Sociology definitions - expectations and perspectives

• Culture: Shared beliefs, values, and practices, that participants in a society must learn
• Socialisation: The way in which culute is passed from generation to generation
• Identity: How individuals or groups see and define themselves and how other individual groups see and define them
• Role: The place we hold in society and who we are to other people
• Role conflict: A situation in which contradictory, competing or incompatible expectations are placed on an individual by two or more roles held at the same time
• Norms: Behaviours and views that society sees as 'normal'. They are expected pragmatic behaviours know to everyone
• Values: Beliefs and ideas about what is right and what is wrong
• Customs: Patterns of behaviour that are followed by members of a particular culture or society which foster social harmony and unity
• Differentiation


  How a society is divided into different groups
• Stratification: Splitting society into different layers, or strata, with a definite hierarchy
• Value consensus: A stable society is created through the socialisation of the individual into norms and values
• Anomie


  A sense of moral confusion
• Organic analogy: Society is like the human body. It is made up of interconnected parts which help the system run in harmony
• Bourgeoisie: A small and powerful class, who own means of production
• Proletariat: A larger, poorer class of the workers who sell their labour to the owners for wages in order to live
• Alienation: The bourgeoise exploit the proletariat as the workers produce 'surplus' material which can be sold to produce profit. The workers age alienated and kept separate from their work, and do not receive the full value of their efforts
• Hegemony: Ideological dominance and moral leadership which society accepts and follows
• Ideological State Apparatus: An ideological level which enforces the dominant ideology through the socialisation of ideas in education, religion and the media