STUDY GUIDE – FIRST EXAM
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

The format will be definition and short essay.  The exam will cover all assigned readings (text and supplemental) and lecture material (exception: pages 97-111 from Chapter Four will be covered on the second exam).

Chapter One:

Be prepared to define and discuss the sociological imagination.  Be able to discuss the importance of studying sociology from a global perspective. Identify the benefits of applying the sociological perspective to our daily lives.  Be able to identify and present a very brief biography of at least one of the early “voices” of sociology marginalized due to gender or race.  Be able to identify the three principal sociological paradigms and their major assumptions.

Chapter Two:

Be able to identify the four types of “truth” as presented by Macionis.  Be prepared to operationalize a variable.  Be able to discuss the difference between reliability and validity.  What are some of the limitations of scientific sociology?  Be prepared to define scientific sociology and the two other methodological approaches to sociology.  Be able to identify and briefly describe the four principal methods of sociological investigation.

Chapter Three:

Be prepared to discuss the relationship between culture and human intelligence.  Be able to identify the key values of U.S. culture, and give examples of how they might come into conflict with each other and with reality.  Why is it that subcultures involve hierarchy as well as differences (what role does Eurocentrism play)?  Be prepared to discuss the structural-functional and social conflict analyses of culture.

Chapter Four:

What is meant by sociocultural evolution?  Be prepared to describe the social organizations of the five types of society that have emerged over the past 3 billion years.  Why was it that agrarian society ushered in significant social stratification and inequality?  Be able to compare and contrast industrial society with postindustrial society.

Be able to briefly define:

• Theory

• Theoretical paradigm

• Social structure

• Social functions

• Manifest functions

• Latent functions

• Social dysfunctions

• Macro-level orientation

• Micro-level orientation

• Empirical evidence

• Concept

• Variable

• Operationalizing a variable

• Reliability and Validity

• Correlation and cause-and-effect

• Spurious correlation

• Independent and Dependent variables

• Androcentricity

• Research method

• Experiment

• Hypothesis

• Survey research

• Population and Sample

• The Hawthorne Effect

• Participant Observation

• Secondary and Historical Analysis

• Inductive logic and Deductive logic

• Culture

• Society

• Material and Non-material culture

• The components of culture

• Cultural transmission

• Sapir-Whorf Thesis

• Values

• Norms

• Kinds of norms

• Social control

• Ideal and Real culture

• Subculture

• Counterculture

• Multiculturalism

• Cultural lag

• Causes of cultural change

• Ethnocentrism and Cultural relativism

• Cultural universals