Brunilda Kolaj
Professor Neufield
Sociology 101
3 March, 2014
Exam One
1. As discussed in the class, Mills argues that the sociological perspective allows us to understand how broader historical and social factors affect our lives and experiences as individuals. Explain how this idea applies to either the Gaines reading in terms of the social and historical factors that account for teen suicide pacts or the Romero reading regarding the treatment of domestic workers.
A. Mills’ idea applies to the Gaines reading because
2. Explain how Durkheim’s study of suicide illustrates the Deductive Model of sociological research.
A. Deductive research allows one to develop a theory by starting with a theory and collecting data to prove it. Emile Durkheim's hypothesis was that the suicide rate would vary by religion, by marital status, by military status, and by economic conditions. After he had formed her hypothesis he set out to figure out if his theory was true or not. After testing his hypothesis Durkheim's analysis led him to identify four distinct patterns of suicide. The three patterns most commonly referred to are egoistic suicide, altruistic suicide and anomic suicide. His results were both valid and reliable.
3. Let’s say you want to do research to learn about the causes of drug use among teenagers in Connecticut. Explain how you could create a sample of teens to study using random sampling, convenience sampling, and snowball sampling, and discuss a limitation of each sampling method.
A. If I wanted to do research to learn the causes drug use among teenagers in Connecticut I would have to collect a lot of data using sampling methods such as random, convenience, and snowball sampling. If I was going to do random sampling I would pic...
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...ular distributions of power, wealth, and prestige in societies. These shape the patterns of everyday life as well as things such as racial, ethnic, and class inequality and relations among nations and regions of the world. This is also how it applies to American society today individuals, let us say two servers compete with one another for whoever does a better job to get the promotion to get a higher salary and better working conditions. Today ideology plays a big part of politics, George W. Bush's principles and ideas being a perfect example. He used his power as president to start the war in Iraq. Still angry form the 9/11 attack, the people of the U.S. agreed with his decision. When reality set in and the realization that people were losing their lives because of the war, many people who once agreed with the conflict began wishing the war had never started.
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Two sampling methods include mail surveys and convenience sampling, a variation of a nonprobability sample. Mail surveys, inexpensive way to contact individuals over a large geographical area, provide anonymity to the respondent, and eliminate interview bias. Convenience sampling, a nonprobability sample, the only criteria is the convenience of the unit to the researcher, fast and uncomplicated, but the sampling error not determined.
Sociology is the study of social relationships and how one interacts in a society. It is a way of seeing and making sense of the world around us. Sociological Imagination means to think and ask questions as a sociologist would. It means to look at the world with a sociological point of view by asking how individual actions relate to societal forces. There are four different ways Donna Gaines uses C. Wright Mill's concepts of the Sociological Imagination in her study of the Suburbia's Dead-End Kids. Gaines emphasizes the fact that when one teenager commits suicide it is a personal matter, but when a group of teenagers commit suicide it becomes a matter of public concern which needs everyone's attention. To find the answer to why these teenagers
According to sociologist C. Wright Mills the “Sociological Imagination is the ability to see connections between our personal experience and the larger forces of history” (Connelly, 5). In other words, a person must be able to pull away from the situation and think from an alternative point of view. Sometimes we are not the primary contributors to the problems we have. Sometimes the problems we have are structural
I was coming home from work, stepping inside I noticed everything was silent. I noticed my family downstairs solemly waiting for me. A strange feeling overcame, while my Dad told me to sit down. He gave each of us a stern look and somberly announced that my brother tried to get his rifle and commit sucide. Overcome by the news, I found myself speechless this similar situation has happened before. My brother is suffering from schizophrenia and has attempted many times to commit sucide. This mental illnesss is genetic in my family, it has not been easy to deal with. I chose this topic for reasons why one will commit sucide in his or her youth. I find if one has trouble with family, living in a poor neighborhood or inherits a genetic mental illness it can influence youth sucidality.
In his own words, Mills claimed “it is the capacity to shift from one. perspective to another.the capacity to range from the most impersonal. and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human. self – and to see the relations between the two of them.” . Mills believed that being able to see the relationship between the ordinary lives of people and the wider social forces was the key to the sociological imagination of the.
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY Take Home Exam One Questions 5 and 6 By Shylynn E. Calbert MW 5:45-7pm DR. FORD 5. Discuss abortion using applications of Durkheim?s conception of social facts. How would Durkheim research the issue and explain it in sociological terms?
“Issues have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life.” (Mills 5). The sociological perspective is a way of looking at human behaviors that links individuals to the society as a whole. C. Wright Mills wrote an essay on the subject of the social perspective called “The Promise.” In his essay, he described the sociological perspective as having four main components: traps, morals that are challenged, public issues, and the whole picture. These four aspects cover a range of influences for human behavior and can be observed in everyday life. These can also be observed in movies. In fact, sometimes it is easier to observe these conditions in movies because the plot is usually exaggerated
This is the foundation of the Sociological Imagination Concept. According to C. Wright Mills, sociological imagination is developed when we can place personal problems in a social situation or environment such that they are no longer viewed solely as individual or personal problems, but instead as social problems. That is problems that are shared by enough peop...
The Sociological Imagination speaks to the understanding of our own actions being a part of a larger historical and social picture. It encourages us to see what influences we have and what influences society has over our own individual lives, whether our decisions are determined by sociological factors and forces or are entirely in our own control. The sociological imagination enables us to see the relationship between history and biography. It helps us to understand the relationship between personal troubles and public issues, and as well as this, it addresses the three profound questions that C. Wright Mills asked. The three videos given, offer a range of successful and unsuccessful insight and explanations about the sociological
There are three main types of sociological perspectives in which you can perceive different sociological issues and concepts; structural-functional, symbolic-interaction, and social conflict. Structural-functional looks at society as a whole and how it works together. Symbolic-interaction is how different symbols spark particular thoughts and emotions by examining the meanings that people impose on objects, events and behaviors. Social conflict studies how power and coercion affect social order. Based off these types of perspectives, an analysis on teen depression and suicide can be evaluated from a sociological standpoint.
Although sociologists like J.D. Douglas would question the reliability of the statistics, due to the coroners decision being final, most sociologists would agree that Durkheim's study into suicide was successful, and indeed many have tried to develop and improve on his theory. Overall, this essay has shown that one type of methodology may not always be suitable for the particular research carried out. Both Interpretative sociology and the Positivist approach equally show that they are valid methods for carrying out research, but like everything, nothing is one hundred percent accurate. Therefore, there is always room for flaw, but in the study of Sociology, there is always room for more ways of obtaining and interpreting data.
Durkheim was a functionalist, and theorised that a holistic social narrative could be identified which would explain individual behaviour. He argued that, whilst society was made up of its members, it was greater than the sum of its parts, and was an external pressure that determined the behaviour of the individuals within it. At that time, suicide rates in Europe were rising, and so the causes of suicide were on the agenda. Since suicide is seen as an intrinsically personal and individual action, establishing it as having societal causes would be a strong defence for Durkheim’s functionalist perspective. Durkheim used the comparative method to study the official suicide rates of various European countries. While he was not the first to notice the patterns and proportional changes of suicide rates between different groups in European societies, it was this fact that was the foundation of his theory – why did some groups consistently have much higher rates than others? This supports the idea that it was the external pressures placed on certain groups within society that induced higher rates of suicide, and is the basis of Durkheim’s work.
In 1959, American sociologist Charles Wright Mills wrote his influential book 'The Sociological Imagination'. In the book, Mills proposed that possibly the most assistive part of his sociological imagination theory was differentiating problems within society between 'personal troubles of the milieux' and 'public issues of social structure'. In his view, 'personal troubles' were individualistic and where 'an individual's character and with those limited areas of social life of which he is directly and personally aware'. By contrast, his thoughts on 'public issues' were that they were more general problems, out with the scope of an individual, and would affect more than just one person. He used the example of unemployment to explain his sociological viewpoint further. H...
1869, not being concerned so much with personality traits of the people who committed the act, he looked more at the rate of suicide per country. Trying to find a common social link in the differing countries that may influence a higher or lower rate of the suicide. He wanted to study each country’s values, beliefs norms, and traditions to see if these factors influenced the rate of suicide. With integration, it is the level in which a person feels connected or accepted to or by a group or society. With high levels of integration the person feels loved and accepted by a group and more than likely have a lower chance of committing such an act. Whereas a person with lower levels of integration, feel unwanted, unloved, rejected, and excluded. Thus leads to a higher chance of committing suicide. The fact that suicide does tend to occur more based on societal behavior and not an individual act come solely from research, meaning those who committed the act did not feel like they fit in anywhere within society so it was better to not be around. The act can be considered deviant, because although a person may not fit in a particular group or social area in life, they still had a family that loved them for who they were, and they did not particularly think of the consequence behind the
Sociology is a study of society social life, social change, and social causes and consequences of human behaviour and allows us to gain an understanding of the structure and dynamics of today’s society, looking at the interlinking links patterns of human behaviour. Sociology looks at the in which social structure and institutions affect our everyday life. Sociological imagination was founded by C. Wright mills in the 1950`s it is an overall understanding of that some of the things that happen in society may lead to a particular outcome. Mills said it is “the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and wider society.” sociological imagination can also be defined as the ability to look at how sociological situations can unfold due to how everyone is different. The way we behave is shaped by the situation that we find ourselves in, the values and norms that we have and the way that other members of society act around us. It is also a way of thinking about how things in society have led to a particular outcome, and understanding of what led to that specific outcome. Sociological imagination is an ability to look at things socially and how they interact and influence each other gaining an understanding of different cultures and class systems.