Sociology – Society, Culture, And Social Theories Practice Test

This question focuses on how sociologists categorize societies by their level of technology. Preindustrial societies are the broad label used for communities that have not adopted large-scale mechanized industry. They rely on human and animal labor and simple technologies, with subsistence strategies like hunting and gathering, pastoralism, and other traditional farming methods. This term is useful because it encompasses a range of social and economic arrangements that share a similar level of technological development, before the rise of factories and mass production. Hunter-gatherer describes a specific subsistence pattern within many preindustrial settings, not a separate level of overall technological development. Pastoral societies refer to societies organized around herding, which is one mode of subsistence within the broader preindustrial category. Globalization, by contrast, is a modern process describing increasing interconnectedness worldwide, not a measure of a society’s technological sophistication.