Definitions

Question 1

Age patriarchy

Answer 1

How older people exercise power over the young - eg legislation

Question 2

Alienation

Answer 2

How workers experience their work as separate from them, work does not satisfy them or their inherent creativity

Question 3

Assimilation

Answer 3

Theory that minority ethnic groups would take in the culture of the dominant group

Question 4

Attrition

Answer 4

Usually linked to longitudinal studies, the loss of sampling units from the sample group as a result of moving away, death or loss of interest

Question 5

Boundary problem

Answer 5

The question of who should and who should not be included in the middle class, where to draw the line

Question 6

Canalization

Answer 6

The process of channelling children’s interests to gender specific toys

Question 7

Cohort study

Answer 7

Research on people who share a certain characteristic - often age

Question 8

Concrete ceiling

Answer 8

Relates to the experiences of black and Asian women who are not told what they could aspire too - cannot see through a ‘glass ceiling’

Question 9

Conflict view

Answer 9

A theory stating that society is made up of groups who have fundamentally different interests

Question 10

Contradictory class position

Answer 10

Associated with Wright, neo-Marxist who argues that managers find themselves caught between the bourgeoisie who exploit them and the proletariat whom they control

Question 11

Dual labour market

Answer 11

Two labour markets - the primary labour market where jobs are secure and the secondary labour market in which jobs are less secure and often part time or casual

Question 12

Elite self recruitment

Answer 12

The ways in which those at the top of society work to ensure that new recruits come from within their own class

Question 13

Embourgeoisement

Answer 13

A process of taking on the characteristics of the bourgeoisie or middle class in terms of culture, values or beliefs; the embourgeoisement theory was tested by Goldthorpe and Lockwood on the car workers in Luton in the 1960s

Question 14

Ethnic penalty

Answer 14

The disadvantages coming from being a member of a particular ethnic group

Question 15

Ethnography

Answer 15

The study of people in their natural environment using qualitative methods, esp observation

Question 16

Expressive roles

Answer 16

Parsons argues women are in these caring and nurturing roles

Question 17

Fragmentation

Answer 17

Breaking up into small pieces; may refer to social classes break up identities

Question 18

Fuel poverty

Answer 18

Household having to spend more than 10% of its income on energy

Question 19

Gatekeeper

Answer 19

The person or persons who are able to give a researcher access to people they want to study

Question 20

Go native

Answer 20

When researcher becomes so involved with the group being studied that they lose sight of their role as a researcher (associated with ethnographic researcher)

Question 21

Grey power

Answer 21

Influence of the elderly often linked to financial power but also in relation to their social and political influence

Question 22

Hybridity

Answer 22

The development of cultures based on the combination of aspects of a range of cultures including music food and clothes

Question 23

Insider status

Answer 23

Belonging to a group, having access to the groups secrets or knowledge

Question 24

Interviewer effect

Answer 24

How social characteristics of an interviewer affect responses of the interviewee

Question 25

Leaky pipeline

Answer 25

Refers to gradual loss of women in higher levels of an occupational area

Question 26

Lumpenproletariat

Answer 26

A Marxist term used to describe those below the proletariat

Question 27

Mask of aging

Answer 27

Postmodern view of aging - at any age people can appear similar to those of other age groups

Question 28

Methodological pluralism

Answer 28

An approach usually in two stages - methods used being on equal status; a strategy often used by realists who want to study different aspects of the research question

Question 29

Operationalise

Answer 29

To measure abstract concepts by defining them in research

Question 30

Proletarianisation

Answer 30

de-skilling of white collar jobs

Question 31

Racialised

Answer 31

The view that in any class minority ethnic groups wi be of a lower status within the class compared to the dominant white group

Question 32

Reflexivity

Answer 32

The willingness of the researcher to consider the implications the researcher might be having on those being researched - a strategy used by feminists

Question 33

Respondent validation

Answer 33

Most commonly used by interpretivits who ask those they are researching to look at their findings and give feedbacks

Question 34

Semiology

Answer 34

The study of signs and symbols in order to decode and understand the messages contained in the text

Question 35

Sift and sort

Answer 35

A concept used by Davis and Moore to describe the ways in which people are allocated roles in society via examinations or other competitive means

Question 36

Social cohesion

Answer 36

Idea that everyone is valued there are common values and beliefs that bind people together

Question 37

Social construction

Answer 37

View that the social world is made by social processes (eg interpretivists argue that questionnaires are socially constructed by the researchers designed them and argue that crime statistics are a result of the decisions made by the police)

Question 38

Structural constraints

Answer 38

Individuals are prevented from making free choices eg by household income

Question 39

Unified working class

Answer 39

Traditional Marxist view that there is one united working class

Question 40

Access

Answer 40

Ability to contact the group to be studied - can be difficult when the group is closed or ‘deviant’

Question 41

Actuarialism

Answer 41

The idea that social control is more about the identification and management of unruly groups, not catching criminals

Question 42

Cultural transmission

Answer 42

Values passed from one generation to the next

Question 43

Edgework

Answer 43

Lyng’s idea that crime provides thrills, explaining ‘non-utilitarian’/trivial crimes

Question 44

Recidivism

Answer 44

Repeat offending

Question 45

Target hardening

Answer 45

Making it more difficult to commit crime, eg more home security

Question 46

Value judgements

Answer 46

Judgements based on principles and beliefs