Study Guide: Social Theory

Glossary:

Look these words up at the following web site: Glossary of Social Science:

zweckrational	infrastructural determinism	infrastructure
feedback loops	bureaucratization	intensification
mental superstructure	cultural superstructure	mode of production
pollution	superstructure	environment
secondary group structure	depletion	rationalization
primary group structure	structure	mode of reproduction

Please Note:

	Structure and dynamics of sociocultural materialism
	Relationship between change and social problems
	Social disorganization and change
	Relationship between intensification, bureaucratization and rationalization
	Intensification and depletion/pollution
	Intensification and the growth of secondary organization (bureaucratization)
	Elites and social structure
	Infrastructural determinism

Names to Know:

Marvin Harris

Practice Quiz

 

Essay Questions:

1. In accordance with Elwell (Industrializing America), explain the following statement: "The entire sociocultural system rests on the way a society is organized to meet the bio-psychological needs of its population."

2. How does the environment constrain sociocultural systems?

3. What is the infrastructure of sociocultural systems?  Of what is it composed?

4. What is the structure of sociocultural systems?  Of what is it composed?

5. What is the superstructure of sociocultural systems?  Of what is it composed?

6. Define intensification and bureaucratization.  What is the relationship between the intensification of the infrastructure and bureaucratization?

7. What is the "rationalization of the superstructure"? How is this connected to developments in the structure? Give original examples.

8. What are feedback loops? How do they affect the sociocultural system?

9. According to Ritzer (The McDonalization of Society), what is "McDonaldization"?  How does this concept relate to "rationalization"?

10. Describe an institution you have encountered that has become "McDonalized." What are the characteristics of this institution?

 

Links:

Marvin Harris's Cultural Materialism

Graphing the Problems:

The Universal Structure of Societies

References:

Elwell, Frank F.  1994.  The Evolution of the Future.  New York:  Praeger.

Goldschmidt, Walter. 1990. The Human Career: The Self in the Symbolic World. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.

Harris, Marvin. 1974.  Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches:  The Riddles of Culture. New York: Vintage.

Harris, Marvin.  1977.  Cannibals and Kings:  The Origins of Cultures. New York: Vintage.

Harris, Marvin.  1979.  Cultural Materialism:  The Struggle for a Science of Culture.  New York: Random House.

Harris, Marvin.  1981.  America Now:  The Anthropology of a Changing Culture.  New York: Simon & Schuster.

Heilbroner, Robert.  [1974] 1980.  An Inquiry Into the Human Prospect, Updated and Reconsidered for the 1980s.  New York:  W.W. Norton.

Lenski, Gerhard , Patrick Nolan, and Jean Lenski.  1995.  Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology.  New York: McGraw-Hill.

Weber, Max.  1946.  From Max Weber.  Translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills.  New York: Galaxy.

Weber, Max. [1921] 1978.  Economy and Society.  Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich.  Berkley: University of California Press.

Weber, Max.  The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 

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