Questions and Answers for Sociology
Sociology
What are some examples of sociological concepts?
One of the sociological concepts that I have always found interesting in the courses I have taken is social stratification. In societies, an individual's access to wealth and income greatly...
Sociology
What is a social lens? Do things like racial or cultural identity count as social lenses?
A social lens refers to how a person views a given situation. There are many factors that go into developing a person’s social lens or perception of the world. Race, culture, religion, and economic...
Sociology
What are the twelve core values in US society identified by sociologist Robin Williams?
As noted by previous educators, Williams identified the twelve core values in US society as individualism, achievement and success, activity and work, efficiency and practicality, science and...
Sociology
What are the types of intergroup relationships in sociology?
The term intergroup relationship describes the relations, or interactions, between two or more groups of people. In sociology, the focus is often on the intergroup relations between two different...
Sociology
How is sociology helpful for a teacher?
Although society and patterns of social interaction have always been the subjects of study, the academic study of sociology as a formal discipline began in the late-nineteenth century. The first...
Sociology
How does the symbolic interactionism theory affect the social change within the family institution? How does the...
Symbolic interactionism is a sociological framework that states that people develop subjective interpretations of events based on their social interactions. In other words, following the ideas of...
Sociology
What advantages are there in looking at the world through the lens of the sociological imagination?
The main advantage of having a sociological imagination is that you can see what's happening underneath the surface of reality. Sociology gives us an insight into the underlying structures of our...
Sociology
Sociological Perspective
The sociological perspective is a way of viewing humanity as a society. Sociologists try to study the nature of human societies to see how they behave on large scales. Individuals will make clearly...
Sociology
How is the American Dream characteristic of American ideals and philosophy? What are the differences between the...
The American Dream is commonly associated with certain ideals, such as hard work, independence, faith, freedom, self-government, prosperity, and family. You could research primary documents (such...
Sociology
How does free market capitalism benefit from privatized prisons, and why is this relevant for sociological analysis?
Free market capitalism is a system that is based on supply and demand, with the market settin the cost of different products. In this system, it is beneficial to manufacture products at as low of a...
Sociology
Discuss the importance of modernity. Why is modernity important to sociologists?
In order to answer this question, it would be helpful to have a working definition of what is meant by the term “modernity.” Modernity was an informal way of thinking that was born out of the...
Sociology
How does sociology help us to better understand how our own society functions?
Sociology provides a framework which allows us to consider how humans all fit together on this planet—and hopefully how we can strive toward more meaningful interactions with each other. It helps...
Sociology
Is WalMart Good for America Is WalMart Good for America?
Wal-mart does more good than harm, I think. I realize that it does not pay its workers much or give them benefits. However, Wal-mart does help many poor people by allowing them a cheap place to...
Sociology
Is modernization is good or bad? Explain, using examples. The definition of modernization: (1) the process that...
Based on this prompt, I believe that your answer needs to pick a side of the argument. This might be tough. Modernization is a double-edged sword. It has many advantages, but it also has many...
Sociology
Discuss the difference between how conflict-perspective sociologists and functionalist-perspective sociologists view...
The answer to this question lies in the definition of those types of sociology, which you can understand from their names. Functionalist perspective sociologists believe that the government rose as...
Sociology
Can you give me an example of a sociological argument with the concept of the sociology of food? My topic is about a...
Without knowing the details of where you live, it is hard to give a specific argument about this bakery. What you should be trying to do is to explain why it is (in sociological terms) that this...
Sociology
Growing Up Online What are some advantages and disadvantages of growing up online?
Kids today have access to a lot more information than we did. When they have a question, they can get an answer immediately. Of course, there are some disadvantages to this. Sometimes they don't...
Sociology
What are the social issues for agriculture?
The vital connection between society and agriculture (food-gathering) is a staple of anthropology--the mobile seed-and fruit gatherers vs. the planters who stayed in one place, etc. Today, this...
Sociology
Why do you think people are moving away from rural areas towards urban areas?
There are a number of reasons for the migration of people from rural areas to urban areas. These include employment opportunities, educational facilities, lifestyle preferences, better medical...
Sociology
What other human disasters, resulting from bureaucratic incompetence, could be targets for another “modest proposal”?
Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" famously suggested that those throughout the British kingdom eat Irish babies in order to prevent, among other things, overpopulation of the poor, thereby...
Sociology
Name five different cultures/subcultures in the United States.
According to the American Sociological Association, culture can be understood as the languages, customs, beliefs, rules, arts, knowledge, and collective identities and memories developed by...
Sociology
How is a sociological perspective different from someone's personal perspective?
A sociological perspective seeks to understand the ways that broad social factors affect people's behavior, social interactions, and thoughts. Many things that seem like personal issues can in fact...
Sociology
Outline and assess the distinction that C. Wright Mills makes between personal troubles and public issues.
The concepts of personal troubles and public issues play a very important part in the sociology of C. Wright Mills. The ability to distinguish between them is an essential part of what Mills calls...
Sociology
Why might a person’s values and traditions shift from the ones they were raised with?
In the case of values, there is a very simple reason why people may change from the ones with which they were raised: they begin to think for themselves. They may also come under the influence of a...
Sociology
In the article of "The Saints and the Roughnecks," did you find yourself surprised by what the researcher uncovered?...
The details and results of the article describe classism and how classism operates on a systemic level throughout our inherently unjust society. As is typical of classism, the teachers in the study...
Sociology
How does cultural deprivation tie into the functionalist view in education?
Structural functionalists believe that each part of society plays a role in keeping the society stable. Therefore, they would tend to argue that cultural deprivation contributes to this stability....
Sociology
Why is sociological research necessary? Why is relying on personal knowledge alone not enough to help us clearly...
Relying on only your personal experiences and knowledge of life often results in the enactment of prejudice and oppression towards people who have different lived experiences than you. This is...
Sociology
What is the difference between age strata, age groups, and cohorts?
Age Strata: consists of a classification of people into different age groups. Age strata or stratification is commonly used in census, policy formulation (for old-age care, juvenile care, etc.) It...
Sociology
What are two social agents that might potentially contradict each other?
Because agents exist in every aspect of society, any two social agents might potentially contradict each other. A social agent can be a people, a nation, even an ideology. At the abstract level,...
Sociology
Explain why functionalists think deviance and crime provide a number of societal benefits. Then, explain why you...
Functionalists argue that all parts of a society serve a purpose and are necessary for each society to function. This is true for both crime and deviance of all kinds. To a functionalist, crime...
Sociology
Cultural Relativism suggests that each person's culture is the norm or standard by which we determine what our morals...
This complex question crosses the fields between personal morality and social ethics. According to such thinkers as Emile Durkheim, the society with which we associate (on the large scale, our...
Sociology
With reference to functionalism, how does the music teenagers listen to affect their function in society?
One likely way for music to affect teenagers’ roles in society is if their choice of music makes them deviants. Deviants have a function in society because they help “normal” people understand...
Sociology
What is the role of music in the culture of a place?
The role of music in the culture of a place has more than one dimension, including the dimension that music expresses current changes in the culture and engenders further changes in that culture....
Sociology
What threat do human rights violations pose to the world, and what is currently being done about them?
"Human rights violations" are a problem the world over, but in order to get anywhere on the subject you first have to decide what constitutes a "right." By the United Nation's definition, human...
Sociology
What role does ritual and ceremony play in life transitions?
For generations of human history, cultures around the world have marked transitions in life with specific rituals and ceremonies. For example, consider how many people mark their transition into...
Sociology
What does research on war and violence suggest about how to reduce their likelihood?
Research on war and violence is difficult because there is no way to establish or observe a control group. In most fields, researchers are able to identify a group of people who do not possess the...
Sociology
What is the Critical Theory Model?
Critical Theory, in basic terms, is any theory founded on critique (Wikipedia), and is used in many different fields, but it is most used in Sociology to define a work or plan based on criticism of...
Sociology
What is social order?
Social order is defined as a set of rules and structures that establish a cohesive social system. The term also defines a society that is in a stable state. The stability of the human social system...
Sociology
What is the sociological imagination?
The sociological imagination is the process of using your imagination to see connections between your life (or the life of another person) and the broader world as a whole. In sociology, we try to...
Sociology
How do you define sociology?
Sociology is part of a larger branch of the social sciences that attempts to understand how humans interact in groups (ranging from small families to entire nations). Sociology is the most explicit...
Sociology
“McDonaldization” What are the principles that “McDonalidization” (George Ritzer’s term) imposes on our lives? Are...
McDonalization eliminates the personal and cultural touch of the private restaurant. One needs only to have traveled to Western Europe before its relinquishing of its cultural customs and have...
Sociology
What is the race and social class structure like in Bermuda?
Bermuda was first discovered in the early 1500s by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermudez. He found the islands to be completely uninhabited, even devoid of any natives. The first settlers were British...
Sociology
Discuss why new technology, restaurants, immigration, and style of dress reflect globalization. What is the reaction...
The impact of globalization is felt in all walks of life. It includes both new ideas and new products that are exchanged among the people of every nation in the world. Technology is an important...
Sociology
Apply Stuart Hall’s reception theory to an example of popular music culture by paying attention to differing encoded...
Stuart Hall's reception theory could be used as part of a discussion about the larger rhetorical situation. The rhetorical situation involves a message sender and a message receiver. That sender...
Sociology
Why does Kottak prefer to speak of sociopolitical organization considering how anthropologists have traditionally...
1. "Sociopolitical" is a combined word that joins social or sociological with political. The meanings addresses the areas of life where social and political concerns intersect and interact with...
Sociology
What level of analysis accompanies the three theoretical perspectives?
I assume you are asking which level of analysis each of the three major sociological perspectives is concerned with. The answer to this is that two of the major theoretical perspectives operate on...
Sociology
What's the general attitude of ninth grade boys toward girls?
While the question is to some extant an individual response, some observations can be made. Since the question is phrased as a school differentiation, rather than an age differentiation, let us...
Sociology
How were the components of the sociological perspective defined by C. Wright Mills?
C. Wright Mills referred to his sociological perspective as the "sociological imagination." His perspective involved seeing one's life not only as an individual but also as the product of larger...
Sociology
What are the effects of rural depopulation?
Rural population reached its peak in the 1940s and 1950s. This undoubtedly was connected to the rise of agriculture as America's primary economic force. In the last fifty years, nearly half of all...
Sociology
What is the relative influence of co-operation and competition within and between social groups?
There are many tests of the value of both these strategies. Most results show that individual competition, for example employees vying for the same title or job, is more destructive than...
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