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42 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Achieved status |
Social status based on individuals effort, rather than traits assigned by biological factors |
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Agencies of socialisation |
Groups or social contexts within which processes of socialization take place. The family, peer groups, schools, the media, and the workplace are all arenas in which cultural learning takes place.
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Agrarian societies |
Societies who's means of subsistence is based on agricultural production. (crop-growing) |
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Alienation |
The sense that our own abilities, as humans beings, are taken over by other entities. Marx employed the term to refer to the loss of control on the part of workers over the nature of the labour task, and over the products of their labour. |
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Anomie |
A concept used by Derkheim to describe feelings of aimlessness and despair provoked by the processes of change in the modern world which result in social norms losing their hold over individual behaviour. |
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Social status based on biological factors, such as race, sex, or age. |
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Capitalism |
A system of economic enterprise based on market exchange. "Capital" refers to any asset including money, property and machines, which can be used to produce commodities for sale or invested in a market with the hope of achieving a profit. Nearly all industrial societies today are capitalist in orientation – their economic systems are based on free enterprise and on economic competition. |
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Caste |
A form of stratification in which an individual’s social position is fixed at birth and cannot be changed. There is virtually no intermarriage between different caste groups.
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Class |
For Marx a class was a group of people standing in a common relationship to the means of production. Weber also saw class as an economic category but stressed its interaction with social status and the affinities of “party”.
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Colonisation |
The process whereby Western nations established their rule in parts of the world away from their home territories.
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Communism |
A set of political ideas associated with Marx, as developed particularly by Lenin, and institutionalized in China, and until 1990, in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
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Conflict theories |
Focuses on the tensions, divisions, and competing interests present in human societies. Conflict theorists believe that the scarcity and value of resources in society produces conflict as groups struggle to gain access to and control those resources. Many conflict theorists have been strongly influenced by the writings of Marx.
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Culture |
The values, ceremonies and ways of life characteristic of a given group. Culture is one of the most distinctive properties of human social association.
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Democracy |
A political system providing for the participation of citizens in political decision-making, often by the election of representatives to governing bodies.
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Demography |
The study of the characteristics of human populations, including their size, composition and dynamics.
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Devience |
Modes of action which do not conform to the norms or values held by most of the members of a group or society.
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Differential association |
Criminal behaviour is learnt through association with others who regularly engage in crime. |
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Discrimination |
Activities that deny to the members of a particular group resources or rewards which can be obtained by others.
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Division of labour |
The division of a production system into specialized work tasks or occupations, creating economic interdependence. With the development of industrialism, the division of labour became vastly more complex than in any prior type of production system.
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Economy |
The system of production and exchange which provides for the material needs of individuals living in a given society.
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Ethnocentrism |
Understanding the ideas or practices of another culture in terms of those of one’s own culture. An ethnocentric individual is someone who is unable, or unwilling, to look at other cultures in their own terms
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Functionalism |
The notion that social events can best be explained in terms of the functions they perform – ie, the contributions they make to the continuity of a society – and on a view of society as a complex system whose various parts work in a relationship to each other in a way that needs to be understood.
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Gender |
Social expectations about behaviour regarded as appropriate for the members of each sex. Gender refers to socially formed traits of masculinity and femininity.
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Globalisation |
Growing interdependence between different peoples, regions and countries in the world as social and economic relationships come to stretch worldwide.
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Ideology |
Shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify the interests of dominant groups.
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Labelling Theory |
An approach to the study of deviance which suggests that people become “deviant” because certain labels are attached to their behaviour by political authorities and others.
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Mass media |
Forms of communication, such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television, designed to reach mass audiences.
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Mass production |
The production of long runs of goods using machine power. Mass production was one outcome of the Industrial Revolution
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Means of production |
The means whereby the production of material goods is carried out in a society, including not just technology but the social relations between producers.
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Norms |
Rules of behaviour which reflect or embody a culture’s values, either prescribing a given type of behaviour, or forbidding it. Norms are always backed by sanctions of one kind or another, varying from informal disapproval to physical punishment or execution.
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Pastoral societies |
Societies whose subsistence derives from the rearing of domesticated animals; there is often a need to migrate between different areas according to seasonal changes or to seek fresh grazing.
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Patriarchy |
The dominance of men over women. All known societies are patriarchal, although there are variations in the degree and nature of the power men exercise, as compared to women
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Racism |
The attributing of characteristics of superiority or inferiority to a population sharing certain physically inherited characteristics.
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Sanction |
A mode of reward or punishment that reinforces socially expected forms of behaviour.
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Social stratification |
The existence of structured inequalities between groups in society, in terms of their access to material or symbolic rewards.
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Socialisation |
The social processes through which children develop an awareness of social norms and values, and achieve a distinct sense of self. No human individuals are immune from the reactions of others around them, which influence and modify their behaviour at all phases of the life cycle.
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Sociology |
The study of human groups and societies, giving particular emphasis to the analysis of the industrialized world.
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Status |
The social honour or prestige accorded to a person or a particular group by other members of a society.
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Stereotype |
A fixed and inflexible characterization of a group of people.
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Subculture |
Any segment of the population which is distinguishable from the wider society by its cultural pattern.
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Symbolic interationism |
A theoretical approach in sociology developed by Mead, which places strong emphasis on the role of symbols and language as core elements of all human interaction.
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Values |
Ideas held by human individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good or bad. Differing values represent key aspects of variations in human culture. What individuals value is strongly influenced by the specific culture in which they happen to live.
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