The following questions are to serve as a study guide for the next examination. I will select eight questions from among these to appear on the examination. You should be prepared to write a brief statement about each one of these questions. You will be able to find partial answers to these questions in the text book and in your lecture notes.
Return to announcements.
1. Define deviance.
2. When does an act become deviant?
3. Compare and contrast two approaches to the explanation of deviant behavior. Include the relative strengths and weaknesses of the approaches.
4. Discuss the way in which 'attachment theory' helps us to understand deviance.
5. Distinguish between primary and secondary deviance.
6. What is social control?
7. How is social control achieved?
8. Who defines what behavior is deviant and what is not?
9. How was Lombroso's biological theory of criminal behavior shown to be false?
10. Select one of the explanations of deviant behavior presented by Stark and show how it helps to understand the use of drugs in the United States.
11. In view of what you have read in the chapters on deviance and social control, discuss the 60's, 70's saying: "You can't trust anyone over 30."
12. Social control is seen as the legitimate use of force, or as the operation of internalized controls (i.e., the generalized other or a conscience). Discuss which one you would see as being more effective in maintaining general order in the community. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of both methods of control.
13. Given Jack Gibbs discussion of deterrence, what effect do you think capital punishment has on murder in the United States today? Why?
14. Colorado has recently changed its drunk driving laws with the intent to deter drinking and driving. What would have to be done to make these laws as effective as the lawmakers and supporters of the law would like?
15. Discuss the significance of labeling in understanding how one becomes deviant.
16. Theories explaining social inequality often have implied or explicit ideological (views as to what is and should be) content. Take a conceptual scheme (theory) and discuss briefly its ideological implications.
17. Strata (levels of people who are similarly located in the stratification hierarchy) in the United States tend to overlap. Suggest how one might distinguish one stratum from another in U.S. society.
18. Briefly distinguish between class and strata (status).
19. What positive purpose might social inequality have in a society?
20. Describe what is meant by replaceability of a position.
21. Show how surplus value may be created and its significance in the analysis of social inequality.
22. What might a society free of social inequality be like? Is it possible that the people might be able to create such a society? Explain.
23. Some have argued that a caste system has (and may still) existed in the United States. Explain what that caste system is about and where you would be most likely to have found evidence of it.
25. You are studying poor people in America (the United States). How might you explain the fact that they are poor? Will all people who make policy in America agree with your explanation? Why or why not?
26. Describe what is meant by a social definition of race. What is the significance of this definition in contrast to a physical description or definition?
27. Briefly describe how race relates to inequality.
28. Discuss the significance of voluntary and involuntary segregation in relation to inequality.
29. Several processes associated with races have been described in class. Select an ethnic or racial group and briefly show which process(es) applies to that group.
30. What is the affect of educational level of an individual on his/her attitude towards the role of women in the United States? That is, does more education make a person more or less likely to view women as equal? Explain.
31. How does the sex ratio of a society affect the role of women?
32. Explain why the wages paid women today average about 70% per cent of those paid to men with comparable education, experience and kind of occupation.
33. Compare and contrast the contemporary family with the family of 18th/19th Century Europe.
34. Discuss the way in which modernization has affected the family.
35. Statistics have been used to show that the divorce rate is half that of the marriage rate (e.g., marriages about 11/1000 population; divorces 6/1000 in 1985). Discuss the accuracy or appropriateness of these conclusions.
36. Divorce rates are often cited as showing a deterioration of the family. What is the relationship of divorce to the modern family and its 'viability.'
37. Some observers of modern society think the family will disappear in the near future. Discuss this possibility.