Sociological Theory Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Merton held that the postulates in functionalism are little more than articles of faith.

In Social Theory and Social Structure, Merton criticised three postulates of earlier functionalism: functional unity (every part is functional for the whole system), universal functionalism (all standardised forms have positive functions), and indispensability (every institution is indispensable). He argued they were assumed rather than shown.

The other three options state exactly these postulates, which Merton rejected, so they cannot be his opinion.

Answer: C

The correct code is (2) (1) (4) (3).

• Conflict theory as a creation of men of affairs: Don Martindale.
• The conflict of self-interest and social interest: Adam Smith.
• Social and cultural evolution as wholly the result of group conflict: Ludwig Gumplowicz.
• Group conflict over the legitimacy of authority relations: Ralf Dahrendorf.

Dahrendorf's theory turns on authority in 'imperatively coordinated associations', which is why the code giving him (c) and Gumplowicz (d) is wrong.

Answer: A

The appropriate example is a political ideology such as communism can provide a functional alternative to religion.

Merton introduced functional alternatives (equivalents or substitutes) to reject the postulate of indispensability: the same function can be met by different items. His own illustration is that a political ideology such as communism can meet some of the needs of meaning and solidarity that religion meets elsewhere.

The other options are not Merton's examples, and they misstate the institutions involved: a test tube baby does not replace the family's functions, and the family does not replace the education system.

Answer: C

Tonnies supported the Formalistic School.

The formal school of sociology, associated with Georg Simmel, Ferdinand Tonnies, Alfred Vierkandt and Leopold von Wiese, held that sociology should study the forms of social relationships (such as Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, Tonnies's famous pair) rather than their content.

The synthetic school (Durkheim, Hobhouse, Sorokin) saw sociology as a general science of society, and conflict theory and existentialism are unrelated to Tonnies.

Answer: C

The distinction is Emile Durkheim's.

In The Division of Labour in Society (1893), Durkheim contrasted mechanical solidarity, based on likeness and a strong collective conscience in simple societies, with organic solidarity, based on the interdependence of specialised individuals in complex societies with an advanced division of labour.

Tonnies distinguished Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, Redfield the folk-urban continuum, and Ogburn cultural lag.

Answer: B

The official key gives Weber.

Max Weber used “following a rule” as a concept in his methodological writings. In his critique of Rudolf Stammler he argued that acting in accordance with a rule is not what separates social life from nature, because even a lone individual can be described as following rules, and that the social scientist must separate what a rule says from how people actually behave. This sits within his wider discussion of objectivity, where meaning-oriented action is analysed through ideal types rather than taken as a given fact.

Durkheim treated social facts as external and constraining, and his Rules of Sociological Method (see Q26) concerns the rules for studying them, not rule-following as a concept. Spencer and Parsons are not associated with the phrase. What could not be confirmed is that the examiner meant Weber's essay on Stammler rather than Peter Winch's later, Wittgensteinian use of rule-following; Weber is the only option among the four who wrote on the concept, so the key is kept.

Answer: B

The Rules of Sociological Method was written by E. Durkheim.

Durkheim published it in 1895. It argues that social facts, ways of acting, thinking and feeling external to the individual and exercising constraint, must be treated as things and explained by other social facts.

Weber's methodological essays were collected as The Methodology of the Social Sciences, Giddens wrote New Rules of Sociological Method (1976) in deliberate response to Durkheim, and Parsons wrote The Structure of Social Action.

Answer: C

The scholar is Levi-Strauss.

Claude Levi-Strauss, the founder of structural anthropology, held that the human mind works in the same way everywhere, ordering experience through binary oppositions such as raw and cooked or nature and culture. The variety of myths, kinship systems and customs reflects these universal mental structures.

Radcliffe-Brown and Nadel studied social structure as relations among persons, not the structure of the mind, and Marx explained society through material conditions.

Answer: C

The definition is Max Weber's.

Weber's definition in Economy and Society reads: sociology is a science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects.

Durkheim defined sociology as the science of social facts, Parsons built a general theory of action systems, and Sorokin defined sociology as the study of the general characteristics common to all classes of social phenomena.

Answer: A

The correct matching is (a)-(2), (b)-(1), (c)-(4), (d)-(3), the code (2) (1) (4) (3).

Michel Foucault wrote Discipline and Punish (1975), his history of the prison. Anthony Giddens wrote The Consequences of Modernity (1990). Jeffrey Alexander's four-volume Theoretical Logic in Sociology (1982-83) laid the ground for his neo-functionalism, and Jurgen Habermas wrote Knowledge and Human Interests (1968).

The other codes go wrong on Alexander and Habermas: (2) (1) (3) (4) swaps their books, and the codes giving Foucault (4) or Giddens (3) misplace the two most familiar titles.