Key terms

• Ageism


  The negative stereotyping of people based on their age.
• Alienation


  Where an individual or group feels socially isolated and estranged because they lack the power to control their lives and realise their true potential.
• Assimilationism


  An approach to immigration policy that believes immigrants should adopt the language, values and customs of the 'host community' of the country.
• Banding


  A form of streaming
• Beanpole family

  A family that is vertically extended, not horizontally. Grandparents, parents and children but not aunts, uncles and cousins.
• Bourgeoisie


  Marxist term for the capitalist class, the owner of the means of production.
• Civil partnership

  The 2004 Civil Partnership Act gave same-sex couples similar legal rights to married coupled in respect of pensions, inheritance, tenancies and propety.
• Closed-ended questions


  Questions usually in questionnaires that only have a limited set of answers. Such as yes or no.
• Comparative method


  A research method that compares two social groups that are alike aprt from one factor.
• Compensatory education


  Government education policies that seek to tackle the problem of under-achievement by providing extra support, funding to schools and families in deprived areas.
• Comprehensive system


  A non-selective education system where all children attend the same type of secondary school.
• Conjugal roles

  Segregated conjugal roles where the husband is the breadwinner and the wife is the homemaker with leisure spent separately. In joint conjugal roles, husband and wife each perform both roles and spend their leisure time together.
• Control group


  The factors of things in experiments are controlled and kept at a constant.
• Correspondence principle


  Describing the way that the organisation and control of school mirrors to the workplace. The control teachers exert over pupils, mirrors the control managers exert over workers.
• Critical race theory


  Sees racism as a deep-seated feature of society resulting not merely from the attitudes of individuals but from institutional racism.
• Cultural capital


  The knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities that the middle class transmit to their children.
• Cultural deprivation


  The theory that many working-class and black children are inadequately socialised and therefore lack the 'right' culture needed for educational success.
• Culture

  All those things that are learnt and shared by a society or group of people transmitted from generation to generation.
• Deferred gratification


  Postponing immediate rewards, generally with the aim of producing a greater reward at a later date.
• Demography


  The study of population, including birth, death, fertility and infant mortality rates.
• Dependency culture


  Where people assume that the state will support them, rather than relying on their own efforts.
• Deviance


  Behaviour that does not conform to the norms of a society or group.
• Differentiation


  Distinguishing or creating differences between individuals or groups. In education, streaming is a type of differentiation as they are separating pupils into different groups depending on their abilities.
• Discrimination


  Treating people differently, whether negatively or positively. Usually as they are members of a particular social group. Such as gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexuality, race, religion.
• Domestic labour


  Work performed in the home, such as childcare, cooking and cleaning.
• Dual burden


  When a person is responsible for two jobs. Usually applied to women who are in paid work but also responsible for domestic labour.
• Educational triage


  The process whereby schools sort pupils into 'hopeless cases', 'those who will pass anyway' and 'those with potential to pass', Concentrating their efforts on the last of these groups as a way to boost the school's exam league table position.
• Emotion work


  The work involved in meeting the emotional needs of other people, e.g., looking after a sick child involves responding to emotional as well as physical needs.
• Empty shell marriage


  Only where a couple continues to live life under the same roof but as separate individuals. It may occur where divorce is difficult for legal, religious or financial reasons. Or for the sake of the children.
• Ethics


  Issues of right and wrong
• Ethnic group


  People who share the same heritage, culture and identity, often including the same language and religion seeing themselves as a distinctive group.
• Ethnocentric


  Seeing or judging things in a biased way from the viewpoint of one particular culture.
• Exchange theory


  The idea that people create, maintain or break off relationships depending on the costs and benefits of doing so.