EDUCATION

Hidden curriculum: attitudes and behaviour that are taught through the way the school is run
and how teachers act, rather than through the taught content of a lesson.
Socialistaion: the process of learning culture
Secondary socialisation: the ways in which people are expected to behave in a particular
social situation
Social control: any way in which people are persuaded or forced to behave in a particular
social situation
Social expectations: the ways in which people are expected to behave in a particular situation
Sanctions: any way in which children are reprimanded or receive something negative for
something they have done
Rewards: any way in which children are praised or receive something positive for something
they have done
Social mobility: the movement of individuals or groups up or down the social hierarchy
Equality of opportunity: when everyone has the same chance of succeeding; people are able
to reach the level they deserve based on their natural ability and the effort they make to
succeed [meritocracy]
Meritocracy: a system in which people reach the social positions they deserve, based on their
educational achievements, talents and skills; social background is irrelevant.
State schools: schools that are run directly or indirectly by the government
Private school: a school that is not run or controlled by the government
Post-compulsory education: education after the school-leaving age, where individuals choose
to stay in education when they could have left
Faith schools: schools that are controlled by a religious organisation; also called religious or
parochial schools
Selective education: pupils are selected [and others a excluded] usually on the basis of
academic abilities
Comprehensive education: non-selective secondary schools accepting or cater for all the
children of that age in the local area
Technical schools: schools specialised in technical education, helping pupils prepare for
manual occupations
Life chances: the opportunities that individuals have to improve their lives
Free schools: set up by parents, teachers, charities and other groups and are also directly
funded by the government
Cultural capital: [Pierre Bourdieu] the knowledge, language, attitudes and values that give
those who have them an advantage in the educational system
Educational inequality: [based on class, gender & ethnicity] when different groups are treated
differently or have different levels of educational achievements
Positive discrimination: giving disadvantaged groups better treatment than other groups to
make up for their disadvantage
Social factors: things that affect lifestyle and life chances, such as wealth, religion and
occupation
Discrimination: when one group is treated unfairly
Ethnocentrism: seeing other cultures from the POV of your own, so that the other culture is
devalued; own culture is better than the other
Intelligence: how clever someone is; a very difficult idea to measure
Social stratification: the different levels into which societies are divides, such as the upper
class, middle class, and the working lower class, based on differences in wealth, power and
status
Educational achievement: how well individuals do in the school system, usually measured by
exam results
Labelling: defining a person or a group in a particular way so that certain behaviour is expected
from them
Streaming: when children are taught in classes of similar ability for all subjects
Material deprivation: problems in the standards of living in the home background of some
children that prevent them from achieving in education
Home factors: factors in the home background of children that affect how they do in school
Cultural deprivation: aspects of the values and attitudes from the home and family background
of some children that prevent them from achieving in education
Immediate gratification: having short-term aims and wanting rewards straight away
Deferred gratification: having long-term aims and being willing to postpone rewards
Restricted code: a form of language used with close friends and families, where there are
shared meanings; compared to the elaborated code, it is informal and used in everyday spoken
communication, vocabulary is limited and meaning are not always explicit
Elaborated code: a form of language used in careful explanation and detail, and in formal
contexts such as in examinations; used to express complex and abstract ideas
School factors: factors at school that affect children's educational achievement
Self-fulfilling prophecy: when people act in the way they have been expected to, making the
expectation come true [opp. Self-negating prophecy]
Setting: when children are taught in classes of similar ability for a particular subject
Single-sex schools: schools that take either only boys or only girls
Anti-school sub-culture: the norms and values of a group of pupils that reject the school’s
values
Culture of masculinity: norms and values that involve supposed masculine characteristics. For
example, preferring sports to reading
Social conformity: fitting in with social expectations for behaviour
IQ tests: intelligence quotient tests involve answering questions that are then used to work out
a score which supposedly indicated how intelligent the person is
Official curriculum: consists of subjects taught and their content
Vocationalism: [vocational education] which prepares people for work or trains them for
particular jobs or careers
 CRIME, DEVIANCE & SOCIAL CONTROL
• Conformity
• Official crime statistics

Crime: acts that break formal laws set by the government

Deviance: behaviour that breaks [or violates] the norms or values; it includes acts that do not
involve breaking the law; not necessarily criminal e.g. suicide
Dominant values: beliefs that form a basis for action and are held by most people or those with
the power to force their values on others
Surveillance: monitoring individuals and groups by government or others, collecting information
with the intention of preventing crime
Official crime statistics: [OCS] official figures of the numbers of crimes and offenders
Dark figure [of crime]: the unknown number of crimes not included in the official statistics
Self-report studies: research that asks people what crimes or deviant acts they have
committed
Victim surveys: research that asks people what crimes they have been a victim of
White-collar crime: non-violent crime committed by middle class people for financial gain, such
as fraud, embezzlement, bribery and identity theft
Corporate crimes: crimes committed by corporations or organisations, usually in pursuits of the
corporation rather than the benefit of individuals
Moral panic: exaggerated social reaction to deviance, creating a demand for action against it
Juvenile delinquency: deviant acts by young people that would be treated as crimes if they
were older; anti-social behaviour, sometimes illegal committed by a minor [less than 18 years of
age, UK]
Relative deprivation: the feeling of having less than others with whom a comparison can
legitimately be made
Crime rates: statistical measures of crime
Targeting: when the police focus on a particular group of people, believing them to be more
involved in criminal behaviour than others
Crime prevention: attempts by government to reduce crime, enforce laws and maintain
criminal justice
Deterrent: something that is intended to discourage a person from doing something to be
unacceptable; when a punishment is intended to stop the offender or others from committing the
offence so as to avoid the punishment
Cybercrime: crime involving the use of new technologies such as computers
Internet crime: crime involving the use of internet
Community sentencing: punishments that involve non-custodial sentences, such as carrying
out work for the community
Exile: punishment involving the offender to leave their home or community
Ostracism: punishment involving being excluded from the community; offenders are shunned
by the community
Judicial system: the system of courts that apply and interpret laws
Rehabilitation: when the punishment that involves work or education to help the offenders
realise that they wrong to commit the crime and to help them live a law-abiding life; to prevent
the offenders from committing further crimes by changing their attitudes and behaviour or by
giving them opportunities for education and training so that they have other ways of making a
living than by crime
Incapacitation: to prevent the offender from committing more crime, for example by
imprisoning them or banning them from an area or activity; the extreme form is the death
penalty
Peer group: a group that individuals identify with because they share characteristics such as
age or status
Status frustration: [Albert Cohen, 1950] when people are unable to achieve the socially
approved goals because of their position in society
Anomie: [Émile Durkheim] when social bonds and shared value system between a society and
individual are broken, so people do not respect these social values and feel they are outside
society
Goals: what society wants people to achieve
Means: how far society allows people to achieve such goals
Conformists: non-deviant, non-criminal, conformist citizens [Robert K. Merton]
Innovators: people who cannot achieve goals by approved means, so they turn to crime as an
alternative [Robert K. Merton]
Ritualism: people give up on achieving goals yet still stick to their means [Robert K. Merton]
Retreatism: drop outs of society that reject both goals and means all together [Robert K.
Merton]
Rebellion: reject both goals and means of society, but they replace them with new ones in
order to attempt to make a new society [Robert K. Merton]
Urban crime: crime in cities or associated with the lifestyle people have in cities
Material deprivation: being short of the material goods needed in a society; lacking resources
and money
Labelling [Crime]: [Howard Becker] the way in which acts and people are defined as deviant
by the social reaction to their behaviour
Master status: a status that overrides all others and becomes the way that individuals see
themselves and are seen by others; can even lead to reassessment of the person’s life
Deviant career: in labelling theory this term describes the choices that individuals make which
leads them to behave in ways labelled as deviant and they go on to follow a deviant path or
career
Deviancy amplification: when responses to deviance create further deviance, example; the
case of mods and rockers
Masculinity: the attitudes and behaviour associated with being a man in a particular culture
Hegemonic masculinity: dominant form of masculinity in the modern industrial society [MIS]
Inadequate socialisation [Crime]: socialisation that fails to fully instil norms and values and so
makes individuals more likely to become deviant
Law enforcement agencies: government agencies with powers to make people conform to the
law in their area, such as the police forces or FBI in the USA
Stereotyping: representations of groups in popular culture or views held by individuals that
assume that all members of a group share the same characteristics; fixed, over-simplifies image
of what an individual or group is like
Stigma: a label that changes the labelled person’s positive self image into a negative one; an
attribute which devalues or disqualifies a person from full social acceptance e.g. a criminal
record
Sub-culture: a group of people in a culture who have sufficiently different norms and values to
be seen as a separate group
Youth culture: the ways of life of young people between childhood and adulthood
Youth sub-culture: a distinct group within the general youth culture, such as goths
Gangs: group of people who use violence and intimidation to commit crime
Mafia: a highly organised criminal sub-culture, often involved in violent crime

FAMILY

Household unit: the group of people living together in the same residence and sharing living
space
Nuclear family: made up of an adult man and an adult woman who are married, or in a
relationship, and living together with their dependent children
Extended family: a nuclear family living with other relatives such as grandparents or great-
grandparents or aunt, uncles and cousins
Kinship: when the ties between people are related by descent [having a common ancestor] by
marriage and by adoption
One-parent/Single-parent family: one parent and their dependent children living together
Divroce: the formal, legal ending of a marriage
Reconstituted family: after the death of a partner or a divorce, a new family that is created by
someone remarrying
Step-parent: after remarriage a step-parent shares with their new partner parental responsibility
for children from previous marriage
Step-child: a child who lives with one biological parent and one step-parent
Civil partnership: a relationship between two people usually of the same sex that has been
formally registered giving them similar rights as married couples
Family diversity: the increase in the number of different types of families
Matrifocal families: one in which the mother heads the family and the father has a less
important role in the family and in bringing up children e.g. The African Caribbean in the UK
Matriarchy: when the mother is the head of the household, with authority over the men and
children in the household
Arranged marriage: marriage partners are chosen by older family members rather than people
choosing their own marriage partner
Cereal packet family: the stereotypical nuclear family of mother, father and children with
traditional gender roles that is often shown in advertisements
Primary socialisation: the process by which infants and young children absorb the basic
norms and values of their culture
Family functions: the functions the family has, that is, what roles it plays and for whom,
according to functionalist theory
Feminism: a theoretical perspective that is mainly interested in issues of gender inequality and
on the position of women in the family and in the society
Patriarchy: a term used by feminists to describe societies and organistions [including the
family] in which men are dominant and women are subordinate
Commune: a group of people who choose to live together and share at least some off their
property
One-person household: when only one person lives in a residence
Traditional societies: non-modern societies contrasted with modern industrial societies [MIS]
Monogamy: being married to one person at a time
Serial monogamy: when someone has more than one marriage partner during their life, but
only one at any given time
Polygamy: being married to more than one person at the same time, for e.g. a man with
several wives or a woman with multiple husbands
Polyandry: when a woman has more than one husband at the same time
Polygyny: when a man has more than one wife at the same time
Divorce rates: the number of divorces per year per 1,000 people
Cohabitation: two people who are not married to each other that are living together in an
intimate relationship; 3 types of cohabitation include: permanent or long-term differing from
marriage only in that a formal ceremony has not taken place, short-term without commitment
and trial marriages [Fulcer and Scott]
Marriage: the formal joining of a man and a woman in a relationship with rights and
responsibilities; some countries now allow same sex marriage [2 men or 2 women]
Marital breakdown: when a marriage has broken down so that the couple are no longer living
as husband and wife; some breakdowns lead to divorce
Empty shell marriage: a married couple continue to live together but without love or affection
Seperation: [alternative to divorce] when the partners stop living together, this can often lead to
divorce but does not have to; these are not officially or formally recorded
Desertion: [alternative to divorce] a type of separation in which one partner leaves the family
Secularisation: the process by which religion has become less important in the daily lives of
many people in modern industrial societies
Family roles: the parts played by different members of the family
Conjugal roles: the roles taken by the husband and wife within the family resulting from the
domestic division of labour
Joint conjugal roles: the husband and wife carry out many tasks and activities together, so
there is no clear separation of roles; the opposite of segregated roles; man and woman share
instrumental and expressive roles, so their roles are not separate
Warm bath theory: [Talcott Parsons] functionalists describe the family as a warm bath,
because he believed that the family helps to relieve stress and tension from work, and helps
adult personalities stabilise, and make the family members content; The husband worries about
competition, money, job insecurity etc and takes these strains home. The husband’s home and
family act as a ‘warm bath’ washing away his troubles so that he is refreshed and ready for the
next day at work where he is able to contribute to society.
Traditional conjugal roles: the segregated roles assumed to be normal in the traditional
nuclear family
Symmetrical family: a family in which the conjugal roles have become more equal
Dual worker families: families in which both the man and the woman do paid work
Gender: gender is the norms of behaviour constructed by society to fit with the expectations of
one’s sex; the roles and expectations associated with being male or female.
Gender equality: when men and women have equal roles, status and rights
Childhood: a social construct
Child-centredness: when the child’s needs and wishes are the most important considerations;
MIS are child-centred
Empty nest family: parents living at home together after their adult children have moved out
and are now living independently [opp. Full-nest syndrome]
Boomerang family: a family in which the adult children have left their home but then return
Segregated conjugal roles: the husband and wife have clearly different roles within the family
and different interests and activities, the opposite of joint conjugal roles; In Young & Willmott’s
theory, the males tend to be the main breadwinner, and generally become uninvolved in
domestic chores and raising children. Females, on the other hand, are mainly responsible for
domestic work and raising children.
Domestic division of labour: the way in which tasks in the home [i.e. cooking, cleaning,
childcare and repairs] are divided between the man and the woman
Dual [Triple] burden: women who do paid work as well as look after the home and family are
said to have a dual burden- the term ‘triple burden’ or ‘triple shift’ is also sometimes used,
adding to work and the home the expressive role of looking after the emotional needs of family
members
Dark side of family: [Marxists and feminists] the negative aspects of family life such as
arguments, abuse, neglect and violence
Dysfunctional family: a family that fails to carry out the functions expected of it
Domestic violence: violence within the family, usually but not always by males against
females; refers not only to physical violence but also patterns of controlling behaviour that may
include emotional manipulation
Modern Industrial societies [MIS]: created by industrialization; societies that today have
industrial economies and high urban populations
March of progress: [Wilmott and Young (1973)] theories that come from functionalists that look
at how society develops and modernises over time
Industrialisation: the process in history in which societies changed from being mainly rural and
based on agriculture to being urban and with more people working in industries
Urbanisation: the growth of cities, so that a higher proportion of the population live in cities
Demographic trends: patterns in the changes of demographic measures such as the birth rate
and death rate
Birth rate: the number of the live births per 1,000 people in the population in one year
Fertility rate: the number of five births per 1,000 women of child-beraing age in the population
Beanpole family: a family with only one child or very few children; combined with rising life
expectancy this leads to family trees that look very tall and thin with few people in each
generation, rather than bushy, with lots of siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins
DINK families [Double Income, No Kids]: couples who work and don’t have children [China]
Death rates: the number of deaths per 1000 people in the population in one year

SOCIAL INEQUALITY

Gender: gender is the norms of behaviour constructed by society to fit with the expectations of
one’s sex; the roles and expectations associated with being male or female.
Prejudice: a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience; a
preconceived opinion that a group of people are inferior or different
Informal social control: Ways of regulating behaviour imposed by people without a formal role
to do so (such as peers), through informal means such as expectations and praise; Informal
social control refers to the ways in which the family, peers, media etc. ensure our conformity to
the norms and values of the society.
Social stratification: a hierarchy in which groups have different statuses and different levels of
privileges
Social class: a group of people having the same social and economic status
Age: a form of stratification
Status: a positions that someone has in society
Power: the ability to influence people’s behaviour
Industrial societies: societies that use technology for mass production, in contrast to traditional
societies
Minority group: a category of people lacking power; can be based on factors such as religion,
disability and age
Slavery: a stratification system in which one group is treated as the legal property of another
group; they are forced to work and have no freedom
Caste: a closed stratification system traditionally found in India
Estates: form of stratification in feudal societies in Europe in Mediaeval period where
individuals were born in social layers called estates
Closed society: a society in which mobility between different levels of stratification is not
possible
Ascribed status: a status that is given to individuals by their society or group, over which they
have little or no control
Traditional status: societies that are still predominantly agricultural and have not yet become
industrial
Discrimination: when an individual or a group suffers a disadvantage because of their
characteristics, for e.g. being refused a job
Ageism: prejudice or discrimination against someone based on their age
Achieved status: a status that individuals acquire through their own efforts
Life chances: the opportunities that people have to improve their lives
Human rights: a wider category than civil rights, including political rights
Civil rights: rights that protect the freedom of individuals
Working class: manual or blue-collar workers
Fatalism: individuals’ belief that they cannot control what happens to them
Deferred [delayed] gratification: being able to set long-term goals, planning for the future
Immediate gratification: choosing instant satisfaction instead of waiting for a greater reward in
the future
Middle class: professional and other non-manual workers, below the upper class and above
the working class
Professional worker: someone who works as a professional, such as a lawyer and architect
Minority ethnic group: a minority group with a distinct national or cultural tradition
Social inequality: the inequality between groups in a stratification system, for e.g. in income or
wealth
Wealth: the ownership of financial savings and of things [stocks and shares, land, houses,
works of art & valuable items] that can be bought and sold to generate income
Distribution of wealth: the way in which wealth is distributed in a society- highly unequal esp.
In the UK
Income: the sum of earnings from work and other sources [such as, social security and other
state benefits, pensions, interests and dividends on shares]- disposable income- the income
after national insurance and pension contribution deductions; the amount that people directly
get and can spend/save.
Welfare state: the way in which the government tries to provide for the less well off and reduce
social inequality; introduced due to moral and political reasons
Meritocracy: a society in which individuals reach levels that their talents and abilities deserve
Redistribution of wealth: [advocated by marxists] and others to achieve greater equality by
giving some of the wealth of the better off to those who are less wealthy
Dependency culture: [Right-wing perspective] set of values leading people to lose the ability to
look after themselves so they become dependent, for e.g., on state benefits
Underclass: pg 117
A group [generally poor, unqualified & irregularly or never employed] below the working class
that is effectively cut off from the rest of society
Marxism: [Karl Marx] a theoretical perspective that sees conflict between classes as the most
important feature of society
Equal opportunities: when all people are given the same chances [for e.g. in applying for a
job] regardless of differences such as age, gender and social class - equal opportunities
legislations [Equality Act, 2010, The UK]
Disability: covering a wide range of types of impairments in how the body functions in carrying
out activities
Relative poverty: being poor in relation to others in the same society; lacking resources that
most consider normal & when the standards of lying are significantly lower than that of most
people in society
Absolute poverty: being without some or all of the basic necessities of life such as food, safe
drinking water, sanitation, access to shelter, health, education and information
Poverty line: the level of income below which people are judged to be in poverty , having an
income that is less than 60% of the median income [Mack & Lansely, Breadline Britain Study,
1985]
Cycle of poverty: refers to families that have been in poverty for at least 3 generations;
because the factors causing their poverty do not change instead perpetuate it - when poverty
tends to be inherited, so the new generation cannot escape the poverty of their parents
Poverty trap: when poor people are unable to escape from being poor due to situational
constraints, it is expensive to be poor as they have to spend a lot just to keep their existing
standards of living [buying secondhand that are cheap yet likely to break down & need to be
replaced etc.]
Culture of poverty: an explanation to the ‘cycle of poverty’, when poor people have a set of
values that keep them in poverty such as high illiteracy rates, inability to plan for the future,
immediate gratification, fatalism, feeling marginalised and dependent on others, not using
resources like banks & hospitals— [victim blaming explanation of poverty as poor are blamed
for their situation] - [New Rights version of the ‘underclass’- lacking ambition]
Social exclusion: people who are unable to take part in society the same way as most people,
are excluded from social goods- the way in which people are systematically excluded from
rights, opportunities and resources that are available to others [such as, houses, employment,
healthcare and transport] which together with poverty, prevents people from fully engaging in
society, resulting in poverty.
Capitalism: the economic system of most countries today based on the private ownership of
the means of production
Bourgeoisie: the ruling or upper class in the Marxist class theory
Reserve army of labour: people [mostly females and members of ethnic minorities] who are
employed when an economy is booming or when they are needed, but then are out of work
when they are not required [perhaps due to the introduction of mechanisation & automation- a
strategy by the bourgeoise to effectively reduce labour costs]
Lifestyle: the way of life of an individual, group or culture
Privileged group: groups enjoying higher status than others or material advantages
Racism: prejudice against an individual or group because of their ethnicity or perceived race
Prejudice: an unexamined opinion that a group of people are inferior or different
Institutional racism: when the way an organisation works has racist results, even when
individuals do not intend this
Elite: a privileged group at the top of the stratification system
Apartied: the stratification system in South Africa until 1994 based on keeping racial groups
apart
Unskilled worker: workers who need no or minimal training to perform their work
Skilled worker: workers who need skills acquired through training to perform their work
Scapegoating: when individuals or groups are blamed and sometimes punished for something
that is not their fault
Domestic labour: the work that has to be done within the home, such as housework,
understanding that domestic labour is divided is important for understanding gender inequality in
families
Feminism: political movement and sociological perspective advocating the equality of sexes
Patriarchy: the dominance of men over women and children in society- when men are given
greater power in all aspects of society such as in relationships, families, workplace etc
Vertical segregation: occupying different levels within a hierarchy
Horizontal segregation: differences in the number of people from different groups [such as the
sexes] in different occupations
Gendered division of labour: the way that societies expect women to be responsible for some
tasks [such as cleaning and preparing food] and men for others
Glass ceiling: the unseen barriers that seems to prevent women from achieving the highest
positions at work
Glass cliff : the phenomenon of women in leadership roles, such as executives in the corporate
world and female political election candidates, being likelier than men to achieve leadership
roles during periods of crisis or downturn, when the risk of failure is highest
Proletarianisation: the theory that the lower levels of the middle class are becoming the
working class
Market situation: the economic position of a group of workers in relation to others [the income,
degree of security & chances of advancement in a particular occupation]
Occupational structure: the hierarchy of occupations in a society
Professions: occupations that require special high levels of education
White-collar worker: non-manual labourer, member of the middle class, involving mental rather
than physical work
Blue-collar worker: manual workers, members of the working class, involving physical labour
Upper class: the highest class in society that is wealthy enough such that its members do not
need to work [Peter Saunders argued that it was too small to be considered a class]
New working class: the supposed working class formed by the lower middle-class workers
merging with the traditional working class
Embourgeoisement: theory that the higher levels of working class are becoming middle class
Social mobility: the movement of individuals or groups from one class to another
Intergenerational social mobility: movement between classes in a society from one class to
the nest- so that when a child grows up, they are in a different class from their parents
Intragenerational social mobility: movement between classes within one generations, so that
an individual is born into one class and movies into another
Open society: a society in which it is possible to move easily from one class to another
Block mobility:
movement of a whole class or occupational group, if proletarianisation occurs, the lower middle
class is downwardly mobile, if embourgeoisement occurs, the skilled working class in upwardly
mobile
Past paper

Prejudice = a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience; a

preconceived opinion that a group of people are inferior or different
Social inequality is the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social
positions or statuses within a group or society; the inequality between groups in a stratification
system, for example wealth, income or access to healthcare.
Fatalism – an individual’s belief that they cannot control what happens to them.
Underclass - A group below the working class that is effectively cut off from the rest of society.
Social stratification - A hierarchy in which groups have different statuses and different levels of
privilege
Open society = a society in which mobility between different levels of stratification is possible.
Income = the sum of earnings from work or other sources.
Life chances = the opportunities that people have to improve their lives in areas such as
health, wealth, housing, education, social mobility etc.
Culture of poverty = when poor people have a set of norms and values that keep them in
poverty. [DO NOT confuse the culture of poverty with structural explanations such as the
poverty trap]
Relative poverty - not able to afford what the majority in a society see as an acceptable
lifestyle or being poor in relation to others in a society’.
Achieved status = status that individuals acquire by their own merits, hard work and efforts.
Deferred Gratification – being able to set long-term goals, planning for the future.
Social exclusion – people who are unable to take part in society in the same way as most
people are excluded from social good.
Proletarianisation – the theory that the lower levels of the middle class are
becoming working class.

THEORY & METHODS

Structuralist approach: An approach focusing on the large-scale social structures in which

people play defined roles, Focusing on the macro
Correlation - When two variables are related to each other but causation cannot be proved
Causation - where a strict link can be proved between variables in a time sequence (hard to find
in sociology)
Consensus – for equality in society or agreed norms. Status or power: values can be shared on
religion for instance. This is a stable form of society. basic agreement on a set of shared values.
Based around ‘social consensus’, when people generally share values and there are no major
disagreements between the main groups
Conflict: where values are not shared such as societies with different wealth are unstable.
disagreement between groups with different interests. This happens when major
disagreements occur regarding wealth, status and power. A society like this must have
significant differences between groups which may become open conflicts. No shared values are
held by all groups
Perspectives- ways of viewing social life from different POVs
Positivism- approach that focuses on producing quantitative data [in form of statistics]- based
on studying society in a scientific manner
Bias- prejudice that distorts the truth when research is influenced by the values of the
researcher or the decisions taken about the research such as the sampling method used
Objectivity- absence of bias; when researchers do not allow their feelings or values to influence
the research [favoured by positivists]
Hypothesis- a theory or explanation at the start of a research project that the research is
designed to test
Pilot study- a small-scale test of a piece of the research project before the main project
Survey population - all those to whom the findings of the study may apply and from which a
sample is chosen
Sampling frame- a list of members of a population from which a sample is chosen [e.g.
electoral roll, school registers, telephone directories etc]
Generalisability- when the findings of a sample can be said to apply to a larger group of
population sharing their characteristics
Random sampling- when each person has an equal chance of being selected- not always
representative & include a sampling frame
Stratified sampling- when the sampling frame is divided in to categories for e.g. age, gender etc
-more representative
Snowball sampling- when one respondent puts the researcher in contact with others- does not
include a sampling frame
Quota sampling- deciding in advance how many people with what categories to involve in the
research and then identifying them - does not include a sampling frame
Ethical issues- issues that have a moral dimensions, such as when harm or distress may be
caused to the participants
Questionnaires- standardised list of questions used in social surveys,
Social surveys- the systematic collection of info from a sample, usually involving a
questionnaire or structured interviews
Open/closed & pre-coded questions- [closed] researcher provides a set of answers from which
the respondent has to choose from- the researcher limits the responses that can be given- easy
to analyse and quantify results; [open] probe more deeply as respondents are free to write their
own responses- produces limited qualitative data, making it more difficult to analyse the data
[scaled] - a particular form to close-ended qn - helps produce data that seems to prove
something & runs the risk of making people agree/disagree when they do not have a preference
Self-completion questionnaires- completed by respondents on their own in the absence of the
researcher- can reach larger audiences leading to a larger sampling frame and greater
generalisability & representativeness of findings- however response rates are low affecting the
rep. & gen.
Structured interviews- interview with standardised questions aiming to produce quantitative
data, have a higher response rate, researcher can explain the purpose and clear
misunderstandings regarding the qs, interviewers can build rapport leading to valid info-
however they are very time-consuming & therefore expensive, interviewers effect
Unstructured interviews- [qualitative data] w/o set questions, usually involves probing into
emotions and attitudes- more flexible & allows for follow ups providing detailed and valid data,
however they are time consuming, difficult to generalise, less reliable, require a skilled
interviewer, responses may be affected by interviewer bias/effect
Semi-structured interviews- some standardised qs but allows researcher some flexibility on
what is asked in what order
Group interview- involving a group being interviewed together
Focus group- a group brought together to be interviewed in a particular topic [the focus] -
enables researcher to find out what individuals say as members of a group & how they respond
to the views of others- runs the risk of irrelevant discussion, can be difficult to decide who said
what & people often talk over each other
Reliability- when the research can be repeated and similar responses can be obtained
Validity- when the findings accurately reflect the reality that it is intended to capture
Interviewer effect- ways in which an interviewer may influence the participants; responses, by
their characteristics or appearance or verbal cues such as facial expressions and tone of voice
Interviewer bias- intentional/unintentional effect of the way the interviewer asks question or
interprets answers
Hawthrone/Observers effect-
Subjectivity- lack of objectivity, the researcher’s views influences the approach taken
Lab experiments- an artificial setting is created for the research where external variable are
excluded as far as possible- very flawed from a sociological perspective as people live in
societies not labs [REF. Bandura and the bobo dolls- children and the impact of visual
aggression]
Field experiments- take place in the natural setting of the real world- often used by non-
positivists and results can be qualitative and aver very effective in getting inside group
behaviour HOWEVER they present ethical issues, can involve risk & researcher can lose control
over what happens
Case study- detailed in-depth study of one group or event, involves any method or combination
of method, qualitative or quantitative- not possible to generalise from them and they cannot be
used to prove or disprove a hypothesis, findings cannot be replicated and research may be
influenced by deep involvement of researcher and their feelings [REF. the affluent worker study
1968 by John Goldthrope & David Lockwood- factory workers and class UK] -can be used to
draw wider conclusions-
Longitudinal surveys- a survey taking place at intervals over a long period, often used by the
government [e.g. British Crime survey in the UK]- they show how people’s lives change over time
making it possible to see the changing factors and since participants are committed to the
research, data is most likely valid HOWEVER it requires time and research commitment, there
can be sample attrition where a participant may decide to leave or dies, being a part may
change the people involved [Hawthrone effect]
Overt participant observation- when the group benign studien is aware that research is taking
place and of the researcher, researcher can avoid participating in illegal acts, can ask question
more easily, ethically and morally right for people to know that they are being studies HOWEVER
the group being studied may behave differently which questions the validity of the research
Covert participant observation- covert- ‘hidden’- group being studied is unaware of the research
and is deceived into thinking that the researcher is a real member of the group, no informed
consent involves, avoids risk of changing the behaviour of group being studies HOWEVER
researcher needs to have the social characteristics to join the group, they have to devote a lot of
time and energy to maintain their cover, rather than gaining info, it is difficult to record info w/o
arising suspicions and involves illegal activities
Non-participant observations- when researcher observes a group but does not participate in
what it is doing- to reduce & eliminate the risk of influence of researcher’s presence on group
behaviour, used to prejudice quantitative data, allows sociologists to observe people in their
normal social situations and avoid Hawthrone HOWEVER it does not allow researcher to probe
deeper and investigate the meanings people attach to actions, the findings simple reflect the
assumptions and interpretations of the researcher raising issues on reliability and validity
Content analysis- method of studying communication and the media, involves classifying the
content and counting frequency- provides reliable quantitative data, and does not involve
participants so no ethical issues HOWEVER quantitative data will not tell us why a text is the
way it is and how it affects the audience, it may be difficult to decide which category to use and
to allocate material to different categories
Triangulation- use of 2 or more methods in the same research project- allows researcher to
support quantitative data with qualitative data thus providing validity and reliability, can be used
to check validity & reliability of research and for cross-referencing to check for accuracy, it can
provide balance b/w methods HOWEVER it is very time-consuming and expensive, researcher
needs to be skilled in various methods, it is difficult of combine 2 different ideas like positivist
and interpretivist
Representativeness- the degree to which research findings about one group can be applied to a
larger group or similar group
Sampling error- difference b/w populations and results of a sample- can be reduced by using
random or stratified random sample
Primary data-info collected first-hand by the researcher
Secondary data- info collected by others and used later on by sociologists
Trend- change over time in a particular direction
Comparative study- in research, looking for 2 or more different groups/events in terms of their
similarities and differences
Historical documents- wide range of documents from the past that can be used as a source of
info
Official and nonofficial statistics- official are produced by the government and official agencies,
nonofficial are produced by other organisations such as charities and think tanks

Past paper
Interpretivist approach = approaches that start at the level of the individual, focusing on small
scale phenomena and usually favouring qualitative methods.
Interviewer Effect = ways in which an interviewer may influence participants’ responses, by
their characteristics or appearance or by verbal clues such as facial expressions and tone of
voice.
Quota sampling = when a researcher tries to find people with certain characteristics, e.g. 10
teenagers who are members of subcultures. This is often used in market research.
Case studies = a detailed in-depth study on one group or event.