Study Guide, Sociology 3701, First Exam, Instructor: Bruce Mork

I. Multiple choice. Be familiar with the following concepts, theories, theorists, and videos:
social psychology. ethnomethodology, de-socialization, beginner's mind, expert's mind, culture, norms, socialization, primary group, looking glass self, the "I" and the "me",default assumptions, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, scaffolding, the generative property of language, behaviorismand rational choice theory as closely related approaches to social psychology, cognitive psychology, symbolic interactionism, research methods: experiment, participant observation, intensive interviewing; psychologism (also known in sociology as the fundamental attribution error), reification, Mead's stages in taking the role of the other: imitative, play, game, generalized other, approaches to deaf education: oralism, manualism, American Sign Language (ASL), deaf vs Deaf, language acquisition device, social interactionism, Noam Chomsky, B.F. Skinner, W. I. Thomas, Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead
Videos: "Baby Talk, " "Waasa Inaabidaa: Selections (ha!)"

II. Essay questions. The essay questions on your first exam will be drawn from the following: :
1. Analyze the differences between symbolic interactionism and behaviorism (also called rational choice theory) in terms of its assumptions about human nature and its view of the relation between self and society.

2. From the symbolic interactionist perspective, describe the relationship among language, culture, and identity, using examples from the experience of the Deaf community and from the video selections from"Waasa Inaabidaa."

3. Use "Baby Talk" as an example to show how theories are created and modified by a community of scholars through a process of communication and mutual criticism. Be sure to include some consideration of Babbie's contention that even in the scientific community, "truth" is the product of agreement within the scientific community, rather than some ultimate reality.

4. Draw on a variety of course materials to support the view that the world we inhabit is to an important degree a product of our language.

5. Show how the use of symbols is essential to understanding both our freedom and the influence that other people have upon us (draw especially on the Cassirer article, as well as our classroom discussion of Mead).

6. The Becker and the Chapkis articles describe two quite different ways of becoming a marijuana user. Provide a symbolic interactionist analysis of the differences.

7. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition there is a statement attributed to King Solomon: "Without a vision the people perish." (Proverbs 29, v. 18) Using symbolic interactionism, relate this to the suppression and rebirth of language in the Deaf and Ojibwe communities.