Exercise 1 Go to http://www.culturalstudies.net/woman.html.
This page provides a selection from Dorothy Smith’s (1990) book The Conceptual
Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge. Read the selection: In the first three paragraphs of the selection, Smith describes the approach
to sociology that she rejects. - What is this sociology?
- List two reasons that she rejects this approach to sociology.
- What is the alternative to the sociology described in question (a)?
- What does it mean to know the world from "within"?
Dorothy Smith’s writing can be very difficult. Choose one paragraph from this
selection that you had particular difficulty with and re-write that paragraph
in everyday language. Exercise 2 Sociological rational choice theory is derived form rational choice theory
developed in economics. An important component of economic rational choice theory
is called game theory. In game theory, researchers model everyday decision-making
behavior through reasoning and logic games. One of the most famous of these
games is called "The Prisoner’s Dilemma." Go to http://www.miskatonic.org/pd.html.
Read about the game; then play a round of the game and answer the following
questions: - As a prisoner in this game what are the two choices that are available to
you?
- What is the dilemma associated with these choices?
- What does the word "iterated" mean? According to the authors of
this page, why does the game become more interesting when it is iterated?
- Which strategy did you use when you played the game? Why did you choose
this strategy? Did your strategy change after playing the game more than once?
- How does this game relate to Coleman’s rational choice theory, and his assumption
that people act in order to maximize personal gain and benefit?
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2003 McGraw-Hill Higher Education