KEY TERMS

After studying the chapter, review each of the following terms.

applied sociology: sociology that is used to solve social problems—from the micro level of family relationships to the macro level of war and pollution (8)

basic (or pure) sociology: sociological research whose only purpose is to make discoveries about life in human groups, not to make changes in those groups (27)

class conflict: Karl Marx’s term for the struggle between owners (the bourgeoisie) and workers (the proletariat) (4)

closed-ended questions: questions followed by a list of possible answers to be selected by the respondent (22)

conflict theory: a theoretical framework in which society is viewed as being composed of groups competing for scarce resources (15)

control group: a group of subjects that are not exposed to the independent variable (25)

dependent variable: a factor that is changed by an independent variable (25)

documents: in its narrow sense, written sources that provide data; in its extended sense, archival material of any sort, including photographs, movies, and so on (24)

experiment: the use of control groups and experimental groups and dependent and independent variables to test causation (25)

experimental group: the group of subjects exposed to the independent variable (25)

functional analysis: a theoretical framework in which society is viewed as a whole unit, composed of interrelated parts, each with a function that, when fulfilled, contributes to society’s equilibrium; also known as functionalism and structural functionalism (13)

hypothesis: a statement of the expected relationship between variables according to predictions from a theory (18)

independent variable: a factor that causes a change in another variable, called the dependent variable (25)

macro-level analysis: an examination of large-scale patterns of society (15)

micro-level analysis: an examination of small-scale patterns of society (15)

nonverbal interaction: communication without words through gestures, silence, and use of space. (16)

open-ended questions: questions that respondents are able to answer in their own words (22)

operational definition: the way in which a variable in a hypothesis is measured (18)

participant observation (or fieldwork): research in which a researcher participates in a research setting while observing what is happening in that setting (24)

population: the target group to be studied (21)

positivism: the application of the scientific approach to the social world (3)

random sample: a sample in which everyone in the target population has the same chance of being included in the study (22)

rapport: a feeling of trust between researchers and subjects (24)

reliability: the extent to which data produce consistent results (19)

replication: repeating a study to test its findings (27)

research method (or research design): one of six procedures sociologists use to collect data:

surveys, participant observation, secondary analysis, documents, unobtrusive measure, and experiments (18)

respondents: people who respond to a survey, either in interviews or by self-administered questionnaires (22)

sample: individuals from among a target population (21)

science: requires the development of theories that can be tested by systematic research (3)

secondary analysis: the analysis of data already collected by other researchers (24)

social integration: the degree to which people are tied to their social groups (5)

social interaction: what people do when they are in one another’s presence (15–16)

social location: the groups that people belong to because of their location in history and society (2)

society: a group of people who share a culture and a territory (2)

sociology: the scientific study of society and human behavior (3)

stratified random sample: a sample of specific subgroups of the target population in which everyone in the subgroups has an equal chance of being included in the study (22)

survey: collecting data by having people answer a series of questions (21)

symbolic interaction: a theoretical perspective that focuses on how people use symbols to establish meaning, develop their views of the world, and communicate with one another (11)

theory: a general statement about how some parts of the world fit together and how they work; and explanation of how two or more facts are related to one another (11)

unobtrusive measures: observing people in such a way that they do not know they are being studied (25)

validity: the extent to which an operational definition measures what was intended (18)

value free: the view that a sociologist’s personal values or biases should not influence social research (27)

values: ideas about what is good or worthwhile in life; attitudes about the way the world ought to be; the standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable, good or bad, beautiful or ugly (27)

variable: a factor thought to be significant for human behavior, which varies from one case to another (18)