Key Concepts Flashcards
What is the A*-C economy?
A system in which schools concentrate their efforts on those pupils they see as most likely to gain table position.
What is ageism?
The negative stereotyping of people on the basis of their age.
Give an example of ageism.
The old are often portrayed as vulnerable, incompetent or irrational, and as a burden to society.
What is alienation?
Where an individual or group feels socially isolated and estranged because they lack the power to control their lives and realise their true potential.
Give an example of alienation.
Marx describes workers in capitalist society as alienated because they are exploited and lack control of the production process.
What is assimilationism?
An approach to immigration policy that believes immigrants should adopt the language, values and customs of the ‘host community’ or country in which they settle.
What is banding?
A form of streaming.
What is a beanpole family?
A family that is vertically extended but not horizontally extended.
Give an example of a beanpole family
Grandparents, parents and children but not aunts, uncles and cousins.
What is birth rate?
The number of live births per thousand of the population per year.
What is bourgeoisie?
A Marxist term for the capitalist class, the owners of the means of production (factories, machinery, raw materials, land etc.)
What does Marx argue about the bourgeoisie?
Marx argues that the bourgeoisie’s ownership of the means of production also gives them political and ideological power.
What is a case study?
Research that examines a single case or example, such as a single school, family, or workplace, often using several methods or sources.
What is childhood?
A socially defined age-status. There are major differences in how childhood is defined, both historically and between cultures. Western societies today define children as vulnerable and segregate them from the adult world, but in the past they were part of adult society from an early age. These differences show that childhood is a social construction.
What is the Civil Partnership?
The 2004 Civil Partnership Act gave same sex couples similar legal rights to married couples in respect of pensions, inheritance, tenancies and property.
What are closed-ended questions?
Questions used in a social survey that allow only a limited choice of answers from a pre-set list. They produce quantitative data and the answers are often pre-coded for ease of analysis.
Give an example of a closed-ended question.
“Will you vote in the next election?” where the choices are:
Yes
No
Don’t know
What is the comparative method?
A research method that compares two social groups that are alike apart from one factor.
Give an example of a comparative method.
Durkheim compared two groups that were identical apart from their religion in order to find out the effect of religion on suicide rates.
When is the comparative method often used?
As an alternative to experiments.
What is compensatory education?
Government education policies such as Operation HeadStart in the USA that seek to tackle the problem of under-achievement by providing extra support and funding to schools and families in deprived areas.
Give an example of compensatory education in the UK.
SureStart.
What is the comprehensive system?
A non-selective education system where all children attend the same type of secondary school.
When was the comprehensive system introduced in England and Wales?
From 1965.
What are conjugal roles?
The roles played by husband and wife.
What are segregated conjugal roles?
Where the husband is breadwinner and the wife is homemaker, with leisure spent separately. In joint conjugal roles, husband and wife each perform both roles and spend their leisure time together.
What is content analysis?
A method of analysing the content of documents and media output to find out how often and in what ways different types of people or events appear.
Give an example of content analysis.
The Glasgow University Media Group (1976) used content analysis to reveal bias in how television new reported strikes.
What is a control group?
In experiments, scientists compare a control group and an experimental group that are identical in all respects. Unlike the experimental group, the control group isn’t exposed to the variable under investigation and so provides a baseline against which any changes in the experimental group can be compared.
What is a correlation?
When two or more factors or variables vary together.
Give an example of a correlation.
There is a correlation between low social class and low educational achievement. However, the existence of a correlation between two variables does not necessarily prove that one causes the other. It may simply be a coincidence.
What is a correspondence principle?
Bowles and Gintis’ concept describing the way that the organisation and control of schools mirrors or ‘corresponds to’ the workplace in capitalist society.
Give an example of a correspondence principle.
The control teachers exert over pupils mirrors the control managers exert over workers.
What is the Critical Race Theory (CRT)?
CRT sees racism as a deep-seated feature of society resulting not merely from the attitudes of individuals but from institutional racism.
What does the Critical Race Theory (CRT) identify?
CRT identifies several ways in which the educational system is institutionally racist, including selection, the ethnocentric curriculum and assessment.
What does the Critical Race Theory (CRT) argue?
CRT argues that racism cannot be removed merely by passing laws against it but requires direct action by oppressed groups.
What is cultural capital?
The knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities that the middle class transmit to their children. Bourdieu argues that educational success is largely based on possession of cultural capital, thus give m/c children an advantage.
What is cultural deprivation?
The theory that many w/c and black children are inadequately socialised and therefore lack the ‘right’ culture needed for educational success e.g their families don’t instill the value of deferred gratification.
What is culture?
All those things that are learnt and shared by a society or group of people and transmitted from generation to generation through socialisation.
Give five examples of culture.
Shared norms, values, knowledge, beliefs and skills.
What is a curriculum?
Those things taught or learnt in educational institutions.
What does the overt or official curriculum include?
The overt or official curriculum includes the subjects, courses etc offered (e.g the national curriculum).
What does the hidden curriculum include?
while the hidden curriculum includes all those things learnt without being formally taught and often acquired simply through the everyday workings of the school, such as attitudes of obedience, conformity and competitiveness.
What is death rate?
The number of deaths per thousand of the population per year.
What is deferred gratification?
Postponing immediate rewards or pleasures, generally with the aim of producing a greater reward at a later date. It is seen as a characteristic of m/c culture.
Give an example of deferred gratification.
Staying in to revise rather than going out with friends, which will bring success in exams.
What is demography?
The study of population, including birth, death, fertility and infant mortality rates, immigration and emigration, and age structure, as well as the reasons for changes in these.
What is dependency culture?
Where people assume that the state will support them, rather than relying on their own efforts and taking responsibility for their families,
What do ‘the new right’ see ‘the welfare state’ as?
Over-generous, encouraging people to remain unemployed and dependent on benefit, and as responsible for the growing number or lone-parent families and rising crime rate.
What is dependency ratio?
The relationship between the size of the working population and the non-working or dependent population.
What is deviance?
Behaviour that doesn’t conform to the norms of a society or group. Deviance is a social construction. Deviance is relative: what counts as a deviant varies between groups and cultures and over time.
What is a social construction?
Something that is defined or created by social groups
What is differentiation?
Distinguishing or creating differences between individuals or groups.
Give an example of differentiation in education.
Streaming is a form of differentiation that distinguishes between pupils on the basis of ability.
What does differentiation refer to in the study of stratification?
The process of distinguishing between people on the basis of class, gender, ethnic, age etc differences.
What is discrimination?
Treating people differently, whether negatively (disadvantaging them) or positively (advantaging them), usually because they are members of a particular social group.
What can people be discriminated for?
Gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexuality, religion etc
Who produces public documents?
Organisations such as governments, schools, media etc.
What do public documents include?
Acts of parliament, school prospectuses, newspaper articles etc.
Who creates personal documents?
Individuals
What do personal documents provide?
First-person accounts of events and experiences.
What do personal documents include?
Diaries, letters, autobiographies etc.
What are both public and personal documents used as?
Secondary sources of qualitative data in sociological research.
What is domestic labour?
Work performed in the home.
Give three examples of domestic labour.
Childcare, cooking, and cleaning.
What do functionalists see domestic labour as?
A part of the expressive role performed by women.
What do feminists see domestic labour as?
A major source of women’s oppression.
What is dual burden?
When a person is responsible for two jobs.
Who does a dual burden usually apply to?
Women who are in paid work but also responsible for domestic labour.
What is the educational triage?
The process whereby schools sort pupils into:
- Hopeless cases
- Those who will pass anyway
- Those with a potential to pass
And then concentrate their efforts on the last of these groups as a way to boost the school’s exam league table position. Sorting may be based on stereotypical ideas about pupils’ ability.
What is emotion work?
The work involved in meeting the emotional needs of other people.
Give an example of emotional work.
Looking after a sick child involves responding to emotional as well as physical needs.
Some sociologists argue that women carry a triple burden of housework, paid work and emotion work.
What is empathy?
An understanding of how another person thinks, feels or acts, achieved by putting oneself in their place.
What do interactionists do to achieve empathy?
Interactionists advocate the use of qualitative methods such as participant observation as a way of achieving empathy and obtaining data high in validity.
What is an empty shell marriage?
A marriage in name only, where a couple continues to live under the same roof but as separate individuals.
When might an empty shell marriage occur?
Where divorce is difficult for legal, religious or financial reasons, or where a couple decides to stay together for the sake of the children.
What are ethics?
Issues of right and wrong; moral principles or guidelines.
There are ethical objections to research that deceives or harms its participants or fails to obtain their informed consent.
What does ethnocentric mean?
Seeing or judging things in a biased way from the viewpoint of one particular culture.
Why has the National Curriculum been described as an ethnocentric curriculum?
It tends to value white, western music, literature, languages, history, religion etc and disregards or does not value black and Asian cultures.
What is an ethnic group?
People who share the same heritage, culture and identity, often including the same language and religion, and who see themselves as a distinct group.
Give an example of an ethnic group.
The Bangladeshi community in Britain.
As well as having ethnic minority groups, societies such as Britain have an ethnic majority.
What is the exchange theory?
The idea that people create, maintain or break off relationships depending on the costs and benefits of doing so
Give an example of the exchange theory.
A person may provide a relative with accommodation (cost) in return for help with childcare (benefit).
What is a laboratory experiment?
A test carried out in controlled conditions in an artificial setting (a lab) to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between two or more variables.
What is a field experiment?
It has the same aim as a lab experiment but is carried out in a natural setting (e.g a street or workplace) not a lab.
What is exploitation?
Paying workers less than the value of their labour.
What is exploitation according to Marxists?
The process whereby the bourgeoisie extract surplus view or profit from the labour of the proletariat.
What do feminists see men as exploiting?
The domestic labour of women.
Who is the ‘expressive role’ of the family?
The caring, nurturing, ‘homemaker’ role in the family.
What do functionalists argue about the ‘expressive role’?
Functionalists argue that women are biologically suited to performing this role, but feminists reject this.
What is extended family?
Any group of kin extended beyond the nuclear family. The family may be extended vertically, horizontally, or both.
Give an example of extended family.
People related by blood, marriage or adoption.
Give an example of vertical family.
Grandparents
Give an example of horizontal family.
Aunts, uncles, cousins
What is family diversity?
The idea that there is a range of different family types, rather than a single dominant one (such as the nuclear family).
What is family diversity associated with?
The postmodernist idea that in today’s society, increasing choice about relationships is creating greater family diversity.
What are family practices?
The routine actions through which we create our sense of ‘being a family member’, such as doing the shopping or the DIY.
Morgan prefers the term to that of family structure because it conveys the idea that families are not ‘things’, but what their members actually do.
What is a family structure?
The composition of a group of people who live together as a family unit.
Give six examples of a family structure.
The nuclear family, extended family, reconstituted family, lone-parent and same-sex families.
What are families of choice (also called chosen families)?
People who are not necessarily related by blood or marriage but who feel a sense of belonging together and who choose to define themselves as family.
Give an example of a family of choice.
Gay and lesbian people who have created support networks of friends, relatives and so on who they regard as family.
What is the fertility rate?
The total fertility rate (TFR) is the average number of children women will have during their fertile years. For statistical purposes, this is defined as age 15-44.
What is feminism?
A sociological perspective and political movement that focuses on women’s oppression and the struggle to end it.
Feminists argue that sociology has traditionally taken a ‘male-stream’ viewpoint that ignores women. Instead they examine women’s experiences and study society from a female perspective.
What are the four different strands of feminism?
Marxist, radical, liberal and difference feminism.
What is Fordism?
A type of industrial production based on a detailed division of labour, using closely supervised, low-skilled workers and assembly-line technology to mass-produced standardised goods.
What is Fordism named after?
The car manufacturing techniques first introduced by the Ford Motor Company in the early 20th century.
What is a function?
The contribution that a part of society makes to the stability or well-being of society as a whole.
Give an example of a function.
According to Durkheim, one function of religion is to give individuals a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves and so integrate them into society.
What is the functional fit theory?
Parsons’ theory that, with industrialisation, the structure of the family becomes nuclear to fit the needs of industrial society for a geographically and socially mobile labour force.
What is functionalism?
A consensus perspective in sociology that sees society as based on shared values into which members are socialised. It sees society as like an organism, each part performing functions to maintain the system as whole.
Give an example of functionalism.
The family and education system perform socialisation functions.
What is gender?
The social and cultural characteristics of men and women. Unlike sex differences, which are biological and inborn, gender differences in behaviour are cultural in origin and learned through gender role socialisation.
Definitions of masculinity and femininity are socially constructed and vary between cultures and social groups.
What are gender domains?
The tasks and activities that boys and girls see as the ‘territory’ of their respective genders
Give an example of gender domains.
Mending a car is seen as within the male gender domain.
How are children’s beliefs about gender domains shaped?
By their early experiences and adults expectations.
What is globalisation?
The idea that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected and barriers are disappearing.
Give an example of globalisation.
As a result of instantaneous communication systems, deregulation of trade, the creation of global markets, and global media and culture.
Many see it as creating new risks, uncertainties and choices, and an increased rate of social change.
What is the habitus?
A concept introduced by Bourdieu. It refers to the learned, taken for granted ways of thinking, acting and being shared by a particular social class or group.
What does the habitus include?
It includes preferences for particular lifestyles and consumption patterns, and beliefs about what is realistic for members of that group to aim for.
What is the Hawthorne effect?
Where the subjects of a research study know they are being studied and begin to behave differently as a result, thereby undermining the study’s validity.
Where does the term ‘Hawthorne effect’ come from?
The term comes from Elton Mayo’s studies at the Hawthorne electrical plant.
What is a hierarchy?
An organisation or social structure based on a ‘pyramid’ of senior and junior positions and top-down control.
Give an example of a hierarchy.
An army with its different ranks and command from above.
What is a household?
A group of people who live together and share things such as meals, bills, facilities or chores, or one person living alone.
What is a hypothesis?
An untested theory or explanation, expressed as a statement. Sociologists seek to prove or disprove hypotheses by testing them against the evidence.
What is an ideal pupil?
An image held by teachers of the kind of pupil they prefer to teach: bright, hardworking, cooperative and so on.
Give an example of an ideal pupil.
Teachers are likely to see white, m/c pupils as ideal.
Reay found that high-achieving girls had to adopt a desexualised ideal female pupil identity.
What is an identity?
The individual’s sense of self, influenced by socialisation and interactions with others; a sense of belonging to a community.
What is the postmodernist view on identity?
Postmodernists see identity as a choice that individuals make from among different sources of identity, such as gender, ethnic group, religion, sexuality, leisure interests, nationality etc.
What is ideology?
Originally a Marxist idea meaning a set of beliefs that serve the interests of a dominant social group by justifying their privileged position.
What does the term ‘ideology’ usually imply?
The term usually implies that the beliefs are false or only partially true; e.g Bowles and Gintis argue that meritocracy is a myth.
What is immediate gratification?
A preference for immediate pleasure or reward, without regard for the longer-term consequences.
Give an example of immediate gratification.
Going out with friends instead of doing one’s homework.
What do cultural deprivation theorists argue about immediate gratification?
W/c children are socialised into the value of immediate gratification and that this explains their educational failure.
What does impression management involve?
Manipulating the impression of ourselves that we give to others.
What does Erving Goffman compare? (impression management).
Performing a social role with acting on stage.
We act differently when we are ‘front of stage’, consciously playing the part (e.g a teacher in front of the class) from when we are backstage (e.g the teacher relaxing in the staff-room).
What is industrialisation?
The shift from an agricultural economy to one based on factory production.
When did industralisation occur in Britain?
From about the late 18th to the mid 19th centuries.
What does industralisation often occur along with?
Urbanisation.
What does the individualisation thesis argue?
That as a result of the weakening of the influence of traditional structures and norms (such as those governing personal relationships), individuals are now freer to make their own life choices.
What does the individualisation thesis lead to?
More family diversity, risk and instability.
What does the connectedness thesis argue?
We are not simply isolated individuals: social structures such as class and gender limit choice and diversity.
What is individualism?
The belief that the individual is more important that the group or community.
In modern and postmodern society, individualism becomes more important than in traditional society and individuals’ actions are influenced by calculations of their own self-interest than by a sense of obligation to others.
