking hands. Mannerly but not necessary.

Multiculturalism:

the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society, as a state or nation.

High Culture:

is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture, or denoting the culture of ruling social groups.

Low Culture:

derogatory term for some forms of popular culture. The term is often encountered in the nature of culture

Subculture:

a subdivision of a national culture or an enclave within it with a distinct integrated network of behavior, beliefs, and attitudes.

Counterculture:

the culture and lifestyle of those people, esp. among the young, who reject or oppose the dominant values and behavior of society.

Deviant subculture:

Sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition.

Cultural Lag:

The term cultural lag refers to the notion that culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, and that social problems and conflicts are caused by this lag. Subsequently, cultural lag does not only apply to this idea only, but also relates to theory and explanation.

Cultural Transmission:

is the way a group of people or animals within a society or culture tend to learn and pass on new information. Learning styles are greatly influenced by how a culture socializes with its children and young people.

Sapir-Whorf thesis:

The linguistic relativity principle (also known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) is the idea that the varying cultural concepts and categories inherent in different languages affect the cognitive classification of the experienced world in such a way that speakers of different languages think.

Popular culture:

The prevailing vernacular culture in any given society, including art, cooking, clothing, entertainment, films, mass media, music, sports , and style.

Multiculturalism:

the doctrine that several different cultures (rather than one national culture) can coexist peacefully and equitably in a single country.

Beliefs:

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.

Norms:

Social norms are the behavioral expectations and cues within a society or group. This sociological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.

Eurocentrism:

belief in the preeminence of Europe and the Europeans.

Afrocentrism:

A school of thought primarily focused on investigating the heritage and influence of African cultures.

Cultural Integration:

concerns the adoption of a mass consumer culture where everything from fashion to sport, music to television, becomes integrated into the national culture, often without challenge.

Cultural Universal:

an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide.

Sociobiology:

The science that applies the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of social behavior in both humans and animals.

Cultural Conflict:

conflicts that occur between cultures for various reasons including religion.

Status:

A person's status is a set of social conditions or relationships created and vested in an individual by an act of law rather than by the consensual acts of the parties, and it is in rem, i.e. these conditions must be recognized by the world.

Role:

the actions and activities assigned to or required or expected of a person or group.

Ascribed Status:

the social status a person is assigned at birth or assumes involuntarily later in life. It is a position that is neither earned nor chosen but assigned.

Achieved Status:

a sociological term denoting a social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit; it is a position that is earned or chosen. It is the opposite of ascribed status. It reflects personal skills, abilities, and efforts.

Social interaction:

a social relation or social interaction refers to a relationship between two, three or more individuals.

Role strain:

Captures the stress or tension that may arise from the performance of a role.

Role conflict:

a conflict among the roles corresponding to two or more statuses.

Ethnomethodology:

a method for understanding the social orders people use to make sense of the world through analyzing their accounts and descriptions of their day-to-day experiences.

Dramaturgy:

a sociological perspective stemming from symbolic interactionism. The term was first coined by Erving Goffman, who developed most of the related terminology and ideas in his 1959 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

Primary Groups:

those which have a formal or informal claim on the names associated with their groups or projects.

Secondary Groups:

typically larger and more impersonal than primary groups.

Competition:

compete for something; engage in a contest; measure oneself against others.

Conflict:

an open clash between two opposing groups (or individuals.)

Cooperation:

joint operation or action.

Democratic leadership:

Democratic (or participative) leadership involves the leader including team members in the decision making process (determining what to do and how to do it). The leader maintains the final decision making authority. Using this style of leadersip is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.

Autocratic leadership:

An autocracy is a form of government in which one person possesses unlimited power.

Laissez-faire:

individualism: the doctrine that government should not interfere in commercial affairs.