TESTBANK FOR Principles of Sociology Canadian Perspectives 4th Edition
by Lorne Tepperman&Patrizia Albanese
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY AND RESEARCH METHODS
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Sociology is best defined as the study of social behaviour in human societies.
a) systematic
b) subjective
c) biased
d) random
2. The concept of the sociological imagination is associated with .
a) ÉmileDurkheim
b) Antonio Gramsci
c) Max Weber
d) C. WrightMills
3. The major difference between sociology and psychology lies in .
a) the fact that sociology is analytical
b) the idea that psychology is interpretive
c) the empirical nature of sociology
d) thesubject matter
4. According to Earl Babbie, all of the following are fundamental ideas that set sociology apart from other fields except
a) that societies constrain and transform
b) that society creates itself
c) that individual personalities are formed by genetics alone
d) that institutions are inherently conservative
5. Prior to the Enlightenment, society had been a world of all of the following except
a) rationality
b) magic
c) mystery
d) arbitrary authority
6. coined the term “sociology.”
a) Karl Marx
b) Auguste Comte
c) Max Weber
d) ÉmileDurkheim
7. According to Émile Durkheim’s concept of anomie, .
a) people are separated from the products of their labour
b) the sacred part of life had become overshadowed by the secular, leaving people in a state of uncertainty
c) the new global economy has replaced capitalism
d) the sacred part of life has overshadowed all rationality
8. interpreted the penitentiary as a metaphor for surveillance and strict discipline in modern society.
a) Michel Foucault
b) Max Weber
c) Karl Marx
d) Ben Killingsworth
9. Karl Marx argued that the way to begin the analysis of any society was to examine its a) religious make-up
b) level of bureaucratic organization
c) economic system
d) interconnected parts
10. Karl Marx believed that what distinguished traditional from modern society was the . a) rise of socialism
b) rise of capitalism
c) decline of socialism
d) the decline of urbanization
11. For Karl Marx, economic divisions and became basic features of most societies and the keys to understanding social change.
a) conflict
b) homogeneity
c) capitalism
d) surplus
12. For Max Weber, was the fundamental difference between traditional and modern societies.
a) the depth of alienation created by authoritarian rule
b) the interconnectedness of society’s institutions
c) the growth of capitalism
d) the growing importance of rationality
13. According to Pierre Bourdieu, if one has the necessary knowledge, is well-educated, and has the appropriate “tastes,” one has acquired .
a) culturalcapital
b) socialcapital
c) power and control in a predominantly capitalist society
d) primary capital
14. George Ritzer uses theterm to refer to the spread of rationality in a global economy.
a) culturalcapital
b) ultimate rationalization
c) socialcapital
d) McDonaldization
15. Edward Said argues that Western society had largely adopted , an ideology that views Europe as the pinnacle of progress and all other societies as culturally backward, in the nineteenth century.
a) pseudo-science
b) Orientalism
c) political sociology
d) Marxism
16. Post–World War II sociology was dominated by structural functionalism, a theoretical paradigm that emphasizes
a) conflict as a permanent feature of society
b) social problems as subjective conditions
c) the way each part of a society functions to fulfill the needs of society as a whole
d) interpretive theory
17. focuses on the subjective processes of humans.
a) Symbolic interactionism
b) Conflict theory
c) Structural functionalism
d) Feminism
18. is often referred to as “boot camp” for children.
a) Kindergarten
b) Elementary school
c) Junior high school
d) Highschool
19. Feminist theorists acknowledge that are likely to be misunderstood when seen through the eyes of middle-class, professional, heterosexual women.
a) poor women
b) minority women
c) sexually differentiated women
d) all of the above
20. has been critiqued as a form of extreme relativism that can leave us defenseless in the post-truth world of fake news where evidence-based probable truths are discredited and overwhelmed by pseudo-science, self-interested beliefs, and hyperbolic “alternative facts.”
a) Conflict theory
b) Post-modernism
c) Socialcapital theory
d) Symbolic interactionism
21. challenged our view of “the real.”
a) Max Weber
b) ÉmileDurkheim
c) DorothySmith
d) Jean Baudrillard
22. The process of translating abstract ideas into observable ideas is called .
a) theorizing
b) operationalization
c) variability
d) verstehen
23. Mark is interested in studying the causes and consequences of inequality between men and women in agriculturalcommunities. Mark is mostlikely to adopt while conductinghisresearch.
a) structural functionalism
b) post-modernism
c) operationalization
d) feminism
24. Independent variables are roughly equivalent to .
a) causes
b) effects
c) responsibilities
d) hypotheses
25. Despitethefact that sociologists do not usethem veryoften, the logic ofthe still dominates at least one ofthe major techniques of sociological research.
a) interview
b) analysis
c) experiment
d) ethnography
26. Verstehen is aGerman word meaning
a) to alienate
b) to beobjective
c) to understand
d) to analyze critically
27. The most widely used technique in social science research is
a) the survey
b) the experiment
c) field research
d) the interview
28. Good survey questions are not .
a) brief
b) focused
c) ambiguous
d) relevant
29. The simplest random-sampling technique is called .
a) stratified sampling
b) randomization
c) simple random sampling
d) unintentional sampling
30. In surveys, the primary aim is to collect data that can be generalized to a larger population.
a) quantitative
b) qualitative
c) biased
d) nuanced
31. If you wanted to study how parents and children interact in an infant’s swim class, the best research method to usewould be .
a) an experiment
b) participant observation
c) surveys
d) document study
32. The analysis of official statistics and existing surveysis also known as .
a) secondary data analysis
b) historical analysis
c) tertiarydata analysis
d) primarydata analysis
33. Killingsworth studied how women interact with one another in a mom and tot play group. One might arguethat impacted his research in some way.
a) Killingsworth’sgender
b) Killingsworth’sage
c) Killingsworth’s social class
d) the gender of Killingsworth’s child
34. If you wanted to search suicide notes for general themes like depression, guilt, and shame, the best research method to usewould be
a) content analysis
b) interviews
c) participant observation
d) an experiment
35. In terms of choosing the right method for the theoretical perspective chosen, the rule of thumb is
a) choose the most inexpensive option available to you
b) choose the method with which you are most comfortable
c) let your academic advisor choose the method most appropriate for your field of study
d) let theproblemdetermine the method
True or False Questions
1. We were all sociologists, even before we took asociology class.
2. Social theory focuses much of its attention on existing social arrangements or structures.
3. Sociology focuses on objective facts but not on our subjective understanding of them.
4. Émile Durkheim coined the term “sociology.”
5. We associate Émile Durkheim’s view of the social world with conflict theory.
6. According to Jean Baudrillard, “things” have become that which we worship in today’s society.
7. Karl Marx believed that what distinguished modern from traditional societies was the rise of capitalism.
8. Michel Foucault became fascinated with the ways in which societies deal with “transgression.”
9. According to Karl Marx, the working class is oppressed by the opulent capitalist class.
10. Weber agreed with Marx about the underlying difference between traditional and modern society.
11. According to George Ritzer, calculated techniques of production and marketing are central to contemporary globalization.
12. Symbolic interactionists focus on the objective processes as related to human behaviour.
13. The concept of power is central for structural functionalists.
14. No one in society is powerless.
15. Radicalfeminismisvalue-free.
16. Theories are abstract ideas composed of concepts.
17. Hypotheses are used to test theories.
18. Variables must be observable and must have a range of different values they can take on.
19. A dependent variable is essentially a “cause” in a hypothesis.
20. The most common research method used by sociologists is the experiment.
21. Verstehen has become thecornerstone of quantitative research.
22. Designing good questions for a survey is easy.
23. Random sampling ensures that our sample is representative of the population we are interested in.
24. The response rate achieved on a survey is the only issue that needs to be considered when determining the generalizability of the results of a survey.
25. Killingsworth’s study of mothers is a good example of survey research.
26. A researcher wants to compare country and rock music song lyrics, looking for themes such as love and betrayal. Content analysiswould be ausefulresearch method inthis study.
27. Sociology was once considered a “forbidden discipline” in Chile.
28. American sociologist Talcott Parsons’s ideas and theories are most closely aligned with Marxism.
29. Post-structuralism and post-modernism are the same thing.
30. Experiments show that male preschool teachers are viewed with higher levels of suspicion about their sexuality, their masculinity, and even their potential for violence.
Short Answer Questions
1. In what ways are we are all sociologists? Provide specific examples to strengthen your argument.
2. What is the difference between structure and agency?
3. What is the difference between objective facts and our subjective understandings about them?
4. Sociology thrives in periods of large-scale social change, like the Enlightenment. What was the Enlightenment? Explain briefly in two or three sentences.
5. Why did Auguste Comte invent the term “sociology”?
6. How did Jean Baudrillard argue that the definition of the sacred may be changing in modern societies?
7. For Émile Durkheim, what is the function of social institutions?
8. For Karl Marx, what was the key to analyzing any society?
9. Why is the concept of surplus important for understanding capitalism?
10. What did Max Weber mean when he wrote about the “disenchantment of the world”?
11. Think about Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of social capital. What is your social capital, or lack thereof?
12. What did George Ritzer mean when he wrote about “McDonaldization”?
13. Why did sociology become popular in American and Canadian universities?
14. In one sentence, how does a structural functionalist see the social world?
15. What are two critical responses to functionalism? Briefly describe each.
16. According to symbolic interactionism, how does society emerge?
17. What did G.H. Mead meanwhenhetalked about taking on “theroleoftheother”?
18. How did Michel Foucault see authority?
19. Have women achieved true equality with men?
20. According to Black feminist thought, what is a matrix of domination?
21. How are theories and concepts related?
22. What is operationalization?
23. Compose two sociological hypotheses, then clearly note your independent and dependent variables in each.
24. Why do you think surveys are the most widely used technique in social science research? Explain your answer.
25. How can researchers design good survey questions?
26. If you were to choose a location to do ethnographic research, which location would you choose and why?
27. Do you think Killingsworth’s gender impacted his research? Why or why not?
28. What are the advantages and disadvantages of secondary data analysis as a research method?
29. What types of documents or other sources would be best studied using content analysis?
30. Identify a topic of sociological study and the right, and potentially completely wrong, method of exploring this topic. In other words, choose a topic of study and note how it would best be studied and how another method would not produce the data needed to learn what you need to learn about the topic.
Essay Questions
1. How and where did sociology as a discipline develop?
2. Compare and contrast the views of Durkheim, Weber, and Marx in terms of how each argues that societyoperatesandwhich factor(s) arethe most important whenexamining society.
3. How did Weber modify Marx’s approach to understanding society? Be sure to address the notion of rationality here.
4. Explain the difference between cultural and social capital, as proposed by Pierre Bourdieu. Give several examples of each.
5. Your boss has asked you to develop a survey questionnaire to explore the morale of workers in your office. Write ten good questions that would measure morale in an office situation. Be sure you arefollowing theguidelines for designing goodquestionsas outlined inthe text.
6. Use a single example to compare and contrast the key features of functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, feminism, and post-structuralism/post-modernism. For example, how would each theoretical perspective explain social media use in2017?
7. Using examples, explain why classical sociological theories are still important to consider when explaining contemporary Canadian and global society.
8. How can sociology help us understand this generation’s encounters with deeply rooted social problems like climate change, widening global inequality, nuclear proliferation, civil wars, and economic crises?
9. What countries have singled out sociology/sociologists as a subversive or negative influence? Using examples, compare and contrast these events using a sociological perspective. Why do you think sociology is sometimes singled out as a subversive discipline?
10. How could a researcher’s own gender be an advantage or a disadvantage in the field?
True or False Questions
Short Answer Questions
1. We all make sense of the social world in which we live on a daily basis. Examples provided will vary. (p. 12)
2. Structure refers to the pre-existing arrangements intowhich we are all born, while agency refers to the idea that all humans are thinking and acting individuals. (p. 12)
3. Objective: something completely unaffected by the characteristics of the person or instrument observing it. “Objective” observations and facts were used in the past to establish the truth of scientific theories until it became clear that completely objective observations are impossible. Subjective: can be thought of as the opposite of “objective” and refers to the observer’s mind, to perceptions, intentions, interpretations, and so on that affect how she or he acts in the world. (pp. 12, 31)
4. Europeansocialtheorists inthe1800sunderstoodthat amoremodernworld wasreplacing the older, traditional one. In contrast to the traditional world of magic, mystery, and arbitrary authority, they saw modern Western society as entering a new world of Enlightenment. Through the use of reason, it was assumed, the human mind could shine light into the darkest caves and discover “true” knowledge. (p. 12)
5. Comte’s intent was to create a science of society that would allow us to understand social life similar to the way biology allows us to understand physical life. (pp. 12–13)
6. Baudrillard argued that “things” are taking on an almost sacred aura in our society we see things
displayed everywhere. (p.13)
7. For Durkheim, different institutions function to maintain social order and reproduce society over time. (p. 13)
8. The key for Marx was examining the way in which the society produced and distributed the necessities of life in effect, its economic system. The defining process in modernity was the revolutionary destruction of traditional economies and the emergence of global capitalism. (pp. 14–15)
9. The majority of working people produce more goods than they require for their own use. The excess or surplus supports the elite few, which has grown into a rich and powerful dominant class. (p. 15)
10. Weber was referring to the rise of science in modern society and the erosion of religion and supernatural beliefs. (p. 15)
11. Answers will vary here depending on the connections that an individual student may or may not have with influential people. (p. 16)
12. McDonaldization refers to the spread of rationality in the global economy. McDonald’s has become the model for efficient production and marketing on a global scale. (p. 16)
13. As immigrant nations, both were constructing multi-ethnic and pluralistic societies in which the traditionalism of many new arrivals clashed with the values and priorities of modernity these socialconflicts and upheavals are grist forthe sociological mill. (p. 16)
14. Structural functionalists argue that different institutions function to maintain social order and reproduce society over time. (p. 17)
15. Microsociology and conflict theory. Microsociologists reject the view that people were merely puppets of institutional structures and social forces. They focused on the way our daily lives are shaped by our intentions and interactions with others. Conflict sociologists complained that functionalism assumed too much harmony and consensus. They viewed society as fundamentally conflict-ridden and said we could learn more by examining the deep fault lines dividing society, such as race, gender, and class. (p. 17)
16. Like social constructionists, symbolic interactionists argue that society emerges as the result of an ensemble of relationships, communications, and interpretations. (p. 18)
17. Taking the role of the other refers to being able to walk in the shoes of another person and see the world from his or her point of view. How well we can do this depends on how well socialized we are. (p. 18)
18. ForFoucault, authoritysurroundsandactsuponpeople, seeking toturntheminto docileand obedient objects. (p. 18)
19. Women in modern society have been more successful in acquiring the rights to equality than in achieving actualequality in the dominant politicaland economicspheres. (p. 19)
20. The complex structures of power within which people live and in which various forms of oppression intersect, such as colour, gender, poverty, ability, and health; these must be resisted simultaneously. (p. 20)
21. Concepts are single ideas. Theories are made up of abstract ideas, composed of concepts. (p. 22)
22. Operationalization is the process of translating theories and concepts into hypotheses and variables taking the abstract, as it were, and developing something that can be observed and measured. (p. 22)
23. Answers will vary here. (p.22)
24. Surveys are an excellent way to gather data on large populations that cannot be studied effectively face-to-face. Surveys can be easily generalized from a sample to the target population. (p. 23)
25. Agood surveyquestion must beunambiguous for boththerespondent andtheresearcher. A question with several different interpretations is not useful, because respondents may answer it
from a perspective different from that intended by the researcher. Similarly, questions that are too complicated for respondents to answer will not produce useful data. There are many, many issues to consider in designing good questions and the order they appear on the questionnaire, and unless sufficient attention is paid to these issues before the survey is administered, the results will affect the legitimacy of the whole research project. (p. 24)
26. Answers will vary here. (pp. 25–26)
27. Killingsworth’s research was conducted at a mom and tots play group where we might assume he was the only male. As such, we could easily argue that the mothers would not be as open about their alcohol consumption with a man in the room. (pp. 25–26)
28. Advantages: broad data coverage; hard work of developing a survey has been done by someone else; saves on resources. Disadvantages: data collected by someone else may not be exactly what you want or need; analysis ofdata could be challenging. (pp. 27–28)
29. Answers here might include, TV shows, music videos, news articles, magazine ads, court records, etc. (pp. 28–29)
30. Answers will vary here. (p.29)
Essay Questions
1. Answers should cover the decline of religion and growth of science and the Enlightenment. Answers may also address post-structuralist and post-modernist rejections of the Enlightenment. (pp. 12, 20)
2. Students will outline each of the theorists’ views on society here, as noted on thepages referenced. (pp. 13–16)
3. A good answer here will address Weber’s argument that rationality is the key difference between traditional and modern societies. (pp. 15–16)
4. Social capital refers to the connections one has to other influential people while cultural capital refers to both the knowledge/education and tastes that one has. Examples will vary by student. (p. 16)
5. Actual question designed will vary but all should be brief, focused, clear, non-biased, and relevant to the topic of morale. (p. 24)
6. Answers should demonstrate knowledge of each of the theoretical perspectives (see the lecture outline in Chapter 1 of the Instructor’s Manual for detailed summaries of each) while applying the perspectives to an example of your choosing. If you want to make it easier for students, incorporate anexample used inclass or make itmorechallenging forthem by choosing an example not used in class or the textbook. (Whole chapter)
7. The answers to this question could be similar to question #6 (so chooseone ortheother for an exam) but will also vary depending on how students choose to incorporate material. Answers should note that sociology is relevant to our daily lives and can help us better understand almost any social issue or problem. This question is more application based and will allow students to demonstrate how they can think of examples from their own lives that fit with the sociological perspectives. (See the lecture outline in Chapter 1 of the Instructor’s Manual for detailed summaries for each perspective.) (Whole chapter)
8. Answers will vary but should focus on the complexities of problems of this nature and how sociology’s critical lens can help understand such problems through multiple perspectives. As the author suggests, we are living in an unprecedented new age that is “weird and scary” in more ways than one. Sociology can best approach this world by criticizing existing structures and focusing on the humanabilityto understand, criticize, makechoices, andtake actions. (p. 21)
9. Answers should address material provided in the Global Issues Box “Sociology: A Subversive Discipline.” Answers could address examples from Chile, Canada, China, Iran, Turkey or
countries not covered in the text, like the United States. Answers to the later part of the question will vary but should demonstrate some understanding of sociology as a critical and often political/politicized discipline. (p. 16)
10. Answers may touch on what “the field” is in terms of ethnographic research and participant observation. Answers should address how the norms of a given group may influence perceptions of researchers. Forexample, Kilingsworth’s (2006) research (discussedabove inshortanswer #27) is relevant. As is John Pruit’s (2015) study of male Montessori preschool teachers showed that male preschool teachers were viewed with high levels of suspicion about their sexuality, their masculinity, and even their potential for violence. And, as a male researcher, he had to develop a series of strategies to gain trust from parents, school board members, children, and other teachers. In thiscase, beingamalein alargely femaleenvironment may have been anadvantage and allowed him to see more deeply into the taken-for-granted suspicions around male preschool teachers and the strategies these men use to overcome those fears. On the flipside, afemale researcher may have been at a disadvantage in this setting and perhaps would not have encountered such behaviours, and in turn, developed such insights. (pp. 25–26)