Sociology
the systematic, scientific study of human society
Social Marginality
being excluded from mainstream society
Global Village
closely knit community of all the world's societies
Economic Globalization
The interrelationships among the world's economies
Outsourcing
The practice of producing inexpensive products by building factories and hiring workers abroad.
Hypothesis
Tentative statement of how various events are related to one another.
Theory
A set of logically related hypotheses that explains the relationships among various phenomena
Social Forces
Forces that rise from the society of which we are a part
Sociological imagination
Mill's term for the ability to se the impact of social forces on individuals, especially on their private lives.
social integration
the degree to which people are tied to a social group
deconstructionism
the idea that to understand society, we should deconstruct or take it apart and anything associated with it.
class conflict
the struggle between capitalists, who own the means of production, and the proletariat, who don't.
macro-view
focusing on the large social phenomena of society, such as social institutions and inequality.
micro-view
zeroing in on the immediate social institutions in which people interact with each other.
theoretical perspectives
each set of general assumptions about the nature of society.
functionalist perspective
focuses on social order
social consensus
a condition in which most members of the society agree on what would be good for everybody and cooperate to achieve it.
mechanical solidarity
type of social cohesion that develops when people do similar work and have similar beliefs and values
organic solidarity
type of social cohesion that arises when the people in a society perform a wide variety of specialized jobs and therefore have to depend on one another
manifest functions
functions that are intended and seem obvious
latent functions
functions that are unintended and almost unrecognized
conflict perspective
portrays society as always changing and always marked by conflict
feminist theory
a form of conflict theory that explains human life in terms of the experiences of woman.
patriarchy
a system of domination in which men exercise power over woman
symbolic interactionist perspective
theoretical perspective that directs our attention to the details of a specific situation and the interaction between individuals in that situation
survey
research method most commonly used by sociologists which involves asking questions about opinions, beliefs, or behaviors.
population
the entire group of people to be studied
systematic sampling
process of drawing a random sample systematically rather than haphazardly
stratified sampling
process of drawing a random sample in which various categories of people are represented in proportions equal to their presence in the population.
structured interview
interview in which the researcher ass standardized questions that require respondent to choose from among several standardized answers, comparable to those in a self-administered questionnaire.
unstructured interview
interview in which open ended questions are asked and respondents are allowed to answer freely, in their own words.
detached observers
observe as outsiders, from a distance, without getting involved.
participant observation
researchers take part in the activities of the group they are studying.
ethnography
an analysis of people's lives from their own perspective.
secondary analysis
analysis method in which the sociologist searched for new knowledge in the data collected earlier by another researcher.
content analysis
analysis method in which sociologists search for specific words or ideas and turn them into numbers