MASTERS COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
Answer one
question from each of the three following groups. You have 5 hours to complete the
examination. Take time to think out or
outline your answers before you begin to write them down. Be as complete as possible in your answers.
Group I
A1. How would Marx’s prognostications hold up
when applied to the world in 2006?
Describe aspects of the contemporary world that would
reflect
Marx’s projections. Describe aspects of the
world that are very different from what Marx would have projected. Explain what he failed to consider that cause
the discrepancies between his theories and current world conditions.
A2. One
tradition of classical (political) sociology argues for the inevitability
if not desirability of inequality. We have in mind Tocqueville, Weber, Pareto
or Michels, the later with
his famous “iron law of oligarchy”.
Select one of
these theorists and explain their argument against
democracy and socialism. What are the
social conditions under which democracy or equality tend
to flourish?
A3. Durkheim, Marx and Weber have set forth
different visions of society,
its fundamental nature,
organization and functioning. Select three areas
below and compare their views
in as much detail as possible.
(a) methods of study
(b) the basis of social organization
(c) the relation of the individual to society
(d) inequality or class
(e) relationships among institutions
in society
(f) specialization and the division
of labor
(g) religion
B1. Contrast any three of the following
paradigms with respect to: (a) what is problematic to that paradigm, (b) their
views about the nature of reality, (c) their research methods, (d) their
visions of society or the social context, (e) how they account for the social
behavior they are interested in explaining, (e) social change, and (f)
contemporary world conditions?
a. Evolutionary Theory g.
Exchange Theory
b. Functionalism h. Post modernism
c. Conflict Theory i. Critical Theory
d. Symbolic Interactionism j.
Dramatugical Theory
e.
World System Theory
k. Ethnomethodology
f.
Feminist Theory
l. Structuation
Theory
B2. One important distinction between classical
and contemporary theory is that classical theory focuses on the works of particular
theorists while contemporary theory attempts to integrate their work into
more general theoretical models or paradigms.
Despite these different ways of organizing
theory, trace both continuities and discontinuities between classical and
contemporary theory. What concerns of
classical theorists have been incorporated in contemporary paradigms, and how
have they been integrated, giving specific examples? What concerns have been considerably modified
or disregarded entirely in contemporary theory?
B3. Pick a
theorist (your favorite) who in your judgment contributed much (more than
others) to sociological knowledge.
Justify your choice by discussing their specific contributions to
understanding aspects of society, social relations, institutions, etc.
George Herbert Mead Erving Goffman
Herbert Blumer C. Wright Mills
Talcott Parsons Immanuel Wallerstein
Robert Merton Randal Collins
George Homans
C1.
Sociologists use theory to help illuminate the real world and the
social conditions that prevail. (A) Describe the most significant
developments in the world since the end of the cold
war, focusing
on the most troubling conditions emerging
today? (B) Show
how contemporary sociological theory would account
for the
emergence of these troubling conditions. (C) What events or
conditions would contemporary theory have difficulty
in
accounting for and why is that the case?
C2.
Postmodernists pretty much argue that classical sociology
and that part of contemporary sociology theory
aiming to be
a science of society are passe’
in our time. (A.) Present the
post modernist critiques of established
sociology. (B) Take and
defend a position on the validity of their
critiques.
C3. Can
sociology produce scientific knowledge?
(A) Take and
defend a position on this question, addressing the
opposing side’s
arguments. If
so, how can it produce scientific knowledge?
If not,
why not why can’t sociology produce scientific
knowledge?
One might
argue that quantification and detailed studies of very
delimited phenomena do not make sociology scientific
in the
sense of the natural sciences. (B) In short, what makes knowledge
and theory scientific?