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Question 1

Foucault's term 'biopolitics' refers to:

a) forms of power over the body, such as physical training, as a means of disciplining the mind

b) forms of knowledge such as demographic statistics, which allow us to map and measure populations

c) public health measures, such as improved sanitation and freshwater schemes

d) intervention by the state to regulate sexual behaviour

Question 2

Which of the following is not a regular national survey carried out by the British government?

a) Labour Force Survey

b) General Household Survey

c) Fashion Sensibility Survey

d) Family Expenditure Survey

Question 3

The general fertility rate fell between 1964 and 2000 because of:

a) increases in the age of marriage and the age at which childbearing begins

b) there being fewer women of childbearing age than there were in the first half of the century

c) errors in the measurement of birth rates and production of statistics

d) the risk of diseases caused by poverty, poor housing and bad sanitation

Question 4

The 'demographic transition' is a social trend that involves:

a) a reduction in population size, caused by a higher rate of emigration than immigration

b) a change in the principal causes of death and disease since industrialization

c) increased birth and death rates, resulting in a relatively young population

d) a decline in the birth rate, greater life expectancy, and an ageing population

Question 5

In stage 3 of the 'health transition', the main causes of illness and death are:

a) acute, infectious diseases such as typhus, measles and cholera

b) respiratory diseases such as pneumonia and asthma

c) chronic, degenerative diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and strokes

d) too diverse to put into one category

Question 6

In Parsons' view, the function of the sick role was to:

a) provide a set of guidelines for medical staff to treat patients in hospital

b) create a sense of meaning and order out of the illness experience

c) create a scapegoat for people to blame, in the context of family life

d) provide normative expectations to minimise the disruptive effects of illness on social life

Question 7

The view of anti-psychiatrists like Scheff was that mental illness was:

a) a form of deviance, occurring when people challenged taken for granted expectations about interaction

b) a socially negotiated 'insanity role' into which anyone could drift

c) shaped by the processes of interaction taking place within the family and community

d) all of the above

Question 8

In their study of depression, Brown & Harris (1978) found that:

a) women's susceptibility to stress depended on their levels of social support

b) self-reported depression is highest amongst men and the relatively affluent

c) men and women have fairly similar levels of diagnosed depression

d) men are more vulnerable to depression because of conventional gender roles

Question 9

According to Davis (1995), women may seek cosmetic surgery because:

a) they have a deep-rooted sense of ineffectiveness and are striving for control

b) they are in pursuit of the 'perfect' body, fuelled by images of beauty

c) they perceive a part of their body as stigmatizing, in relation to a cultural ideal

d) their male partners pressurize them to look like supermodels

Question 10

Sociologists like Bordo (1993) have attributed the 'epidemic' of anorexia in Western cultures to:

a) a generally ascetic, frugal lifestyle that can be taken to extremes

b) traditional images of women as emotional, domesticated, and unassertive

c) the social construction of mental illness, through which 'normal' patterns of behaviour are pathologized

d) the new ideal of independent, self-assured femininity, combined with cultural values of achievement and control

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 08.

Chapter 08

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