PSEB SS Sociology cheat sheet

Sociology is the systematic study of human society, social interaction, and social institutions; it emerged in 19th-century Europe as a response to industrialization, urbanization, and political revolution.

Auguste Comte coined the term 'sociology' and proposed positivism - the idea that society can be studied with the same scientific method as the natural sciences; he divided the field into social statics (order) and social dynamics (change).

Émile Durkheim distinguished mechanical solidarity (pre-industrial, based on similarity and shared conscience collective) from organic solidarity (industrial, based on interdependence through division of labour); he defined social facts as external, coercive, and general.

Max Weber introduced verstehen (interpretive understanding) and the ideal type as a methodological tool; his Protestant Ethic thesis linked Calvinist asceticism to the rise of rational capitalism.

Karl Marx analysed society through historical materialism: the economic base (forces and relations of production) shapes the superstructure (law, politics, religion, ideology); class conflict drives historical change.

Herbert Spencer applied evolutionary theory to society ('social Darwinism'), while Talcott Parsons built structural-functionalism around AGIL - adaptation, goal attainment, integration, latency.

Symbolic interactionism (Mead, Blumer) studies how meaning is created through interaction; Blumer coined the term and set out three premises: people act toward things on the basis of meanings, meanings arise in interaction, and meanings are modified through interpretation.

Sociological imagination (C. Wright Mills) is the ability to connect personal troubles to public issues - linking biography to history and social structure.

Research methods: quantitative (surveys, experiments, secondary statistics) versus qualitative (interviews, participant observation, ethnography, case studies); validity concerns whether we measure what we intend, reliability concerns consistency of repeated measurement.

Correlation is not causation; a spurious relationship occurs when a third variable explains the apparent link between independent and dependent variables.

Ethical requirements in research include informed consent, anonymity/confidentiality, no harm to participants, and the right to withdraw.

Culture comprises material culture (objects) and non-material culture (norms, values, beliefs, symbols, language); norms are rules of behaviour, values are shared ideals, and sanctions enforce norms (positive/negative, formal/informal).

Ethnocentrism judges other cultures by one's own standards; cultural relativism evaluates a culture on its own terms; subculture differs from mainstream while counterculture actively opposes it.

Socialization is lifelong: primary socialization occurs in the family, secondary socialization in school, peers, and workplace; Mead's 'I' and 'me', Cooley's looking-glass self, and Freud's id/ego/superego are key models.

Social stratification is ranking of individuals/groups by wealth, power, and prestige; systems include slavery, caste (closed, ascribed), estate, and class (open, achieved).

Key institutions: family (kinship, marriage forms - monogamy, polygamy, endogamy, exogamy), education (manifest and latent functions), religion (Durkheim's sacred/profane, totemism), and economy/polity.