sociology

• Culture


  Refers to the shared beliefs and behaviour of those in a society
• Socialisation


  The process through which people learn to be effective members of society and the way the older generation pass on the core values, norms and traditions of society to the next generation
• Identity


  Concerned with the way we see and define ourselves in relation to others, and how others see us. It refers to the traits and characteristics, social relations, roles and social group memberships that define who we are.
• Values

  • Widely held beliefs that particular ways of behaving deserve special status and are worth aspiring to (e.g. marriage, family life, privacy, educational achievement, tolerance, individual liberty, the role of the law)
• Customs and traditions


  • Values and norms that have been passed down through the generations (e.g. UK culture celebrates Bonfire Night on 5 November and Christmas Day on 25 December, whereas Muslim culture fasts during the month of Ramadan and celebrates at the end of the month with the festival of Eid)
• Beliefs


  • Convictions and assumptions, often originating in religious and historical experiences, that something is true and that underpin cultural identity (e.g. the UK is a multicultural society, most people in the UK are white Anglo-Saxons who subscribe to Christian beliefs, but there are also significant Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Chinese and Jewish subcultures and communities that exist alongside the Christian majority)
• Language is the means by which culture is transmitted to the next generation
• Primary socialisation


  The main site of primary socialisation is the family, where parents or carers are positive role models who strongly encourage their children to take on their own examples of good behaviour
• Gender role socialisation


  An important aspect of primary socialisation that teaches children appropriate masculine and feminine behaviour
• Stratification

  The hierarchical levering of a society into distinct groups with different levels of wealth, status and power
• Britain is stratified by social class
• Status


  Generally regarded as achieved because class systems are open and people can move up or down social classes
• Social class


  People's socio-economic position determined by their job and the income and status attached to it
• Social classes in Britain


  • Upper class (7%)
  • Middle classes (54%)
  • Working classes (39%)
• Upper class


  • Live off inherited wealth or rents
• Middle classes


  • Professionals, white collar workers
• Working classes

  • Manual workers divided into skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled
• In 1992, John Goldthorpe and Gordon Marshall developed the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) to measure social class
• The NS-SEC was first used in the 2001 Census because changes in the economy had made the old divisions between upper, middle and working classes obsolete
• Mike Savage carried out a national survey of class in Britain on behalf of the BBC in 2013 using a variation of the NS-SEC
• NS-SEC categories

  • Higher managerial, administrative or professional
  • Intermediate occupations
  • Small employers and own account workers
  • Lower supervisory and technical occupations
  • Semi-routine occupations
  • Routine occupations
  • Never worked and long-term unemployed
• The Indian-Hindu caste system is a closed and ascribed system of stratification where a person's caste is determined by birth and they cannot change it during their lifetime
• Secondary socialisation


  Takes place outside the family, including through mass media, peer groups, education and religion
• Caste system in India

  Hindus are stratified along religious lines, with the Brahmin caste regarded as the most pure and the Dalits (untouchables) regarded as the most impure
• The main differences between the class and caste systems of stratification are that the class system is more open and achieved, while the caste system is closed and ascribed
• t falls to acknowledge the dysfunctional or harmful effects of some institutions
• The New Right refers to a collection of right-wing ideas that advocate reduced economics, in traditional morality and small government intervention
• Neo-liberalism


  A set of economic and political ideas that became popular with UK Conservative governments in the 1980s and the New Labour governments (1997-2010). These ideas stress the need for a free market laissez-faire approach which encourages competition between manufacturers.
• Anti-welfarism and the underclass

  New Right commentators argue that the state interferes too much in people's personal lives and that too many people have become over-dependent on the welfare state. They argue that state benefits need to be cut so that members of the underclass are forced into the job market to look for work.
• Traditional morality


  New Right thinkers appeal to Conservatives because they emphasise traditional ways of life, for example, New Right ideas on the family are similar to the functionalist support for heterosexual couples being raised in nuclear families.
• Rolling back the state

  New Right politicians support the rolling back of state services and their replacement with private providers of, for example, education, health and adult social care. These services would compete in a free market to provide greater choice to consumers. They believe state provision of public services wastes money and is inefficient compared with the private provision offered by the free market.
• Infrastructure


  The most important part of the capitalist social system, which is organised in terms of a relationship between two social classes: the bourgeoisie (who own and control the means of production) and the proletariat (who provide the labour).
• Superstructure


  Made up of social institutions such as the family, education, religion, legal system, mass media, and politics. Its role is to transmit ruling-class ideology, which aims to hide, disguise or justify class inequality, or distract the working class from it by persuading them that the capitalist system is both meritocratic and fair.
• Radical feminism


  Sees men and women as constituting social groups that have very different and conflicting interests. Women are exploited by and consequently subservient to men. Patriarchy is a structural feature of society that pervades all social institutions that rule society, particularly the family and the personal or intimate relations between men and women.
• Mass media includes newspapers, magazines, television, advertising, film and pop music. In the past 20 years, new media has dramatically increased its influence on socialisation, including smartphones, texting, surfing the internet and using social media networks
• Peer groups or friendship networks are also agencies of socialisation, with school often being our first experience of these. However, there are concerns that peer pressure, gang membership and bullying could result in young people breaching cultural norms and breaking the law
• Secondary socialisation through education


  Most children spend at least 10 years at school, learning the knowledge and skills required for passing exams and socialisation through the formal curriculum. They also learn the social skills required to interact successfully with adults in authority and allow students to progress through society. This 'hidden curriculum' teaches the attitudes and behaviours valued by society.
• Secondary socialisation through religion

  In the 19th century, religion was the most important agency for teaching cultural norms and values in the UK, but Christian religious beliefs and practices have declined steeply throughout the 20th century. Religious socialisation in the UK is now more likely to be practised regularly by ethnic minorities.
• Sociologist Sue Palmer argues that parents use electronic technologies such as television, computer games and the internet (secondary agents of socialisation) as alternatives to traditional parenting practices (primary agents), depriving children of a traditional childhood and family life, with negative effects causing social problems
• The self


  A person's subjective awareness and sense of their individuality that shapes how they project their personality into the social world