Functionalism
Manifest Functions
Latent Functions
Functionalism: Social groups are functioning units with each smaller part of affecting the larger whole. Manifest Functions: The obvious or intend consequences of a social system. Prison: Protection Latent Function The unintended and often unrecognized consequences of a social system Prison: Forming Gangs, giving jobs
Conflict Theory
Society is composed of groups that engage in fierce competition for source resources - Women gets stronger, increase equality - Different barrier to entry, different people are able to do different sports
Symbolic Interactionism
Society is viewed as composed of symbols that people use to establish meaning, develop their views of the world and communicate with one another. - Classroom, nobody sits on teachers chair
Feminist Theory
Builds on aspects of conflict theory and symbolic interactionism to focus on gender and the connections between gender, race and social class. - Study about kids, housewife’s they asked the man - Women now economically independent - Men’s professional sport leagues are better paid -> Why?
Social Structure
The enduring pattered relationships between various elements of society, outside of our immediate reach and beyond our individual control.
Human Agency
The actions of individuals or groups in society
Structuration
The two way process by which we shape our social world through our individual actions and by which we are shaed by social structures
The Sociological Imagination
C. Wright Mills The abilty to look past individual actions to understand the relationship between human agency and social structure
Blaming the victim
Stating that the differencce that arise between the victims of a social problem and others are the cause of the social problem itself, affecting the way we attempt to solve social problems
Anomie
The strain put on a individuals behavior when accepted values (dating) conflict with the means for achieving them (having strict family). This strain can lend to devient behavior
Conformist
Accepts both generally held values and the conventional means of achieving them, whether or not they are successful. Amusementpark when youre just not as tall as you should be
Innovator
Accepts socially approved values but uses illegitimate or illegal means, to achieve them. Bsp: I wear the shoes because of the bigger sole, so that i'm tall enough to go on the ride.
Rebel
Rejects both the socially approved values and the means to achieve them, but also replaces the values and means to achieve them with now ones as a way to reconstruct the social system. I don't want to go on the ride anyway!
Race
A social constructed category composed of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider distinctive and important.
Ethnic Group
A group with unique cultural traits, a sense of community (a "we" feeling among members) and ascribed membership (acquired at birth).
Prejudice
Holding preconceived ideas about a person or group to "pre-judge" can be either positive or negative.
Discrimination
Behavior that denies the members of a group resources or rewards available to others.
Racism
The belief that, on the basis of their genetic inheritance some groups are superior to others. Used to justify the unequal distribution of a societys rewards
Institutional Racism
Patterns of discrimination based on race that have become part of the social practics and institutions (established organizations) of society.
Stigma
A negative label that greatly changes a persons self-concept and social identity
Self-Fulfilling-Prophecy
When labels applied to people lead them to act in ways that confirm the label
Deviance
Nonconformity to norms that are accepted by the majority of society. These norms can differ depending on time and place.
Labeling Theory
A theory stating that people and acts are deviant because they are defined as deviand by others
Differential Association
People are socialized into deviance and learn to be deviant from family and peers.
Total Institution
A place where people are isolated from the rest of society for a set period of time while the institution regulates and controls all activities.
Degradation Ceremony
An attempt to remake the person by the strripping away his/her current identity and replacing it with a new one
Medical model of deviance
Argues that deviant behavior is cuased by some internal condition, such as an imbalance of hormones in the brain that can be prevented with medical treatment.
White Collar Crime
Crime commited by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his or her occupation
Mandatory Minimum Sentences
Laws that require offenders to spend time in jail for at least a certain number of years, often used for drug sentencing -Eliminiates Judical Discretion
Relative Depriviation
The discontentment that people feel when they compare their situations to similar others who are better of
Social change
Change in social structures over time
Social movements
Large numbers of people who organize to promote or resist social change
Recruitment through networks
When people are recruited to social movements through preexisting networks with current movement members
Frame Alignement
The interactive Process in which movement leaders frame, or define their movements in a way that reaches potential followers and motivates them to join the movement.
Power
The ability to realize one's will, even if others resist it
The Power Elite
The leaders of the three domains of power (Military, economic and politcal) in America who make decisions that have national or international consequences.
