SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY—REVIEW SHEET

Test #2

Chapter 4: Contemporary Grand Theory-I

1.      Sociologists often use the term “structure.”  What does it mean?
- Patterned social interactions and persistent social relationships
2.      Structural functionalism tends to focus on one aspect of social reality.  What kind of aspect
is it?
- positive
3.      What are Parsons’s four functional imperatives?
- Adaption (A), Goal Attainment (G), Integration (I), and Latency/Pattern Maintenance (L)
4.      Parsons suggested the AGIL model for understanding the social system.  Define each of
these four processes.
- Adaption (A): adapt to and adjust the environment to its needs.
- Goal attainment (G): survive and grow
- Integration (I): regulating components
- Latency/Pattern maintenance (L): supporting individual motivation + renewing cultural
patterns.
5.      How does the AGIL model help in explaining the functions of society and its subsystems.
- The AGIL model explained what actions must be taken for a system to survive and could
be focused on continually smaller subsystems. This would include the Action System as well.
6.      Merton tried to remedy theorizing problems in structural functionalism. To accomplish
that, he suggested several concepts.  What are these concepts?
- Dysfunctions, Nonfunctions, Net balance, Level of functional analysis, Manifest vs.
latent function, and Unintended consequences: Latent function, Dysfunctional, Irrelevant.
7.      What is the difference between manifest and latent function?
- Manifest functions are intended, whereas latent functions are unintended.
8.      Merton used the concept of anomie in analyzing deviance.  How did he define it?
- a situation in which there is a serious disconnection between social structure and culture;
between structurally created abilities of people to act in accord with cultural norms and goals
and the norms and goals themselves.
9.      How did Dahrendorf conceive authority?
- it relates to structural positions, not to individuals.
10.  How did Dahrendorf conceive society?
- imperatively coordinated associations.
11.  According to Dahrendorf, when is conflict more likely to occur?
- When conflict groups have been formed, as a result of the formation of quasi and interest
groups through structural determination.
12.  How did Dahrendorf conceive class divisions?
- power divisions.
13.  In Luhmann’s scheme, which is more complex, the system or the environment?
- the environment
14.  Systems try to reduce complexity by doing what?
- by developing new subsystems
15.  What is the final product of trying to reduce complexity?
- creating more complexity
16.  What are the characteristics of the autopoietic system?
- Produces the basic elements that make up the system
- Are self-organizing: draw own boundaries; form internal structures
- Are self-referential
- An autopoietic system is closed; but open to outside disturbances

17.  How does the system handle changes in the environment?

- differentiation
18.  Luhmann notes that elements in the system have different codes.  What is the consequence
of that?
- limits permissible communication
19.  There are different forms of differentiation.  What are they, and what is the most *crucial
form?
1. Segmentary: fulfills repetitive identical functions
2. Stratificatory: Differentiation matched by rank and
status to fulfill distinction functions
3. Center-Periphery: links 1 and 2
*4. Functional Differentiation:
• A complex mixture of interdependence and independence
• Failure might halt/break the system

Ch 5: Contemporary Grand Theory-II

20.  Critical theorists notes that Marxist theory engaged in what kind of determinism?
- Economic determinism
21.  Critical theory focused on what aspect of society?
- Culture
22.  Critical theorists talked about the irrationality of rationality.  What does that mean?
- The idea that rational systems inevitably spawn a series of irrationalities.
23.  Critical theorists spoke of three kinds of knowledge.  What are they, and which one they
advocate?
- analytical science, humanistic knowledge, critical knowledge
24.  Habermas argues that the modern system is marked by a special kind of colonization.  What
is it?
- Colonization of the lifeworld
25.  For Habermas, what is the most important mean for achieving consensus and a rational
society?
- the rationalization of both the system and the lifeworld
26.  What image does Giddens have of the modern society?
- juggernaut
27.   What are the main features of the Post-Fordist model?
- 1) the rise of style, 2) flexible upgradeable technology, 3) multitask functioning work
environment, 4) skill adaptability and transferability, 5) union, and job security, decline, 6)
sneakerization.
28.  According to the World System theory, what is the configuration of the modern world
economy? What are the characteristics of each segment?
- The Core: the geographical area that dominates the capitalist world-economy and exploits
the rest of the system.
- The Periphery: Those areas of the capitalist world-economy that provide raw materials to
the core and are heavily exploited by it.
- The Semiperiphery: A residual category in the capitalist world-economy that encompasses a
set of regions somewhere between the exploiting and the exploited.

Ch 6: Contemporary Theories of Everyday Life

29.  What is the main focus of symbolic interactionism?

- on everyday life
30.  What is the looking-glass self? Who coined the term?
- socially forming our sense of ourselves. Cooley
31.  What are primary groups and secondary groups?
- Primary group: linkage to social order
Secondary group: mostly utilitarian
32.  How does symbolic interactionism account for society as a unit of analysis?
 - Fieldwork and observation
33.  How does dramaturgy view social life?
- life as theatre
34.  What is the difference between front stage and back stage?  Bring example for each.
- Front Stage: generally functions in rather fixed and general ways to define the situation
for those who observe the performance (setting: physical). (i.e. a professor lecturing a class)
- Back Stage: Where facts suppressed in the front stage or various kinds of information
action may appear. It is considered inaccessible to members of the front audience. (i.e. the
doctors lounge, relative to the office)
35.  What are the components of the front stage?
- the setting and personal front: appearance and manner
36.  In presenting themselves, what are the tools that people usually utilize?
- Idealizations, Misrepresentation, Mystification, Maintaining Expressive Control, Role
Distance, Real Appearance and Dramatic Realization
37.  How do ethnomethodologists conceive social facts?
- to be the fundamental sociological phenomenon
38.  What would ethnomethodologists say about survey methods?
- it fails to provide an account for analysis
39.  What are the types of situations that ethnomethodologists would study?
- the organization of everyday, ordinary life.
40.  What theoretical point regarding social life do breaching experiments try to make?
- the methodical production of social life occurs all the time
41.  What is the basis of the exchange theory?
- behaviorism
42.  What are some of the weaknesses of the exchange theory?
- individualistic, context, the voluntary presumption
43.  What does rational choice theory takes for granted about actors?
- actors being purposive
44.  According to rational choice theory, actors try to maximize what and minimize what?
- maximize their benefits and minimize risk
45.  Rational choice theory maintains that actors are constrained by what?
- scarcity of resources and social institutions
46.  What is an opportunity cost?
 - the costs of forgoing the next most-attractive action when an actor chooses an action
aimed at achieving a given end

Ch 7: Contemporary Integrative Theories

47.  How did Emerson’s line of theory integrate power into exchange theory?

48.  In power-dependence theory, how is the power position determined?

49.  For power-dependence theory, linking the macro to the micro could be achieved by what?

50.  In power-dependence theory, what determines the nature of interaction?

51.  Why structuration theory of Giddens is considered an attempt at integration?

52.  What does the term double hermeneutic means?

53.  What does the duality of structure and agency mean?

54.  What is specifically distinctive in Giddens’s understanding of social systems?

55.  What is the critique of Margaret Archer of Giddens’s theory?

56.  Bourdieu’s post-structuralism draws on two lines of theorizing.  What are they?

57.  What does Bourdieu mean by the term habitus?

58.  According to Bourdieu, what is the relationship between habitus and action?

59.  Bourdieu identifies several kinds of capitals.  What are they?

60.  According to Bourdieu, what institutions perpetuate symbolic violence in modern society?

61.  According to Bourdieu, what are the aspects in which class differences as most pronounced?
62.  Why are cultural preferences, of seemingly marginal aspects of life, consequential for
stratification?

63.  Why the feminist approach is considered a highly integrative one?