CLEP Introductory Sociology flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Sociological imagination

C. Wright Mills's concept that connects personal troubles to public issues by locating individual experience within larger social structures and historical context.

Social facts

Durkheim's term for external, coercive patterns of behavior and belief that exist in society and constrain individuals independently of personal preference.

Verstehen

Weber's method of interpretive understanding, requiring researchers to grasp the subjective meanings that actors attach to their own social actions.

Manifest and latent functions

Merton's distinction between intended, recognized consequences of a social pattern (manifest) and unintended, unrecognized ones (latent).

Correlation versus causation

A correlation is a statistical association between variables; causation additionally requires temporal order and elimination of spurious third variables.

Ascribed versus achieved status

Ascribed status is assigned without choice, such as sex or birth order; achieved status is earned through effort, such as occupation or education.

Role conflict

Tension experienced when the expectations of two or more distinct statuses a person holds make incompatible demands at the same time.

Primary group

Cooley's term for a small, intimate, face-to-face group with enduring ties, such as family, that shapes basic identity and values.

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

Tönnies's contrast between community based on personal, traditional ties and society based on impersonal, instrumental, contractual relationships.

Anomie

Durkheim's term for a condition of normlessness in which society fails to provide clear moral guidance, often following rapid change.

Strain theory

Merton's argument that deviance results when culturally valued goals are unattainable through legitimate means, producing innovation, ritualism, retreatism, or rebellion.

Labeling theory

The view that deviance is a status conferred through social reaction; being labeled deviant can produce secondary deviance and self-fulfilling expectations.

Generalized other

Mead's concept for the internalized expectations of the broader community that individuals use to guide behavior during the game stage.

Looking-glass self

Cooley's idea that self-concept develops by imagining how we appear to others, imagining their judgment, and reacting emotionally to that perception.

Resocialization

The process of replacing previously learned norms and identities with new ones, often occurring in total institutions such as prisons or military boot camps.

Agents of socialization

Individuals, groups, and institutions such as family, school, peers, and media that transmit culture and shape identity across the life course.

Anticipatory socialization

Learning the norms and values of a group one aspires to join, easing later transition into that status or occupation.

Social movement

An organized, sustained collective effort by a group to promote or resist social change, typically passing through emergence, coalescence, and decline.

Social stratification

A structured system of unequal ranking that distributes valued resources such as wealth, power, and prestige across social groups.

Social mobility

Movement of individuals or groups between social positions; vertical mobility changes rank, horizontal mobility changes position without rank change.

Socioeconomic status

A composite measure of social position combining income, occupational prestige, and educational attainment.

Relative poverty

Deprivation measured against the standard of living of a particular society rather than against a fixed subsistence minimum.

Race as social construct

The view that racial categories are created by social convention and perceived physical traits rather than by discrete biological differences.

Institutional discrimination

Unequal treatment embedded in the policies, rules, and practices of organizations, persisting without deliberate intent by individual actors.

Nuclear family

A household unit consisting of parents and their dependent children, distinguished from the extended family that includes additional relatives.

Exogamy and endogamy

Exogamy requires marriage outside one's group; endogamy requires marriage within one's group, often preserving property or group boundaries.

Hidden curriculum

Unofficial lessons schools transmit through routines and expectations, such as obedience, punctuality, and competition, beyond formal academic content.

Authority types

Weber's classification of legitimate power as traditional (custom), charismatic (personal inspiration), and rational-legal (rules and offices).

Gini coefficient

An index of income inequality ranging from zero, indicating perfect equality, to one, indicating that one household holds all income.

Cultural capital

Bourdieu's term for knowledge, tastes, credentials, and styles that signal class membership and yield advantages in institutions such as schools.

Intersectionality

The principle that race, class, gender, and other statuses interact to produce experiences of advantage and disadvantage not explained by any one alone.

Demographic transition

A model in which societies move from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as they industrialize.