Exercise 7. Choose the right answer.

1. What is a theoretical paradigm?

a) a fundamental image of a state;

b) a contemporary image of society;

c) a fundamental image of society;

d) a contemporary image of a state.

2. What do sociologists base their work on?

a) on the familiar image of society;

b) on the identical image of society;

c) on the same image of society;

d) on the different image of society.

3. What do all sociologists disagree on?

a) what the most interesting or useful questions are;

b) what a sociological theory is;

c) what is a sociological theory;

d) what are the most interesting or useful questions.

4. What is a sociological theory?

a) utter chaos;

b) an explanation of the relationship between two or more specific facts;

c) a fundamental image of society;

d) an imagination of ideal society.

5. How do sociologists tend to organize their work?

a) by using only one major theoretical paradigm;

b) by using one minor theoretical paradigm;

c) by using one or more of three major theoretical paradigms;

d) by a general framework.

Exercise 8. Fill in the gaps using the words given below, and translate the sentences into Russian.

response cases evidence surveyed prevent

variables sought explanatory obtain clarify

1. There are too many … involved to make any meaningful predictions.

2. For over 100 years, men have … for gold in these hills.

3. The concept was later seen to have … power.

4. I climbed to … a general view of the surrounding scene.

5. We received 400 applications in … to one job ad.

6. The report managed to … the government’s position.

7. In many … farmers do have a deep feeling for their land.

8. The plain … of facts is superior to all declarations.

9. The BBC … four thousand drug users and their families.

10. Action must be taken to … further accidents.

Exercise 9. Match the verbs on the left with the nouns on the right. Make up sentences with the phrases you’ve got.

1. to bring	a) proof of innocence;
2. to borrow	b) to a scientist;
3. to be appropriate	c) people down;
4. to be employed	d) sense out of answers;
5. to be	e) through the shades of opinion;
6. to come	f) suited for this research;
7. to make	g) in investigation;
8. to track	h) for the situation;
9. to write	i) money from one’s friend;
10. to find	j) out a new theory.

WRITING AND COMMUNICATION

Exercise 10. Write an essay on one of the given topics.

1. Theoretical Paradigm.

2. An Experiment and a Survey.

3. A Questionnaire and an Interview.

Unit 7.

STATUSES

Warm up

Exercise 1. Match the English words on the left with their Russian equivalents on the right. Learn the words by heart.

1. to influence	a) достигать;
2. an ascribed status	b) прикреплять;
3. to attach	c) текущий статус;
4. an opportunity	d) влиять;
5. available	e) приобретенный социальный статус;
6. an achieved status	f) возможность;
7. to attain	g) система возможностей;
8. opportunity structure	h) социальный статус по рождению;
9. master status	i) доступный;
10. salient status	j) доминирующий статус.

 

READING

Exercise 2. Read and translate the following text. Use the dictionary when necessary.

Statuses

Ordinarily, we use the word status to mean “prestige”. We speak of a person as having high or low status, or of being a status-seeker. In sociology, however, status refers more particularly to a position in the social structure – any position that determines where a person “fits” within the society. Being a job-seeker, a waiter, a student, a mother, a child, or a friend are all social statuses.

Every person occupies a number of different statuses at any given time. A certain student is not just a student but can also be a man, a son, a fiance, a Protestant, and so on. Some statuses are assigned to people without effort on their part; they are called ascribed statuses. Being male or female, a Mexican-American, a Rockefeller, and a senior citizen are examples of ascribed statuses. You have almost no control over whether or not you occupy these kinds of social positions. You are borna Rockefeller, or adopted into that family, just as you are born white or black, male or female, beautiful or plain. The meanings attached to ascribed statuses do change, however. For example, the meaning attached to being an American female has changed greatly in recent years, as more and more opportunities have become available to women.

In contrast to an ascribed status, an achieved status is a position a person attains largely through personal effort. Physician, politician, artist, teacher, town drunk, or Boston Strangler – each of these is an achieved status. But what people achieve is heavily shaped by the opportunity structure available to them. For instance, the children of a woman living on welfare in an inner-city slum have a different set of achieved statuses available to them than the sons and daughters of a successful corporate executive.

When one of a person’s statuses largely determines many of the other statuses that he or she acquires, it is called a master status. Being the Prince of Wales, for instance, is a master status because it determines so many of the person’s other social positions (ceremonial leader, military officer, even husband and father since a future king must have heirs).

Not everyone has a master status. Many people simply have a variety of ascribed and achieved statuses that take on more or less importance depending upon the social situation. For instance, when you step into a college classroom your status of student comes to the fore and is the major influence on your attitudes and behavior. It is not particularly important that you are also a friend, a son or daughter, a part-time employee, and so forth. In the classroom context your student status dominates. In contrast, when you visit your parents your status of son or daughter is the one that tends to influence your thoughts and actions. Here your student status recedes to the background and your position in the family takes the foreground. When a status dominates in a certain social context, it is called a salient status.