Q 01/05

Which French philosopher gave sociology its name and founded the doctrine of positivism?

A) Auguste Comte

B) Jean-Jacques Rousseau

C) Claude Lévi-Strauss

D) Émile Durkheim

Answer · why

A) Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte. His motto still flies on Brazil's flag: when the republic replaced the empire in 1889, the new banner carried 'Order and Progress', wor...

Q 02/05

Which word did sociologist Michael Young make famous in a 1958 satire, intending it as a warning?

A) Technocracy

B) Meritocracy

C) Plutocracy

D) Bureaucracy

Answer · why

B) Meritocracy

Meritocracy. Young's satire pictured a Britain run by an elite picked for IQ and effort that ends in revolt, and in 2001 he complained that Tony Blair...

Q 03/05

Which university established the first independent department of sociology in 1892?

A) University of Bordeaux

B) Harvard University

C) University of Chicago

D) Columbia University

Answer · why

C) University of Chicago

University of Chicago. Its sociologists took fast-growing Chicago itself as their subject, mapping it neighbourhood by neighbourhood, and the group be...

Q 04/05

Durkheim contrasted the 'mechanical' solidarity of traditional societies with which kind in modern, specialised ones?

A) Organic

B) Industrial

C) Rational

D) Contractual

Answer · why

A) Organic

Organic. Durkheim meant that a modern society hangs together like a living body, its people as different and as dependent on one another as organs, wh...

Q 05/05

Durkheim's 1897 study Suicide found that which religious group had far higher suicide rates than Catholics?

A) Protestants

B) Jews

C) Orthodox Christians

D) Muslims

Answer · why

A) Protestants

Protestants. Durkheim's reason was social, not doctrinal: their churches encouraged free inquiry, which left believers less tightly bound into a share...