Chapter 2 Flashcards
A debated concept based on the assumption that all societies require certain functions to be performed for them to survive and maintain social order. Also, known as functional imperatives.
Functional prerequisites
Behaviour or activities that violate social expectations about what is normal.
Deviance
A concept used by Talcott Parsons to describe the social expectations of how sick people are expected to act and of how they are meant to be treated.
Sick role
An economic and social system based on the private accumulation of wealth.
Capitalism
A political ideology with numerous variations but generally refers to the creation of societies in which private property and wealth accumulation are replaced by state ownership and distribution of economic resources.
Socialism
A vision of society based on communal ownership of resources, co-operation, and altruism to the extent that social inequality, and the state no longer exist.
Communism
The growth of profit-oriented medical companies and industries, whereby one company may own a chain of health services, such as hospitals, clinics, and radiology and pathology services.
Medical-industrial complex
Treating health care as a commodity to be bought and sold in the pursuit of profit maximization.
Commodification of health care
Focuses on how political, economic, and ideological factors influence the distribution of power and other resources in a society, which in turn shapes individual experience and state policies.
Political economy
Refers to a process of interpretative and empathetic understanding
Verstehen
A term first used by Max Weber to describe the way that power is exercised to exclude outsiders from the privileges of social membership (in social classes, professions, or status groups).
Social closure
The standardization of social life through rules and regulations.
Rationalization
A concept originally developed by Max Weber to refer to the abstract or pure features of any social phenomenon.
Ideal type
A term coined by George Ritzer to expand Weber’s notion of rationalization; defined as the standardization of social life by rules and regulations, such as increased monitoring and evaluation of individual performance, akin to the uniformity and control measures used by fast-food chains. These principles are now applied to other sectors, both locally and globally.
McDonaldization
The process by which non-medical problems become defined and treated as medical issues, usually in terms of illnesses, disorders, or syndromes.
Medicalization
Focuses on the effect that social institutions and professions (such as the police, the courts, and psychiatry) have in labelling (defining and socially constructing) behaviours and activities as deviant.
Labelling theory
Mechanisms that aim to induce conformity, or at least to manage or minimize deviant behaviour.
Social control
A physical or social trait, such as a disability or a criminal record, that results in negative social reactions, such as discrimination and exclusion.
Stigma
A term used by Erving Goffman to refer to institutions, such as prisons and asylums, in which life is highly regulated and subjected to authoritarian control to induce conformity.
Total institutions
The “big picture” analysis that frames and organizes observations and research on a particular topic.
Meta-narratives (or meta-analysis)
A concept used by Dorothy Smith to refer to a complex of organized practices, including government, law, bureaucracy, professional organizations, educational institutions and discourses in texts, and objectified social relations with their gender subtext, that coordinate and organize the lives of individuals. In this mode of ruling, the particular actualities of people’s everyday lives are abstracted and objectified into standardized forms of knowledge that in turn regulate, guide, and control their lives.
Relations of ruling
A feminist research strategy associated with Dorothy Smith combing theory and method. It begins from the standpoint of people in the actualities of their everyday world to show how people’s social relations are organized by forces outside of them.
Institutional ethnography (IE)
A system of power through which males dominate households. It is used more broadly by feminists to refer to society’s domination by patriarchal power, which functions to subordinate women and children.
Patriarchy
The process of learning the culture of a society (its language and customs), which show us how to behave and communicate
Socialization
A term coined by American critical race scholar, Kimberle Chrenshaw in 1989 to examine how race and sex/gender were mutually constituted for African American women. The idea that one needs to examine how various biological, cultural, and social categories interact on multiple (and often simultaneous) levels that lead to oppression and inequality.
Intersectionality
Refers to the nature of work performed as a result of gender roles. The stereotype is that of the male breadwinner and the female homemaker.
Sexual division of labour
Refers to the use of feelings by employees as part of their paid work. In health care, a key part of nursing work is caring for patients, often by providing emotional support.
Emotional labour
