Unit 5 Home Page

Welcome to Unit 5 Home Page

Unit Overview

In this final unit, you will complete your examination of soxial institutions, with religion and health care. Then, you will study issues pertaining to population and urbanization. These issues are already central concerns at a global level, there is truly a population problem, but exactly, what is it? What are its roots, causes and consequences? Should we blame low-income countries for their population growth or high-income countries for their indecent and devastating consuming habits?

Learning Objectives

After reading Chapter 17, you should be able to:

Define religion and explain the sociological perspective on religion.

Define faith, and explain Durkheim's conceptions of the sacred and the profane.

Describe the different functions and dysfunctions of religion.

Describe the conflict perspective on religion, and the relationship between religion and social inequalities.

Describe the interactionist perspective on religion.

Describe the 6 major world's religions.

Distinguish between the different types of religious organizations.

Define secularization and fundamentalism and explain their simultaneous rise.

After reading Chapter 18, you should be able to:

Define health, health care and medicine and explain the sociological perspective on these issues.

Define epidemiology and explain how age, race/ethnicity, gender and social class affect health.

Define scientific, holisitc and alternative medicine.

Describe different health care systems and their strengths and weaknesses.

Describe the functionalist, conflict and interactionist perspectives on medicine and health care.

Define mental illness and its epidemiology.

After reading Chapter 19, you should be able to:

Explain what demography is and its main indicators.

Describe and compare the Malthusian, Marxist and zero population growth perspectives on population growth.

Explain the demographic transition theory.

Identify cities' major characteristics in preindustrial, industrial and postindustrial societies.

Describe and contrast the functionalist and conflict perspectives on urban growth.

Describe global urbanization patterns in core, semiperipheral and peripheral nations.

Describe the major urban problems in contemporary US societies.

After reading Chapter 20, you should be able to:

Define collective behavior and the conditions under which it occurs.

Distinguish between crowds, masses, casual, conventional, expressive, acting, protest crowds, mobs, riots and panics.

Explain contagion theory, social unrest and circular reaction, convergence theory, and emergent norm theory.

Explain rumors, gossips, fads and fashion.

Explain when and where social movements are most likely to develop, and distinguish among the 5 major types of social movements.

Contrast the relative deprivation theory and the value-added theory of why people join social movements.

Contrast the resource mobilization theory and the new social movements theory.

Describe the effects of physical environment, population trends, technological development, and social institutions on social change.

Readings & Assignments

Readings from the Textbook - "Sociology in Our Times - for Unit 5:

Chapter 17 - Religion
Chapter 18 - Health, Health Care, and Disability
Chapter 19 - Population and Urbanization
Chapter 20 - Collective Behavior and Social Change

Readings and Exercises from the Workbook - "Doing Sociology" - for Unit 5:

Exercise 13 - Fertility
Exercise 14 - Regression
Exercise 15 - Spuriousness

Surveys

Survey 17 on Textbook Chapter 17
Survey 18 on Textbook Chapter 18
Survey 19 on Textbook Chapter 19
Survey 20 on Textbook Chapter 20

Internet Research Project

Delivery to Instructor.

Test

Test 5 on Chapters 17 - 20, 100 Questions

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