Culture 38 Flashcards
1
Q
RACISM
A
- Theories, attitudes and practices that display dislike or antagonism towards people seen as belonging to a particular ethnic groups.
- Social or political significance is attached to culturally constructed ideas of difference.
2
Q
RANDOM SAMPLE
A
A sample in which all members of the population have an equal statistical chance of being included.
3
Q
RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL
A
- An experimental method whereby subjects are randomly allocated to either a group receiving a `treatment’ or another which acts as a control’, so that the effects of the treatment can be established.
- The method is effective in ruling out spurious causation.
4
Q
RANKED SOCIETY
A
- A society in which there is an unequal division of status and power between its members, where such divisions are based primarily on such factors as family and inherited social position.
- This is in contrast with egalitarian society, which aims to minimise such unequal divisions.
5
Q
RAP
A
A type of rhythmic, rhyming expression spontaneously composed.
6
Q
REACTIVITY
A
The reactions of people being studied to the presence of an observer, seen by some to be a source of bias, in that behaviour may become artificial as a result.
7
Q
REAL
A
What is known to actually be so.
8
Q
REALISM
A
- Is the view that a reality exists independently of our thoughts or beliefs.
- The language of research is seen to refer to this reality, rather than purely constructing it, though more subtle realists recognize constructive properties in language as well.
9
Q
RECIPROCITY
A
- One of the three principles of exchange. It governs exchange between social equals and is a major exchange mode in band and tribal societies.
- Since virtually all humans live in some kind of society and have at least a few possessions, reciprocity is common to every culture.
- Is the basis of most non-market economies.
10
Q
REDISTRIBUTION
A
A mechanism whereby a politically or economically powerful individual (or group) collects goods and services from the members of society and reallocates them among the society’s members.
11
Q
REDUCTIONISM
A
- The identification of a basic explanation for a complex phenomenon.
- Thus sexual identity may be explained by reference to genetic determinants alone, or social life explained in terms of economic relations alone.
12
Q
REFLEXIVITY
A
- In its broad meaning this is used to refer to the capacity of researchers to reflect upon their actions and values during research, whether in producing data or writing accounts.
- More narrowly, ethnomethodologists use the term to describe a property of language, which reflects upon actions to make them appear orderly.
13
Q
REGIONAL INVERSION
A
- Is a process of radical change when the established order of territorial influence changes.
- Through regional inversion, previously backward regions become predominant in a national context.
- Lagging areas that emerge through this process eventually overshadow the influence of predominant regions.
14
Q
REGRESSION
A
- A statistical technique for using the values of one variable to predict the values of another, based on information about their relationship, often given in a scattergram.
- Multiple regression involves the prediction of an interval-level variable from the values of two or more other variables.
- Logistic regression does this too, but predicts the values of nominal or ordinal variables.
15
Q
RELATIONS
A
The relationships between individuals in a social network.
16
Q
RELATIVISM
A
- Can be epistemological (or ‘conceptual’), cultural or moral.
- The first of these involves the rejection of absolute standards for judging truth. The second suggests that different cultures define phenomena in different ways, so that the perspective of one culture cannot be used to understand that of another. The third implies that perceptions of good and evil are matters of social agreement rather than having universal validity.
