1. What can we learn about work, family, religion, and medicine by applying sociology’s three theoretical approaches (structural-functional, social-conflict, and symbolic-interaction)? Develop three questions about work, family, religion, and medicine that reflect the focus of each of the three theoretical perspectives.
2. This chapter of the text explains how society affects peoples’ selection of marriage partners. Using the sociological perspective, what can we say about peoples’ decisions to attend or not attend college? To become a physician or police officer?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of sociology’s main approaches to doing research: scientific sociology, interpretative sociology, and critical sociology? How does each position offer a critique of the others?
4. Do you think Zimbardo’s Stanford County Prison experiment was ethical, or should he have been prevented from conducting this study? Defend your position.
5. What are spurious correlations? What steps can individual researchers adopt to prevent spurious correlations in research? What spurios correlations have you come across in your own thinking?
6. What are the ways in which gender and race shape sociological research? Discuss.
