INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY

ESSAY QUESTIONS

1) Select some deviance with which you are personally familiar. Choose one of the three theoretical perspectives to explain what happened.

2) What do you think should be done about the U.S. crime problem? What sociological theories support your view?

3) The belief that the United States is the land of opportunity draws millions of legal and illegal immigrants to the United States each year. How do the materials in this book support or undermine this belief?

4) What social mobility has your own family experienced? In what ways has this affected your life?

5) Explain why social class is more important than race-ethnicity in determining a family's characteristics.

DEFINE

6) Social order

7) Negative sanction

8) Genetic predispositi

9) White collar crime

10) Working class

11) Hate crime

12) Endogamy

13) Culture of poverty

14) Bourgeoisie

15) Gender stratification

16) Feminism

17) Glass ceiling

18) Melting pot

19) Assimilation

20) Matriarchy

TRUE OR FALSE

21) Shaming is not effective when members of a primary group use it.

22) Sociobiologists explain deviance by looking for answers within individuals.

23) Sometimes in the Mafia, to kill is a measure of their manhood.

24) According to conflict theorists, the idea that the law operates impartially and admisters a code that is shared by all is a cultural myth promoted by the capitalist class.

25) Most inmates in U.S. prisons have never been married.

26) Most prisoners on death row have not finished high school.

27) A mere one-half of one percent of Americans owns over a quarter of the nation's wealth.

28) Women are twice as likely as men to die after coronary bypass surgery.

29) Men are more likely than women to interrupt conversations.

30) Women are more likely than men to be killers.

ANSWER

According Durkheim, the three main functions of deviance are:

31)
32)
33)

FILL-IN THE BLANKS

34) ________is an attitude, and _________is an action.

35) _______ refers to inherited biological characteristics.

36) The term ________ ____________ refers to an unequal access to property, power, and prestige on the basis of sex.

37) _______ is what society considers proper behaviors and attitudes for its male and female members.

38) Overwhelmingly, the victims of rape and murder are _________.

39) The essential characteristic of ________ is that some people own other people.

40) What and why was your favorite topic in the last half of your textbook?