Sociology

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• Publisher: QuickStudy Reference Guides
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781423212362
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The essentials of the systematic and scientific study of human social behavior, groups and society. Extremely easy to access, study by, and reference for students in college courses or students of the world around them.

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Institutions are relatively stable and patterned ways of carrying out social activities that are vital to society.

Families

• Family: Two or more people related by blood, law, marriage, or adoption and are in a committed relationship
• Family of Orientation (Family of Origin): Family into which a person is born or adopted
• Family of Procreation (Family of Marriage): Family formed by marriage
• Family Patterns: Nature of family structure
  • Nuclear Family: Parents and children living apart from other kin
  • Extended Family: Parents and children living with other kin such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins
• Descent Patterns: How families trace kinship and inheritance
  • Patrilineal Descent: Family lineage is traced through the male side of the family
  • Matrilineal Descent: Family lineage is traced through the female side of the family
  • Bilineal Descent: Family lineage is traced through both sides of the family
• Authority Patterns: Nature of authority in family structure
  • Patriarchal: Oldest male is ultimate authority
  • Matriarchal: Oldest female is ultimate authority
  • Egalitarian: Shared authority among male and female head of household
• Marriage norms: Guidelines governing who can and should marry
  • Monogamy: One person married to one other person at one time
  • Serial monogamy: One person married to one person at a time, but divorces and remarries one or more times
  • Polygamy: One person married to more than one other person at a time
    • Polygyny: One man with more than one wife
    • Polyandry: One woman with more than one husband
• Divorce: Legal recognition and termination of a marriage
• Divorce Rate: Number of divorces per 1,000 marriages in a year
• Annulment: Legal dissolution of marriage as if it did not take place

Education

• Education: The institutionalized life-long process of teaching cognitive skills and knowledge as well as transmitting culture from one generation to the next
• Schooling: Education that takes place within the formal setting of a school
• Cognitive Skills: In the U.S., often referred to as the Three R’s— ‘readin,’ ‘ritin,’ and ‘rithmetic. Usually includes a somewhat standardized curriculum containing the subjects widely considered mandatory to be an educated person (e.g., English, mathematics, history, government, sciences, etc.)
• Cultural values: Schools attempt to reinforce basic American cultural values emphasizing freedom, democracy, honesty, good citizenship, etc.
• Hidden Curriculum: In addition to published cognitive and valueoriented curricula, schools also tend to teach conformity to dominant values and ideologies, maintenance of the status quo, and reinforcement of existing stratification and inequalities
• Credentialism: Increased emphasis on academic credentials (i.e., test scores, diplomas, certificates, degrees) as opposed to accumulation of knowledge and/or acquisition of marketable skills and expertise
• Tracking: Placing students with similar intelligence, skills, and academic abilities in the same classroom. May also involve grouping students with similar behavioral patterns
• Mainstreaming: Trend in schools to place students that once were taken out of the traditional classroom to address educational special needs back into traditional classrooms
• Pygmalion Effect: A form of self-fulfilling prophecy in which teachers label students as gifted and talented and expect them to excel academically. Teachers work with them and give them special attention in order to ensure that they do, sometimes ignoring students they expect to fail, which may lead to them achieving the anticipated academic outcome
• Charter Schools: Schools created as an alternative to public education by a charter (contract) between those starting the schools and a governing body that allows the schools to receive local, state, and federal monies
• School Vouchers: Provide funds to parents to offset some of the costs of transporting their children to public schools outside their district, or to help supplement some of the costs of attending a private school
• Homeschooling: Children are not sent to public or private schools, but are educated at home by one or both parents. May be motivated by personal, religious, and/or political reasons

Religion

• Religion: Institutionalized system of shared beliefs, symbols, and rituals that signify the sacred and address the ultimate meaning of life
• Sacred: Uncommon extraordinary aspects of life that inspire believers with awe, reverence, and respect
• Profane: Ordinary, commonly understood, and routine activities of ordinary life that people take for granted
• Animatism: A belief that supernatural forces rather than beings are the dominant power in the universe
• Animism: A belief in spirit beings that inhabit the same world as humans but on a different plane of existence
• Agnosticism: The existence of supreme beings or gods that have the power to influence human behavior and deserve to be worshiped is ultimately unknown and probably unknowable
• Atheism: A disbelief or lack of belief in supreme beings or gods that have the power to influence human b...

Table of contents

• Sociological Perspective
• Development Of Sociology
• Major Theoretical Paradigms
• Research Process & Theory Development
• Social Structure
• Social Differentiation & Inequality
• Social Institutions
• Population & Demography
• Collective Behavior & Social Change