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Introduction to Sociology Midterm Study Guide
Typology: Cheat Sheet
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Midterm Exam
the resources of society and using its power to create the institutional rules and belief systems that support its power. Some groups of people have access to fewer resources in capitalist society, they are forced into crime to sustain themselves which produce deviance and crimes. Max Weber was a sociologist that stated that cultural values interact with economic and political systems to produce society; no one factor determines the character of society. Even when the economy is stagnant, cultural beliefs in hard work and the Protestant ethic mean that people will blame individuals, not the system, for failure. In terms of bureaucracy, Weber analyzed the ideal type. The characteristics involved a high degree of division of labor and specialization., hierarchy of authority, rule and regulations, impersonal relationships, career ladders and efficiency.
painting or work of literature such as Common Sense and non-material culture is less tangible where some people eat with utensil and others don’t, the nonmaterial aspect is the belief to use utensils or not. The common characteristics of culture are that culture is shared, culture is learned, culture is taken for granted, culture is symbolic, culture varies across time and place. The elements of culture includes abstract and concrete elements such as language, norms, beliefs and values. Norms are the specific cultural expectations for how to behave in a given situation such as manners, Values are abstract standards in a society or group that defines ideal principles such as liberty or freedom and beliefs are shared ideas about what is true held collectively by people within a given culture such as belief in God. There is also language which is a set of symbols or rules that put together in a meaningful way provide a complex communication system such as English and Spanish. It is essential for culture to have an established language because it is important for human interaction, and it evolves in response to social changes in society. Language is central in social thought and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis asserts that language determines other aspects of culture because it provides the categories through which social reality is defined. Language determines what people think because language forces people to perceive the world in particular terms. The language of any culture also reflects the nature of that society such as inequalities, assumptions, and stereotypes of different social groups. Language reflects social value placed on different groups and it reflects power relationships depending on who gets to name whom such as derogatory terms such as redneck, and other offensive terms. Cultural relativism is the idea that something can be understood and judged only in relation to the cultural context in which it appears. For example, in the United States, burying or cremating the dead is the cultural practice. It may be difficult for someone from this culture to understand that in parts of Tibet, with a ruggedly cold climate and the inability to dig the soil, the dead are cut into pieces and left for vultures to eat. Understanding these differences gives insight towards some controversies such as clitoridectomy or female circumcision which can be a very unsanitary and risky procedure and this procedure is frequented where women’s virginity is highly prized, and dowries are dependent on acceptable proof of virginity.