Unit 4 Home Page

Welcome to Unit 4 Home Page

Unit Overview

In this unit, you will start examining the different social institutions of society, starting with the most important: the economy. The other institutions for this unit are : politics and the government, the family, and education. As you have seen in chapter 5, institutions are building blocks of society and serve to fulfill society's basic needs; at the same time, you will see that institutions are instruments of power and domination.

Learning Objectives

After reading Chapter 13, you should be able to:

Define the economy and its functions.

Distinguish between different forms of economic systems and their characteristics.

Contrast the functionalist and conflict perspectives on the economy and work.

Define the primary and secondary labor markets, and explain the kinds of jobs available in each.

Define professions and evaluate their significance in the economy and explain the process of deprofessionalization.

Define and compare Taylorism and Fordism.

Describe marginal jobs and their significance in the economy.

Define contingent work and the role of subcontracting.

Compare the different types of employment and explain why the unemployment rate is not a good indicator of the labor market in the US.

Explain the development of labor unions and their functions and significance.

After reading Chapter 14, you should be able to:

Define politics, government, the state, nation-state, power and authority, and describe the 3 main forms of authority, according to Max Weber.

Define monarchy,authoritarianism, totalitarianism and democracy and give examples for each.

Define the pluralist model of power.

Define the power elite model of power.

Describe political parties and their roles in American politics.

Explain the significance of political socialization.

Explain the notion of "permanent government".

Define the military-industrial complex and militarism and their significance.

After reading Chapter 15, you should be able to:

Retrace the history of the different family forms.

Define kinship ties, extended family, nuclear family,family of orientation and family of procreation.

Define patrilineal/matrilineal/bilateral patterns of descent, patrilocality, matrilocality and neolocality, patriarchy.

Define monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, polygyny, endogamy, exogamy and homogamy.

Describe the functionalist, conflict and feminist perspectives on the family.

Describe the diversity in family forms in contemporary US society.

Explain the major patterns and causes of divorce and remarriages in the US.

After reading Chapter 16, you should be able to:

Retrace the history of education in pre-industrial and industrial societies.

Contrast the functionalist, conflict and interactionist perspectives on education.

Describe the major problems in contemporary education in the US.

Explain the significance of affirmative action in higher education.

Compare 4 alternative approaches for improving education.

Readings & Assignments

Readings from the Textbook - "Sociology in Our Times - for Unit 4:

Chapter 13 - The Economy and Work
Chapter 14 - Politics and Government in the Global Perspective
Chapter 15 - Families and Intimate Relationships
Chapter 16 - Education

Readings and Exercises from the Workbook - "Doing Sociology" - for Unit 4:

Exercise 10 - Job Satisfaction
Exercise 11 - A Century of Trends
Exercise 12 - Diffusion and Cultural Complexity

Surveys

Survey 13 on Textbook Chapter 13
Survey 14 on Textbook Chapter 14
Survey 15 on Textbook Chapter 15
Survey 16 on Textbook Chapter 16

Internet Research Project

Project Writing.

Test

Test 4 on Chapters 13 - 16, 100 Questions

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