Key Sociological Terms: Definitions and Concepts

Chaptr#1: Key Sociological Terms Key Terms antipositivism the view that social researchers should strive for subjectivity as they worked to represent social processes, cultural norms, and societal values conflict theory a theory that looks at society as a competition for limited resources construc...

Chaptr#1: Key Sociological Terms Key Terms antipositivism the view that social researchers should strive for subjectivity as they worked to represent social processes, cultural norms, and societal values conflict theory a theory that looks at society as a competition for limited resources constructivism an extension of symbolic interaction theory which proposes that reality is what humans cognitively construct it to be culture a group's shared practices, values, and beliefs dramaturgical analysis a technique sociologists use in which they view society through the metaphor of theatrical performance dynamic equilibrium a stable state in which all parts of a healthy society work together properly dysfunctions social patterns that have undesirable consequences for the operation of society figuration the process of simultaneously analyzing the behavior of an individual and the society that shapes that behavior function the part a recurrent activity plays in the social life as a whole and the contribution it makes to structural continuity functionalism a theoretical approach that sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the biological and social needs of individuals that make up that society generalized others the organized and generalized attitude of a social group grand theories an attempt to explain large-scale relationships and answer fundamental questions such as why societies form and why they change hypothesis a testable proposition latent functions the unrecognized or unintended consequences of a social process macro-level a wide-scale view of the role of social structures within a society manifest functions sought consequences of a social process micro-level theories the study of specific relationships between individuals or small groups paradigms philosophical and theoretical frameworks used within a discipline to formulate theories, generalizations, and the experiments performed in support of them positivism the scientific study of social patterns qualitative sociology in-depth interviews, focus groups, and/or analysis of content sources as the source of its data quantitative sociology statistical methods such as surveys with large numbers of participants reification an error of treating an abstract concept as though it has a real, material existence significant others specific individuals that impact a person's life social facts the laws, morals, values, religious beliefs, customs, fashions, rituals, and all of the cultural rules that govern social life social institutions patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs social solidarity the social ties that bind a group of people together such as kinship, shared location, and religion society a group of people who live in a defined geographical area who interact with one another and who share a common culture sociological imagination the ability to understand how your own past relates to that of other people, as well as to history in general and societal structures in particular sociology the systematic study of society and social interaction symbolic interactionism a theoretical perspective through which scholars examine the relationship of individuals within their society by studying their communication (language and symbols) theory a proposed explanation about social interactions or society verstehen a German word that means to understand in a deep way