Study Guide: Foundations

Readings:

An Introductory Essay

Glossary:
Look these words up in the Glossary of Social Science; study them and be ready for fill-ins on the next exam:

experiment	causation	mores
sampling	Survey	deviance
social change	science	norms
symbols	vested interests	stigma
sociology	interest groups	values
objectivity	research methods	power
manifest functions	dysfunctions	ideology
microsociology	latent functions	subcultures
theory	macrosociology	authority
sociological imagination	hypothesis	ethnocentrism

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Essay Questions:

On your next exam you will be asked to demonstrate that you have read and mastered the course material.  You should take the time now to answer the following essay questions to create your study guide for that exam. Address the questions fully and completely in your own words and voice. Prepare your answers now. 

1. According to your professor, what is different about the social problems today vs. those of 100 years ago?

2. "You can't do one thing." How is this phrase linked to this course?

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Short Answers:

The following short answer questions are from your readings and may well appear on your next exam. Each can be answered with a short paragraph of three or four sentences; please use your own words and voice. You are encouraged to answer these questions now to create your study guide for that exam.

1. According to your professor, what is the relationship between social problems and social change?

2. According to your professor, briefly describe what is meant by a dehumanizing trend in modern societies?

3. According to your professor, what are the four overarching trends in the modern world?

4. What is agro-terrorism?

5. How does hunger manifest itself in the modern world?

6. According to your professor, what are the root causes of food shortages?

7. What problems does your professor link to poverty?

8. What is a vulgar materialist?

9. What are the three main grain staples in the world?

10. Why are many countries banning the export of their agricultural products?

11. Briefly describe/characterize the conflict in the Sudan.

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Demonstrations, Illustrations, & Examples:

The following video details the growing food crisis throughout the world (2008).

The Global Food Crisis: What You Need to Know
Uploaded by virallaunch. - News videos hot off the press.

Darfur Genocide Video - Personal Account An American Witness:

 

 

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Names to Know:

Karl Marx

Emile Durkheim

Max Weber

Practice Quiz

Bibliography:

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.