Contemporary Social Issues
Study Guide Questions
Course Introduction
Contemporary Social Issues explores the major social challenges and debates shaping the modern world. The course examines topics such as poverty, inequality, globalization, environmental crises, human rights, gender and racial discrimination, and the impact of technology on society. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, students analyze the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to these issues, while developing critical thinking and research skills. By engaging with case studies and current events, students gain a deeper understanding of how social issues affect individuals, communities, and global systems, and consider their roles as informed citizens in addressing these challenges.
Recommended Textbook
Sociology 14th Edition by John J. Macionis
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Chapter 1: The Sociological Perspective
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Sample Questions
Q1) A criticism of the symbolic-interaction approach is that it
A)calls attention to major social institutions.
B)ignores the influence of factors such as culture, class, gender, and race.
C)paints a very positive picture of society.
D)says little about how individuals actually experience society.
Answer: B
Q2) U.S.sociologist C.Wright Mills argued that times of social crisis foster widespread sociological thinking.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) The main characteristic of the _____ approach is its view of society as being orderly and stable.
A)structural-functional
B)social-conflict
C)social-interaction
D)tradition-based
Answer: A
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3
Chapter 2: Sociological Investigation
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Q1) Which of the concepts listed below refers to measuring exactly what one intends to measure?
A)congruence
B)validity
C)repeatability
D)reliability
Answer: B
Q2) Which sociological research method is likely to be the most difficult to replicate
A)the experiment
B)the survey
C)participant observation
D)secondary analysis
Answer: C
Q3) A random sample is likely to represent the population from which it is drawn.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 3: Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following adds to the creation of a global culture?
A)the flow of goods from country to country
B)the flow of information around the world
C)the flow of people from country to country
D)All of these are correct.
Answer: D
Q2) As a part of human culture, religion is an example of
A)material culture.
B)nonmaterial culture.
C)culture shock.
D)human nature.
Answer: B
Q3) Looking all around the world, what we find everywhere is
A)the same ideas about what is right.
B)people enjoying the same sports.
C)people creating diverse cultural systems.
D)the same standards that define what is beautiful and ugly.
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) As Marx used this concept, "alienation" meant
A)the sense of not knowing right from wrong.
B)that most people do not want to work at all.
C)that people object to highly specialized work.
D)the experience of isolation and misery resulting from powerlessness.
Q2) Huge empires-such as the Roman Empire that included tens of millions of people and several million square miles-were based on agrarian technology.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Compared to an industrial society, a postindustrial society is based on
A)an information-based economy.
B)a factory-based economy.
C)an immigrant labor force.
D)a less productive economy.
Q4) The Information Revolution has been most evident in the poor nations of the world. A)True
B)False
Q5) What did Durkheim mean by "anomie"? How does modern society cause anomie?
Q6) How does Durkheim's concept of anomie differ from
Page 6
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Chapter 5: Socialization
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Sample Questions
Q1) For Jean Piaget, at which stage of development do individuals first use language and other cultural symbols?
A)sensorimotor stage
B)preoperational stage
C)concrete operational stage
D)formal operational stage
Q2) The focus of Lawrence Kohlberg's research was
A)cognition.
B)the importance of gender in socialization.
C)moral reasoning.
D)All of these are correct.
Q3) What is the term sociologists give to a category of people with a common characteristic, usually their age?
A)age subculture
B)generation
C)age group
D)cohort
Q4) Schools provide children with early experience of bureaucracy.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 6: Social Interaction in Everyday Life
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Sample Questions
Q1) Dramaturgical analysis treats embarrassment as "losing face."
A)True
B)False
Q2) The process by which people act and react in relation to others is called
A)social connectedness.
B)social construction.
C)social dynamics.
D)social interaction.
Q3) Employers rarely concern themselves with the emotions of employees.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which of the following is an important element of nonverbal communication?
A)hand gestures
B)eye contact
C)body language
D)All of these are correct.
Q5) What is the Thomas theorem? Provide an example of how it works.How is this theorem an example of the process we call the "social construction of reality"?
Q6) Identify several ways gender affects personal performances.
Q7) What is nonverbal communication? How do people use it in everyday life?
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Chapter 7: Groups and Organizations
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Sample Questions
Q1) Irving Janis demonstrated how discussion always improves decision making in a social group.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Solomon Asch's research, in which subjects were asked to match lines, showed that
A)people seek out friends with whom they tend to agree.
B)people defined as "leaders" have great power over their subjects.
C)people tend to see most things differently.
D)group membership has the power to generate conformity.
Q3) Max Weber noted many traits of bureaucracy.Which of the following list is NOT one of them?
A)favoring family members over strangers
B)arranging offices in a hierarchy
C)enacting many rules and regulations
D)providing workers with highly specialized jobs
Q4) Scientific management was an effort to humanize the workplace.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What are the important differences between primary and secondary groups?
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Chapter 8: Sexuality and Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) If you were teaching a class about the symbolic-interaction approach to sexuality, on which of the following topics would you likely focus?
A)understanding men's power over women
B)raising public concern about sexual harassment
C)how individuals in various settings engage in different sexual behavior and attach different meanings to sexual activity
D)understanding why society must regulate with whom and when people reproduce
Q2) Sexual attraction to people of both sexes is called
A)heterosexuality.
B)bisexuality.
C)homosexuality.
D)asexuality.
Q3) A reason NOT to view prostitution as simply a matter of personal choice involving adults is that
A)prostitution subjects many women to outright violence.
B)prostitution plays a part in spreading sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.
C)many poor women become trapped in a life of selling sex.
D)All of these are correct.
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Chapter 9: Deviance
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Q1) Whether people respond to deviance as a moral issue or a medical matter affects which of the following?
A)who responds-police or medical personnel
B)whether the person is subject to punishment or treatment
C)how personally competent the person is assumed to be
D)All of these are correct.
Q2) The concept of due process refers to
A)the criminal justice system operating within the bounds of the law.
B)the idea that people get what they deserve.
C)the process of plea bargaining.
D)the obligation of all citizens to report crime.
Q3) In his study of New England's Puritans, Kai Erikson concluded that
A)people everywhere define mostly the same things as deviant.
B)very religious people create very little deviance.
C)even this disciplined and highly religious group created deviance to clarify the moral boundaries of their community.
D)the proportion of people in the population that the Puritans defined as deviant kept rising over time.
Q4) Define due process, plea bargaining, and community-based corrections.
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Chapter 10: Social Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) If you lived in a society with a traditional caste system, you would expect your marriage to be A)polygamous. B)exogamous.
C)based on romantic love. D)endogamous.
Q2) The common ideology of a class system states that success and wealth typically result from A)sheer luck.
B)family background. C)flaws in society. D)personal talent and effort.
Q3) Davis and Moore base their claim that stratification is not inevitable on the fact that it does not exist in every society. A)True
B)False
Q4) The more a society is a meritocracy, the greater the society's level of social mobility. A)True B)False
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Chapter 11: Social Class in the United States
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Sample Questions
Q1) The 1996 welfare reforms created which program?
A)Assistance for Dependent Children (AFDC)
B)Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
C)food stamps
D)All of these are correct.
Q2) The wealth of rich people is not only greater, but more of it is in the form of investments that typically increase in value and generate income.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What were some of the consequences of the 1996 welfare reform in the United States?
Q4) Many people in this country think of the United States as a more-or-less "middle-class" society because
A)we have no history of nobility, as in Europe.
B)U.S.culture celebrates individual effort.
C)most people interact with others in similar social standing.
D)All of these are correct.
Q5) Point to evidence that helps you assess the extent to which the responsibility for poverty lies with the poor or with society as a whole.
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Chapter 12: Global Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) What are the four stages of Walt Rostow's modernization theory? What is "modernization?" Explain each stage and how it brings a society closer to the goal of modernization.
Q2) With regard to dependency theory, explain exactly how poor nations are dependent on rich nations.
Q3) High-income nations
A)are at the forefront of the Information Revolution.
B)make use of factories, big machinery, and advanced technology.
C)contain almost all the world's financial markets.
D)All of these are correct.
Q4) High-income countries are the home of the world's largest corporations as well as the world's top financial markets.
A)True
B)False
Q5) In 2011, how many independent nations were there in the world?
A)57
B)195 C)341
D)2,190
Q6) Describe the distribution of income for the world as a whole.
Page 14
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Chapter 13: Gender Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following job categories has mostly women as workers?
A)physicians
B)corporate managers
C)college professors
D)elementary school teachers
Q2) Identify what you consider to be the three most important changes in our society involving gender that have taken place over the last century or so.Explain each change and why it is important.
Q3) Like race or social class, gender is a major dimension of social stratification.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the United States, on average, males live longer than females.
A)True
B)False
Q5) On average, young men show greater ____ ability than young women; young women show greater _____ ability than young men.
A)intellectual; sensory
B)mathematical; verbal
C)verbal; mathematical
D)sensory; intellectual
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Chapter 14: Race and Ethnicity
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Sample Questions
Q1) When did slavery begin in the United States? When was it outlawed?
Q2) Scientific research shows that there are three biologically pure races.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The Hispanic population of the United States is
A)spread evenly across the country.
B)concentrated in the West, Southwest and southern Florida.
C)concentrated in industrial cities of the Northeast.
D)concentrated in the Deep South.
Q4) How are race and ethnicity dimensions of social stratification in the United States?
Provide evidence that many racial and ethnic categories of people are minorities-socially disadvantaged due to race or ethnicity.Consider ways in which race and ethnicity combine with gender and class.
Q5) From which world regions do most of today's U.S.immigrants come?
A)Latin America and Asia
B)Asia and Africa
C)Africa and Latin America
D)Africa and Europe
Q6) What are WASPs? How do they differ from "white ethnics"?
Q7) What evidence is there that race is a socially constructed concept?
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Chapter 15: Aging and the Elderly
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Sample Questions
Q1) With advancing age, older people notice
A)loss of height and weight.
B)less keen sensory abilities, including taste, sight, and hearing.
C)that minor injuries take longer to heal.
D)All of these are correct.
Q2) Poverty rates among the U.S.elderly have increased in recent decades.
A)True
B)False
Q3) For most U.S.seniors, who is the greatest source of social support?
A)staff at nursing homes
B)other seniors
C)family members
D)neighbors
Q4) Apply social-conflict theory to aging.What insight do we gain from this approach?
Q5) Age stratification refers to inequality among elderly people.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Explain the insights offered by sociology's three major theoretical approaches on growing old.What is the argument made by
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Chapter 16: The Economy and Work
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which social institution is widely considered to have the greatest effect on society as a whole?
A)the family
B)the economy
C)the political system
D)religion
Q2) What is a profession? What are four characteristics of professional work?
Q3) The global economy pays little regard to national borders.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the United States, union membership is higher today than ever before.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Name three technological revolutions that reorganized societal production and resulted in broad changes to many other dimensions of social life.What factors caused these revolutions? What changed as a result?
Q6) Define the concepts of "monopoly" and "oligopoly." Why are these economic patterns controversial?
Q7) What are the three defining traits of capitalism?
Page 18
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Chapter 17: Politics and Government
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Q1) In 2011, a wave of popular uprisings seeking more democratic government swept across which region of the world?
A)sub-Saharan Africa
B)North America
C)South America
D)the Middle East
Q2) What Weber called the "routinization of charisma" involves charismatic authority
A)disappearing entirely.
B)becoming a reflection of a leader's unique personality.
C)becoming sheer force.
D)transforming into some combination of traditional authority and rational-legal authority.
Q3) Describe the attitudes of the U.S.population using the political spectrum.How do gender, race, and class figure in?
Q4) Which nations in the world today claim to be democratic?
A)all low-income nations
B)no nations
C)most high-income nations
D)all nations
Q5) What is the military-industrial complex?
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Chapter 18: Families
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Sample Questions
Q1) David Popenoe's research suggests that the weakest families on Earth may be found in
A)the United States.
B)Japan.
C)Sweden.
D)Great Britain.
Q2) What are three tasks of the family, according to the structural-functional approach? Why do some analysts claim that the family is the "backbone of society"?
Q3) African Americans and Asian Americans show significant differences in typical family form.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which of the following categories of the U.S.population has the greatest share of female-headed households?
A)Hispanics
B)African Americans
C)Asian Americans
D)white, non-Hispanics
Q5) Why do more of U.S.households contain a single person?
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Chapter 19: Religion
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Sample Questions
Q1) A religious organization that is well integrated into the larger society is called a A)church.
B)sect.
C)cult.
D)All of these are correct.
Q2) Discuss the various types of religious organizations: church
Q3) Confucianism is closely linked to the traditional culture of A)India.
B)China.
C)Japan. D)Iran.
Q4) Confucianism is closely linked to the traditional culture of A)India.
B)China.
C)Japan. D)Iran.
Q5) What is secularization? Is secularization a reality in the United States? That is, is religion getting weaker, stronger, or simply changing its character? Provide evidence to support your arguments.
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Chapter 20: Education
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Sample Questions
Q1) Assume that you support the school choice movement.What are you likely to say is the reason that U.S.public schools perform poorly?
A)Schools have no competition.
B)Some schools lack adequate funding.
C)The nation has a high poverty rate.
D)Too many parents are not involved in the schools.
Q2) Families with high incomes are much more likely to send their children to college than families with low incomes.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Rather than creating violence, in most cases violence spills into schools from the surrounding society.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Only about 3 percent of U.S.young people are home schooled.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Write an essay in which you demonstrate that schooling
Q6) How is the development of schooling linked to economic development?
Page 22
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Chapter 21: Health and Medicine
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is an example of a chronic illness?
A)influenza
B)cancer
C)accidents
D)pneumonia
Q2) How does social class affect human health? Provide data in support of your answer.
Q3) Which of the following categories of the U.S.population has the highest life-expectancy?
A)white men
B)white women
C)African American men
D)African American women
Q4) One criticism of the social-conflict analysis is that it minimizes the improvements in health care brought about by scientific medicine.
A)True
B)False
Q5) About 20 percent of U.S.adults are overweight.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 22: Population, Urbanization, and Environment
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Q1) In general, low-income countries grow as much from immigration as from natural increase.
A)True
B)False
Q2) At the present rate of loss, almost all of the rain forests will be gone by the end of this century.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What two assertions about population and resources were made by Thomas Robert Malthus?
Q4) An age-sex pyramid is useful, in part, because it helps predict the demographic future of a society.
A)True
B)False
Q5) As societies gain technological power, more population, and affluence they have a greater and greater effect on the natural environment.
A)True B)False
Q6) Why are environmentalists concerned about the loss of the planet's rainforests?
Page 24
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Chapter 23: Collective Behavior and Social Movements
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Q1) Kai Erikson claims that, as serious as many disasters are, they usually are over quickly.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The enormous oil spill by the tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989 is an example of which of the following types of disasters?
A)natural disaster
B)technological disaster
C)intentional disaster
D)All of these are correct.
Q3) Fashion and fads, riots, crowds, mass hysteria, and public opinion are all types of collective behavior.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the difference between "rumor" and "gossip"? Give an example of each.
Q5) Women have been at the forefront of most social movements.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Provide a one-sentence description of the emergent-norm theory of crowd behavior.
Page 25
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Chapter 24: Social Change: Traditional
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Q1) A mass society is one that
A)has expanding bureaucracy.
B)is affluent in terms of economic production.
C)has lost much of its traditional social ties.
D)All of these are correct.
Q2) Following mass-society theory, the key problem of living in a modern society is
A)finding any personal freedom.
B)dealing with persistent poverty.
C)gaining a sense of power.
D)building a confident personal identity in a quickly changing and morally relativistic world.
Q3) Modernization means that fewer people live in small, traditional communities.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The concept of modernity refers to changes in social patterns brought on by which of the following?
A)the fall of the Roman Empire
B)the Enlightenment
C)the Industrial Revolution
D)globalization
Page 26
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