AUDIO => http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1138686 VOCAB => analysis of social life that focuses on broad features of society, such as social class and the relationships of groups to one another; usually used by functionalists and conflict theorists analysis of social life that focuses on social interaction; typically used by symbolic interactionists what people do when they are in one another’s presence the framework (or typical patterns) that surrounds us, consisting of the relationships of people and groups to one another, which gives direction to and sets limits on behavior according to Weber, a large group of people who rank close to one another in property power, and prestige; according to Marx, one of two groups: capitalists who own the means of production or workers who sell their labor the position that someone occupies in a social group all the statuses or positions that an individual occupies items used to identify a status a status that cuts across the other statuses that an individual occupies ranking high on some dimensions of social class and low on others, also called status discrepancy the behaviors, obligations, and privileges attached to a status the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group—the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, norms, and actions thought appropriate for them people who have something in common and who believe that what they have in common is significant; also called a social group the organized, usual, or standard ways by which society meets its basic needs the degree to which members of a group or a society feel united by shared values and other social bonds; also known as social cohesion Durkheim’s term for the unity (a shared consciousness) that people feel as a result of performing the
same or similar tasks the splitting of a group’s or a society’s tasks into specialties Durkheim’s term for the interdependence that results from the division of labor; people depending on others to fulfill their jobs a type of society in which life is intimate; a community in which everyone knows everyone else and people share a sense of togetherness a type of society that is dominated by impersonal relationships, individual accomplishments, and self-interest assumptions of what people are like, whether true or false the ways in which people use their bodies to give messages to others an approach, pioneered by Erving Goffman, in which social life is analyzed in terms of drama or the stage; also called dramaturgical analysis people’s efforts to control the impressions that others receive of them places where we give performances places where people rest from their performances, discuss their presentations, and plan future performances the ways in which someone performs a role within the limits that the role provides; showing a particular “style” or “personality conflicts that someone feels between roles because the expectations attached to one role are incompatible with the expectations of another role conflicts that someone feels within a role a term used by Goffman to refer to how people use social setting, appearance, and manner to communicate information about the self the collaboration of two or more people to manage impressions jointly techniques used to salvage a performance (interaction) that is going sour the study of how people use background assumptions to make sense out of life a deeply embedded common understanding of how the world operates and of how people ought to act of reality the use of background assumptions and life experiences to define what is real