Key word definitions Flashcards
Extended family
All Kin including and beyond the nuclear family
Two generations: parents and children living in the same household
Nuclear family
How social institutions work together
Social structure
When people all agree on the same norms and values. Shared ideas
Consensus
Patriarchy
A social system based in gender equality. A society dominated by men.
Socialisation
The process by which we learn the accepted ways of behaving in our society.
Culture
The languages, beliefs and skills which combine to make up the way of life.
Norms
Social rules which define what is expected behaviour for an individual in a given society or situation.
Customs
The long established habits or traditions of a society.
Ideology
A set of conscious and unconscious ideas at make ones goals.
Family
People who you are related to by blood
Household
The people who you live with.
Social policy
Actions, loans and programmes developed by government bodies that aim to deal with a problem or achieve an aim.
Capitalism
Society based on the accumulation of wealth.
Gender
The culturally created differences between men and women which are learnt through socialisation.
Sex
Biological differences between male and female.
Nature
People are shaped primarily by genetics and biology
Nurture
Participation in social life is what determines how we are and how we behave.
Exploitation
What the working class feel. By working they are benefitting the ruling class and helping them to get richer.
Birth rate
The number of live births per thousand of the population per year
General fertility rate
The number of live births in a geographic area in a year per 1000 women of childbearing age.
Immigration
The action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country.
Life expectancy
How long on average people who are born in a given year can expect to live.
TOTAL fertility rate
The average number of children women will have during their fertile years. This is defined as the age of 15-44
Infant mortality rate
The number of infants who die before their first birthday per 1000 live births per year.
Natural population change
The difference between the number of births and the number of deaths in a population resulting in either a natural increase or decrease.
Dependant age group
Different age groups either old or young.
Migration
Movement from one part of something to another
Emigration
Moving away to another country
Net migration
The difference between the number of immigrants entering a country and the number of emigrants leaving it
Age patriarchy
The domination of fathers or adults.
Childhood
Socially defined age status
Conjugal roles
Husband is the breadwinner and wife is the homemaker. With leisure time spent separately
Demography
Study of the population
Dual burden
Where the woman works and then goes home to look after the children. Essentially two jobs
Emotion work
The work involving meeting the needs of the family members.
Empty shell marriage
Where a couple continue to live under the same roof but as separate individuals.
Expressive role
The caring, nurturing homemaker role in the family. Typically played by the woman
Feminism
The focus on women’s oppression and struggle to end it
Feminist
A person that believes in the political, social and economic equality of the sexes.
Globalisation
The idea that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected and barriers are disappearing.
Ageism
The negative stereotyping of people on the basis of their age.
Banding
A form of streaming
Childhood
A socially defined age status. Childhood is a social construction because it is different for everyone depending on the place and time.
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 need.
Correspondence principle
Bowles and Gintis’ concept describing the way that the organisation and control of schools mirrors the workplace in capitalist society.
Cultural capital
The knowledge, attitudes, values and language that the middle class transmit to their children. They essentially can buy culture.
Cultural deprivation
The theory that many working class and black children are inadequately socialised and their fire lack the right culture for educational success
Demography
The study of the population, including births and deaths, immigration and emigration.
Dependency culture
Charles Murray: Where people presume that the state will support them rather than relying on their own efforts.
Deviance
Behaviour that does not confirm to the norms and values of a society or group.
Differentiation
Distinguishing or creating different between individuals or groups.
Discrimination
Treating people differently usually because they are members of a particular social group.
Domestic labour
Work performed in the home such as child care, cleaning and cooking
Dual burden
Elsa Ferri and Kate smith: where a person is redo duke for 2 jobs. Usually applied to women who are in paid work but are responsible for the domestic labour.
Educational triage
The process by which schools sort pupils into “hopeless cases”, “those who will pass anyway” and “those with the potential to pass”. And then concentrate their efforts on the last of these groups to boost the schools league table position
Emotion work
The work involved in meeting the emotional needs of other people. For example liking after a sick child.
Empty shell marriage
Where a couple continues to live under the same roof but as separate individuals.
Ethnocentric
Seeing or judging things in a biased way from the viewpoint of one particular culture. Eg the national curriculum is often seen as ethnocentric because it values white culture
Exploitation
Paying worked less than the value of their labour
Expressive role
The caring, nurturing, “homemaker” role in the family.
Family diversity
The idea that there is a range of different family types.
Family practices.
The routine actions through which we create our sense of being a family member such as doing the shopping or the DIY.
Family structure
Morgan: the composition of a group of people who live together as a family unit.
Fordism
A type of industrial production based in a detailed division of labour, using closely supervised, low skilled workers.
Globalisation
The idea that the world is becoming increasingly interconnected and barriers are disappearing.
Hawthorne effect
Where the subjects if a research study know they are being studied and begin to change their behaviour. Thereby undermining the study’s validity.
Immediate gratification
A preference for immediate pleasure or reward without regard for the longer term consequences.
Individualism
The belief that the individual is more important that the group or community.
Informed consent.
Those taking part in a study have agreed to do so and understand the purpose of the study.
Instrumental role
The breadwinner or provider role in the family.
Labelling
The process if attaching a definition or meaning to an individual or group.
Legitimation
Justifying something by making it seem fair and natural. Marxists argue that institutions such as education are ideological state apparatus whose function is to legitimate inequality.
Marketisation
The policy of introducing market forces of supply and demand into areas run by the stage such as education.
Material deprivation
Poverty. A lack of basic necessities such as adequate diet, housing and clothing.
Meritocracy
An educational or social system where everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. And where individuals’ rewards and status are achieved by their own efforts rather then their ascribed status
Myth of meritocracy
Functionalist argue that the education system is meritocratic but Bowles and gintis claims that this is false. Not everyone has equal opportunities
New vocationalism
Idea that education should be primarily about meeting the needs of the economy. Especially by equipping young people with the knowledge and skills needed to prepare them for work.
Parentocracy
Rule by parents. The concept is associated with marketised education systems. Middle class parents may benefit from this because they have more economic and cultural capital and are better placed to excessive choice.
Polarisation
Process that results in the creation of two opposite extremes.
Post-Fordism
A highly skilled adaptable workforce combined with computerised technology means that production takes the form of flexible specialisation. Able to produce for a variety if small customised niche markets.
Proletariat
The working class in capitalist society.
Qualitative date
Information. Normally expressed in works about people’s thoughts and feelings.
Quantitative data
Information in numerical form.
Racism
A system of beliefs that define people as superior or inferior and justified unequal treatment. In the basis if biological differences such as skin colour.
Secularisation
The decline of religion.
Self fulfilling prophecy.
Where a prediction about a person or group comes true simply because it has been made
Separatism
A radical feminist idea that women should live independent of men as the only way to free themselves from the patriarchal oppression.
Social construction
Where something is created by social
Processes rather than occurring naturally.
Speech codes
Bernstein: restricted code and elaborated code
Stigma
A negative label if disapproval attached to a person group of characteristic.
Streaming
Where children are separated into different ability groups
Subculture
A group of people Worthing a society who share norms and values which are somehow different to the mainstream culture.
Symmetrical family
Young and Willmott: equal and joint conjugal roles. Work is shared out and leisure time spent together
Tripartite system
System of secondary education based on three types of schools. And the 11+ exam.
Underclass
Those at the lowest level if the class structure. A class below the working class with a separate and deviant subculture.
Modern individualism
The emphasis on individual choice and commitment based on the quality of relationships. Not caring about putting a label on something with marriage.
Matrifocal family
Family with a mother as the head of the household.
