Society and Culture Flashcards
Biopsychosocial approach
Also focuses on health and wellness
Says that biology alone cannot account for intricacies of disease progression
Biomedical approach
Focuses narrowly only on physical aspects of illness
Emphasis on genetics and neurological functioning
Social constructionism
Human actors construct reality through beliefs and shared understandings/meanings.
Institutional facts exist only as a function of society’s structures/beliefs.
Macro
Symbolic interactionism
Focuses on smaller scale of interaction b/w individuals and small groups.
Shared meanings and labels are made through social interactions.
Micro
Symbols
Terms, concepts, or items that represent specific meanings by accepted convention
Functionalism
Factions of society work together to maintain stability.
Stability
Organism model
Macro
Conflict theory
Competing groups act according to own self-interests.
Change
Marx model
Macro
Culture
Beliefs, assumptions, objects, behaviors, processes that make up a shared way of life
Material culture
Objects involved in a certain way of life
Non-material culture
Elements of culture that are not physical
Ex. Ideas, knowledge, assumptions, values, beliefs
Social norms
Expectations that govern what behavior is acceptable w/in a group
Social group
Subset of population that maintains social interactions
Collection of shared experiences
Society
Two or more individuals living together in community and/or sharing elements of a culture
Social institutions
Hierarchical systems that bring order to interpersonal interactions
Examples of social institutions
Government and economy Education Religion Family Health and Medicine
Examples of demographics
Age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, immigration status, education
Fertility
Production of offspring w/in a population
Mortality
Death rate
Social movement
Group of people who share an ideology and work together toward a specified set of goals
Urbanization
Increase in proportion of people living in specified urban areas
Globalization
Increasing amount of interaction and integration on international scale
McDonaldization of society
Efficiency, calculability, uniformity, and technological control
Spatial inequality
Unequal access to resources and variable quality of life w/in population/geographical distribution
Global inequality
Disparities b/w regions and nations in GDP, natural resources, access to healthcare, work available
Environmental justice
Equal treatment of people regardless of demographics w/ regard to prevention and relief from hazards
Residential segregation
Local separation of demographic groups into different neighborhoods
Social class
System of stratification that groups members of society according to similarities in social standing
Tied to status and power
Privilege
Advantages of power and opportunity over those who lack privilege
Prestige
Relative value assigned to something w/in a society
Cultural capital
Non-monetary social factors that contribute to social mobility
How individual “fits in” or “sticks out”
Knowledge, skills, education
Social capital
Social networks/connections that may confer economic/personal benefit
Social reproduction
Transmission of social inequality from one generation to next
Poverty
Insufficiency of goods, wealth, and access to resources
Isolation/social exclusion
Lack of access to resources
Absolute poverty
Lack of essential resources
Relative poverty
Social inequality in which people are poor compared to other members in society
Health disparity/health inequity
Differences in health/healthcare that occur b/w different groups of people
Social epidemiology
Contribution of social/cultural factors to disease patterns in populations
Exchange theory
Behavior of individual in interaction can be figured out by rewards/punishments
Rational theory
Individual acts to maximize his/her advantages
Demographic transition theory
Changes in birth/death rate that are associated w/ economic development (industrialization)
Begins w/ drop in death rate => population growth
Followed by drop in birth rate => population stabilization
Intersectionality
How identity categories intersect in systems of social stratification
Ex. individual’s position in social hierarchy = determined by social class AND race/ethnicity
