First Lesson Flashcards
Culture
The common heritage shared by the people of a society, consisting of customs, values, language, ideas, and objects. Culture is society in you. It is your learnt view of the world. It includes ideas, beliefs, norms and values. It is passed on from one generation to the next but it does change.
Role conflict
A situation in which two or more social roles make incompatible demands on a person. For example, being a friend and being a medical student might be a role conflict. As a medical student, you are expected to learn a lot while as a friend you are expected to spend a lot of time with your mates.
Role
culturally prescribed and socially patterned behaviours associated with particular social positions. How to behave as a teacher, man, woman, age group etc….
Role expectations
Commonly shared norms about how a person is supposed to behave in a particular role. This may change from culture to culture. In some cultures, fathers are just expected to make money, while in others they are expected to spend a lot of time with the kids
Role conflict
occurs when fulfilling the role expectations of one status interferes with a second status. For example being a good father means spending time with your kids while being a good worker means spending a lot of time in the office. You can only be good in one status by being not so good in the other
Role performance
The behaviours of a person performing a certain social role. To what extent are you a “good” son, daughter, friend, student etc..by the standards of society?
Social forces
The social structures and culture individuals face in a society. Just like a workplace has physical structures (walls, doors, stairs etc..) that control the movement of workers, there are social and cultural structures too. These are professional hierarchies, rules, sanctions, values and ideology that also effect the life of people working there. These are the social forces
Social inequality
The existence of unequal opportunities or rewards for people in different social positions. These social inequalities cause health inequalities. People in more advantageous social positions experience better health status (including oral and dental health) and longer life. One of the main goals of medical sociology is to find out how social inequalities translate in to health inequalities. Why do lower class people have worse oral/ dental health
Social institutions
organise human activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing life-sustaining resources, in reproducing individuals, and in sustaining viable societal structures within a given environment. The family, religion, the educational system, the political system, the labour market are social institutions. The most important social institution for this course is the health care system. All societies have these institutions, but the form they take can be very different. Think about all the different religions, family types or education systems that you know
Social interaction
The ways people behave in relation to one another by means of language, gestures, and symbols
Social stratification
The fairly permanent ranking of positions in a society in terms of unequal power, prestige, or privilege. Stratification is not only about financial standing. Statuses such as gender, ethnicity, education level, age might also be ranked. Belonging to certain categories might make your chances of achieving the good things in life easier or more difficult.
Social structure
Recurrent and patterned relationships among individuals, organizations, nations, or other social units. It is the power relationship between the statuses. How various status positions are related to each other. Special attention is given to social institutions. (see below)
Socialization
The process of preparing newcomers (including babies) to become members of an existing social group by helping them to learn the attitudes and behaviors that are considered appropriate. The process when people internalise the culture, norms and values of a society. It is a lifelong process. It is happening to you as well as you become dentists
Society
A group of people with a shared and somewhat distinct culture who live in a defined social or geographical territory, feel some unity as a group, and see themselves as distinct from other peoples. It is not only nations that we study. Football hooligans, dental students, prisons etc… are also societies from a sociological point of view
Sociology
The scientific study of patterns of human interaction and how they emerge, persist and change. It is a science, because it must be evidence based. The emphasis is on understanding the structure of society and how belonging to certain categories (gender, ethnic group, region, age, educational group, occupation, financial standing etc..) may influence people’s
experiences, including health status. Sociologists try to find and understand patterns in the social world
