Sociology 441: Stratification

Themes

Several themes will occur repeatedly as we work our way through the topics in this course. (You can think of this as a matrix with each of these themes being found in most of the topics. However, some themes will be more central for some topics.) It is important to be able to see these same themes in various topics. The goal of the essay questions on the exam will be for you to show you can work with these main themes.

Five important themes you need to notice are:

• Using trends to evaluate causal explanations.
• Micro/macro distinctions
• Determinism and control
• Intervening variables
• The role of education

These themes are crucial concerns in sociological thinking about causal relationships.