Study Guide for 3rd Exam

Study Guide for 3^rd Exam, SOCY3153, Summer 2009

Sample Short Answer Questions (Answer in 30 Words or Less)

1. Odey promises to marry Jocarta after his 1-year trip around the world. Suppose the benefit to his marrying her then is 100, but the loss if she has waited a year for nothing is 60. Suppose also that she thinks the chance of his marrying her then is 40% and the chance of his not marrying her is 60%. Does she trust him and wait or not?

2. How do you know that Berger and Luckmann think variation among individuals is important?

3. What is a "market-like situation"? How can marriage be seen as one?

4. What concepts of Berger and Luckmann parallel organic and mechanical solidarity in Durkheim? What do they mean?

5. How does D. Smith use Hegel’s master-servant parable in her approach?

6. According to D. Smith, how does the life course of women tend to differ from that of men?

7. Give a version of Coleman’s trust inequality (“Trust if ….”). Which variable do we spend the most effort on? Why?

8. For each of our 3 perspectives, what kind of social order was it interested in primarily?

9. Why do Berger and Luckmann call what they do a "sociology of knowledge"?

10. What does D. Smith criticize about how Sociology is organized?

11. Name 3 different kinds of sociological theory since Parsons.

Essay Questions (Exam will give you choice of two)

1. Imagine and write down a (friendly?) discussion between Berger and Luckmann, Becker and Coleman, and Dorothy Smith over the question: Do people have free will?

2. Compare Berger and Luckmann's sociology of knowledge approach with Dorothy Smith's feminist approach. How are they similar? How do they differ?

3. Imagine and write down a (friendly?) discussion between Berger and Luckmann, Becker and Coleman, and Dorothy Smith over the question: Is Sociology a science?

4. Compare how Berger and Luckmann, Becker and Coleman, and Dorothy Smith think sociologists should conceive of the individual in sociology.

5. Compare the way modernity fits into the perspectives of Berger and Luckmann, Becker and Coleman, and Dorothy Smith.