Sociology CIE iGCSE

• Structuralism is an approach focusing on the large-scale social structures in which people play defined roles.
• In structuralism, social roles and actions of people in fulfilling these roles are what is important, not the individuals (macro approach).
• These theories are used to find social structures that may be hidden from individuals.
• Emile Durkheim’s work on suicide’s link to society’s organization noted that the suicide rate (proportion of the population who committed suicide) yearly didn’t vary in a country but there were differences in suicide rates between countries.
• Serial Monogamy is when a person has more than one marriage partner but only one at a time.
• The Functionalist View on Family believes that functions are performed best in a nuclear family as instrumental roles suit the nature of men and expressive roles suit the nature of women.
• Marriage Trends include a fall in the number of marriages, a growing proportion into remarriage, and marital breakdowns such as separation, desertion, and empty shell marriage.
• Polygamy is a marriage involving two or more wives or husbands.
• European Ethnic Groups often have immigrants who are young adults, and their birth rate tends to be higher than native British people, which may be due to age or religion.
• Monogamy is a married couple of the opposite sex, who have sexual relations with each other.
• Functions of the Family according to Functionalists include reproduction for survival, socialization to teach children norms and values, social control of behaviour of children to accept society, and care of children.
• Polygyny is when a man has several wives.
• The New Right argues that we need to return to nuclear families as new diverse types of families can’t fulfil functions needed in contemporary society.
• Alternatives to Family include singlehood/ one-person households, divorced men/women whose children live with the other parent, communes, friends as family, and shared households.
• The New Right believes that changes such as more one-parent families, easy availability of divorce, cohabitation, the legalization of abortion, women working, and homosexuality have undermined the family’s functions.
• Conjugal Roles is a theory where Functionalists believe it is the best if men and women perform specific roles in the family.
• Alternatives to Marriage include cohabitation, civil partnership, and trends in marriage and divorce.
• Ethnicity and Family Diversity – African-Caribbean Minorities have a higher than average number of matrifocal families, which suggests it started due to slavery where men couldn’t provide and protect their family.
• South Asian Minorities have strong extended family ties, usually due to one family member migrating and the rest of the family joining later, and large families.
• Functions of the Family according to Feminists include socializing boys and girls into their gender roles, maintaining patriarchy as patriarchy in the family leads to patriarchal dominance in the wider society, and maintaining the status quo as it benefits males.
• The Marxist View on Family agrees with Functionalists that a family carries out functions, but believes they are functional for capitalist society and the economy.
• Group Marriages are a marriage involving two or more husbands and two or more wives.
• Functions of the Family according to Marxists include socializing future generations into capitalism, reproducing for the next generation of workers, and maintaining patriarchy as patriarchy in the family leads to patriarchal dominance in the wider society.
• Divorce Trends include a rise in divorce, more lone-parent families, and the roles in the family.
• The Feminist View on Family believes that the nuclear family is functional for patriarchal society.
• Durkheim tried to show that social forces (or social causes of action) drove individual actions (like suicide).
• Social Force: Link between individual and family/religion.
• Stronger ties = lower suicide rates which is why suicide rates show something about the nature of the society and not the individuals.
• Cluster Sampling is a method for survey populations spread over large areas, where certain areas are chosen as sampling frames from which random samples are taken.
• Snowball Sampling is a method where one respondent is found and they are put in touch with one or more others.
• Structured Interviews are a method of data collection that is carried out face-to-face by a researcher, who asks a set of pre-set questions.
• Ethical Issues in Implementing a Research Strategy include not harming participants, not making them distressed, angry or upset, obtaining their informed consent, protecting their privacy, and not deceiving them.
• Quota Sampling is a method where a certain, pre-decided number of people who fit certain characteristics required by the researcher are found.
• Self-Completion/ Postal Questionnaires are a method of data collection that involves a pre-set of questions that the respondent answers and returns to the researcher.
• Opportunity Sampling is a method where people are chosen as the sample because they are available at the moment, such as researchers stopping people on the street and asking them questions.
• Durkheim worked within the positivist framework and looked for causation (strict link between two variables – cause and effect) and correlation (link between variables, but causation can’t be proved).
• Due to loss of jobs, the working class have lost their positive values about their way of life and their collective identities are now usually viewed as negative due to their lifestyle and working conditions.
• Positivism is an approach that concentrates on producing quantitative data (usually as statistics) and believes researches should be unbiased for accurate accounts of what actually happened.
• Elements of Culture: Symbols, Language, Values, Beliefs, Norms, Mores, Folkways, Customs, Laws, Status, Roles, and Institutions.
• Structuralists believe that individuals have little freedom or thought and society (and social forces) controls all individuals like puppets.