Revision:Sociology Glossary

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Achieved status

A status entered after birth and usually due at least in part to individual behaviour.

Authority

Power assigned according to norms and generally accepted as legitimate by those over whom it is exercised.

Scientific method

A method of posing and answering questions that relies on clear, objective guidelines for gathering and interpreting observable evidence.

Social mobility

The process through which people more from one position in a stratification system to another.

Culture

Following is the classic definition by the anthropologist Sir Edward B. Tylor, "That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society of society." According to Alfred L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, "culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values." Of course, symbolic interactionists would add that the essence of culture is language (i.e., symbols), as the essence of reality is language or symbols.

For this school, culture is most generally identified as "systems of human meaning." It should be pointed out that some sociologists exclude artefacts or material objects from their definitions of culture; they include in culture technical knowledge about the artefacts but do not include the artefacts themselves. Other sociologists and cultural anthropologists have suggested combining the concepts culture and society contending that all human phenomena are sociocultural in nature. In Marxian sociology culture is conceptualised as part of the superstructure; and is thus seen as an outgrowth-upgrowth of the economic infrastructure.

Socialisation

The process through which people learn to think, feel, evaluate, and behave as individuals in relation to others and social systems.

Feminism

A theoretical and ideological framework that directly opposes sexism by supporting gender equality.

Role conflict

Incompatibility of enactment of two or more different roles that one person can enact at a certain time or place.

The role conflict can be of short duration, tied to a certain situation, or long-lived. An example of role conflict would be a husband and father who is also Chief of Police. If a tornado strikes the small town he is living in, the man has to decide if he should go home and be with his family and fulfil the role of being a good husband and father or remain and fulfil the duties of a "good" Chief of Police because the whole town need his expertise.

Functionalism

An approach or orientation of studying social and cultural phenomena. It holds that society is essentially a set of interrelated parts, e.g., institutions, beliefs, values, customs, norms, etc., and that each of theses parts has a particular purpose, i.e., that each of these parts functions in a particular way. It is held that no part, its existence, or operation, can be understood in isolation from the whole. Society is seen, from this position, as analogous to the human body or any other living organism. Each of the "parts" of society are seen as operating much like organs of the body.

As in the body, it is held that if one part of society changes it affects the other parts and how they operate or function, and it also affects how the total system performs as it may also affect the continued existence of the total society (organism).

Functionalism's critics have pointed to its tenuous assumption of the necessary integration of all of the social systems parts. Critical and radical sociology thus see functionalism as essentially conservative in nature, both intellectually and politically.

Norm and value

The definition for norm is a rule that attaches sanctions to the behaviour or appearance of status occupants. On the other hand, value means that an idea about what is socially defined as good or desirable.

Gender

Social statuses to which males and females are assigned in a society.

Patriarchy

A society or family system organised around dominance by males, especially fathers.

Matriarchy

A society or family system organised around dominance by females, especially mothers.

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