Theses

Examples of Theses in the following topics:

• World Religions and Religious History

  • Traditionally, these have been considered world religions due to their size and/or influence on society.
  • A detailed description of these religions is beyond the scope of this chapter.
  • One note is, however, in order concerning these religious groups.
  • The classification of these groups as world religions is, like all classifications, artificial.
  • Finally, while four of these religious groups are very populous, Judaism is not.

• Forms of Sociological Practice

  • Despite the fact that each of these views has been evident within sociological practices throughout the history of the discipline (as well as within and between other academic disciplines), they have become the source of heated debates throughout the last three decades.
  • Rather than taking sides in these debates, we thus provide introductory descriptions of these three major approaches to sociological practice, and encourage students to consider the pros and cons of each approach.

• Introduction to describing one network

  • Many of these tools find immediate application in working with social network data.
  • There are, however, two quite important distinctive features of applying these tools to network data.
  • These are not "independent" replications.
  • Fred is involved in two observations (as are Sue an George), it is probably not reasonable to suppose that these relations are "independent" because they both involve George.
  • These general points will become clearer as we examine some real cases.

• Cultural Sociology: Researching Culture

  • Because these two neighborhoods are distinct yet share a border, this research site provides numerous opportunities for the exploration of culture.
  • Additionally, Anderson is interested in how individuals in these neighborhoods negotiate interpersonal interactions, especially when individuals from the Village (middle to upper-middle class and predominantly white) are forced to interact with members of the Northton area (lower class and poor blacks).
  • But when viewed in light of the quote above by Griswold, it becomes apparent that Anderson's focus in these interviews and observations is self-presentation.
  • While he does develop a loose description of these types of individuals, the important part to understand here is how he explores these aspects of culture.
  • Through years of observation, Anderson gained a familiarity with these elements of culture that allowed him to understand how they interacted.

• Introduction to connection

  • Since networks are defined by their actors and the connections among them, it is useful to begin our description of networks by examining these very simple properties.
  • Individuals, as well as whole networks, differ in these basic demographic features.
  • These kinds of very basic differences among actors immediate connections may be critical in explaining how they view the world, and how the world views them.

• Prejudice

  • Why are these aspects of an unfamiliar person so important?
  • Although these secondary characteristics are important in forming a first impression of a stranger, the social categories of race, gender, and age provide a wealth of information about an individual.
  • These beliefs persist despite a number of high profile examples to the contrary.
  • Sadly, such beliefs often influence how these athletes are treated by others and how they view themselves and their own capabilities.

• Introduction to defining equivalence or similarity

  • We will look at these in the next three chapters on "structural equivalence," "automorphic equivalence," and "regular equivalence."
  • Of these, "automorphic" has rarely been used in substantive work.
  • The basic ideas of these three kinds of equivalence are easily illustrated with a simple graph (developed by Wasserman and Faust).
  • Let's look in more detail at these ideas, starting with the most restrictive notion of what it means for actors to be equivalent.

• Socioeconomic Status

  • These measures reflect three characteristics of individuals: power, property, and prestige.
  • These three characteristics combine to indicate someone's social class or socioeconomic status.
  • These three indicators tend to go hand-in-hand or lead to each other, such as a Supreme Court justice who is usually wealthy, enjoys a great deal of prestige, and exercises significant power.
  • In some cases, however, a person ranks differently on these indicators, such as funeral directors.

• Notes

  • Contextualizing these people, their views and opinions in the cultural milieu of their day should allow the astute reader to avoid the pitfall of judging historic figures from present moral standards (i.e., whiggish historicism).

• Biological Differences

  • While it is as yet unknown how or why these differences develop, scholars typically attempt to explain the differences in one of two ways.
  • Scientific disciplines tied more firmly to existing gender norms within a society, for example, typically argue that biological distinctions create these differences, and use these differences to argue that there are inherent differences between women and men (non cis-gender people are generally ignored completely by these fields and within their arguments).
  • On the other hand, more progressive and diverse scientific communities generally argue that these differences reflect existing gender inequalities within a given society, and thus merely demonstrate that the social construction of sex and gender has biological (as well as social) consequences.
  • As a result, the following paragraphs outline these differences while also noting the ways that social factors may cause or influence such differences.
  • Keep in mind, however, that since these studies ignore trans sex/gender experience, we must limit our commentary to cisgender results only.