Sociological concepts Flashcards
Primary socialisation…
Primary socialisation occurs when a child learns the attitudes, values, and actions appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture.
Secondary socialisation…
Secondary socialisation refers to the process of learning what is the appropriate behaviour as a member of a smaller group within the larger society.
Society…
Society refers to a group of people who live in a definable community and share the same culture. On a broader scale, society consists of the people and institutions around us, our shared beliefs, and our cultural ideas.
Social institutions…
Social institutions are mechanisms or patterns of social order focused on meeting social needs, such as government, economy, education, family, healthcare, and religion.
Democracy…
Democracy, or rule by the people, is an egalitarian form of government in which all the citizens of a nation determine public policy, the laws, and the actions of their state together. Democracy requires that all citizens have an equal opportunity to express their opinion.
Nanny state…
A government that tries to give too much advice or make too many laws about how people should live their lives, especially about eating, smoking, or drinking alcohol: The government was accused of trying to create a nanny state when it announced new guidelines on healthy eating.
Infrastructure…
The infrastructure is the economic system – the way that society produces goods.
It is divided into two phenomena the means of production (raw materials) and the relations of production (people for production).
Superstructure…
The ideas, philosophies, and culture that are built upon the means of production. For example capitalist ideologies.
Capitalism…
An economic system based on market competition and the pursuit of profit, in which the means of production or capital are privately owned by individuals or corporations.
Patriarchy…
Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.
Structuralism…
Structuralism is the school of thought that human behaviour must be understood in the context of the social system – or structure – in which they exist. People are not just independent actors making independent decisions, they are the product of the social conditions in which they live.
Interactionist…
Interactionists see society as the product of human interactions, and the meanings that individuals place on those interactions. Instead of trying to explain human behaviour in the context of large social structures or fundamental conflicts or cleavages in society, they look on a smaller level, acknowledging that humans have agency and are not swept away by forces outside their control and create their own meanings.
