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Sociology Education Glossary

Sociology Education Glossary

•  Ageism: The negative stereotyping of people on the basis of their age, e.g. are often portrayed as vulnerable, incompetent or irrational, as a burden to society.
• 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. Marx describes workers in capitalist society as alienated because they are exploited and lack control of the production process.
• Birth Rate: The number of live births per thousand of the population per year.
• Bourgeoisie: A Marxist term for the capitalist class, the owners of the means of production (factories, machinery, raw materials, land, etc). Marx argues that the bourgeoisie’s ownership of the means of production also gives them political and ideological power.
• Case Study: Research that examines a single case or example such as a single school, family or workplace, often using several methods or sources.
• Childhood: A socially defined age-status. There are major differences in how childhood is defined, both historically and between cultures. Western societies today define children as vulnerable and segregate them from the adult world, but in the past they were part of adult society from an early age. These differences show that childhood is a social construction.
• Close-ended Questions: Questions used in a social survey that allow only a limited choice of answers from a pre-set list. They produce quantitative data and the answers are often pre-coded for ease of analysis. An example is ‘Will you vote in the next election?’ where the choices are Yes, No, Don’t Know.
• Comparative Method: A research method that compares two social groups that are alike apart from one factor. For example, Durkheim compared two groups that were identical apart from their religion in order to find out the effect of religion on suicide rates. The method is often used as an alternative to experiments.
• Compensatory Education: Government education policies such as Operation Headstart in USA that seek to tackle the problem under-achievement of under-achievement by providing extra support and 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. It was introduced in England and Wales from 1965.
• Content Analysis: A method of analysing the content of documents and media output to find out how often and in what ways different types of people or events appear. For example, the Glasgow University Media Group (1967) used content analysis to reveal bias in how television new reported strikes.
•    Control Group: In experiments, scientists compare a control group and an experimental group that are identical in all respects. Unlike the experimental group, the control group is not exposed to the variable under investigation and so provides a baseline against which any changes in the experimental group can be compared.
• Correlation: When two or more factors or variables vary together; e.g. there is a correlation between low social class and low educational achievement. However, the existence of a correlation between two variables does not necessarily prove that one causes the other. It may simply be coincidence.
•  Correspondence Principle: Bowles and Gintis’ concept describing the way that the organisation and control of school mirrors or ‘corresponds to’ the workplace in capitalist society. For example, the control teachers exert over pupils mirrors the control managers exert over workers.
•    Cultural Capital: The knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities that the middle class transmit to their children. Bourdieu argues that educational success is largely based on possession of cultural capital, thus giving the middle-class children an advantage.
• Cultural Deprivation: The theory that many working-class and black children are inadequately socialised and therefore lack the ‘right’ culture needed for educational success; e.g. their families do not instil the value of deferred gratification.
•     Culture: All those things that are learnt and shared by a society or group of people and transmitted from generation to generation through socialisation. It includes shared norms, values, knowledge, beliefs, and skills.
• Curriculum: Those things taught or learnt in educational institutions. The overt or official curriculum includes the subjects, courses etc offered (e.g. the National Curriculum), while the hidden curriculum includes all those things learnt without being formally taught and often acquired simply through the everyday workings of the school, such as attitudes of obedience, conformity and competitiveness.
•  Deferred Gratification: Postponing immediate rewards or pleasures, generally with the aim of producing a greater reward at a later date, e.g. staying in to revise rather than going out with friends, which will bring success in exams. It is seen as a characteristic of middle-class culture.
•    Deviance: Behaviour that does not conform to the norms of a society or group. Deviance is a social construction (defined or created by social groups). Deviance is relative: what counts as deviant varies between groups and cultures and over time.
•       Differentiation: Distinguishing or creating differences between individuals or groups. In education, streaming is a form of differentiation that distinguishes between pupils on the basis of ability. In the study of stratification differentiation refers to the process of distinguishing between people on the basis of class, gender, ethnic, age etc differences.

New Right Note Taking

The New Right agree with functionalists in the fact that they believe some people are more talented than others and they favour the meritocratic education system, as they believe it helps prepare children for getting a job. The key difference between New Right and functionalist views of education is that New Right believe that the current education is not benefiting pupils or society as a whole, stating that marketisation is something to be introduced in order to improve standards.

Chubb and Moe hold the belief that state education was not teaching any of the skills required to meet the needs of a competitive capitalist economy. Those from a working class or ethnic background were at most of a disadvantage, and those who attended private schools were at more of an advantage, due to the time tutors were able to spend teaching their pupils in working class or ethnic backgrounds in contrast to the amount of time tutors are able spend on pupils from private schools.

The method used by Chubb and Moe was a questionnaire. A strength of a questionnaire is that there is a large response rate. A limitation of a questionnaire is that using a set list of questions restricts the response given. Chubb and Moe found that children from low income families do 5% better in private schools, proving their theory correct. Marketisation was the system that Chubb and Moe wanted to introduce to improve standards in schools. This is because of the competitiveness that comes with academies encourages the children to work harder.

The first of two purposes the New Right believe the state of education serves is the national curriculum, which supplies national identity. The second purpose is that the state imposes a framework, such as Ofsted inspection reports and league tables of schools' exam results. This framework allows parents to decide which school is best for their children, which is a positive thing in the eyes of the New Right.

The New Right believe that education should affirm the British identity in order to integrate pupils into a single traditions and cultural values. Due to this, the New Right also oppose multi-cultural education that reflects the cultures of the different minority groups in Britain.

The the first limitation of the New Right view of education is that it focuses on vocational education, which is preparing students for the exploitation faced in a capitalist society. A second limitation is that by focusing on low educational standards in state schools, it is not addressing the real cause which is inequality and inadequate state funding. Also, students are over tested, which contradicts the views of the New Right.

Ideological State Apparatus: Institutions, like education, that serve to transmit the values of the state to maintain order in society and to reproduce capitalists ideals.

Repressive State Apparatus: A form of power that operates by means of violence. The Repressive State Apparatus consists of the army, the police, the judiciary and the prison system.

Legitimising Inequality: Making inequality seem the norm or common in society.

Hidden Curriculum: The values taught to pupils outside the ordinary school curriculum, such as punctuality, attendance, respect for hierarchy and competitiveness.

Correspondence Principle: Schools are structured to mirror the workplace, preparing students for their future exploitation. For example, rewards are external, and power is concentrated above the students in a hierarchy, much like in the workplace.

Extrinsic Rewards/Satisfaction: A tangible benefit for a particular job, or in education, which is external to the job itself.

Hierarchy: A system in which members of an organisation or society are ranked according to relative status or authority.

Alienation: Working in order to earn money, instead of working to gain pleasure or satisfaction.

Myth of Meritocracy: The theory that contradicts the theory that people's success in life depends primarily on their talents, abilities and effort.

Fordism: A large number of low-skilled workers willing to put up with alienating, repetitive work on mass production assembly lines.

Post Fordism: A skilled, adaptable workforce able to use advanced technology and transfer their skills rapidly from one specialised task to another.

Subculture: A cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.

Counter-Culture: A way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing social norm.

Sociology Families and Households Glossary

Sociology Families and Households Glossary


Ageism: The negative stereotyping of people on the basis of their age, e.g. are often portrayed as vulnerable, incompetent or irrational, as a burden to society.

·      Banding: A form of streaming.

·      Bourgeoisie: A Marxist term for the capitalist class, the owners of the means of production (factories, machinery, raw materials, land, etc). Marx argues that the bourgeoisie’s ownership of the means of production also gives them political and ideological power.

·      Case Study: Research that examines a single case or example such as a single school, family or workplace, often using several methods or sources.

·      Childhood: A socially defined age-status. There are major differences in how childhood is defined, both historically and between cultures. Western societies today define children as vulnerable and segregate them from the adult world, but in the past they were part of adult society from an early age. These differences show that childhood is a social construction.

·      Civil Partnership: The 2004 Civil Partnership Act has given same-sex couples similar legal rights to married couples n respect of pensions, inheritance, tenancies, and property.

·      Close-ended Questions: Questions used in a social survey that allow only a limited choice of answers from a pre-set list. They produce quantitative data and the answers are often pre-coded for ease of analysis. An example is ‘Will you vote in the next election?’ where the choices are Yes, No, Don’t Know.

·      Comparative Method: A research method that compares two social groups that are alike apart from one factor. For example, Durkheim compared two groups that were identical apart from their religion in order to find out the effect of religion on suicide rates. The method is often used as an alternative to experiments.

·      Conjugal roles: The roles played by husband and wife. Segregated conjugal are where the husband is breadwinner and the wife is homemaker, with leisure spent separately. In joint conjugal roles, husband and wife each perform both roles and spend their leisure time together.

·      Content Analysis: A method of analysing the content of documents and media output to find out how often and in what ways different types of people or events appear. For example, the Glasgow University Media Group (1967) used content analysis to reveal bias in how television new reported strikes.

·      Control Group: In experiments, scientists compare a control group and an experimental group that are identical in all respects. Unlike the experimental group, the control group is not exposed to the variable under investigation and so provides a baseline against which any changes in the experimental group can be compared.

·      Correlation: When two or more factors or variables vary together; e.g. there is a correlation between low social class and low educational achievement. However, the existence of a correlation between two variables does not necessarily prove that one causes the other. It may simply be coincidence.

·      Cultural Capital: The knowledge, attitudes, values, language, tastes and abilities that the middle class transmit to their children. Bourdieu argues that educational success is largely based on possession of cultural capital, thus giving the middle-class children an advantage.

·      Cultural Deprivation: The theory that many working-class and black children are inadequately socialised and therefore lack the ‘right’ culture needed for educational success; e.g. their families do not instil the value of deferred gratification.

·      Culture: All those things that are learnt and shared by a society or group of people and transmitted from generation to generation through socialisation. It includes shared norms, values, knowledge, beliefs, and skills.

·      Death Rate: The number of deaths per thousand of the population per year.

·      Demography: The study of population, including birth, death, fertility and infant mortality rates, immigration and emigration, and age structure as well as the reasons for changes in these.

·      Dependency Culture: Where people assume that the state will support them, rather than relying on their own efforts and taking responsibilities for their families. The New Right see the welfare state as over-generous, encouraging people to remain unemployed and dependent on benefits, and as responsible for the growing number of lone-parent families and rising crime rate.

·      Dependency Ratio: The relationship between the size of the working population and the non-working or dependent population.

·      Deviance: Behaviour that does not conform to the norms of a society or group. Deviance is a social construction (defined or created by social groups). Deviance is relative: what counts as deviant varies between groups and cultures and over time.

·      Differentiation: Distinguishing or creating differences between individuals or groups. In education, streaming is a form of differentiation that distinguishes between pupils on the basis of ability. In the study of stratification differentiation refers to the process of distinguishing between people on the basis of class, gender, ethnic, age etc differences.

Sociology Family Size Question

“Examine the reasons for changes in birth rates and family size since 1900”

Since the 1900’s, birth rates have decreased from 115 per 1000 per year, to 54.5 per 100 per year in 2001. Family sizes have also been said to have decreased due to industrialisation and the increasing popularity of Geographical Mobility, but due to recent increases in immigration, extended families have had somewhat of a reoccurrence in recent decades.

Parsons is an example of a sociologist who would hold the belief that industrialisation is the main cause for the decrease in birth rates, and thus family size. Parsons found the lifestyle of those living in the pre-industrial era (which would be mostly extended families that all work together to earn money for the family) very much ideal for its era. This way of life was then replaced in the late 18^th century, however, by the industrial era. This era had different needs from pre-industrial society, and the family types had to change and adapt to meet these needs. According to Parsons, there are two essential needs for society to be able to cope in the industrial stage. The first of these needs is that a geographically mobile workforce is required. This is the action of moving to where work is, as oppose to staying in the same village/town/city, which would be the norm during the pre-industrial style of life. The second of the two needs is that a socially mobile workforce is required. This is the belief that in modern society, an individual’s status is achieved by their own efforts and ability, and is not ascribed. However, the nuclear family that is connected with industrialisation so much is actually decreasing, and other forms of family have been becoming more popular, such as the beanpole family, the single parent family, and singletons. The increase in these sorts of families, particularly single parent families , have been argued by sociologist Renvoize to be due to women being able to provide for their children without the assistance of a man.

The rise in feminism had a large impact on the decrease in birth rates and family size, for example, women are able to have financial independence, so they do not require a husband to help them through life. This has led to an increase in women prioritising their careers, and having children later in life. This alone changes the family structure immensely, for as women are having children later, it is likely that they will have fewer children than they would have had if they decided to focus less on having a career, lowering the fertility rate. A reason why women might decide to have children later or not even have children at all is due to the belief that nowadays, children are more economic liabilities than helpful.

This belief is linked towards more financial/scientific reasons for why there has been a decrease in birth rates and family sizes since 1900. Health care since 1900 has improved so much that the infant mortality rate has lowered greatly, because children that get diseases in modern society can be cured of a lot of them, unlike in the 1900’s. If a child died in the early 20^th century, then it would be common to replace the deceased child with a new child, which may also be at risk of suffering the same fate.  However, due to the decrease in deaths of infants, people are becoming content with having fewer children. The government have also had an impact on health care in Britain, with acts like the smoking ban and the clean air act put into place. Another reason that there is a decline in birth rates is due to the advances in medical knowledge. Contraception and safe abortion are now easier to obtain by a great extent in comparison to in the early 1900s. There is also a lot less stigma attached to women having an abortion if they so wish.  The stigma attached to lesbian and gay couples has decreased also, so people are no longer having to hide their sexuality by being in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender. This decreases the birth rates, because gay people actually went as far as having children to avoid any suspicion of being homosexual.

To conclude, the decrease in birth rates could be argued to be mainly due to a rise in feminism, due to the changing attitudes of women in modern society, as oppose to in 1900 when women didn’t have nearly as much influence or position in society, specifically governments. The decrease in family size could be argued to be mainly due to the change from pre-industrialisation to industrialisation, and the overall increase in geographical mobility. These are the main reasons that have been argued, because they have all had a huge impact on how society works in modern times.