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Sociological Theory and Social Policy

“The Application of Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theories to Modern Societal Issues” Classical Sociological Theories and Concepts: Understanding the Foundations of Society “Exploring the Functions and Dynamics of Cultural Systems and Social Structures: A Sociological Analysis” “Theories of Social Power, Authority, and Globalization: A Comparative Analysis” Title: The Impact of U.S. Military Power and Globalization on Social Divisions and Feminist Theories “The Intersections of Oppression: Exploring the Matrix of Domination and Resistance in Sociological Theory”

PLEASE ONLY USE THE BOOK THAT IVE UPLOADED ALSO I UPLOADED THE GRADING RUBRIC FOLLOW THAT AND ALSO GAVE YOU ALL THE NAMES YOU WOULD ONLY BE ABLE TO USE FROM THE BOOK BELOW I GAVE YOU ALL THE THEORIST YOU NEED ARE BELOW DONT USE ANY OTHER NAMES THAT ARE NOT LISTED BELOW ALSO USE ASA FORMAT WHEN CITING THE BOOK I ALSO UPLOADED MY OTHER ESSAYS FROM THIS SEMESTER THAT YOU ARE FOLLOWING UP WITH FOR THIS ESSAY ALL YOU NEED IS THOSE ESSAYS THE BOOK AND THE INSTRUCTION I WROTE BELOW THIS 
paper builds upon and integrates the three essays completed throughout the semester and again involves application of theories to a sociological topic. In the final papers, students should apply social theories to their topics using AT LEAST ONE classical theorist, AT LEAST ONE contemporary perspective, AND EITHER feminist theories OR global theories. Note that these are bare minimums; a strong (i.e., A-caliber) paper will include multiple classical theorists and multiple contemporary perspectives. Students should also determine which theories are the most useful in analyzing their phenomenon and should be able to make a solid case for this determination. Students should also address gaps and problems with theories as applied to their topics. Final papers should be 8-12 pages in length and follow the same formatting guidelines as prior essays. 
Classical Theory:
Durkheim: The Division of Labor in Society – “Mechanical and Organic Solidarity”
What does Durkheim mean by “human conscience”?
Why must rules have a moral character according to Durkheim?
What is mechanical solidarity? Organic solidarity?
Does morality exist apart from society? Explain.
What is the relationship between the evolution of societies and social solidarity?
Does Durkheim argue in favor of one type of solidarity over the other? Explain.
Durkheim: The Division of Labor in Society – “Anomie and the Modern Division of Labor”
What does Durkheim argue regarding ethics/morality and work in contemporary society?
Why is anarchy problematic?
Why does Durkheim call the “antagonism” between authority and liberty “false” (page 63)?
Durkheim: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Is the origin of religion a scientific question? Explain.
What is Durkheim’s overarching conclusion about religion?
What is “the distinctive trait of religious thought”? (page 64)
What is a church?
What is a religion?
What is a totem?
Why do we see religious values and norms as outside of ourselves and society?
Why must religion penetrate the individual too?
What is the “totemic principle”? (page 68)
What is “the soul of religion” according to Durkheim? (page 68)
What is the purpose of religion for society?
Durkheim: Suicide: A Study in Sociology – “Sociology and Social Facts”
How does Durkheim characterize sociology and its progress? Explain.
Explain Durkheim’s critique of “pure” sociology.
What should sociology “do” according to Durkheim?
Why does Durkheim choose to study the specific subject of suicide?
How is sociology different from psychology? Why is this difference important for Durkheim?
Durkheim: “Suicide and Modernity”
What sets humans apart from animals?
What is the relationship between satisfaction/happiness and fulfilling one’s needs?
What “force” serves to limit the passions of humans? Why can this force serve in this
capacity?
How does Durkheim characterize and explain inequality? Does he find inequality to ever be justified? Explain.
What is “man’s characteristic privilege” (page 68)?
How is anomie affected by sudden increases in wealth or power?
How does poverty affect the risk of suicide?
How did religion traditionally influence different economic groups? What has changed?
How does Durkheim describe “greed”? What are its consequences?
What are the three types of suicide identified by Durkheim?
Marx: Economic Manuscripts of 1844 – Estranged Labour
What does Marx mean by “estrangement” or “alienation”?
What is the “essential relationship of labour” (page 30)?
What makes labour alienating?
What does Marx mean by the statement, “What is animal becomes human and what is human
becomes animal” (page 31)?
What is “species being”?
What are the four ways in which man experiences alienation/estrangement?
What are the practical implications of self-estrangement?
What is the “necessary consequence of alienated labour” (page 33)?
Marx: The Communist Manifesto
According to Marx & Engels, what is the history of all societies?
What distinguishes the modern epoch of the bourgeoisie?
What is the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the modern state?
What criticisms of the bourgeoisie do Marx & Engels assert?
How has the bourgeoisie affected the world market? Explain.
What has eventually happened with modern bourgeois society?
What do Marx & Engels mean by the terms “bourgeoisie” and “proletariat”?
How has bourgeois society affected individual workers?
Marx: Capital – Volume I – Capital and the Value of Commodities
What is a “commodity”?
What is “use-value”? How does Marx characterize use-value?
What is “exchange-value”?
What is the only common property of commodities once one disregards use-value?
What is “value”?
How is value determined?
What is “labour-power”?
How does labour-power relate to the value of a commodity?
Explain this relationship using the example of coats and linen.
Marx: Capital – Volume I – Capital and the Fetishism of Commodities
Why is a commodity “a mysterious thing” (page 47)?
What do Marx and Engels mean by the “Fetishism of commodities” (page 47)?
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Weber: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
“The Spirit of Capitalism and the Iron Cage”
Why doesn’t Weber define “the spirit of capitalism”?
Whose work does Weber rely upon as he describes “the spirit of capitalism”?
How does Weber describe the spirit of capitalism?
What is the connection between the spirit of capitalism and “the spirit of Christian asceticism”
(page 85)?
What is the “iron cage”?
Weber: Economy and Society
“The Bureaucratic Machine”
What are the “three elements of ‘bureaucratic authority’” (page 86)?
How does Weber explain/describe “office hierarchy” (page 86)?
What is the relationship between office management and rules?
How is bureaucracy linked to democracy?
What does Weber note about bureaucracy “once it is fully established” (page 89)?
Weber: “Class, Status, and Party”
What is “power” (page 94)?
What are the two main “class situations” identified by Weber?
What is the main problem that classes struggle over during Weber’s time?
What is “honor” (pages 97-98)?
What is a “closed caste” (page 98)?
What are “status privileges” (page 99)
How are classes stratified? How are status groups stratified?
Under what conditions is stratification by class more common? Stratification by status/social
honor? Explain why.
Other Classical Theorists:
Simmel: “The Stranger”
What does Simmel mean by the term “stranger”? How does he describe the stranger?
In what activity is the stranger most well-suited?
How is the stranger “near” yet also “far”? (See page 146)
Cooley: “The Looking-Glass Self”
What social meaning does the word “I” have?
What does Cooley mean by “the looking-glass self”?
What are the three elements of the looking-glass self?
DuBois: “Double-Consciousness and the Veil”
How does DuBois describe “being a problem”? (See page 131)
What does DuBois mean by “twoness”?
What is needed to solve the Negro problem according to DuBois?
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Gilman: “The Yellow Wallpaper”
1. How does Gilman describe an experience of a nervous breakdown in this fictionalized
account?
Gilman: Women and Economics
How do females have access to resources and money?
In what ways are men and women partners?
Do women receive the economic value of their domestic work? Explain.
Does motherhood affect a woman’s economic status? Explain.
Do women have economic independence? Explain.
Structural Functionalism:
Parsons: “Action Systems and Social Systems”
What are the four main functions of all action systems?
What is the main or primary function of the social system?
What is the primary function of the cultural system?
What is the primary function of individual personalities?
What is the primary function of the behavioral organism?
What are values, norms, collectivities, and roles?
Parsons: “Sex Roles in the American Kinship System”
How does the family play a psychologically significant role?
What is “youth culture”? How does Parsons describe it? What is its purpose?
What sex role patterns emerge in relation to “breadwinning” and “housekeeping”?
What are “the two primary functional aspects of” sex role specialization in the family? (see
page 241)?
Merton: “Social Structure and Anomie”
Traditionally, how did the social sciences explain deviance and nonconformity?
What are the two most important elements of social structures?
What are two polar types of malintegrated societies?
When does a society experience equilibrium?
What is Merton’s hypothesis?
How does anomie occur, according to Merton?
What are the “three cultural axioms” of American culture?
Sociologically what do these axioms represent?
What are the five types of individual adaptation within the culture-bearing society? How is
each distinct?
What typically happens with the innovation mode of adaptation?
What does Merton note regarding the lower social strata and deviant behavior?
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Merton: “Manifest and Latent Functions”
How does Merton define manifest and latent functions?
Why is it important to clearly distinguish between manifest and latent functions? (Merton
provides three reasons.)
Davis & Moore: “Some Principles of Stratification”
Why is inequality (stratification) necessary?
What kinds of rewards can society offer to ensure that essential positions are filled?
How do Davis and Moore define “social inequality?” (page 161)
Do all societies have social inequality? Explain.
What are the determinants of the rank of different positions? Explain how each affects
positional rank.
In what way is religion socially necessary?
How does the importance of religion change or vary across societies?
What are the primary functions of government?
What is the relationship between power, prestige, and income?
How does technical knowledge affect stratification?
Conflict Theory:
Mills: “The Sociological Imagination”
What is the “first fruit” of the sociological imagination?
What is the task and promise of the sociological imagination?
What type of questions do scientists who have the sociological imagination ask?
What is the sociological imagination?
What are personal troubles?
What are public issues?
How is the sociological imagination becoming “the major common denominator of our cultural
life and its signal feature” (page 277)?
Mills: “The Structure of Power in America”
1. Whatispower?
2. WhatarethethreetypesofpoweridentifiedbyMills?
3. WhatarethekeyproblemsofpoliticsinAmericansocietycurrentlyaccordingtoMills? 4. WhomakesdecisionsintheU.S.?
5. HowdoesMillsunderstand“thehistoryofmodernsociety?”(page204)
6. HowhastheexpansionofpoweroccurredintheU.S.comparedtoSovietsocieties?
7. Whymustsocialscientistsunderstandhistory?
8. WhichthreesocialinstitutionsmonopolizepowerinthemodernU.S.?
9. Whatisthepowerelite?
10.What is the basis of the unity of the power elite?
11. What does Mills note about “other interpretations” of power in the U.S.?
12.To what extent does organized labour have power?
13.What does Mills assert regarding the “new” middle class?
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14.How does Mills view the public?
15. What does “a modern democratic state” need? (page 211) 16. What does Mills conclude regarding power in the U.S.?
Dahrendorf: “Social Structure, Group Interests, and Conflict Groups”
Within Western political theories, what are the two primary views about societal change?
How does each perspective view society and how it works?
What is missing in Parsons’ theoretical work, according to Dahrendorf?
What are the key assumptions of the structural-functionalist perspective?
What are the basic assumptions of coercion theory (also known as conflict theory)?
How does conflict theory explain the strike of German workers in 1953?
What is the difference between power and authority?
How does Dahrendorf characterize/describe authority?
Where do “authority relations exist?” (page 201)
Horkheimer & Adorno: “The Culture Industry as Deception”
How is culture “a paradoxical commodity” (page 173)?
How does popular culture become a form of advertising?
What do the authors say about conventions involving first names?
4. What do Horkheimer & Adorno conclude about advertising within the culture industry?
Symbolic Interactionism:
Mead: “The Self, the I, and the Me”
Are the body and the self the same or different? Explain.
How is the self “reflexive”?
What is the “essential problem of selfhood”? (page 169)
Why must an individual come to understand himself as an object?
How does human communication differ from that of animals?
How does the self arise or come to exist?
How does Mead describe thinking?
Can a person have more than one self? Explain.
What are the “I” and the “me”? (page 171)
Blumer: “Society as Symbolic Interaction”
What is the main problem with previous scholarship on symbolic interactionism?
What is Blumer’s main goal in this piece?
What is symbolic interaction?
What is the main feature of Mead’s theory of symbolic interactionism?
How is Mead’s notion of the self important for interpreting the behaviors of others?
How does Blumer explain the process of self-indication?
What are “the essential features” of Mead’s analysis of symbolic interactionism? (page 302)
What do most sociological theories downplay or ignore?
How is human society viewed within symbolic interactionism?
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Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
What is the “fundamental dialectic” “underlying all social interactions?” (page 264)
What are the two basic parts of the self under Goffman’s approach? Explain each.
Goffman: “On Face Work”
What is a line?
What is face?
How does face affect a person’s feelings?
What does it mean to “maintain face”? (p. 339)
How is the present face related to the past and future?
What is being in the wrong face? Being out of face?
What does Goffman mean by “poise”? (page 340)
What is the purpose of greetings and farewells?
What is “the main principle of the ritual order”? (page 342)
What is universal about human nature?
Garfinkel: Studies in Ethnomethodology
What does making the reflexive “interesting” entail?
What is ethnomethodology?
Berger & Luckmann: “Society as a Human Product”
What do Berger & Luckmann mean by the idea that “man produces himself”? (page 301)
How does social order arise?
What is the relationship between biology and social order?
What is habitualization? How is it helpful?
How do institutions arise?
How is the social world transmitted to new generations?
How do people experience institutions “as an objective reality”? (page 304)
What is “objectivation”? (page 304)
Theories of Globalization and Modern Life:
Rostow: “Modernization: Stages of Growth”
What is traditional society? How does Rostow describe it?
What is the second stage of economic growth? How does Rostow describe this stage?
How have countries entered the second stage of economic growth?
What is the decisive feature of countries in the second stage that propels them to enter the third
stage?
What happens in the third stage?
What happens in the fourth stage?
What happens during the fifth stage?
What is the “decisive element” historically that marks this stage?
What does Rostow note about the beyond?
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Wallerstein: “The Modern World System”
What is the world system?
Why has capitalism flourished?
What is the only alternative to a capitalist world system?
Describe the division of labor in the world system.
How do the core, periphery, and semiperiphery differ?
What is “a strong state machinery”? (page 311)
How does state machinery have “a tipping mechanism”? (page 312)
Wallerstein: “Geo-Political Cleavages of the Twenty-First Century”
What are the three distinct geopolitical cleavages in the 21st century?
What is the Triadic cleavage? Ho does/will U.S. military power affect this division?
How does Wallerstein describe the North-South cleavage?
What strategies has the South used in its struggles with the North in recent decades?
What does radical alterity entail? Explain using an example.
Why is population transfer occurring and what are the implications thereof?
How does Wallerstein explain the Davos-Porto Alegre cleavage?
Which of the three cleavages is the most fundamental according to Wallerstein? Why?
Stiglitz: “Globalism’s Discontents”
Why have some countries benefited from globalization while others have not?
What type of economic policies has the IMF pushed?
When has “beneficial globalization” occurred? How?
What has led to more negative globalization outcomes?
What outcomes are associated with the volatility fostered by the liberalization of capital
markets?
Why is it problematic that the IMF makes most of the rules that developing countries must
follow?
What negative aspects of globalization arose in the aftermath of September 11?
What is needed for global social justice to be possible?
Hoffman: “The Clash of Globalizations”
What was the dominant tension of the 1990s?
How does Hoffman describe terrorism?
What three realities must we keep in mind as we analyze the future of globalization?
What are the three forms of globalization?
What are the effects of globalization?
How is terrorism “a product of globalization”? (page 466)
Instead of a revolution and decrying the effects of globalization, what has generally happened?
Feminist Theories:
de Beauvoir: “Woman as Other”
1. How does man define woman?
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How does de Beauvoir characterize the category of “other”?
How does women’s subordination to men differ from other historical examples of
subordination?
Why can’t women organize against their oppressors like other oppressed groups have done?
What is “the fundamental characteristic of woman”? (page 270)
Friedan: “The Problem That Has No Name”
What is the silent question that suburban housewives ask themselves?
What did society teach women to want/desire in the 1950s?
What is “the cherished and self-perpetuating core of contemporary American culture”? (page
282) Explain.
What is the problem that has no name?
Chodorow: “Gender Personality and the Reproduction of Mothering”
How do conventional feminism and social psychology explain gender roles?
In what ways are theories of socialization insufficient for explaining gender roles related to
parenting?
How does “women’s mothering” include “the capacities for its own reproduction”? (page
316)
How does a child’s early relation to his/her primary caretaker affect development of a
gendered sense of self?
What purpose does the oedipus complex serve?
How does male dominance within heterosexual marriage help ensure women’s mothering?
How does women’s mothering reproduce women’s location in the home and family?
How do women “contribute to the perpetuation of their own social roles and position – the
hierarchy of gender”? (page 318)
Smith: “Knowing a Society from Within: A Woman’s Standpoint”
What is the main problem with sociology according to Smith?
What needs to be done in order to improve knowledge and understanding within sociology?
What does Smith mean by the following statement: “The only way of knowing a socially
constructed world is knowing it from within”? (Page 305)
How should we study the world of the other?
How is “women’s situation in sociology” a type of “bifurcate structure”? (page 307)
What are the goals of an alternative sociology?
Collins: “Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination”
How does black feminist thought portray black women?
What significant contributions does black feminist thought make?
How do African-American feminist ideas of the family enhance understanding of families in
general?
How do Afrocentric models of community differ from those of the dominant culture?
How does black feminism add to our understanding of power?
What are the practical implications of theorizing race, gender, and class oppressions as being
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inter-related?
What are the main axes of the matrix of domination for black women’s experiences? What
other axes may exist?
What are the three levels of structure of the matrix of domination?
How are these levels sites of domination and potential sites of resistance?
How do oppressed groups often resist the matrix of domination? Examples?
What does empowerment involve, according to Collins?
What tensions exist for black women who are feminists?
What does Collins mean by the terms situated knowledge, subjugated knowledge, and partial
perspective?
What is positivism? Relativism? What is the implication of each regarding knowledge?
How can a black women’s feminism add to sociological knowledge and understanding?
Durkheim: Division of Labor in Society – Mechanical & Organic Solidarity: 3, 5, 6
Durkheim: Elementary Forms of Religious Life: 7, 8, 11
Durkheim: Suicide and Modernity: 6, 7, 8, 10
Marx: Economic Manuscripts – Estranged Labour: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8
Marx: The Communist Manifesto: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8
Marx: Capital – Capital and the Value of Commodities: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Weber: The Protestant Ethic…: 2, 3, 4, 5
Weber: Economy and Society – The Bureaucratic Machine: 4, 5
Weber: Class Status, and Party: 1, 2, 3, 4
Simmel: The Stranger: 1, 2, 3
Cooley: The Looking-Glass Self: 2, 3
Du Bois: Double-Consciousness and the Veil: 1, 2, 3
Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper: 1
Gilman: Women and Economics: 1, 4, 5
Parsons: Action Systems and Social Systems: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Parsons: Sex Roles in the American Kinship System: 3, 4
Merton: Social Structure and Anomie: 2, 6, 9, 10, 11
Merton: Manifest and Latent Functions: 1
Davis & Moore: Some Principles of Stratification: 1, 2
Mills: The Sociological Imagination: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6
Mills: The Structure of Power in America: 8, 9, 10, 15, 16
Dahrendorf: Social Structure, Group Interests, and Conflict Groups: 1, 2, 5, 8, 9
Horkheimer & Adorno: The Culture Industry as Deception: 2, 3, 4
Mead: The Self, the I, and the Me: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9
Blumer: Society as Symbolic Interaction: 2, 3, 6, 8, 9
Goffman: On Face Work: 1, 2, 8, 9, 10
Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life: 1, 2
Berger & Luckmann: Society as a Human Product: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Garfinkel: Studies in Ethnomethodology: 2
Rostow–1,2,4,5,6,7,8
Wallerstein – The Modern World System: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Wallerstein –Geopolitical Cleavages: 1
Stiglitz – 1, 2, 7
Hoffmann–1,3,4,5,6
De Beauvoir: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Friedan: 1, 2, 3, 4
Chodorow: 3, 4
Smith: 1, 2
Collins: 5, 7, 13, 15