Contemporary Social Issues
Exam Answer Key
Course Introduction
This course explores pressing social issues facing contemporary societies, such as inequality, discrimination, globalization, environmental challenges, and the impact of technology. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, students examine the root causes, consequences, and potential solutions to these challenges, considering how policies, cultural shifts, and social movements shape responses to social problems. Emphasis is placed on critical analysis, informed debate, and understanding diverse viewpoints to foster informed and engaged global citizens.
Recommended Textbook
Sociology Ninth Canadian Edition by
John J. Macionis
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24 Chapters
3149 Verified Questions
3149 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: The Sociological Perspective
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185 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Sociologists focus only on unusual patterns of behaviour.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) In several sentences, what is the essential wisdom of sociology?
Answer: The essential wisdom of sociology is the understanding that human behavior and society are deeply interconnected and influenced by various social, cultural, and economic factors. It teaches us to critically analyze and question the structures and systems that shape our lives, and to recognize the impact of power dynamics, inequality, and social institutions. Sociology also emphasizes the importance of empathy, diversity, and social justice, and encourages us to work towards creating a more equitable and inclusive society for all. Overall, the essential wisdom of sociology is to recognize and study the complexities of human society in order to better understand and improve it.
Q3) People rarely recognize all of the functions of social structure.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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3
Chapter 2: Sociological Investigation
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which sociological research method is likely to be most difficult to replicate?
A) the experiment
B) the survey
C) participant observation
D) secondary analysis
Answer: C
Q2) Once you have identified a topic for your research, what should you do next?
A) choose a method of research
B) review the literature on the same topic
C) assess your financial needs
D) collect data
Answer: B
Q3) A variable that is changed by another variable is called the "independent variable."
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) In general, low-income nations have cultures that value individualism and personal self-expression.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Sociologists refer to tangible or physical human creations as A) nonmaterial culture.
B) artifacts.
C) technology.
D) values.
Answer: B
Q3) According to scientists, Homo sapiens first appeared on Earth about how long ago?
A) 2500 years
B) 25 000 years
C) 250 000 years
D) 250 million years
Answer: C
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) Comparing and contrasting the ideas of Karl Marx and Max Weber, which of the following statements is TRUE?
A) Marx thought modern society was alienating; Weber did not.
B) Weber thought modern society was alienating; Marx did not.
C) Both Marx and Weber thought modern society was alienating, although for different reasons.
D) Neither Marx nor Weber thought modern society was alienating.
Q2) What did Durkheim mean by "anomie"? How does modern society cause anomie?
Q3) Durkheim claimed that, for each of us as individuals, society
A) maintains the highest level of personal privacy.
B) helps free people from human culture.
C) helps people "be all they can be."
D) regulates individuals, reining in their desires and passions.
Q4) Weber viewed rationality as a liberating force that would free the human spirit.
A)True B)False
Q5) For Durkheim, the key to change in a society is an expanding division of labour. A)True B)False
Page 6
Q6) What importance did Karl Marx attach to social conflict between classes?
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Chapter 5: Socialization
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Sample Questions
Q1) Melvin Kohn demonstrated that parents of all social classes have much the same expectations of their children.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Based on what you have read in this chapter, how would sociologists explain the fact that many young people in Canada experience adolescence as a time of confusion?
A) There are cultural inconsistencies in the definition of this stage of life as partly childlike and partly adultlike.
B) Hormones greatly affect young people as they mature.
C) Growth always involves change, and change is confusing.
D) Adolescence is supposed to be a time of carefree play, but most adolescents are forced to work.
Q3) Mead placed the origin of the self in
A) biological drives.
B) genetics.
C) social experience.
D) the functioning of the brain.
Q4) Summarize Jean Piaget's contribution to our understanding of socialization.
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Chapter 6: Social Interaction in Everyday Life
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Sample Questions
Q1) Will virtual learning and virtual universities/colleges eliminate the campus as we know it? Identify two to three positive and negative aspects of virtual learning.
Q2) In general, an important foundation of humour is
A) incongruity-differences in meaning.
B) differences in social standing.
C) gender differences.
D) differences in culture.
Q3) Which of the following is TRUE?
A) Canadian Aboriginal humour has never become popular with non-Aboriginal Canadians.
B) The Québécois believe they exist on an island of French in an English-speaking ocean.
C) Canada, has, per capita, less comedians than any other country in the Western hemisphere.
D) Humour creates a "prison of reality" for disadvantaged people.
Q4) Erving Goffman is the sociologist who developed the approach known as dramaturgical analysis.
A)True
B)False
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Page 8
Chapter 7: Groups and Organizations
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141 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which concept refers to a social group with only two members?
A) a primary group
B) a dyad
C) a triad
D) a bond
Q2) Irving Janis demonstrated how discussion always improves decision making in a social group.
A)True
B)False
Q3) As groups grow larger, they become less stable.
A)True
B)False
Q4) As the number of members in a group goes up, the number of possible relationships among them goes up much faster.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Oligarchy refers to the rule of the many by the few.
A)True
B)False
Q6) What are the differences between categories and social groups?
Page 9
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Chapter 8: Sexuality and Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) In global perspective, prostitution is most common in A) high-income nations, where women are free to choose their profession.
B) poor nations, where women have fewer economic opportunities.
C) all nations: prostitution is found in every country to about the same extent.
D) Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, where women have fewer choices about their lives.
Q2) What significant changes took place during the sexual revolution? What about during the sexual counter-revolution?
Q3) Becoming pregnant as a teenager raises the risk of not finishing school and becoming poor.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The structural-functional approach highlights patterns of inequality linked to sexuality.
A)True
B)False
Q5) There was no distinct category of "homosexual" people until about a century ago.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Deviance
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following concepts refers to crime committed by persons of high social position in the course of their occupations?
A) victimless crime
B) white-collar crime
C) organized crime
D) street crime
Q2) While Aboriginal people in Canada make up 2% of the Canadian population, they represent approximately _____ of the prison inmates.
A) 1%
B) 11%
C) 41%
D) 98%
Q3) Every society tries to regulate the behaviour of individuals; this general process is called ______.
A) neighbourhood watch
B) self-control
C) social control
D) the legal system
Q4) Identify four justifications for punishment.
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Chapter 10: Social Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) Today, Canadian workers have far fewer legal protections than U.S. workers had a century ago, when the industrial age was just beginning.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Weber described stratification as a complex socioeconomic status hierarchy.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The idea that social inequality benefits society is associated with the
A) structural-functional approach.
B) social-conflict approach.
C) symbolic-interaction approach.
D) social-exchange approach.
Q4) In Japan, as in other societies with a long history of caste, people today may not always discuss _____ openly, but it is never far from the surface when people size up one another socially.
A) family background
B) personal talent
C) educational degree
D) physical size
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Chapter 11: Social Class in Canada
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Sample Questions
Q1) Big houses are an example of conspicuous consumption.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Describe and explain the relationship between family income and family structure (thinking about Figure 11-7 and other information in the text).
Q3) According to Karl Marx, which class forms the core of the industrial proletariat?
A) the upper-middle class
B) the middle class
C) the upper class
D) the working class
Q4) Without exception, white-collar work confers greater prestige than blue-collar work.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Nothing affects social standing in Canada as much as A) ancestry.
B) schooling.
C) gender.
D) ethnicity.
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Chapter 12: Global Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) Compared to poverty in Canada, poverty in the world as a whole is both more widespread and more severe.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In low-income nations, most people live in villages and small towns where farming is the most common way to make a living.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Over the course of the last century, the extent of global economic inequality has A) decreased sharply.
B) stayed about the same.
C) increased.
D) become smaller, but not by much.
Q4) Currently, how many nations are there in the world?
A) 57
B) 195
C) 341
D) 2190
Q5) How does tradition play a part in keeping some people in slavery?
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Chapter 13: Gender Stratification
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136 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Friedrich Engels claimed that capitalism
A) reduced all forms of inequality.
B) reduced patriarchy.
C) had little effect on patriarchy.
D) increased patriarchy.
Q2) In Canada, the first wave of the feminist movement began in the mid-1700s.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In Canada today, two-thirds of specialist physicians are women.
A)True
B)False
Q4) None of the Famous Five was made a senator.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Gender refers simply to whether people are female or male.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Canadian women earn 71 cents for every one dollar earned by men.
A)True
B)False
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Race and Ethnicity
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131 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The complexity of community organizations that meet the needs of ethnic minorities is called
A) institutional comprehensiveness.
B) institutional inclusiveness.
C) institutional thoroughness.
D) institutional completeness.
Q2) Reitz and Breton suggest that the "cultural mosaic" of Canada and the "melting pot" of the U.S. result in
A) a multicultural Canadian society and an assimilated American society.
B) low rates of criminal activity in Canada and high rates in the U.S.
C) minimal differences in assimilation or economic integration.
D) the maintenance of diverse languages in Canada and their disappearance in the U.S.
Q3) A family leaves Russia and takes up residence in Canada, where they gradually lose cultural traditions. Doing so, these people have modified their A) race.
B) ethnicity.
C) ancestry.
D) religion.
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16
Chapter 15: Aging and the Elderly
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Sample Questions
Q1) The main point of activity theory is that
A) a high level of activity enhances personal satisfaction in old age.
B) seniors should not try to do more than they feel they can.
C) seniors should retire knowing they have earned the right to relax.
D) some seniors have far more wealth than others do.
Q2) What is age stratification?
Q3) Who, of the following, died the youngest?
A) Mozart
B) Shakespeare
C) Edgar Allen Poe
D) Oscar Wilde
Q4) What are the biological changes associated with growing old? In light of these changes, why do sociologists claim that aging is just as much a cultural issue as a biological issue? In describing the cultural dimensions of the aging process, consider the effects of industrialization on the social standing of the elderly. In your essay, point out differences between Japan and Canada today.
Q5) Social-conflict analysis points to ways in which the elderly are socially disadvantaged.
A)True
B)False
Page 17
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Chapter 16: The Economy and Work
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Sample Questions
Q1) How does living within a socialist system shape everyday life?
Q2) The use of computers by workers tends to limit workplace interaction.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The Industrial Revolution was based on
A) the spread of cottage industry.
B) a decrease in productive specialization.
C) people beginning to work in their homes.
D) new sources of energy.
Q4) A corporation is an organization with a legal existence apart from that of its members.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What important changes in production defined the coming of the Industrial Revolution?
Q6) In recent decades, union membership
A) has risen in Canada and other high-income nations.
B) has risen in Canada but not in other high-income nations.
C) has declined in Canada but not in other high-income nations.
Page 18
D) has been stable in Canada at just over one-third of the labour force.
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Chapter 17: Politics and Government
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Sample Questions
Q1) In absolute monarchies, hereditary rulers claim a virtual monopoly of power based on divine right.
A)True
B)False
Q2) According to Lipset (1991), the difference between the United States and Canada is
A) the United States is the country of counter-revolution.
B) Canadians place more emphasis on "individualism."
C) "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are the primary goals of Canadians.
D) "peace, order, and good government" are the primary goals of Canadians.
Q3) Quebec and Ontario elect _______ percent of the members of the House of Commons.
A) 40
B) 57
C) 68
D) 75
Q4) What is the difference between power and authority?
Q5) Traditional authority is one source of strength for patriarchy.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 18: Family
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Sample Questions
Q1) Why do more Canadian households contain a single person?
Q2) In what specific ways does social class affect families and family life?
Q3) Looking ahead twenty years in Canada, we can predict with confidence that
A) the divorce rate will drop dramatically.
B) most people will not marry.
C) family life will be diverse.
D) women will play an ever-smaller role in child rearing.
Q4) Almost all adults who abuse children typically have what in common?
A) They are middle class.
B) They are women.
C) They were abused themselves as children.
D) They were married at a very young age.
Q5) Following the structural-functional approach, the family
A) operates to perpetuate social inequality.
B) is important enough to be called the backbone of society.
C) encourages patriarchy.
D) diminishes personal freedoms.
Q6) What is the trend in public acceptance of gay and lesbian marriage in the United States? What are several significant events in this regard?
Q7) How did residential schools impact Aboriginal communities and families?
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Chapter 19: Religion
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following religious organizations did NOT begin as a cult?
A) Islam
B) Christianity
C) Judaism
D) Hinduism
Q2) Identify six major world religions. Which is the largest in terms of number of followers?
Q3) Which of the following concepts was used by Emile Durkheim to refer to an object in the natural world collectively defined as sacred?
A) totem
B) idol
C) profanity
D) symbol
Q4) What is secularization? Is secularization a reality in Canada? That is, is religion getting weaker, stronger, or simply changing its character? Provide evidence to support your arguments.
Q5) In one sentence, what was Karl Marx's concern about the effects of religion on society?
Q6) What is secularization?
Page 21
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Chapter 20: Education
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Japanese place greater importance on achievement test scores than we do in Canada in selecting students to attend colleges and universities.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Social-conflict theory supports the policy of tracking to give all students instruction geared to their abilities.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The perspective that asserts that schooling acts as a means of social control is
A) structural-functional theory.
B) social-conflict theory.
C) symbolic interaction theory.
D) ethnomethodology.
Q4) Which of the following is NOT part of the hidden curriculum in Canadian schools?
A) the teaching of compliance
B) the teaching of punctuality
C) the teaching of skills
D) the teaching of discipline
Q5) What is "functional illiteracy"? How extensive is this problem in Canada?
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Chapter 21: Health and Medicine
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Sample Questions
Q1) The World Health Organization claims half of all humanity suffers from illnesses caused by poverty.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What is socialized medicine? How does it differ from a direct-fee medical care system?
Q3) Which of the following does NOT indicate that society shapes human health?
A) Cultural patterns define what is or is not healthy.
B) Social inequality affects a population's health.
C) Society's technology affects people's health.
D) Overweight people tend to make poor choices.
Q4) Which of the following factors does NOT have a strong link to life expectancy?
A) race
B) gender
C) social class
D) height
Q5) What is social epidemiology? Answer by sketching patterns of health for the Canadian population, taking account of (a) gender, (b) social class, and (c) race.
Q6) Define euthanasia. What is active euthanasia?
Page 23
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Chapter 22: Population, Urbanization, and Environment
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Sample Questions
Q1) Canada is a high-income country; therefore, its population growth is likely to result from which of the following?
A) both immigration and natural increase
B) natural increase only
C) immigration only
D) emigration only
Q2) Mumbai, India is a megacity.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What is "urbanism as a way of life"? Develop a description of urbanism drawing on ideas of Tönnies, Durkheim, Simmel, and Wirth. In what ways do they agree? Also note points of disagreement.
Q4) How much did the world's population increase during the twentieth century?
A) not at all-it stayed about the same
B) it doubled
C) it tripled
D) it quadrupled
Q5) State the basic idea of the "limits to growth" thesis.
Q6) Why is empowering women important to controlling global population?
Q7) What is a net migration rate? How is it calculated?
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Chapter 23: Collective Behaviour and Social Movements
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Sample Questions
Q1) Resource-mobilization theory states that social movements require
A) a cultural symbol.
B) money and other necessary resources.
C) a sense of relative deprivation.
D) advanced technology.
Q2) William Kornhauser's mass-society theory suggests that involvement in social movements is likely among people with strong social ties.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Identify at least three social movements mentioned in the chapter. Using one or more theories of social movements, provide an explanation for the emergence of each.
Can you identify stages in each social movement? If so, what are they?
Q4) One type of crowd can easily change into another type.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Unlike a mob action, a riot usually has a clear goal.
A)True
B)False
Q6) What are the four stages in the life course of a social movement?
25
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Chapter 24: Social Change: Traditional, Modern, and
Postmodern Societies
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Sample Questions
Q1) Ralph Linton explained that most familiar elements to our way of life
A) actually came to us from other cultures.
B) are unique to our own society.
C) were unknown even a few decades ago.
D) were discovered completely by accident.
Q2) Difficulty forming a personal identity is a problem of modernity highlighted by mass-society theory.
A)True
B)False
Q3) According to mass-society theory, the mass media transform people in countless local communities forming a national culture.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Explain the tension between personal freedom and social responsibility in modern societies. How are modern societies different from traditional societies in terms of balancing these two factors? Do you think our society needs more of one or the other? Explain and defend your position.
Q5) What demographic (population) trends are reshaping Canada?
Q6) In a sentence or two, what is the basic idea behind class-society theory?
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