Study Sheet for our First Exam

The exam will cover the following:

Introduction

Basic Theories and Theorists in Sociology

Two Approaches to Introduce Sociology

1.People Approach

• Great Questions of Great Dead Sociologists
  • Marx, Weber, and Durkheim
• Modern Sociological Thinking
  • Symbolic Interactionism
  • Functionalism
• Later Thinkers
  • Foucault

2. Perspective Approach

• Power and Conflict: Marx, Weber, Habermas, Foucault, Domhoff
• Functionalism: Comte, Durkheim, Parsons, Merton, and Gans
• Symbolic Interactionism: Mead, Heise
• Rational Choice
• Feminism
• Postmodernism

• Book: Chapter 1, What is Sociology
• Reader: #1 Peter Berger: "Sociology as an Individual Pasttime"
• Reader: #2 C. Right Mills "From The Sociological Imagination."
• Reader: Concerning Conflict Theory: #23 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels " The Manifesto of the Communist Party."
• Reader: Concerning Functionalism: #25 Herbert Gans "The Uses of the Underclass."

Sociological Methods

Steps in the Research Process

Relation between Theory, Hypothesis and the Empirical World

Important Properties of a Theory

Causation

• Book: Chapter 2
• Reader: #6 Joel Best: "Telling the Truth about Damned Lies and Statistics."
• To understand the arguments concerning obedience in the Milgram experiments, reader: #5 The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience"

How to study?

The very best way to improve is to learn from your mistakes.  My assistant, has your old exams in her office.  I suggest visiting her in her office hours (see electronic syllabus).  Once you determined pattern in your mistakes, we can start troubleshooting. 

 If the problem is content specific, consider the following study guide:

1. Prepare: organize your study plan.  Consider deadlines and exam dates.
2. Eat: read the relevant chapters in the textbook before coming to class.
3. Digest: use the class for asking questions you had about the reading.
4. Ruminate: take your class notes and/or my Internet postings to go though the assigned readings.  Take my lecture to guide you in your self-learning process.

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Disclaimer: The documents linked to other sources on the WWW, others than http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/Schneider/ ,  http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/Schneider2/ and its subdirectories, do not necessarily express the views of Texas Tech University or Dr. Schneider. @Copyright 2008  Andreas Schneider